Seven major Word Classes:

1. Verb: be, drive, grow, sing, think

2. Noun: brother, car, David, house, London
3. Determiner: a, an, my, some, the
4. Adjective: big, foolish, happy, talented, tidy
5. Adverb: happily, recently, soon, then, there
6. Preposition: at, in, of, over, with
7. Conjunction: and, because, but, if, or
Determining the word class of a word:
1. The meaning of the word (the kind of meanings that words convey replacement test)
2. The form or `shape' of the word
3. The position or `environment' of the word in a sentence (where words typically occur in a
sentence, and the kinds of words which typically replacement test)occur near to them
Notes: There is no one-to-one relationship between words and their classes
OPEN AND CLOSED WORD CLASSES
OPEN WORD CLASSES
new words can be added to the class as the need arises (new scientific discoveries are made,
new products are developed, and new ideas are explored): Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb
CLOSED WORD CLASSES
made up of finite sets of words which are never expanded: Prepositions,
Determiners, Conjunctions
1. NOUNS
Many nouns can be recognized by their endings. Typical noun endings
include:
-er/-or: actor, painter, plumber, writer
-ism: criticism, egotism, magnetism, vandalism
-ist: artist, capitalist, journalist, scientist
-ment: arrangement, development, establishment, government
-tion: foundation, organization, recognition, supposition
Most nouns have distinctive SINGULAR and PLURAL forms.
The plural of regular nouns is formed by adding -s to the singular:
Singular: car, dog, house Plural: cars, dogs, houses
What about irregular nouns?
Singular: man, child, sheep Plural: men, children, sheep
(The distinction: NUMBER CONTRAST)
Nouns may take the GENITIVE MARKER (-s)
Proper and Common Nouns
Common: Count & Non-count Nouns
Proper: Specific people, places, times, dates
Pronoun
major subclass of nouns sometimes replace a noun in a sentence
1. Personal Pronouns, stand in for people, places, things and ideas subjective (I, you, we,
they, he, she, it) and objective pronouns (me, you, us, them, him, her, it)

2. Possessive Pronouns: mine, yours, ours, theirs, hers, his, its

3. Demonstrative Pronouns, point out a specific persons, animals, places, things or ideas: this,
that, these, those.
4. Indefinite Pronouns, replace nouns without specifying which noun they replace.
Singular: another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything,
little, much, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, other, somebody, someone, something
Plural: both, few, many, others, several
Singular or plural: all, any, more, most, none, some
5. Intensive Pronouns, also called emphatic end with self or selves and emphasize (intensify)
a noun or another pronoun.
6. Interrogative Pronouns, used to begin or introduce interrogative sentences: who, whom,
whose, what, and which.
7. Reciprocal Pronouns, show a mutual relationship: each other and one another.
8. Reflexive Pronouns, point back to the subject of the sentence; end with self or selves
9. Relative Pronouns, begin a subordinate clause and connect it to another noun that precedes
it: who, whom, whose, whoever, whomever, which, whichever, that, what, whatever.
NOUNS > Numeral
CARDINAL
naught, zero, one, two, 3, fifty-six, 100, a thous and
ORDINAL
first, 2nd, third, fourth, 500th
e.g.
- five twos are ten
- he's in his eighties
- the fourth of July
- a product of the 1960s
- the house was built in the late 1960s
- he's in his early twenties
- the temperature is in the high nineties
2. DETERMINER
Count Nouns
a, the, some, any
this, that, these, those
none, one, two, three,
many
a lot of
fewer than
more than
Non-Count Nouns
the, some, any
this, that
none
much
a lot of
less than

more than
3. VERB
o Regular & Irregular Verbs
o Finite & Non-Finite Verbs
o Transitive & Intransitive Verbs
o Auxiliary Verbs (HELPING VERBS): to be (am/is/are; was/were),
modals (SHAWICAMAMU), have/has/had, do/does/did.
4. ADJECTIVE
Typically describe an attribute of a noun
endings: Can be identified
-able/-ible: achievable, capable, remarkable
-al: biographical, functional, internal, logical
-ful: beautiful, careful, grateful, harmful
-ic: cubic, manic, rustic, terrific
-ive: attractive, dismissive, inventive, persuasive
-less: breathless, careless, groundless, restless
-ous: courageous, dangerous, disastrous, fabulous
but we also have adjectives with no typical adjectival form, e.g.:
bad bright clever cold common
CHARACTERISTICS OF ADJECTIVES:
very, extremely, lessGradibilty
= comparison
5. ADVERB
: modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb
e.g.:
Mary sings beautifully
David is extremely clever
Characteristics:
-ly ending: beautifully, carefully, slightly, etc= -LY ADVERBS
= SOME ARE GRADABLE: beautifully, very beautifully
= DEGREE ADVERBS almost, barely, entirely, highly, quite, slightly,
and totally un-gradable
6. PREPOSITION
Typically come before noun/noun phrase: across, after, at, before, by,
during, from, in, into, of, on, to, under, with, without
COMPLEX PREPOSITION: according to, along with, apart from,
because of
7. CONJUNCTION
= Conjunctions are used to express a connection between words.
= The most familiar conjunctions are and, but, and or
= Others: although, because, before, since, till, unless, whereas,
whether