WORD CLASS

A word class is a group of words that have the same basic behaviour.

"Word Class" or “Parts of Speech” are the basic types of words that English has.

Most grammar books say that there are eight parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.

We will add one more type: articles.

Open Word Class

An Open Class is a grammatical class of words with a potentially unlimited membership. These words have content meaning. Eg: ‣Noun ‣Verb ‣Adjective

‣Adverb

Closed Word Class

A Closed Class is a grammatical class of words with limited membership. These words have primarily grammatical meaning.

Eg:

‣Articles

‣Prepositions

‣Demonstratives

‣Conjunctions

‣Determiners

‣Pronouns

‣Interjections

Noun

A noun is a naming word. It names a person, place, thing, idea, living creature,quality, or action.

Examples:

cowboy,

theatre,

box, thought,

tree,

kindness, arrival

Verb

A verb is a word which describes an action (doing something) or a state (being something).

Examples:

walk,

talk, think,

believe,

live,

like, want

Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes a noun. It tells you something about the noun. Examples:

big,

yellow, thin,

amazing,

beautiful, quick,

important

Adverb

An adverb is a word which usually describes a verb. It tells you how something is done. It may also tell you when

or where something happened.

Examples:

slowly, intelligently,

well, yesterday,

tomorrow, here,

everywhere

Pronoun

A pronoun is used instead of a noun, to avoid repeating the noun.

Examples:

you,

he,

she,

it,

we,

they

Conjunction

A conjunction joins two words, phrases or sentences together.

Examples:

but,

so,

and,

because,

Preposition

A preposition usually comes before a noun, pronoun or noun phrase. It joins the noun to some other part of the sentence.

Examples:

on,

in,

by,

with,

under,

through,

Interjection

An interjection is an unusual kind of word, because it often stands alone. Interjections are words which express emotion or surprise and they are usually followed by exclamation

marks.

Examples:

Ouch!,

Hello!,

Hurray!,

Oh no!,

Ha!

Article An article is used to introduce a noun.Examples:

the,

Continue Your Grammar Mastery:

Once you understand word classes, explore how root words are transformed into different parts of speech using prefixes, suffixes, and compounds: Read Word Formation Techniques in English →