Parts of Speech: Adverbs

Some writers (and editors) argue that adverbs are the most unnecessary words in the English language. Why say “She ran quickly” when you can simply say “She sprinted?”

Understanding the construction of language begins with learning the parts of speech. If you know that adverbs can be extraneous, then you can scan your writing to see if you are using too many adverbs, and you can check for adverbs that aren’t necessary, particularly adverb-verb combinations that can be replaced with a better, more descriptive, single verb (such as in the example above where “ran quickly” is replaced with “sprinted”).

Why do so many people rail against adverbs? Using our example again, think about which sentence evokes a stronger image. Most readers would agree that “She ran quickly” is vague whereas “She sprinted” is specific and easier to visualize.

Adverbs: How, When, and Where

Here’s a a quick definition of an adverb:

Adverbs are like adjectives in that they are modifiers, but they modify any other type of word or phrase except for nouns. Examples of adverbs include quickly and dark (as in dark red where the adverb dark modifies the adjective red).

An adverb is one of the eight parts of speech. Specifically, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Adverbs may also modify sentences and clauses. So, how do you spot a adverb?

Adverbs often answer questions. How did she run? She ran quickly. Adverbs also answer when, where, and to what extent:

• She ran yesterday.
• She ran backwards.
• She ran eternally.

There are other ways to spot an adverb. They often have an -ly suffix attached to a word that originally was a noun (quickly). However,  just because a word ends with -ly does not mean it’s an adverb or that it is a derivative of a noun. Here’s a bit of trivia: the -ly suffix is related to the word like. How did she run? She ran passionately. She ran like passion.

Another suffix we often see attached to adverbs is -wise. She ran clockwise around the track. As with -ly, the -wise ending does not guarantee that a word is an adverb, but it can be a good indicator.

Gerunds

Gerunds are verbs acting as nouns, and they end in -ing. In the following sentence, the word “running,” which one would expect to be a verb, functions as a noun:

Running is her favorite activity.

Gerunds acting as adverbs are relatively rare but they do occur, especially with expressions of profanity: She was effing running!

Comparative Adverbs

Ever wonder about words that help us make comparisons?

• She runs more (or less) than I do.
• Who runs the most (or the least)?
• She runs more quickly than I do.

These too are adverbs. Other comparative adverbs are created by adding suffixes, such as -er (She’s a faster runner) or -est (She’s the fastest runner).

Do you have any insights to add about adverbs? Do you have any questions about adverbs or any other parts of speech? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Parts of Speech: Verbs

Verbs are action words, one of the eight parts of speech. They are also one of the two essential components in forming a complete sentence.

In language, verbs are the most active of all the parts of speech. A well chosen verb can communicate action through imagery. For example, “She struts” says a lot more than “She walks.”

Verbs are also flexible. Add the -ing suffix to a verb to make a noun (He revised his own writing). Verbs can also function as adjectives (We have a running dialog). Basically, you can have a lot of fun with verbs, tweaking them to suit your own writerly purposes. But first you have to understand what they are and what role they fulfill.

Verbs Defined

As previously stated, a verb is one of the parts of speech and it’s an action word. The types of action that are represented by verbs are as follows:

Action: walk, run, dance, write, think, talk

Occurrence: shimmer, breakdown

State of Being: sit, sleep, be

It’s not necessary to classify verbs based on action, occurrence, and state of being. These are just examples so you can better identify verbs. Some people might say there is no action in “I am.” However, am (a form of the verb “to be”) is most definitely an action — it’s the action of being (from the verb to be).

Sentence Diagramming and Parts of Speech

If you’ve ever attempted sentence diagramming, you probably started out by learning to identify nouns and verbs. For a sentence to be complete, it must contain one of each of these two parts of speech. In sentence diagramming, the noun is the subject, and the verb is the predicate.

I write.

In the sentence “I write,” the noun/subject is “I.” The verb/predicate is “write.” This is basic grammar and the most elementary sentence structure possible. It’s a good thing for a writer to know.

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

In a sentence, the verb is connected to one or more nouns. At the very least, there is a noun performing the action of the verb (I eat) or receiving the action (The cookies were eaten). Two nouns can be impacted by the same verb (I eat cookies). The number of nouns that a verb affects in a sentence is referred to as the verb’s valence or valency.

Intransitive verbs have valency 1. In other words, the verb is only tied to the sentence’s subject (I eat). I is the subject and eat is the predicate. In this sentence, eat is an intransitive verb.

