Parts of speech

Parts of Speech

• See * Word Parts of Speech & Grammar Rules for list of various key words, their use, and part of speech

nouns

• persons, places, things
• proper nouns

object

• direct object
• indirect object

nouns as modifiers

• nouns can be used to modify or qualify another noun
  • ex. "dog food"
    • translates to: "the kind of food for dogs"
    • "dog" thereby indicates a type or characteristic of "food"
  • when acting as a modifier, the noun must be in the singular
  • ex., we cannot say "dogs food"
  • as a category or type, the noun must remain singular
    • see Nouns as Modifiers (meg.com)

consecutive nouns as multiple objects

• nouns can act as multiple objects of a verb
• ex.
  • "The pitcher threw the catcher a hardball"
    • S: pitcher V: threw O: catcher O hardball
  • see CB Test 10, Writing Q 36

[36] 'Tuition-reimbursement programs signal that employers offer their workers’ opportunities for personal and professional development.

A) NO CHANGE << worker's opportunities
B) workers opportunities’
C) workers opportunities
D) worker’s opportunity’s

• Correct answer C) = S: employers V: offer O: workers O: opportunities
• elimination
  • B) and D) the noun "opportunities" cannot possess the preposition "for"
  • A) "workers'" is incorrect object

verbs

• express action
• verb phrases
• verb forms

transitive and intransitive verbs

• transitive verbs act upon a direct object
  • ex. "The soccer player kicked the ball"
• intransitive verbs do not have a direct object
  • ex. "The soccer player played hard"

<< to complete / expand

infinitives

• infinitives use "to"
  • ex. "I go to see the game"
• root forms act like infinitives but without the "to"
  • infinitive and base forms are generally interchangeable:
  • ex. "He helped her clean her desk" (root form)
  • v. "He helped her to clean her desk" (infinitive form)
• note that "root" and "base" forms are used interchangeably
  • except "base form" of a verb includes infinitive and simple present forms of the verb

present tense forms

• simple present
  • denotes a single action that is repeated, always happens, or the present condition of something
  • examples
    • repeated action: "I eat lunch at noon."
    • action that always (or, in the negative, never) happens: "I can't speak Latin"
  • denotes the condition or state of something: "The car is clean" or "I feel great!"
  • simple present form is also considered as a "base" verb form
• present progressive
  • = -ing form for a verb to express an ongoing action
    • used with "to be" conjugations ("am" "is", etc.) the -ing verb form denotes an ongoing action
    • ex. "She is dancing"
    • see participle for the -ing form of a verb that acts as an adjective or a noun (called a gerund)
  • note that present progressive verb forms are frequently used to combine sentences or independent clauses
  • click EXPAND to see examples of present progressive verbs used to combine independent clauses

• ex. "I went to see the sequel, and I hoped it would be as good as the first
• the two independent clauses (complete sentences) can be combined by converting the "I hoped" to the present progressive form, "hoping"
• "I went to see the sequel, hoping it would as good as the first"
• note that "hoping" renders the second clause dependent (not a complete sentence or thought), thus employing only a comma and not a comma + conjunction
• present progressive verbs subordinate clauses:
  • "Hoping it would be as good as the first" is not a complete sentence or thought
    • thus it is a dependent or subordinate clause

• see also:
  • [present participles vs present progressives (thoughtco.com]
• present perfect
  • indicates an action that happened at one point or that just happened and that consequences on the present
  • usually uses the "has" or "have" forms of a verb
    • "Yes, I have eaten dinner already"
    • "I have played soccer since I was five"
    • "I haven't seen her in years"

past tense forms

• past simple
  • an action that happened in the past
  • click EXPAND for past simple examples:

• • • "I ate before they showed up"
    • "I played soccer yesterday"
    • "I lived in Brazil"

• past progressive
  • actions that were ongoing at some point in the past or that were repeated in the past
  • uses the -ing form of a verb
• * click Expand for past progressive examples:

past progressive examples:

• • • "I was eating when they showed up"
    • "I was playing soccer all last year"
    • "I was living in Brazil"

