What Parts Of Speech Is This

Words With More Than One Job

Many words in English can have more than one job, or be more than one part of speech. For example, “work” can be a verb and a noun “but” can be a conjunction and a preposition “well” can be an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. In addition, many nouns can act as adjectives.

To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: “What job is this word doing in this sentence?”

In the table below you can see a few examples. Of course, there are more, even for some of the words in the table. In fact, if you look in a good dictionary you will see that the word “but” has six jobs to do:

• verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction!

Is Which A Relative Pronoun

Yes.

It can function as a relative pronoun. A relative pronoun, if you recall, joins one part of a sentence to another by referring to a noun. It introduces relative clause, which gives more information about the noun referred to. Examples:

The house which was leaning dangerously after the recent flood was razed down by the municipal corporation.

Coelacanth, which went extinct with the dinosaurs millions of years ago, has been found alive in the Indian Ocean.

Note that in each example which refers to the immediately preceding noun. And because it refers to a noun, its a pronoun.

Common error: This error is less common than the one in noun clause, but people sometimes call which a subordinating conjunction, again for the same reason of associating a word that joins a dependent clause to an independent clause with subordinating conjunction. But which, in this role, is a relative pronoun.

When A Word Is Two Different Kinds Of Speech

Just like y is sometimes a vowel but sometimes a consonant, there are words that are sometimes one part of speech and other times another. Here are a few examples:

• I went to work .
• I work in the garden .

And sometimes, words evolve to fit into new parts of speech. One recent example is the word adult. Before the 2010s, adult was primarily a noun that referred to a fully grown person. It could also be used as an adjective to refer to specific types of media, like adult contemporary music. But then, at right about the turn of the 2010s, the word adulting, a brand-new verb, appeared in the internet lexicon. As a verb, adulting is the act of doing tasks like paying bills and grocery shopping.

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How To Tell Gerunds Participles And Adjectives Apart

Nothing is trickier than distinguishing a participle from a gerund. They look identical. Forgiving, for example, can be a participle or a gerund depending on how its used. Use these simple rules to tell the difference.

First, can you modify the word with very? If yes, its an adjective.

• Squiggly was in a very forgiving mood.

Second, if you cant modify the word with very, can you modify it with an adverb? If yes, its a participle. If no, its a gerund.

• Squiggly is graciously forgiving his brother.
• Squiggly recited the forgiving spell.

You may also have trouble determining whether an ing-word in a phrase at the beginning of a sentence is a participle or a gerund. When the word follows a preposition, its a gerund.

• Singing in the rain, Squiggly felt elated.
• After singing in the rain, Squiggly felt damp.

How To Tell Prepositions From Subordinating Conjunctions

Some words, such as after and before, can be prepositions or subordinating conjunctions depending on how they are used. Heres how to tell them apart:

If the word is followed by a noun or gerund, it is a preposition.

• After the luncheon, Squiggly needed a nap.
• Before casting the show, Aardvark watched videos.

If the word is followed by a main clause , it is a subordinating conjunction.

• After Squiggly ate five kumquats, he felt sick.
• Aardvark wept before he posted the list.

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The 9 Parts Of Speech: Definitions And Examples

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Open And Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech fall into two word classes: open and closed.

Open word classes are parts of speech that regularly acquire new words. Language evolves, and usually, evolution happens in these parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. In 2020, new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary included deepfake, truthiness, and contactless.

Closed word classes are the parts of speech that dont regularly add new words. These parts of speech are more set in stone and include pronouns, conjunctions, articles, and prepositions.

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What Are The 9 Parts Of Speech With Their Functions

Here are the nine parts of speech and how they impact the English language.

Articles In The English Language

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What part of speech is the?”, you know that the is classified as an article. To help you gain a better understanding of what articles are and how they function in the English language, here’s a handy list of 3 words in the English language that are also categorized as articles.