Transitive verbs have valency 2. The verb is tied to two words in the sentence – the subject and the object (I eat cookies). I is the subject, eat is the predicate, and the word cookies is the direct object. In this sentence, eat is a transitive verb.

All verbs must have valency. There is no such thing as a verb with zero valency. In order for there to be an action, that action has be performed or received by somebody or something. In other words, verbs need nouns in order to exist. Even if the noun isn’t directly stated (Run!), it is implied (You run!).

Verbal Nouns

Gerunds

If you add -ing to a verb and use it as a noun, you’re using a gerund:

Reading books is fun.

In the sentence above, reading (normally a verb) is used as a noun. The verb in the sentence is “is.”

Infinitives

The infinitive form of a verb is its raw form. The classic example of an infinitive is “to be.” Other infinitives include to see, to run, to dance, etc.

Like gerunds, infinitives can function as nouns.

Running is like jogging.

To err is human.

In the example sentences above, the underlined verbs (gerunds in the first sentence, infinitive in the second) are functioning as nouns or more specifically, as verbal nouns.

Agreement

In sentences, verbs must be in agreement with the words they impact. There are several types of verb agreement, including tense and number agreement. Other languages (such as Spanish and French) also mandate gender agreement.

What does verb agreement mean to a writer? Well, your verbs have to match up to your nouns. When it comes to agreement, English writers and speakers are lucky because we don’t have nearly as many agreements to consider as some other languages have.

Tense

Tense can be a challenge for people who are new to speaking or writing English (and for English natives learning any other language). Verb tense agreement warrants its own, lengthy article, so we’ll keep it simple here and just demonstrate the absolute basics.

If something happens in the past, the verb has to be in past tense. You cannot say “She was writes” or “He is danced” (although these phrases might fit nicely in a poem). What you can say is “She was writing” or “She wrote.” You can say “He is dancing” or “He dances.”

It’s important to learn tense and understand how to put verbs into past tense because much writing is done in past tense. Stories – entire novels – are often written in past tense and it’s not at all uncommon for past and present tense to both appear in a single work.

Most native English speakers naturally grasp tense, which is why we won’t get into a lengthy discussion about it here. Mismatched verb tenses can be a giveaway of folks for whom English is a second language. It’s just one of those mistakes natives rarely make. However, as can be seen in the poetic examples above, mixing up tense can produce some endearing phrases, which may be used in some types of writing, such as poetry. However, erroneous tense agreement in a formal paper or business communication is never a good idea.

Third Person, Singular, Present

The only other strict agreement in English is the third person, singular, present tense of a verb, which takes an -s. That’s a mouthful, so here’s an example:

I run.

You run.

He/she runs.

They run.

We run.

For the record, what we’ve just done here is we conjugated the verb “to run.” Verb conjugation is not much fun in English. As you can see, “run” doesn’t get conjugated all that much, the only exception is when it’s attached to “he” or “she,” in which case it takes an -s. Also for the record, conjugating verbs in French or Spanish is far more exciting.

Are there any grammar issues that you’re struggling with? Parts of speech you don’t quite understand? Got questions about verbs? Participles? Types of verbs? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Parts of Speech: Adjectives

Understanding the different parts of speech is essential for writers who want to craft prose intelligibly.

A basic understanding of language and mastery of grammar helps writers understand the craft from a mechanical standpoint, and can result in superior writing abilities.

Parts of speech make up the fundamental building blocks of language. Do you know an adverb from an adjective? A conjunction from an interjection?

If you’re a writer, you should.

In a post titled “Parts of Speech,” we identified adjectives as follows:

Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. Often, adjectives are descriptive as in comfortable or red. Traditionally, adjectives included determiners, words that indicate definiteness as in articles a vs. the, or quantity as in one, some, or many. Linguists are increasingly separating determiners as unique parts of speech.

This definition only scratches the surface.

Interesting Facts About Adjectives

Did you know that not all languages have adjectives? Most do, though. And those that don’t use alternative parts of speech (such as verbs) to modify nouns and pronouns, thereby fulfilling the same role that adjectives play in English.

Also, words that are adjectives in one language may not be adjectives in another language. According to Wikipedia: “English uses “to be hungry” (hungry being an adjective), French uses “avoir faim” (literally “to have hunger”)…”

Adjectives lend themselves particularly well to derivation, which is the linguistic alteration of a word by adding a suffix (such as -ness, -ise, -al). Add -ize to the adjective glamor and you get glamorize.

