ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Parts of Speech
Exercise:
For each underlined word in the following sentences, identify
the part of speech
1. They attended the concert last weekend.
2. Several cats ran into Rob’s garage.
3. The truck driver delivered the packages quickly.
4. Fast runners won all the awards at the track meet.
5. My friends and I walked home after school.
6. I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch
yesterday.
7. She was counting the ballots during social studies class.
8. Hey ! That is my seat.
9. Will they finish the test on time?
10. The diagram was pretty complicated for us.
Parts of Speech

• Based on their use and functions, words are

categorized into several types or parts of speech

according to the work they do in a sentence

The eight brothers are talk of the town, 
You know the naming one as Noun.
The next one known as Pronoun,
Is used instead of Noun.
The third called the Adjective,
Seems mighty descriptive. 
The fourth one is the Verb
He consists of all the doing words.
The next christened Adverb,
Beautifies our spoken word.
Now meet the Preposition,
He cares for all relations.
Then comes our Conjunction,
He joins almost everyone.
The last one- Interjection,
Has quite a good expression.
Together they form the parts of speech
Now we begin to explore each!
Noun

• This part of a speech refers to words that are used to name

persons, things, animals, places, ideas, or events.

• The word things includes all objects that we can see, hear, taste,
touch or smell and things that we can think of, but cant perceive by
the senses.

• Noun can refer to anything that is living or non-living

Examples:

Akbar was a great king.

There is a lamb in the garden.
Islamabad is the capital city.
It is my birthday.
His courage won him honour.
Kinds of nouns
 Proper nouns always start with a capital letter and refers
to specific names of persons, places, or things.
 Examples: Imran Khan, Nust, Gone with the Wind, April
September etc.
 The proper noun would include the names of months,
days, organizations, people and their titles, places,
books, plays, movies & newspapers etc.

 Common nouns are the opposite of proper nouns. These

are just generic names of persons, things, or places.
 Examples: car, university, TV series
COMMON PROPER

man James
woman Julia
boy Ali
girl Lisa
snake Green Tree Python
ant Red Ant
bee Bumble Bee
elephant African Elephant
fish Clown Fish
park Haydon Park
bridge Sydney Harbour Bridge
tower Eifel Tower
ocean Pacific Ocean
country Pakistan
car Mercedes
camera Nikon
 Concrete nouns represent something physical that can be
experienced through the senses. They can be common, proper,
singular, plural, countable, uncountable, or collective.
Examples: fish, song, house, computers, salt, cheese, ocean

 Abstract- Abstract nouns refer to things that are not concrete

 They refer to emotions, ideas, concepts, experiences
 Examples: love, hatred, trust, deceit, culture, curiosity,
maturity, sympathy, democracy, patience, and peace
Abstract Noun Concrete Noun
Luxury Silk
Success Money
Friendship Friend

Laughter???
Compound noun
a noun consisting of more than a single word.
-Could be separate words such as physical education,
dining room
-Could be two words joined by a hyphen such as sister-in-
law
-Could be a combined word such as landlord, bookkeeper
and headmaster.
Collective noun
refers to a group of persons, animals, or things taken
together and spoken of as one whole; as,
 Army=a collection of soldiers, crowd= group of people
 Faculty, jury, family, nation, team, herd etc.
 Countable nouns- it refers to anything that is countable,
and has a singular and plural form.
 Examples:  kitten, apple, ball, books
 Uncountable nouns– are the names of things which we
cannot count .
 They denote to substances and abstract things.
 They do not have plural form.
 They need to have “counters” to quantify them.
 Examples of Counters: kilo, cup, meter
 Examples of Mass Nouns: rice, flour, garter, milk, oil, gold,
honesty
Point out the common, proper,
collective and abstract nouns
1. The crowd was very big.
2. The soldiers were rewarded for
their bravery.
3. Solomon was famous for his
wisdom.
4. The elephant has great
strength.
5. A committee of five was
appointed.
6. John threw a stone.
Exercise:
Underline each noun in the following sentences. Then write the first letter of each noun on the
line next to the sentence. If your answers are correct, you will spell out the words of a quotation
and the name of the famous American who said the quotation.

1. Wendy located her housekeeper.

2. Some answers on this test are about electricity.
3. Her violin and easel were missing.
4. Their rabbit that left the yard was returned by the officer.
5. He used this umbrella in Alabama.
6. After the rain, the electrician checked the box.
7. The end of the afternoon arrived quickly.
8. This group is funny.
9. The ostrich and the orangutan are interesting.
10. My doctor and my orthodontist are neighbours.
11. In the evening, Archie likes to go boating.
12. Unfortunately, he had a rash and an allergy.
13. Her height and agility helped her win the match.
14. Linda cared for the infant throughout the night.
15. The garbage carton near the oven had liquorice and noodles in it.

