TOPIC:

Parts of Speech
Prepared & Delivered by:
Fasial Habib Afridi
Class: BSN-1st Semester (INS-KMU)
 Introduction
 Parts of speech are categories of words sorted by their
roles within the structure of the language.
 Most of us learn about parts of speech when we first
learn to write. But what often escapes us is that these
boundaries between parts of speech are fluid.
 Verbs can behave like nouns. Nouns m can behave like
r
a tfo
adjectives. Adjectives canalbehave P l like adverbs. Many
i on
parts of speech can dact
uc as interjections. Sometimes, a
a t
word in a particularE part of speech transforms into a
new word permanently and becomes another part of
speech.
 Any satisfactory account of the parts of speech must
make clear that the classification
Husain.Z depends on the
grammatical function and form of words in sentences.
 the definitions of the parts of speech are not all of the same kind -
though the categories they are meant to define are intended to be of the
same kind, namely contrasting classes of words or lexemes.
 It will be noticed that the noun and verb are defined independently of
the others, while the pronoun, adjective, adverb and preposition
definitions refer to nouns and/or verbs.
 Thus, for example, the noun is defined rmin terms of a word's inherent
fo
Plat
semantic properties whereas the l adjective is defined in terms of the
na
tio and the noun or pronoun with which
semantic relation between acaword
u
it is in construction. Ed
 The trouble with this (which might otherwise be thought to have the
advantage of imposing a logical ordering on the parts of speech in
such a way as to avoid circularity in the definitions) is that the
definitions are not mutually exclusive.
Husain.Z
 Consider one of Curme's own examples: a boy actor. Here boy satisfies the
definition for noun by virtue of denoting a person and also the definition for
adjective by virtue of modifying actor. Is it then to be classified as a noun or an
adjective? Curme's answer is that it is a noun used as an adjective.

rm
l a tfo
na lP
at io
d uc
E

Husain.Z
Parts Of Speech (Word-Classes)
The traditional grammars often began with a statement of the 'parts of speech',
which today would be called 'word classes' . All words belong to categories called
‘word classes’ (or parts of speech) according to the part they play in a sentence.
According to most grammarians, there are eight parts of speech.
They are divided into three groups:
1. Noun Group
1. Noun
2. Pronoun t form
Pla
3. Adjective na l
t i o
ca Group
2.duVerb
E
4. Verb
5. Adverb
3. Empty Words
6. Preposition
7. Conjunction
8. Interjection Husain.Z
Parts of Speech (with examples)
1. Noun (chair, wolf, flock, country)
2. Pronoun (I, you, he, which)
3. Adjective (this, the, fourth, each, untidy)
4. Verb (see, retire, give, seem)
5. Adverb (much, partly, merely, quickly)
6. Preposition (on, of, at, f rm
oin)
la t
l P
7. Conjunction (and, i o nabut, because, or)
c a t
u
8. Interjection Ed(ouch, alas, wow, oh)

Husain.Z
Open and Closed classes
 Word and lexeme classes fall into two groups, commonly
called open classes and closed classes.
 Of the traditional parts of speech, the noun, verb, adjective and
adverb are open classes, while the pronoun, preposition,
conjunction and interjection are closed.
 The open classes have very large numbers of members, while
the closed ones are highly restricted in membership.
 Open classes are so called because they readily
accommodate the addition of new members as the vocabulary
of the language adapts itself to the changing needs of its
speakers.
 Closed classes, by contrast, are highly resistant to the addition
of new members (though the term 'closed' should not be taken
to imply that such expansion is strictly impossible).
Husain.Z
 The open-closed distinction applies to secondary classes
(subclasses) as well as the primary ones: transitive verbs and
auxiliary verbs, for example, are respectively open and closed
subclasses of verb.
 (We can accordingly speak of the pronoun as a closed class
independently of whether it is regarded as a primary class, as
in traditional grammar, or as a subclass of the noun, as
suggested here.)
 As we shall see, items belonging to closed classes or
subclasses typically present more difficulty for the analyst
than open class items: disagreements among grammarians
over the part-of speech classification generally involve the
treatment of closed class items.
Husain.Z
 Of the four open primary classes, the adverb differs from the
others in having only a small number of members with
morphologically simple lexical stems - a high proportion of
adverbs are formed from adjectives by -ly suffixation.
 Thus the great majority of simple stems are verbs, nouns or
adjectives, and for this reason these may be regarded as the
three major parts of speech.

Husain.Z
 The traditional scheme of definitions for the parts of speech
treats the verb and noun as more basic than the others in that
they are defined independently of the rest.
 while the definitions of adjectives and adverbs make
reference to verbs and nouns.
 Finally, of the verb and the noun,foitrmis the former that functions
Plat
as ultimate head of the clause, o nal with the most central kind of
ati
sentence having the form
Ed of a clause.
uc

 we can accordingly think of the verb as having the highest

ranking in importance in the organisation of the grammar - a
view reflected in the etymology of the term Verb' which
derives from the Latin for "word".
Husain.Z
Thank You!
for
m
Plat
o nal
at i
d uc
E

Husain.Z