Adjectives vs. Determiners: Separate Parts of Speech?

Determiners are a subclass of adjectives, which modify nouns by limiting their meaning. Determiners may precede descriptive adjectives.

Articles (a, an, the) are determiners as are words such as some, each, many, and few (to name a few). Other determiners are demonstratives, possessive determiners, quantifiers, and cardinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.). Many determiners are listed as pronouns, such as your or their.

Linguists increasingly regard determiners and adjectives as two separate and distinct parts of speech. However, that is not usually reflected in grammar references material. For example, most dictionaries still classify determiners as adjectives.

Types of Adjectives

There are several types of adjectives. Here’s a quick look at a few of them.

• Attributive adjectives – normally precede the nouns that they modify and are considered part of the noun phrase.
  
• Predicative adjectives – are linked to the nouns they modify, usually with a predicate (e.g. “the car is fast” rather than “the fast car”).
  
• Absolute adjectives – modify either the subject of a sentence or a nearby noun, and are best demonstrated by example: “The car, fast and sleek, sped through the intersection.”
  
• Substantive adjectives – are still modifiers, but used as freestanding nouns. Example: “There are two cars, a fast one and a red one. I’ll take the fast one, you take the red.”
  

Each of these types of adjectives warrant an entire study. This is just a brief overview so you understand how diverse the part of speech can be.

Adjectival Phrases

Most parts of speech team up with other words in a sentence to form phrases, and adjectives are no exception. In an adjectival phrase, the ajective is at the head. A single adjective in a sentence constitutes an adjectival phrase.

More often, adjectives that are modified by other adjectves or by adverbs make up an adjectival phrase (such as glaceing very in front of any adjective). More than one adverb or complement can be used to modify an adjective within an adjectival phrase.

Modifiers and Writing

Modifiers are essential to writers. They are the words that help us describe characters and scenes, but they are not meant to be crutches. They should be used conservatively for the greatest impact. Consider the following two sentences:

She quickly ran to the other side of the field.

She sprinted to the other side of the field.

Which of these sentences creates a more distinct image in your mind?

Highly descriptive verbs and nouns will always carry more impact that flat verbs and nouns that are modified with fancy adverbs and adjectives. Keep this in mind with your own writing, and try not to lean on modifiers as a crutch to enhance your writing.

Do you have anything to add? Do you have any questions about adjectives any other parts of speech? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Parts of Speech: Nouns

To be a decent writer, one must be familiar with the building blocks of language. The most fundamental of those building blocks are the parts of speech.

Nouns are just one of the eight parts of speech in the English language.

Etymology

The word “noun” comes from the Latin word nomen, which means “name,” and this is fitting, since the main purpose of nouns is to name things.

Definition of Noun

The formal and traditional grammatical definition of noun as a part of speech in the English language may vary from definitions in other languages. Noun is commonly defined as a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea.

However, this definition may be limited in scope.

According to Wikipedia:

Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of object in the world they refer to or signify. Part of the conundrum is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns (“thing,” “phenomenon,” “event”) to define what nouns are.

For example, green is both a color (and therefore could be seen as a noun) and a descriptive word (which would be considered an adjective). In this sense, the person-place-thing definition of noun is lacking and fails to address the complexity of a noun as one of the parts of speech.

Many nouns double as other parts of speech. A good example of this is the word run. You can run (verb) or you can go for a run (noun).

Parts of Speech and Sub-classes

Many parts of speech can be separated into various sub-classes. There are a number of different sub-classes of nouns.

Proper and Common Nouns

Proper nouns identify unique or specific entities. Many proper nouns are the names of people or places. For this reason, an alternative term for proper nouns is proper names.

Examples of proper nouns include names of people (John, Jane, Fluffy, American) and places (Mexico, Paris, Antarctica, Jupiter). These differ from common nouns that simply refer to people in general (person, people, individual, group) and places in general (country, city, continent, planet).

In most sentences, a common noun requires an article or limiting modifier:

• I see a person.
• This is for the people
• That individual is writing.
• Two groups are reading.

Conversely, proper nouns don’t normally take articles and limiting modifiers.

• I’ve been to Mexico.
• Are you going to Paris?
• Where is Antarctica?
• Can you see Jupiter in the sky?

Proper nouns may also be used to refer to the names of important items, such as the U.S. Constitution.

Proper nouns are almost always capitalized in English.