The quotation and its author: _______________________________________________

Read the following sentences:

• He is energetic while she was sensitive.

• We have six franchises in four states.
• Much space was devoted to her artwork.
• The lazy boy got punished.
Adjective

• An adjective modifies (qualifies or limits) the meaning of a noun or a pronoun.

It answers the questions, what kind? which one? how many? how much?
• usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify.
e.g.
Tall players and intelligent coaches were interviewed by interested
reporters.

We saw a very exciting film last night.

I ate some rice.
Types of adjectives

• Adjectives of Quality: show the quality or kind of a person or thing;

as,

• Karachi is a large city.

• He is an honest man.
• They own an expensive luxury car.

Answer the question: of what kind?

Adjectives of Quantity

• Show how much a thing is meant; as,

• Take great care of yourself

• Drink plenty of fluids.
• Alia has little intelligence.
• He has no sense.
Answers the question: how much?
Adjectives of Numbers

• Show how many persons or things are meant, or in what

order a person or thing stands; as,

• January is the first month of the year.

• The farmers own ten cows.
• There are several mistakes in your assignment
Answers the question: how many?
Demonstrative adjectives

• Point out which person or thing is meant; as,

• This girl is prettier than her sister.

• These grapes are sour.
• I hate such things.
• Those liars must be punished.
Answers the question: which?

• Note: this and that are used with singular nouns and these and those with plural
nouns.
Interrogative adjectives

• What, which and whose, when they are used with nouns
to ask questions; as,

• Whose dress is this?

• What kind of art is this?
• Which way shall we go?
Coordinate Adjectives
• Coordinate adjectives should be separated by a comma or the
word and. Adjectives are said to be coordinate if they modify the
same noun in a sentence.

This is going to be a long, cold winter.

Isobel’s dedicated and tireless efforts made all the difference.

When more than one adjective occurs after a verb such as be (a linking
verb), the second last adjective is normally connected to the last
adjective by and:

Home was always a warm, welcoming place. Now it is sad, dark and
cold.

It was a blue and green cotton shirt.

Order of adjectives:

• When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the

adjectives are normally in a particular order.

What an amazing, little, old, Chinese cup and saucer!

What an old, little, amazing, Chinese cup and saucer!

Before the adjectives you will normally have the Determiner.
Determiner: The determiner tells us if the noun is singular or plural, definite or
indefinite a, an, the, my, your, four, those, some etc

order relating to examples

1 opinion unusual, lovely, beautiful

2 size big, small, tall

3 physical quality thin, rough, untidy

4 shape round, square, rectangular

5 age young, old, youthful

6 colour blue, red, pink

7 origin Dutch, Japanese, Turkish

8 material metal, wood, plastic

9 type four-sided, U-shaped

It was made of a strange, green, metallic material.

It’s a long, narrow, plastic brush.

Panettone is an Italian, round, bread-like Christmas cake.

Pick out the adjectives in the
following sentences.

1. Small, independent businesses are becoming numerous.

2. Jim prefers spicy, Caribbean-style food.
3. Ali won the second prize.
4. Which pen do you prefer?
5. He died a glorious death.
Formation of Adjectives:
• a proper adjective is formed from a proper noun.
e.g. Italian bread Herculean strength

• A compound adjective is a word composed of two or more words. Sometimes these words
are hyphenated.
e.g. Black-and-blue mark hometown hero

From nouns: many adjectives are formed from nouns, verbs and adjectives
• Boy=boyish Dirt= dirty care=careful
• Fool= storm= hope=
• Man=manly courage= courageous
• glory= Talk= move= moveable
• black=blackish
• White=
Read these sentences

• John’s mango is sweet. (positive degree)

• Mary's mango is sweeter than john’s. (comparative degree)
• Alice’s mango is the sweetest of all.( superlative degree)
• The adjective ‘sweet’ changes its form to show the
comparison.
Positive degree: when no comparison is made.
• Used to denote the mere quality of what we speak about, e.g. Ali is a clever boy.

Comparative degree: when two things are compared.

• Used to denote a higher degree of quality than the positive e.g. Mustafa is
cleverer than Ali.

Superlative degree
• Used when more than two things are compared.
• Denotes the highest degree of the quality
• E.g.
• Salim is the cleverest in the class.