• past perfect
• an action that happened before something else happened (both in the past)
• uses "had" to show the earlier event
  • and compares it to another even with "before", "because" or "by the time", etc.
• click Expand for past perfect examples:

• • "I had already eaten when they showed up"
  • "I had played soccer long before I learned rugby"
  • "Because I had lived in Brazil, I already knew some Spanish"

future tense forms

• future simple
  • an action that will take place in the future, usually with "will"
• click Expand for future simple examples:

• • • "I will eat after they show up"
    • I will play soccer tomorrow"
    • I will live in Brazil next year"
  • future simple also indicates a promise to do something in the future
    • "I will play harder next time"

• future progressive
  • an action that will be ongoing in the future, usually with "will" and "-ing"
• click Expand for future progressive examples:

• • • "I will be eating with them when they show up"
    • "I will be playing soccer again after my ankle heals"
    • "I will be living in Brazil all next year"

• future perfect
  • an action that will happen before something else, usually with "will have"
  • future perfect combines the future "will" with a past tense verb form
  • future perfect also indicates an ongoing future state or condition
• click Expand for future perfect examples:

• "I will have eaten before they show up"
• "I will have played much better by the time we got to the playoffs"
• "I will have lived in Brazil by the end of next summer"
  • or
• "If they show up late, I will have been eating already."
• "By next year, I will have played soccer for 12 years"
• "I will have lived in Brazil a full year as of next week"

• future perfect progressive
  • an action that will be going on until something else happens
  • uses the "will have been" and -ing form of the verb
• click Expand for future perfect progressive examples:

• "I will have been eating by the time they show up"
• "By the end of the season, I will have been playing better"
• "By next week, I will have been living in Brazil a full year"

participles and gerunds

• verb forms that act like an adjective or a noun
• types:
  • present participle:
    • verb form using -ing that acts as an adjective
  • past participle:
    • past tense verb form that acts as an adjective
  • gerund
    • verb form using -ing that acts as a noun
• click on EXPAND for more explanation and examples of participles and gerunds

• present participle
  • uses the -ing form of a verb as an adjective
• click EXPAND to see examples of present participles

• • "The boiling water is hot" (describes the water)
  • "This trip is exciting" (modifies or describes the trip)
  • "The directions are confusing" (modifies the directions)

• past participle
  • verbs in the past tense used as an adjective
  • where the simple past tense of a verb is used to show a condition of something
  • typically are -ed -en and -t forms
  • includes irregular verbs in the past tense, such as "to be" "to go" etc.
• click on EXPAND for past participles as adjectives examples:

• • "Boiled water is sanitized" ("boiled" and "sanitized" describe the water)
  • "The glass was broken when I found it" ("was broken" describes the glass)
  • "The cut flowers are pretty" ("cut -

• gerunds
  • verbs that act as nouns
  • use the -ing form of the verb
• click on EXPAND for gerund (participles as nouns) examples:

• • "to swim" + -ing = "swimming" = a noun for the act of swimming
  • "Swimming is fun"
  • "Boiling water sanitizes it" ("boiling" is an act, therefore a noun, from the verb "to boil")

• • • Note: gerunds are often interchangeable with infinitives
      • "I hate doing math" versus "I hate to do math"
      • however, note that gerunds and infinitives may act differently in terms of the object of the sentence
• click on EXPAND for how gerunds and infinitives change the meaning of a sentence using College Board Writing practice test 6 question 21:

"Burland advocated using soil extraction:"

• A) NO CHANGE
  • "Burland advocated using..." = he advocates for the use of soil extraction (he advocates the the object)
• B) advocated to use
  • "Burland advocated to use..." = he advocates "to use" (he advocates the action)
• A) NO CHANGE is correct because it is the object of the sentence, "soil extraction," that Burland advocates, not the action of its use (to use")

• See
  • Grammar: Verb Forms: "-ing," Infinitives, and Past Participles (Walden Univ)
  • Common Verb Tenses in Academic Writing (Walden Univ)
  • The -ing forms (ef.edu Resources for Learning English
  • Grammar-Monster.com participles

conjugations

• students of Latin, Spanish or French verb conjugations while not learning about them in English
• English has conjugations, just like many other languages
  • however, the conjugations in English do not vary as much
• conjugations work by changing the verb suffix or form to match subject case

