Glossary Word Classes

Question 1

Noun

Answer 1

• A noun is a ‘naming’ word: a word used for naming an animal, a person, a place or a thing.
• Proper noun This is a noun used to name particular people and places: Jim, Betty, London…- and some ‘times’: Monday, April, Easter… It always begins with a capital letter.
• Common noun A common noun is a noun that is used to name everyday things: cars, toothbrushes, trees,.. - and kinds of people: man, woman, child …
• Collective noun This is a noun that describes a group or collection of people or things: army, bunch, team, swarm…
• Abstract noun An abstract noun describes things that cannot actually be seen, heard, smelt, felt or tasted: sleep, honesty, boredom, freedom, power …

Question 2

Adjectives

Answer 2

• Adjective An adjective is a ‘describing’ word: it is a word used to describe (or tell you more about) a noun.
• Interrogative (‘asking’) adjectives e.g.: What? Which? … They are used to ask
  questions about a noun. Example: Which hat do you prefer?
• Possessive adjectives e.g.: my, our, their, his, your .….. Possessive adjectives show ownership. Example.: Sue never brushes her hair.
• Adjectives of number or quantity e.g. much, more, most, little, some, any, enough … These answer the question: How much? Example: She invited five friends for breakfast; she did not have any food left
• Demonstrative (‘pointing-out’) adjectives e.g.: this, that, these, I those…
• Demonstrative adjectives answer the question: Which? Example: Those apples and these pears are bad; That man stole this handbag.

Question 3

Verbs

Answer 3

• Verb A verb is a word, or a group of words, that tells you what a person or thing is being or doing. It is often called a ‘doing’ word: e.g. running, eating, sitting.
• Auxiliary verb A verb is often made up of more than one word. The actual verb-word is helped out by parts of the special verbs: the verb to be and the verb to have. These ‘helping’ verbs are called auxiliary verbs and can help us to form tenses. Auxiliary verbs for ‘to be’ include: am, are, is, was, were, Auxiliary verbs for ‘to have’ include: have, had, hasn’t, has, will have, will not have.

Question 4

Adverbs

Answer 4

• Adverb An adverb tells you more about the verb (it ‘adds’ to the verb). It nearly always answers the questions: How? When? Where? or Why? Most adverbs in English end in -ly and come from adjectives: E.g. soft - softly; slow - slowly.

Question 5

Pronouns

Answer 5

• Pronoun Sometimes you refer to a person or a thing not by its actual name, but by another word which stands for it. The word you use to stand for a noun is called a pronoun (which means ‘for a noun’) We use pronouns so that we do not have to repeat the same nouns over again. Have a look at the following sentence: When Barnaby stroked the cat and listened to the cat purring softly, Barnaby felt calm and peaceful. Compare it with the same sentence where some of the nouns have been
  replaced by pronouns: When Barnaby stroked the cat and listened to it purring softly, he felt calm and peaceful.
• Singular pronouns Singular pronouns are used to refer to one person or thing. E.B-: l, you, me, he, she, it, you, him, her, mine, yours, his, hers, its
• Plural pronouns Plural pronouns are used to refer to more than one person or thing. E.g.: we, they, us, them, ours, yours, theirs

Question 6

Prepositions

Answer 6

• Prepositions are words which show the relationship of one thing to
  another. Examples: Tom jumped over the cat. The monkey is in the tree. These words tell you where one thing is in relation to something else. Other examples of prepositions include: up, across, into, past, under, below, above ..

Question 7

Connectives(conjunction)

Answer 7

Connectives (conjunctions) join together words, phrases, clauses and sentences. They help us to create compound sentences by joining two main clauses together. E.g.: She went to the shops. She bought a box of chocolates. We can use a conjunction to join these sentences together: She went to the shops and bought a box of chocolates. Other connectives (conjunctions) include: but, as, so, or ….

Question 8

Subordinating connectives

Answer 8

Subordinating connectives link a main (independent) clause with a subordinate (dependent) clause (a clause which does not make sense on its own). Example: When we got home, we were hungry. We were hungry because we hadn’t eaten all day. Other subordinating connectives include: if, while, after, until, before, although..

Question 9

Determiner

Answer 9

A determiner is a word that introduces a noun. It always comes before a noun, not after, and it also comes before any other adjectives used to describe the noun. Determiners are required before a singular noun but are optional when it comes to introducing plural nouns.

Question 10

Article

Answer 10

Articles are among the most common of the determiners. There are three
singular articles: a, an, and the. Articles specify (or determine) which noun the speaker is referring to. A and an are indefinite articles and are used when you are talking about a general version of the noun.