Lexicology

Question 1

A word class that names people, places, things, or concepts.

Answer 1

Noun
Positive Test: Can pluralise and/or make it possessive?

Question 2

A noun that names a specific person, place, or entity and is always capitalised, e.g. Melbourne, Sarah or Google.

Answer 2

Proper Noun

Question 3

A noun that is a general name for people, places, things, or ideas, not specific or capitalised unless at the start of a sentence, e.g. dog, city, happiness.

Answer 3

Common Noun

Question 4

A word that replaces a noun (antecedent) to avoid repetition and maintain cohesion. It can be subjective (I, you, he), objective (me, him, her), possessive (mine, hers, theirs), or reflexive (myself, yourself, themselves), referring back to, forward to, or outside the text.

Answer 4

Pronoun
Positive Test: Can you replace it with a noun/noun phrase?

Question 5

A word that has little lexical meaning on its own but plays a grammatical role in a sentence. These words help to structure and connect content words (which carry the primary meaning) and contribute to the overall grammatical framework of a sentence.

Answer 5

Function Word

Question 6

A word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being (e.g., run, exist, seem).

Answer 6

Verb
Positive Test: Can you change its tense?

Question 7

A verb used with a main verb to form verb phrases, indicating tense, aspect, mood, or voice (e.g., is, have, will, can).

Answer 7

Auxilliary Verb
Positive Test: Does it support a main verb?

Question 8

Auxilliary verbs that indicate ability, permission, likelihood or obligation

Answer 8

Modal Verb
Positive Test: Can it fill in the blank: “I ____ my homework” and is not an adverb?

Question 9

A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or adverb, providing more detail about how, when, where, or to what extent an action occurs, e.g., quickly, very, tomorrow or outside.

Answer 9

Adverb
Positive Test: Can you modify it with “very” but not put it in front of a noun?

Question 10

A word that modifies a noun, providing more information about its qualities or characteristics, e.g. happy, tall, blue or interesting.

Answer 10

Adjective
Positive Test: Can you modify it with “very” and put it in front of a noun.

Question 11

A word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another word in the sentence, typically indicating direction, location, time, or manner. E.g. in, on, at, by, under or over.

Answer 11

Preposition
Positive Test: Can it go in front of a noun phrase like “the bridge”?

Question 12

A word that introduces a noun and provides information about definiteness, quantity, or possession. Common examples include articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, those), possessives (my, their), and quantifiers (some, many, few).

Answer 12

Determiner
Positive Test: Can it be replaced with or is “the”?

Question 13

A word that connects words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, showing the relationship between them. Common examples include coordinating (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), subordinating (because, although, if, when), and correlative (either…or, neither…nor).

Answer 13

Conjunction
Positive Test: Does it join two syntactical units?

Question 14

A word or phrase that expresses a strong emotion or sudden reaction, often standing alone and not grammatically linked to the rest of the sentence (e.g. Wow, ouch, hey).

Answer 14

Interjection
Positive Test: Does the word express strong emotion, stand alone and is not grammatically connected to the rest of the sentence.