TOPIC: WORD CLASS Lesson 1

Noun A word that refers to a person (such as Mike or doctor), a place (such Dhaka or city), or a thing, a quality or an activity (such as plant, sorrow or tennis)

Classification of Nouns Proper Noun A word that is the name of a person, a place, an institution, etc. and is written with a capital letter, for example, Tom, Texas, the White House

Common Noun A word that refers to an object or a thing but is not the name of a particular person, place or thing (such as table, cat or sea)

Collective Noun A singular noun, such as committee or team, that refers to a group of people, animals or things and, in British English, can be used with either a singular or a plural verb. In American English it must be used with a singular verb. For example: jury, fleet, team, band, bunch etc.

Abstract Noun A noun, for example goodness, kindness, or freedom, that refers to an idea or a general quality, not to a physical object

Pronoun A word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase, for example he, it, hers, me, them etc.

Classification of Pronouns Personal Pronoun Any of the pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them Demonstrative Pronoun or Determiner A word such as the, some, my, etc. that comes before a noun to show how the noun is being used

Relative Pronoun Referring to an earlier noun, sentence or part of a sentence such as; who, which, that etc. Possessive Pronoun Showing that something belongs to somebody or something such as; my, mine, yours, theirs, hers, his, ours etc.

Reflexive or Emphatic Pronoun A reflexive word or form of a word shows that the action of the verb affects the person who performs the action. In ‘He cut himself’, ‘cut’ is a reflexive verb and ‘himself’ is a reflexive pronoun. More examples: ourselves, myself, herself, themselves etc.

Interrogative pronoun Used in questions (a question word) for example, who, which, why etc. Why don’t you practice English regularly? Who are you looking for?

Verb A word or group of words that expresses an action (such as eat), an event (such as happen) or a state (such as exist)

Classification of Verbs Transitive Verb Used with a direct object Example: I write a letter. Intransitive Verb Used without a direct object Example: I write. Birds fly. Wind blows.

Finite Verb A finite verb form shows a particular tense, person or number Non-finite Verb A non-finite verb form does not show a particular tense, person or number Am, is, are, was, and were are the finite forms of ‘be’; ‘being’, and ‘been’ are the non-finite forms. Ex: I want to go home. He wants to go home.

Adjective A word that describes a person or thing, for example big, red and clever in a big house, red wine, and a clever idea

Adverb A word that adds more information about place, time, manner, cause or degree to a verb, an adjective, a phrase or another adverb In ‘speak kindly’, ‘incredibly deep’, ‘just in time’, and ‘too quickly’,…. ‘kindly’, ‘incredibly’, ‘just’ and ‘too’ are all adverbs.

English Language I (Sentences & their Elements) Md. Shakhawat Hossain Lecturer, Dept. of English Northern University Bangladesh