LEARN "PARTS OF SPEECH" EASILY

 PARTS OF SPEECH 

If you have read many of the books on English Grammar, you will find that many of them agree on the point that there are eight parts of Speech in English Grammar. These are:

Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.

Let us learn them one by one:

1. NOUN: By Noun, we simply mean a Name. It can be the names of persons, animals, places, things or states.  The easiest way to know what a Noun means is to keep in mind that the word Noun starts with the alphabet 'N' and the word Name also starts with the 'N' alphabet. So Noun stands for Name. Pen, Desk, House, Henry, Alexander, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, cow, tiger, happiness, sorrow, man, children, students are some of the many examples of Noun.

2. PRONOUN: To learn Pronoun easily, we break the word into two: 'Pro' and 'Noun'. 'Pro' means for. So Pronoun literally means 'For the Noun'. In other words, Pronoun means a word which stands for the Noun, a word which replaces the Noun, a word which supports the Noun.

Let us take one example to understand better about Pronoun:

“Henry is a boy of sixteen. Henry loves playing football. Henry studies in Class 10. Henry has fears for Henry’s father. Henry thus never dares to disobey Henry’s father. But Henry is close to Henry’s mother.”

If we read the above example, we will feel bored due to repetition of the word HENRY. But if we think of omitting away the word HENRY, that is not going to provide the solution. We will rather render the sentences meaningless. Let us omit the word HENRY to see if it provides the desired solution.

“Henry is a boy of sixteen…. loves playing football….. studies in Class 10…. has fears for……  father….. thus never dares to disobey …. father. But …..is close to …… mother.”

We thus see that the whole thing has been rendered useless by the omission of the Noun ‘Henry’. We thus have another but best solution. That is, to replace the undesirable Nouns with corresponding Pronouns.

“Henry is a boy of sixteen. He loves playing football. He studies in Class 10. He has fears for his father. He thus never dares to disobey his father. But he is close to his mother.”

3. ADJECTIVE: Examining this word, we can see that it contains the word 'Ad' which brings to our mind the word 'ADD'. This gives us an idea that it is a word which adds something to something. So in simple words we can say that Adjective is a word which adds something new to the Noun or Pronoun. It is a word which qualifies a Noun or a Pronoun.

 For instance, if we say: HARRY IS A BOY, it is mere tautology. it does not give us any new meaning. But if we say: HARRY IS AN INTELLIGENT BOY, then we come to know something new about Harry, that he is an intelligent boy. The word 'INTELLIGENT' adds something new to the Noun Harry.

Let us take another example: “Bombay is a city” gives us no new information. But if we say: “Bombay is a crowded city”, the word Crowded strikes our mind and we come to know that Bombay is more than a city. It is a crowded city.

4. VERB: Verb deals with Action of a Noun or Pronoun. The easiest way to remember the meaning of a Verb is that VERB means ACTION. The action can be of different kinds: commission and omission, loving, hating, sleeping, thinking, imagining, dreaming, etc.

In this example: HARRY KILLS THE SNAKE, the word KILLS is a Verb because it denotes the action of a Noun or Pronoun. It usually comes after the Noun or Pronoun. In the above example, ‘kills’ is the Verb and it comes after the Noun ‘Harry’.

5. ADVERB: This word can be easily learnt and remembered by breaking it into two parts: AD + VERB. Or it is adding something new to the Verb. For instance, if we say THE BIRD FLIES IN THE AIR, the verb FLIES only tells us about the action of the Bird and nothing more is told about the action, But if we say, THE BIRD FLIES SWIFTLY IN THE AIR, then we come to know in what manner is the bird flying. “The girl is prettily  dressed.” In this example, the word “prettily” is an adverb. It adds more to the Verb “Dressed”.

6. PREPOSITION: We can break this word into two parts: PRE meaning Before and POSITION meaning Place. So literally it means a word placed before a Noun or Pronoun in order to bring a relation between this Noun/Pronoun and the antecedent Noun or Pronoun.

For example: THE CAT IS LYING ON THE ROOF. Here the word 'ON' brings a relation between THE ROOF and THE CAT. Another example can be: “The dog jumps into the pond”. Here the word “into” is a preposition which comes after the Noun “pond”. It brings a relation between the pond and the dog.

7. CONJUNCTION: The word Conjunct means joined together, combined or associated. So a Conjunction is a joining word. A Conjunction may join two words, nouns, sentences, etc.

For example: HARRY AND HENRY ARE BROTHERS. The word AND functions as a joining word between Henry and Harry. Another example: they found the boy, but he was very weak. Here the word “But” is conjunction because it connects between two adversative sentences: ‘they found the boy’ and ‘he was very weak’.

8. INTERJECTION. An Interjection is a word which is used to express strong feeling or sudden emotion. It expresses a sentiment such as surprise, disgust, joy, excitement, enthusiasm, love, hate, happiness, anger, boredom, confusion, or unhappiness.  We use words such as Aha,  Wow, Hurrah, Eew, Gosh, Goodness, Ohh, Ouch, Oh no, Yup, Excuse me, etc. to express our sudden and strong feelings or emotions.

 

For instance: 

Hey! Get off that floor! 

Good! Now we can move on. 

Ohh gosh! I can't believe how late it is. 

In the above examples, the word “Hey, Good, Ohh Gosh” are interjection words.

Refences:

1.       https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/interjections.htm

2.       https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/interjections/what-is-an-interjection.html

3.       Holy Faith: Essential English Grammar and composition, Peechaat, James Thomas, Holy Faith International Ltd. 1984.