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What Are The Parts Of Speech

Parts of speech are the building blocks of grammar. You were probably taught them at a very young age, but they can be trickier than you remember. Sure, you know nouns and verbs, but how sure are you of the difference between a preposition and an adverb? If you need a quick refresher, heres a guide to all of the parts of speech. While you might not have to think about them on a daily basis, being able to call up the definitions can make language learning a lot easier.

For the sake of this article, all of the examples below will be English words . But every language has the same parts of speech, even if they appear in different places in the sentence. A noun is a noun, no matter what language its in.

And as one last note before starting, remember that words can qualify as many different parts of speech, depending on the context. You can drive or go for a drive or be a driven person . Its all in how you use the word.

Frequency Of Different Parts Of Speech

At Ginseng English, we believe in taking a research-informed, strategic approach to learning English. So understanding the general frequency of the different parts of speech is helpful. Take a look at the following table showing the proportion of the different parts of speech in conversational English and academic prose. (Note that the percentages are approximate and may not total 100% because the original categorization was slightly different from ours. This is only to give a general sense of the proportions.

Frequency of Parts of Speech

Source: Biber, et. al., . Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.

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Using The As An Adverb

Now let’s look at an example of how “the” can be used as an adverb. Take a look at this sample sentence:

The tornado warning made it all the more likely that the game would be canceled.

Remember how we explained that the can be combined with adverbs that are making a comparison of levels or amounts of something between two entities? The example above shows how the can be combined with an adverb in such a situation. The is combined with more and likely to form an adverbial phrase.

So how do you figure this out? Well, if the words immediately after the are adverbs, then the is functioning as an adverb, too!

Here’s another example of how the can be used as an adverb:

I had the worst day ever.

In this case, the is being combined with the adverb worst to compare the speaker’s day to the other days. Compared to all the other days ever, this person’s was the worst…period. Some other examples of adverbs that you might see the combined with include all the better, the best, the bigger, the shorter, and all the sooner.

One thing that can help clarify which adverbs the can be combined with is to check out a list of comparative and superlative adverbs and think about which ones the makes sense with!

Types Of Part Of Speech

Works of English grammar generally follow the pattern of the European tradition as described above, except that participles are now usually regarded as forms of verbs rather than as a separate part of speech, and numerals are often conflated with other parts of speech: nouns ” rel=”nofollow”> cardinal numerals, e.g., “one”, and collective numerals, e.g., “dozen”), adjectives ” rel=”nofollow”> ordinal numerals, e.g., “first”, and multiplier numerals, e.g., “single”) and adverbs . Eight or nine parts of speech are commonly listed:

Some traditional classifications consider articles to be adjectives, yielding 8 parts of speech rather than 9. And some modern classifications define further classes in addition to these. For discussion see the sections below.

The classification below, or slight expansions of it, is still followed in most dictionaries:

Many English words can belong to more than one part of speech. Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave, and telephone might all be either verbs or nouns. In certain circumstances, even words with primarily grammatical functions can be used as verbs or nouns, as in, “We must look to the hows and not just the whys.” The process whereby a word comes to be used as a different part of speech is called conversion or zero derivation.

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Building New Sentences One Brick At A Time

Learning the parts of speech is just the first step to building a proper sentence. But parts of speech are slightly different from parts of a sentence and you need to know both in order to properly format your writing. Otherwise, you may encounter grammatical errors such as sentence fragments or run-on sentences.

What Are The 8 Parts Of Speech Examples And Usage

• yellow circles with 8 parts of speech list
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There are eight parts of speech in English: nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. While some parts of speech are more common or versatile than others, theyre all stacked like bricks in a sentence and you cant move one without bringing the whole sentence down around it. These parts of speech examples demonstrate how each part of speech works, and how they modify or link to each other.

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More Detailed Rules For The Position Of Adverbs

• Recently, I started a new job.
• I recently started a new job.
• I started a new job recently.

• She frequently gets time to herself.

Are Articles And Determiners Parts Of Speech

Two additional parts of speech articles and determiners also appear in sentences. So why are there only eight parts of speech instead of ten?

