Word Classes Flashcards
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 …
ADJECTIVES
An adjective is a ‘describing’ word: it is a word used to describe (or tell you more about) a noun.
Example: The burglar was wearing a black jacket, a furry hat and a large mask over his face. (The words in bold tell us more about the noun that follows)
An adjective usually comes before a noun but sometimes it can be separated from its noun and come afterwards (e.g.: Ben looked frightened; the dog was very fierce)
VERBS
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.
All sentences have a subject and a verb. The subject is the person or thing doing the action: Example: Cats purr (Cats is the subject and purr is the verb)
IMPERATIVE VERB
Known as bossy verbs as they tell people what to do e.g close the door, empty the bin….
AUXILLARY 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.
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.
Singular pronouns
are used to refer to one person or thing. E.g.: I, you, me, he, she, it, you, him, her, mine, yours, his, hers, its
Plural pronouns
are used to refer to more than one person or thing.
E.g.: we, they, us, them, ours, yours, theirs
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
CONNECTIVES
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 …
SUBORDINATING CONNECTIVES
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…
ARTICLES
An article is always used with and gives some information about a noun. There are three articles: a, an and the
Examples: the chair; a table; an elephant
*There is sometimes confusion about whether to use a or an. The sound of a word’s first letter helps us to know which to use: If a word begins with a vowel sound, you should use an; if a word begins with a consonant sound, you should use a.