>> to chart out comparison of Latin, Spanish, French and English cases << to do

• see
  • Verb conjugations

adverbs

• in general, adverbs provide additional information about an action
  • how, when, where, degree, or state of an action
• modify verbs
  • "He shopped quickly"
• modify adjectives:
  • in the sense of describing "the state", degree, or situation of the descriptor
• Sources:
  • [Advrb (literarydevices.net)]

adjectives

• modify nouns

articles

• definite article:
  • the
  • refers to a specific noun, usually already stated or defined
• indefinite article:
• a or an
  • refers to a general noun, usually not already stated or defined
  • indefinite articles are not used to refer to a general noun or one that cannot be counted
• click on EXPAND to see examples of articles:

• • • ex. "water" cannot be counted, so "a water" is incorrect
      • "may I have a water" should be instead "may I have some water"
  • zero articles
    • when the noun represents a generic idea, the article can be omitted
    • ex.
      • "They went on vacation" as opposed to "they went on a vacation "

• see
  • [https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/using_articles.html Purdue OWN Using Articles}
  • What Are Articles?

pronouns

• "pro" = for; "noun"
• refer to a noun in oder to avoid repetition
• pronoun forms
  • subject
  • object
  • possessive
  • comparisons
  • see How to Pick Pronouns for Comparisons (Dummies)

prepositions

• express relationship in time, place, or sequence
• add information to a sentence
• can relate other word forms to one another, including nouns (usually), adjectives, and verbs

click EXPAND for list of prepositions:

Quick list of (single word) prepositions

across	after	among
before	behind	beneath
by	down	during
from	in	into
of	off	on
over	past	since
throughout	to	toward/s
under	until	up
upon	with	within/out

Quick list of (single word) phrases that act as a single-word preposition

according to	as of	ahead of
aside from	at the risk of	by means of
except for	in addition to	in case of
next to	on top of	up against

Overlap of prepositions and adverbs and prepositions and subordinating conjunctions

• some words operate or "overlap" in their grammatical roles
• as a preposition and an adverb:
  • = "intransitive preposition"
  • = prepositions may or may not define a "noun phrase" (which prepositions would normally accompany)
    • note:
      • transitive verb = must be accompanied by an object
      • intransitive verb = does not need an object ("I feel happy")
      • so intransitive prepositions do not need a noun or noun phrase
• most dictionaries qualify intransitive prepositions as adverbs, such as "abroad," "now," "until"
  • ex. of intransitive preposition: "They went ahead" or "The dog is outside"
    • with a noun these would be more clearly prepositions: "They went ahead of the others" or "The dog is outside the fence"
• as a preposition and a subordinating conjunction
  • = a "conjunctive preposition"
  • "I got my license before last year" (before= preposition that defines when "I went to school")
  • vs.: "I got my license before last year ended" (before = combines "I got my license" and "last year ended" and defines which came first)
    • we can view "before" as subordinating the phrase, "last year ended," which is technically a complete thought and sentence
    • however, since "before" is defining the "when," which is a core function of a preposition, we can call it one, or call it a "conjunctive preposition" when also acting as a subordinating conjunction.

• • • like also operates as both preposition and conjunction

Overlap of prepositions and adverbs and prepositions and subordinating conjunctions

• some words operate or "overlap" in their grammatical roles
• as a preposition and a subordinating conjunction:
  • "I got my license before last year" (before= preposition that defines when "I went to school")
  • vs.: "I got my license before last year ended" (before = combines "I got my license" and "last year ended" and defines which came first)
    • like also operates as both preposition and conjunction

types of phrases created by parts of speech =

prepositional phrase

• when a preposition requires additional information to follow (called a "complement")

started by a preposition and contains additional information

are dependent clauses, so are separated from a main or dominant clause by a comma

interjections

• aside remarks or interruptions
• an exclamation
  • expresses a spontaneous reaction or emotion
• click EXPAND to see examples of interjections:

• "no!"
• "okay"
• "damn!"
• "heh!"

Categories