PARTS OF SPEECH

Words are divided into different kinds or classes, called Parts of Speech, according to their use;
that is, according to the work they do in a sentence. The parts of speech are eight in number:
1. Noun.
2. Adjective.
3. Pronoun.
4. Verb.
5. Adverb.
6. Preposition.
7. Conjunction.
8. Interjection.
A Noun is a word used as the name of a person, place, or thing; as,
 Akbar was a great King.
 Kolkata is on the Hooghly.
 The rose smells sweet.
Note: The word thing includes (i) all objects that we can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell;
and (ii) something that we can think of, but cannot perceive by the senses.
An Adjective is a word used to add something to the meaning of a noun; as,
 He is a brave boy.
 There are twenty boys in this class.
A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun; as,
 John is absent, because he is ill.
 The book are where you left them
A Verb is a word used to express an action or state; as
 The girl wrote a letter to her cousin.
 Kolkata is a big city.
 Iron and copper are useful metals.
An Adverb is a word used to add something to the meaning of a verb, an adjective, or another
adverb; as,
  He worked the sum quickly.
 This flower is very beautiful.
 She pronounced the word quite correctly.
A Preposition is a word used with a noun or a pronoun to show how the person or thing denoted
by the noun or pronoun stands in relation to something else; as,
 There is a cow in the garden.
 The girl is fond of music.
A Conjunction is a word used to join words or sentences; as,
 Rama and Hari are cousins.
 I ran fast, but missed the train.
An Interjection is a word which expresses some sudden feel ing; as,
 Hurrah! We have won the game.
 Alas! She is dead.
Some modern grammars include determiners among the parts of speech. Determiners are words
like a, an, the, this, that, these, those, every, each, some, any, my, his, one, two, etc., which
determine or limit the meaning of the nouns that follow. In many traditional grammars, all
determiners except a, an and the are classed among adjectives.

THE NOUN: KINDS OF NOUNS

A Noun is a word used as the name of a person, place or thing.
Def. - A Common Noun is a name given in common to every person or thing of the same class
or kind. [Common here means shared by all.]
Def. - A Proper Noun is the name of some particular person or place, [Proper means one's own.
Hence a Proper Name is a person's own name.]
21. A Collective Noun is the name of a number (or collection) of persons or things taken
together and spoken of as one whole; as,
Crowd, mob, team, flock, herd, army, fleet, jury, family, nation, parliament, committee.
 The French army was defeated at Waterloo.
 The jury found the prisoner guilty.
 A herd of cattle is passing.
An Abstract Noun is usually the name of a quality, action, or state considered apart from the
object to which it belongs; as.
 Quality - Goodness, kindness, whiteness, darkness, hardness, brightness, honesty,
wisdom, bravery.
  Action - Laughter, theft, movement, judgment, hatred.
 State - Childhood, boyhood, youth, slavery, sleep, sickness, death, poverty.
-----The names of the Arts and Science (e.g., grammar, music, chemistry, etc.) are also
Abstract Nouns.
Another classification of nouns is whether they are “countable” or “uncountable”.
Countable nouns (or countables) are the names of objects, people, etc. that we can count, e.g.,
book, pen, apple, boy, sister, doctor, horse.
Uncountable nouns (or uncountables) are the names of things which we cannot count, e.g.,
milk, oil, sugar, gold, honesty. They mainly denote substances and abstract things.

THE NOUN: GENDER

You know that living beings are of either the male or the female sex. Now compare the words in
the following pairs:
Boy (Lion, Hero, Cock-sparrow)
Girl (Lioness, Heroine, Hen-sparrow)
A noun that denotes a male animal is said to be of the Masculine Gender.
A noun that denotes a female animal is said to be of the Feminine Gender.
26. A noun that denotes either a male or a female is said to be of the Common Gender; as
 Parent, child, friend, pupil, servant, thief, relation, enemy, cousin, person, orphan,
student, baby, monarch, neighbour, infant.
A noun that denotes a thing that is neither male nor female (i.e., thing without life) is said to be
of the Neuter Gender; as,
 Book, pen, room, tree
Personification: Objects without life are often personified, that is, spoken of as if they were
living beings. We then regard them as males or females.
as, The Sun, Summer, Winter, Time, Death, moon, earth, ship The sun sheds his beams on rich
and poor alike.

THE NOUN: CASE

Examine these sentences:-
1. John threw a stone.
2. The horse kicked the boy.
When a noun (or pronoun) is used as the Subject of a verb, it is said to be in the Nominative
Case.
When a noun (or pronoun) is used as the Object of a verb, it is said to be in the Objective (or
Accusative) Case.
Examine the sentence:-
1. This is Ram's umbrella.
The form of the noun Rama is changed to Rama's to show ownership of possession. The Noun
Rama’s is therefore said to be in the possessive (or Genitive) Case.

THE ADJECTIVE
Read the following sentences :-
1. Sita is a clever girl. (Girl of what kind1?)
2. I don't like that boy, (Which boy ?)
Look at the following sentences:-
1. The lazy boy was punished.
2. The boy is lazy.
In sentence 1, the Adjective lazy is used along with the noun boy as an epithet or attribute. It is,
therefore, said to be used Attributively.
In sentence 2, the Adjective lazy is used along with the verb is, and forms part of the Predicate. It
is, therefore, said to be used Predicatively.

