Word Classes in English
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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:
I,
you,
he,
she,
it,
we,
they
Conjunction
A conjunction joins two words, phrases or sentences together.
Examples:
but,
so,
and,
because,
or
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,
at
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,a,
an
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