Word and Phrases

Word and Phrases

In English there are eight word classes, it is also called "part of speech".

Verb : be, take, see, kick, write, etc.
Noun : car, dog, idea, Samarinda, sadness, time, etc.
Adjective : big, small, high, low, natural, etc.
Adverb : badly, often, seldom, soon, slowly, etc.
Determiner : every, a, my, the, this, etc.
Prepotition : at, by, with, to, etc.
Pronoun : her, him, myself, you, something, etc
Conjunction : and, but, if, because, etc.

However some words have more than one word class or part of speech, such as :

• ·         I promise I will not be late ( promise : verb )
• ·         I will not be late and that is a promise ( Promise : noun )
• ·         When did humans first land on the moon? ( Humans : noun )
• ·         We should defend our human rights ( Humans : adjective )
• ·         Look at that place ( That : determiner )
• ·         This is the book that I would read ( That : pronoun )
• ·         I know that it is true ( That : conjunction )

There are five kind of phrases :

Verb phrase : has an ordinary verb and can be one more
auxiliaries in front of the ordinary verb.
( Was, arrives, don't know, have been working, can't see, etc. ) 

Noun phrase : has a noun and can be a determiner or an
adjective in front of the noun.
( Some money, a good game, nice music, etc. )

Adjective phrase : usually just an adjective but there can also
be an adverb of degree in front of the adjectives.
( Great, very old, most ridiculous, etc. )

Adverb phrase : usually just an adverb but there can be
an adverb of degree in front of the adverb.
( Very carefully, sometimes, etc. )

Prepositional phrase : consist of preposition and noun phrase.
( On the way, by sunday, for a long time, etc. )