Some Linguistic Tools

Lexical Categories (Parts of Speech)

NounsVerbsAdjectivesAdverbs

Nouns name people, places, and things. Every noun can further be classified as common or proper. A common noun names general items.

The repeated use of proper nouns (i.e. the name of a particular person or place) instead of using appropriate common nouns or pronouns can be a characteristic of a formal written text. Common NounProper Noun coffee shopStarbucks jeansLevi’s

Concrete nouns register on your five senses but not abstract nouns, which represent abstract concepts or qualities such as interest, beauty. Abstract NounConcrete Noun curiositycat dedicationnurse

The frequent use of abstract nouns (i.e. nouns that refer to ideas or concepts) can be a characteristic of a scholarly text.

The use of gender-neutral nouns (e.g. chairperson), instead of gender-marked nouns (e.g. chairman) can be an indication of the writer’s attitudes towards women and men in society.

A verb is a word that usually denotes an action (bring, read), an occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand).

The use of present tense can underscore the factual orientation or give the impression of universal truths.

The use of passive voice (rather than active) can be a way of depersonalizing a text – e.g. highlighting institutional procedures rather than individual concerns. The focus is on the action / process instead of the agent (the person or force) behind the action or process.

The use of a lot of intransitive verbs (i.e. verbs without an object) in a text may indicate the description of actions which exist by themselves, and are not done on objects, things or people. The frequent use of transitive verbs (i.e. verbs which need an object) may indicate the description of actions which have effects on objects, things or people.

An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun or a pronoun. An adjective describes or modifies a noun.

Adjectives usually answer three questions about the nouns they describe: QuestionsExamples What kind of?I found a red rose in the cave. How many?Three tickets, please. Which one(s)?I would eat those chocolate muffins.

Adjectives can be used in a text as qualitative attributes. By qualifying nouns, they can help express the writer’s feelings and attitudes towards a certain object or issue. The use of more or fewer adjectives can also result in the descriptive richness or sparseness of a text, which in turn can suggest features of a particular genre.

An adverb is a part of speech that describes or modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, clause, or sentence. Adverbs answer the questions "How?", "When?", "Where?", "Why?", "In what way?", "How much?", "How often?", "Under what condition", "To what degree?"

The easiest adverbs to recognize are those that end in -ly. Some adjectives end with -ly also but remember that adjectives can modify only nouns and pronouns. Adverbs modify everything else. An adverb can be placed anywhere in a sentence.

Adverbs or adverbial phrases may indicate circumstance e.g. time, place and manner etc. Like adjectives, adverbs or adverbial phrases that indicate circumstances can give more description to a text.

Adverbs or adverbial phrases may indicate modality, i.e. degrees of possibility, frequency, obligation, intensity etc. ModalityAdverbs probability“possibly”, “certainly” regularity“sometimes”, “always” obligation“necessarily”, “by all means”