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Parts of speech: Class 9 English
The eight parts of speech: nouns and their kinds, pronouns, verbs and tenses, adjectives and degrees, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections, with the job each word does in a sentence.
Key points
Every word in a sentence belongs to a class according to the work it does. These classes are called parts of speech. There are eight: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. The same word can belong to different classes in different sentences. In 'She will walk home' the word walk is a verb. In 'We took a walk' it is a noun.
A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, animal or idea. A proper noun names one particular person or place and begins with a capital letter: Lahore, Quaid-e-Azam, Ramadan. A common noun names any member of a class: city, leader, month. A collective noun names a group: a class, a flock, a team. A material noun names a substance: gold, wool, water. An abstract noun names a quality, feeling or state that we cannot touch: honesty, courage, childhood.
Nouns also have number, gender and case:
- Number: singular (one) and plural (more than one). Most nouns add s or es (book, books; box, boxes). Some are irregular: child, children; man, men; mouse, mice; sheep, sheep.
- Gender: masculine (boy), feminine (girl), common (student, teacher) and neuter (table).
- Case: the form that shows the noun's job. The possessive case shows ownership: Ali's bag, the girls' room.
A pronoun takes the place of a noun so that we do not repeat it. Instead of 'Sara said that Sara was late' we say 'Sara said that she was late.' Personal pronouns are I, we, you, he, she, it and they. Possessive pronouns are mine, ours, yours, his, hers and theirs. Reflexive pronouns end in self or selves: myself, himself, themselves. Demonstrative pronouns point out things: this, that, these, those. Interrogative pronouns ask questions: who, whom, whose, which, what. Relative pronouns join clauses: who, whom, which, that.
Pronouns change form with their job. Use the subject form before a verb: 'He and I went to the market.' Use the object form after a verb or preposition: 'The teacher praised him and me.' Do not confuse possessive adjectives (my, your, her, our, their) with possessive pronouns. 'This is my book' uses an adjective. 'This book is mine' uses a pronoun.
A verb shows an action, a state or an occurrence. The main kinds are:
- Action verbs: run, write, build.
- Linking verbs, which join the subject to a description: She is happy. The soup tastes salty.
- Auxiliary (helping) verbs: be, do, have, and the modals can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must. They help the main verb: 'He has finished.' 'They should leave.'
- Transitive verbs take an object (She reads a novel). Intransitive verbs do not (The baby slept).
Verbs change form to show time. Each verb has a base form (go), a past tense (went) and a past participle (gone). Regular verbs add ed for both (walked, walked). Irregular verbs must be learned: write, wrote, written; see, saw, seen; break, broke, broken. The present tense of a verb must agree with its subject: 'She goes' but 'They go.' The tenses are present, past and future, and each has simple, continuous and perfect forms. For example: I eat (simple present), I am eating (present continuous), I have eaten (present perfect), I ate (simple past), I will eat (simple future).
An adjective describes or limits a noun or pronoun. It answers the questions what kind, how many and which one. Examples are 'a tall boy', 'three pencils' and 'that house'. Adjectives of quality (brave, cold), quantity (some, much) and number (five, many) come before the noun or after a linking verb. Adjectives have three degrees of comparison. The positive degree states a quality (fast). The comparative compares two things (faster). The superlative compares three or more (fastest). Long adjectives use more and most: beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful. Some are irregular: good, better, best; bad, worse, worst.
An adverb describes a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It tells how, when, where or to what extent. Examples: 'She sings sweetly' (how), 'We arrived yesterday' (when), 'Put it there' (where), 'The tea is very hot' (degree). Many adverbs of manner are made by adding ly to an adjective, but not all: fast, hard and late are both adjectives and adverbs. Adverbs also have degrees: soon, sooner, soonest.
A preposition shows the relation of a noun or pronoun to another word, usually place, time or direction: 'The cat is under the table.' 'We meet at noon.' A conjunction joins words, phrases or clauses. Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, so, yet) join equal parts. Subordinating conjunctions (because, although, if, when, while, since, unless) join a dependent clause to a main clause. An interjection is a word that shows sudden feeling and is followed by an exclamation mark or comma: Hurrah! Alas! Oh!