While some style guides and lists may add articles and determiners to the parts of speech, these parts of speech are technically adjectives. They modify nouns to add specificity to a sentence.

These example sentences show articles and determiners in bold, while the nouns they modify are underlined.

• Thedetective asked me somequestions.
• I gave mybrotheranumbrella.
• He found several kittens in theshed.
• Do you want anymilk?
• Please hand me thosetools.

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The Top Issue Related To Conjunctions

The Rule for Two Items

• The Bakerloo line runs between Elephant and Castle, and Harrow and Wealdstone.
• I love King Rollo, and Rick and Morty.

The Exception to the Rule for Two Items

• Bonzo eats ants, andhe eats honey.

could stand alone. They are independent clauses. That’s why there is a comma before “and.”)

The Rule for Three or More Items

• Burger, Fries, and a shake

Americans.)

• Fish, chips and peas

Brits. The most notable exception is the Oxford University Press, after which the Oxford Comma is named.)

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what’s happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description.

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it’s a preposition because it’s followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time that answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

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Is Which An Adjective

Yes.

It can function as an interrogative adjective. An interrogative adjective, also known as interrogative determiner or just determiner, is also used to ask questions, but, like an adjective, it modifies a noun and is placed immediately before the noun. The three interrogative adjectives are which, what, and whose. Examples:

Which ice-cream do you prefer?

Which restaurant would you recommend for dinner? Sam asked.

Note that which can also act as interrogative adjective in sentences where its not a question word. This has been covered later because it doesnt belong to the direct question category. Examples:

I cant decide which route you take.

I dont know which route to take.

If youre used to seeing only words such as hot, tall, and dumb as adjectives, you might struggle to visualize which as an adjective. Think of which in the above sentences whether a direct question or not as a word placed immediately before a noun and describing it, just like adjectives do. And it comes with the added tag of interrogative because it asks questions.

So far, weve looked at which in its role of asking questions. But which does way more than just asking questions: it can connect parts of a sentence. Conjunctions, relative pronouns, and prepositions are the most common grammatical tools to connect one part of a sentence to the other. In the next three sections, lets examine if which belongs to any of these three parts of speech.

What Part Of Speech Is It

The word it also has a double purpose. It can be used either as a pronoun or as a noun in English texts and spoken English.

This word is commonly classified as a pronoun when it is used to replace an object that has already been mentioned or can easily be known. As in the sentence below:

I found a chest full of ancient artifacts init.

The word it is used as a pronoun that replaces the word chest.

Definition:

a. used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified

• A room with a single bed in it.

b. a crucial or climactic point

Sometimes, the word it is also used as a noun, which refers to the player in a childrens game that is assigned to a particular role. For example, in the sentence below:

Shes always it, but loves the game.

The word it is used as a noun that indicates a specific player in the game.

Definition:

a. the player in some childrens games who performs the main action of the game

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Using The As An Article

In general, it is correct and appropriate to use the in front of a noun of any kind when you want to convey specificity. It’s often assumed that you use the to refer to a specific person, place, or thing that the person you’re speaking to will already be aware of. Oftentimes, this shared awareness of who, what, or where “the” is referring to is created by things already said in the conversation, or by context clues in a given social situation.

Let’s look at an example here:

Say you’re visiting a friend who just had a baby. You’re sitting in the kitchen at your friend’s house while your friend makes coffee. The baby, who has been peacefully dozing in a bassinet in the living room, begins crying. Your friend turns to you and asks, “Can you hold the baby while I finish doing this?”

Now, because of all of the context surrounding the social situation, you know which baby your friend is referring to when they say, the baby. There’s no need for further clarification, because in this case, the gives enough direct and specific meaning to the noun baby for you to know what to do!

In many cases, using the to define a noun requires less or no awareness of an immediate social situation because people have a shared common knowledge of the noun that the is referring to. Here are two examples:

Are you going to watch the eclipse tomorrow?

Did you hear what the President said this morning?