English 121 2 The parts of speech: the basic labels The Western traditional parts of speech began with the works of the Greeks and thenthe Romans. The Greek tradition culminated in the first century B.C. work of DionysiusThrax, The Art of Grammar, a work of only about 400 lines, which divided Greek into eightparts of speech: nouns, pronouns, prepositions, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, participles, andarticles. The Romans imitated the Greeks, adapting the Greek parts of speech to the study ofLatin. Except that Latin lacks articles, it could be analyzed in terms of the seven other parts ofspeech used by the Greeks; the Latin grammarians then added the category of interjections,giving Latin, like Greek, eight parts of speech. The tradition of saying that there are eight parts of speech remains with us today,although it will quickly become apparent that there are actually more than eight. Althoughthe English tradition retains all the categories of the Greek tradition, neither participles norarticles are now listed among the eight traditional parts of speech: adjectives have replacedparticiples, and the Latin category of interjections has been added. For English, the eight tra-ditional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, prepositions, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions,adjectives, and interjections. Defining the parts of speech. Because the intent of this book is to introduce the structure of English to those who arenot already trained in English grammar, strict definitions of the parts of speech will be not begiven. Definitions are essentially an attempt to describe a class of examples. As a result, it isoften easier for students to learn parts of speech through examples and illustrations thanthrough definitions. In addition, iron-clad definitions always "leak" and, even if such defini-tions can be formulated, they are often of limited use to the learner. In place of definitions,techniques for identifying the various parts of speech are offered. In developing a working notion of what a particular part of speech is, it is crucial torealize that a particular word is not a noun, verb, or adjective — in a very real sense, a wordonly has a part of speech when it is used in a sentence (or phrase). If one were to ask whatpart of speech the word fast is, it is impossible to answer without knowing how it is used. ForChapter 1: Nouns and noun-related parts of speech: 3 English 121 example, in the fast runner it is an adjective, in he runs fast it is an adverb, in I fast duringRamadan it is a verb, and so on. That is, it depends upon how it is used.Although it is common for linguists and grammarians to criticize the traditional "defi-nitions" of the parts of speech for various technical shortcomings, these definitions do form auseful starting point for those trying to develop a working notion of the various parts ofspeech. As a starting point, the following notions are offered, divided into nouns and parts ofspeech related to nouns, verbs and parts related to verbs, and other parts. These notional"definitions" are meant to be read quickly, with the real task of learning how to identify partsof speech being learned by doing the exercises which follow the definitions: Nouns and noun-related parts of speech:Nouns A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing (or something treated grammatically asif it were a person, place, or thing). This description is okay as far as it goes. The obviousproblem lies in determining what constitutes a thing, and in determining what constitutestreating something grammatically as if it were a thing. In practice, fortunately, the problemof identifying nouns is not so difficult. In the example, the nouns are italicized.The young man with the red coat robbed a bank yesterday.There are several ways in which a word can be treated grammatically as a noun. If, aword is modified with an article, that is, by a , an , or the , it is being treated grammatically as anoun. Similarly, it is a noun if it is singular or plural. That is, if it is modified by a number.Similarly, if it ends in plural -s, it is a noun. Also it is possible to test if it is in a noun 'slot' bychecking to see if it can be made plural in the slot it occurs in. In the example above, forinstance, we could change man into men in the phrase the young man , we could change coat into coats in the phrase the red coat , and we could change a bank into banks . Pronouns Pronouns traditionally substitute or take the place of nouns. While there are cases where thischaracterization is not fully adequate, it will serve us well enough for our purposes. In thefirst sentence, there are two nouns; in the second sentence, pronouns have been used insteadof the nouns.English 121 4 Chapter 1: Adjectives The man cut his finger . Then, he put a bandage on it . Adjectives Adjectives modify, classify, characterize, or in some way tell more about a noun. Prepositions Prepositions are a group of words that show how a noun or a noun phrase (that is, aphrase that functions like a noun) relates to the rest of the overall sentence. However vaguethis seems now, in practice one quickly learns to recognize the prepositions. Not only arethere only a small number of prepositions, but they usually come attached to a following noun. Not only is at a preposition but the whole unit At the house is a prepositional phrase;that is, it is a unit composed of a preposition and a noun phrase. Verbs and verb-related parts of speechVerbs Usually verbs are characterized as words denoting actions, events, and states of being.Although this is true, it is usually not too helpful for the beginner. Fortunately, like nouns,verbs are not as difficult to find in practice as their characterization would lead you to think. the old man his dying words adj noun adj nounat the house behind the clock under the rug prep. noun prep. noun prep. nounChapter 1: Adverbs 5 English 121 One characteristic of verbs that many students find helpful in identification is that notonly do verbs denote actions, events, and states, but the verb itself also contains an indicationof time (that is, it has a tense). Usually, the form of the verb changes when you change thetime reference, for instance, when the time reference is changed from last