Kinds of Adjectives
Adjectives may be divided into the following classes:-
Adjectives of Quality (or Descriptive Adjective) show the kind or quality of a person or thing;
as,
 Kolkata is a large city.
 He is an honest man.
Adjectives of Quantity show how much of a thing is meant as,
 I ate some rice.
 He showed much patience
Adjectives of Number (or Numeral Adjectives) show how many persons or things are meant,
or in what order a person or thing stands; as,
 The hand has five fingers.
  Few cats like cold water.
There are three kinds of Adjective:
 Definite Numeral Adjectives
 Indefinite numeral adjectives
 Distributive Numeral Adjectives

Formation of Comparative and Superlative

Most Adjectives of one syllable, and some of more than one, form the Comparative by adding er
and the Superlative by adding est to the positive.
Positive -- Comparative -- Superlative
Sweet -- sweeter – sweetest
Small -- smaller -- smallest Tall -- taller – tallest

PRONOUNS
A Pronoun is a word used instead of a Noun.
Read the following sentences :-
 I am young.
 We are young.
I, we, you, he, (she, it), they are called Personal Pronouns because they stand for the three
persons.
The Pronouns I and we, which denote the person or persons spoken, are said to be Personal
Pronouns of the First Person.
The Pronoun you, which denotes the person or persons spoken to, is said to be a Personal
Pronoun of the Second Person. You is used both in the singular and plural.
The pronouns he (she) and they, which denote the person or persons spoken of, are said to be
Personal Pronouns of the Third Person.

Forms of the Personal Pronouns

The following are the different forms of the Personal Pronouns :-
FIRST PERSON (Masculine or Feminine)
SINGULAR - - PLURAL
Nominative –I – We
Possessive -- my, mine - - our, ours
Accusative -- me - - us
SECOND PERSON (Masculine or Feminine)
SINGULAR PLURAL
Nominative – You
Possessive – Your, Yours
Accusative -- You

THIRD PERSON
SINGULAR - - PLURAL
Masculine -- Feminine -- Neuter -- All Genders
Nominative - - he -- she - - it - - they
Possessive -- his -- her, hers -- its -- their, theirs
Accusative -- him -- her -- it -- them

THE VERB Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

A Verb is a word used to tell or assert something about some person or thing.
Read these sentences:-
1. The boy kicks the football.
2. The boy laughs loudly.
Def.- A Transitive Verb is a Verb that denotes an action which passes over from the doer or
Subject to an object.
Def.- An Intransitive Verb is a Verb that denotes an action which does not pass over to an object,
or which expresses a state or being ; as,
 He ran a long distance. (Action)
 The baby sleeps. (State)

THE ADVERB
A word that modifies the meaning of a verb, an adjective, or another Adverb is called an Adverb.
The words quickly, very, and quite are, therefore, Adverbs.

Kinds of Adverbs
Adverbs may be divided into the following classes, according to their meaning :-
(1) Adverbs of Time (which show when)
 I have heard this before.
 The end soon came
(2) Adverbs of Frequency (which show how often).
 I have told you twice.
 I have not seen him once
(3)Adverbs of Place (which show where).
 Stand here.
 Go there.
(4)Adverbs of Manner (which show how or in what manner).
 The Sikhs fought bravely.
 The boy works hard.
(5)Adverbs of Degree or Quantity (which show how much, or in what degree or to what extent).
 He was too careless.
 Is that any better?
(6)Adverbs of Affirmation and Negation
 Surely you are mistaken.
 He certainly went.
(7) Adverbs of Reason
 He is hence unable to refute the charge.
 He therefore left school.
THE PREPOSITION
A Preposition is a word placed before a noun or a pronoun to show in what relation the person
or thing denoted by it stands in regard to something else.

Kinds of Prepositions
Prepositions may be arranged in the following classes :-
Simple Prepositions: At, by, for, from, in, of, off, on, out, through, till, to, up, with.
Compound Prepositions: which are generally formed by prefixing to a Noun, an Adjective or
an Adverb. About, above, among, before, between, beyond, inside, within, without.
Phrase Prepositions: (Groups of words used with the force of a single preposition.) according to
-- in accordance with -- in addition to -- along with -- in (on) behalf of -- in case of -- because of
-- in comparison to -- instead of

Conjunctions
Conjunctions join together sentences and often make them more compact; thus,
 'Hamza and Ali are good bowlers’.
 'The man is poor but he is honest.
Conjunctions which are thus used in pairs are called Correlative Conjunctions or merely
Correlatives.
 Either-or -- Either take it or leave it.
 Neither-nor -- It is neither useful nor ornamental.
We use many compound expressions as Conjunctions; these are called Compound
Conjunctions.
 In order that -- The notice was published in order that all might know the facts.
 Even if -- Such an act would not be kind even if it were just.

Classes of Conjunctions
As we shall see Conjunctions are divided into two classes:
(1) Co-ordinating
(2) Subordinating
Def:- A Co-ordinating Conjunction joins together clauses of equal rank.
The chief Co-ordinating Conjunctions are:-And, but, for, or, nor, also, either-or, neither-nor.
Def:- A Subordinating Conjunction joins a clause to another on, which it depends for its full
meaning.
The chief Subordinating Conjunctions are:- After, because, if, that, though, although, till,
before, unless, as, when, where, while.

THE INTERJECTION
Examine the following sentences:-
 Hello! What are you doing there?
 Alas! He is dead.
 Hurrah! We have won the game.
Such words as Hello! Alas! Hurrah! Ah! etc. are called Interjections. They are used to express
some sudden feeling or emotion. It will be noticed that they are not grammatically related to the
other words in a sentence.
Interjections may express-
(1) Joy; as, Hurrah! Huzza!
(2) Grief; as, alas!
(3) Surprise; as, ha! What!
(4)Approval; as, bravo!