To find the part of speech, ask what the word does in that sentence, not what it looks like. The word before is a preposition in 'before noon', a conjunction in 'Wash your hands before you eat' and an adverb in 'I have seen him before.' This habit helps in the parsing and identification questions of the examination.
Identify a word’s job in its sentence, rather than assigning a permanent label from memory. In "We drink water", drink is a verb. In "This drink is cold", drink is a noun. Explain the context that supports your choice.
Study tip: Learn the eight classes with one example sentence each and practise labelling every word in short sentences. In the paper, read the whole sentence before you label a word, because the same word may change its class. Memorise the common irregular verbs and the irregular degrees of comparison, since these appear again and again in grammar questions.
Definitions and flashcards
Say the meaning first, then open the card to check.
Noun
A word that names a person, place, thing, animal or idea.
Pronoun
A word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition.
Verb
A word that shows an action, state or occurrence.
Auxiliary verb
A helping verb such as is, has, do or will that works with a main verb.
Adjective
A word that describes or limits a noun or pronoun.
Adverb
A word that tells how, when, where or how much about a verb, adjective or adverb.
Conjunction
A word that joins words, phrases or clauses.
Interjection
A word that expresses sudden feeling, such as Wow!
Abstract noun
The name of a quality, feeling or idea that cannot be seen or touched.
Short questions with model answers
These are the kind of questions asked for 2, 3 and 5 marks. Try each one before opening the answer.
Name the eight parts of speech. (2 marks)
The eight parts of speech are noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
What is the difference between a common noun and a proper noun? Give two examples of each. (2 marks)
A common noun is a general name for any person, place or thing of a kind, such as girl and river. A proper noun is the special name of one particular person, place or thing, such as Fatima and Indus. A proper noun always begins with a capital letter.
Write the three degrees of comparison of the adjective 'good' and use the comparative in a sentence. (3 marks)
The three degrees are good (positive), better (comparative) and best (superlative). Good is irregular, so it does not take er and est. Sentence: This book is better than the one I read last week.
Explain the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb with examples. (3 marks)
A transitive verb needs an object to complete its meaning. In 'Bilal kicked the ball' the verb kicked acts on the object ball. An intransitive verb does not need an object. In 'The bird sang' the verb sang makes complete sense alone. Some verbs can be both, as in 'She reads' and 'She reads a magazine'.
Identify the part of speech of each word in this sentence: Oh! The clever boy answered quickly because he knew the lesson. (5 marks)
Oh is an interjection. clever is an adjective describing the noun boy. boy is a common noun. answered is a verb. quickly is an adverb telling how he answered. because is a conjunction joining two clauses. he is a pronoun replacing boy. knew is a verb. lesson is a common noun.
What are the different kinds of pronouns? Give one example of each kind in a sentence. (5 marks)
Personal: She is my sister. Possessive: The pen is yours. Reflexive: He hurt himself. Demonstrative: Those are ripe. Interrogative: Who called you? Relative: The man who helped us is a doctor. Each kind either replaces a noun, shows ownership, refers back to the subject, points out, asks a question or joins clauses.
Identify the adjective and adverb in "The careful nurse spoke softly". (2 marks)
Careful is an adjective describing nurse. Softly is an adverb explaining how the nurse spoke.
Show that one word can be a noun and a verb. (3 marks)
In "They paint the gate", paint is a verb naming an action. In "The paint is wet", paint is a noun naming a material. Its function changes with the sentence.
Analyse the main word classes in "The young volunteers carefully cleaned the room and sorted the books". (5 marks)
Volunteers, room and books are nouns. Young is an adjective modifying volunteers. Carefully is an adverb modifying cleaned. Cleaned and sorted are verbs. And is a conjunction joining the two verb phrases; the is a determiner before a noun phrase.
Common mistakes
- Using a word class from memory instead of checking its job in the sentence, so that words like before, round and fast are labelled wrongly.
- Writing the subject form where the object form is needed, as in 'between you and I' instead of 'between you and me'.
- Confusing my and mine, your and yours. Use my, your, her, our and their before a noun, and mine, yours, hers, ours and theirs without a noun.
- Adding more to an adjective that already has er, as in 'more taller', or using 'most best'.
- Mixing up adjective and adverb: writing 'She sings beautiful' instead of 'She sings beautifully', or 'He runs quick' instead of 'He runs quickly'.