The Internet is often capitalized because it is seen as a specific place or location. However, capitalization of Internet is a style, not a grammar, issue.

Finally, some proper nouns are homophones with common nouns. For example, God (capitalized) refers to a specific deity whereas god (not capitalized) would indicate some or any deity.

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Some nouns can be pluralized and others cannot. Those nouns that can be counted are countable nouns. The ones that can’t be counted are uncountable nouns.

Countable nouns can also be connected with quantifiers that indicate quantity.

• There is one person.
• I have five apples.
• He ate some bananas.

Uncountable nouns are also called mass nouns or non-count nouns. They never take plural form and cannot be connected to quantifiers that indicate quantity. Examples of uncountable nouns include the following:

• Love (as emotion or feeling)
• Music
• Advice
• Luggage
• Electricity

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are easy to identify because they refer to groups (thus, collective). The following are examples of collective nouns note that they include pluralized, countable nouns):

• Gaggle (of geese)
• Colony
• Board (of Directors)
• Cars

It’s important in writing that there is agreement between a collective noun and any connected predicates.

Ex: The colony traveled with each other.

In the sentence above, colony is a collective noun so the predicate must take a plural subject (each other). You cannot say “The director talked to each other” because “director” is not collective but “each other” is.

Concrete and Abstract Nouns

Concrete and abstract nouns are talked about frequently. To put it simply, concrete nouns have physical bodies. We can interact with them with at least one of our senses (see, hear, taste, smell, touch).

On the other hand, abstract nouns identify things that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch. Examples of abstract nouns include feelings and ideals – love, hate, freedom.

Differentiating between concrete and abstract nouns is harder than it sounds. For example, is art concrete or abstract? Does it depend on how it’s used in context?

Many abstract nouns end with suffixes such as -ness, -ity, and -tion. In some cases, these suffixes can be added to concrete nouns to form abstract nouns.

Learning Parts of Speech

It can take time learn all the parts of speech, especially when, like nouns, they have so many sub-classes, which should also be learned. However, developing an understanding of the language from a technical perspective will help you become a better writer because you’ll have a more thorough knowledge of the tools at your disposal and you’ll better understand how to use them.

Parts of Speech

Mastering language can be a very technical process. Never mind the artistic skill that goes into being a good writer — understanding things like parts of speech, sentence diagramming, and other grammatical terms are paramount for writers who want not only to produce concise text, but who want to be able to communicate effectively with other writers and editors about content.

Parts of speech explain how words are used in context. Each word in the English language can be categorized into one of the eight parts of speech. According to Wikipedia:

Parts of speech: In grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question.

However, many words fit into more than one category, depending on how the word is used. For example: dance can be used as a noun or as a verb:

Noun: I am going to the dance.

Verb: I dance every day.

Nouns and verbs are the most common parts of speech, but there are several more. Here’s a complete list, including definitions:

Eight Parts of Speech

Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. Often, adjectives are descriptive as in comfortable or red. Traditionally, adjectives included determiners, words that indicate definiteness as in articles a vs. the, or quantity as in one, some, or many. Linguists are increasingly separating determiners as unique parts of speech.

Adverb: Adverbs are like adjectives in that they are modifiers, but they modify any other type of word or phrase except for nouns. For instance, they modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, etc. Examples include quickly, and dark (as in dark red where the adverb dark modifies the adjective red).

Conjunction: A small group of words that form connections between words, phrases, or clauses. The most common are and, or, but, and yet. Others include because and however.

Interjection: According to dictionary.com: any member of a class of words expressing emotion, distinguished in most languages by their use in grammatical isolation, as Hey! Oh! Ouch! Ugh!

Noun: Often taught as person (girl), place (island), or thing (car), a noun is a word that can function as the subject or object of a sentence, either independently or as part of a phrase.

Preposition: A preposition is used to introduce a prepositional phrase. Normally, a preposition is found before a noun or pronoun, and often indicates placement. Common prepositions include to, in, at, over, under, by, since.

Pronoun: A pronoun is a word used to substitute another word. Common pronouns include you, they, we, he, she, and it.

Verb: Indicates action (walk), including occurrences (begin), states of being, or relations between things (button activates computer).

Now that you know all the parts of speech, the next step would be to identify them in sentences, which would take us into sentence diagramming. That’s beyond the scope of this particular article, but it’s something you should try on your own. Take a look at a few sentences and try labeling different words by identifying which parts of speech they belong to. With a little practice, you’ll be able to name the parts of speech in any sentence with ease.