Parts of Speech

ssc preparation, important competetion questions, current affairs of india, latest question asked in competetion papers,

What are Parts of Speech?

Parts of speech are the basic categories of words according to their function in a sentence. It is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. English has eight main parts of speech, namely, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions & Interjections. In grammar, the parts of speech, also called lexical categories, grammatical categories or word classes is a linguistic category of words.

Nouns as Part of Speech

A noun is a part of speech that identifies a person, place, thing, idea or events. Nouns are the simplest among the 8 parts of speech. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective as depending on the necessity.

Types Nouns as parts of speech:

• Proper Noun: It refers to specific entities. It can be the name of specific person, place or thing.

Example – Priya, Delhi.

• Common Noun: Common nouns refer to general & unspecific categories of entities. They can be the name of common things or class of objects.

Example – men, chair, girls.

• Collective Noun: They are nouns that refer to a group of something in a specific manner or the collection of some persons or things and represented as a singular noun.

Example – jury, herd, flock.

• Abstract Noun: Denotes something that cannot be seen, touched, etc. and signifies a quality. More ethereal, theoretical concepts use abstract nouns to refer to them.

Example – manners, promise, fear, energy, love.

• Materialistic Noun: Material nouns refer to materials or substances from which things are made.

Example – cotton, rice, paper.

Nouns as Part of Speech – Further Classification and rules to use them:

1. Countable nouns- These are the nouns that can be counted are considered as individual and separable items. To the linguists, these countable nouns can occur in both single and plural forms. They can be modified by numerals and can co-occur with quantificational determiners like many, most, more, several, etc.

Example – Pens, tables

⇒ We can use countable nouns with the indefinite articles a and an, which indicate one person or thing.

Example – a notebook, an apple

⇒ We can also use countable nouns with the plural form of the noun.

Example – three men, several mangoes, 12 apples

2. Uncountable nouns– Nouns which cannot be segregated, measured and counted as individual units or elements.

E.G. water, information, money

• Uncountable nouns cannot take an indefinite article (a/an), nor can they be made plural. They are also called as Mass Nouns. Examples are as follows:

( i) Incorrect – Would you like a coffee?

Correct – Would you like coffee?

(ii) Incorrect – I have an information.

   Correct – I have some information.

Correct – I have a lot of information. 

(iii) Incorrect – We ran short of three breads today.

Correct – We ran short of three slices of bread today.

(iv) Incorrect – The mischiefs conducted by the kids are unpardonable.

Correct – The mischief conducted by the kids are unpardonable.

• We always use a singular verb with uncountable nouns.

Incorrect – A lot of luggage are lying in the drawing room.

Correct –  A lot of luggage is lying in the drawing room.

3. There are also other kinds of nouns which can be classified as –

• Masculine – Ramesh, Tiger
• Feminine – Nisha, Cow
• Neuter – Table, Mansion

Noun as Part of Speech Functions As:

1. The subject of a clause or sentence – The subject in a sentence or clause is the person or thing doing, performing the action of the verb.

i)  The dog ran after the scooter.

Here, the noun ‘dog’ is performing the action of the verb ‘run’.

ii) Manisha skips lunch every day.

Here the proper noun ‘Manisha’ is performing the action of the verb ‘skip’.

2. An object of a verb – Objects in grammar have three grammatical roles as follows:

⇒ the direct object of a verb

⇒ the indirect object of a verb

⇒ the object of a preposition.

• Direct objects– Those objects which receive the action of the verb in a sentence or clause.

(i) The dog ran after the scooter.

Here the noun ‘scooter’ is receiving the action of the verb ‘run’.

(ii) Manisha skips lunch every day.

Here the noun ‘lunch’ is receiving the action of the verb ‘skip’.

• Indirect objects- An indirect object is a person or thing that receives the direct object of the verb.

(i) Kindly give Aasha the documents.

Here, the proper noun ‘Aasha’ is receiving the direct object ‘documents’, which receives the action of the verb ‘give’.

• An object of a preposition– Nouns are also used after prepositions to create prepositional phrases. When a noun is a part of a prepositional phrase, it is known as the object of the preposition.

(i) Your laptop is on the table.

Here the noun ‘table’ is the object of the preposition ‘on’, which creates the prepositional phrase ‘on the table’.

Few Additional information about Nouns as Parts of Speech

1. There are some nouns which seem to be plural but are singular, such as Mathematics, physics, gymnastics, series, news.

Example – A four-match series is being played between England and India in the Lord’s stadium.

2. There are some nouns which seem to be singular but exist in plural, therefore plural verbs are used with them. For instance, children, cattle, people, police, infantry.

Example –  Incorrect – The police has arrived at the crime scene.

Correct – The police have arrived at the crime scene.

3. There are some nouns which are plural and exist in form but cannot be converted into the singular form.

Note- Always use the singular verb with them until numbers are specified. Consider the following examples:

• A pair of scissors have been misplaced by Rahul.

Correct: A pair of scissors has been misplaced by Rahul.

• The contents of the agreement is unclear.

Correct: The content of the agreement is unclear.

• All the evidences found against him were baseless.

Correct: All the evidence found against him was baseless.

4. When in a sentence there is a numerical adjective with a noun, we cannot use the plural of that noun if there is another noun after it.

Example – She is a three years old toddler.

Here, the plural of ‘year’ cannot be used as there is another noun (toddler) after it.

Correct- She is a three year old toddler.

Alternatively, the following is also correct: The toddler is three years old.

5. After the phrase, some of/each of/either of/neither/any of/none of, a plural form of the noun is used. Example –

i) Neither of the boys is rich.

ii) Mumbai is one of the biggest cities in India.

6. There are some nouns which exist both in singular and plural form. The nature of verb depends upon the sense of sentence and noun.

i) The audience are humbly requested to be seated in their seats.

Here, individual members of the audience are being talked about.

ii) The audience is quiet.

Here, the audience has been treated as a single unit.

7. The ‘apostrophe’ and ‘s’ (‘s) cannot be used with non- living things to show possession. Example –

Incorrect – The chair’s arms were broken.

Correct – The arms of the chair were broken.