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    Dwi Surya Nugraha
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    The document discusses the different word classes in English including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and other classes such as prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. It provides examples for each class and notes that many words can belong to more than one class. It also introduces phrase classes and how the different word classes can form the basis of phrases by operating as the phrase head, such as a noun operating as the head of a noun phrase.

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    Word classes and phrase classes

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    The document discusses the different word classes in English including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and other classes such as prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. It provides examples for each class and notes that many words can belong to more than one class. It also introduces phrase classes and how the different word classes can form the basis of phrases by operating as the phrase head, such as a noun operating as the head of a noun phrase.

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    619 views3 pages

    Word Classes and Phrase Classes

    Uploaded by

    Dwi Surya Nugraha
    The document discusses the different word classes in English including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and other classes such as prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. It provides examples for each class and notes that many words can belong to more than one class. It also introduces phrase classes and how the different word classes can form the basis of phrases by operating as the phrase head, such as a noun operating as the head of a noun phrase.

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    of 3

    Word classes and phrase classes

    Major word classes


    English has four major word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They have many
    thousands of members, and new nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are often created.
    Nouns are the most common type of word, followed by verbs. Adjectives are less common
    and adverbs are even less common.

    Many words belong to more than one word class. For example, book can be used as a noun or
    as a verb; fast can be used as an adjective or an adverb:

    It’s an interesting book. (noun)

    We ought to book a holiday soon. (verb)

    He loves fast cars. (adjective)

    Don’t drive so fast! (adverb)

    Typical word-class suffixes

    A suffix can often, but not always, tell us if a word is a noun, verb, adjective or adverb:

    nouns verbs adjectives adverbs


    station soften drinkable carefully

    government identify Japanese easily

    cruelty industrialise useless sadly

    A good learner’s dictionary will tell you what class or classes a word belongs to.

    Other word classes


    The other word classes include prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions and
    interjections.

    Prepositions

    Prepositions describe the relationship between words from the major word classes. They
    include words such as at, in, on, across, behind, for:

    We went to the top of the mountain. (to describes the relationship between went and top; of
    describes the relationship between top and mountain)

    Are you ready for lunch yet? (for describes the relationship between ready and lunch)
    Pronouns

    Pronouns are words which substitute for noun phrases, so that we do not need to say the
    whole noun phrase or repeat it unnecessarily. Pronouns include words such as you, it, we,
    mine, ours, theirs, someone, anyone, one, this, those:

    That’s Gerry in the photo. He lives in Barcelona.

    This jacket’s mine. That must be Linda’s.

    Determiners

    Determiners come before nouns. They show what type of reference the noun is making. They
    include words such as a/an, the, my, his, some, this, both:

    Have you got a ruler I can borrow?

    I need some paper for my printer.

    This phone isn’t easy to use.

    Conjunctions

    Conjunctions show a link between one word, phrase or clause and another word, phrase or
    clause. They include and, but, when, if, because:

    Joe and Dan are brothers.

    It was okay, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a restaurant.

    We’ll ring you when we get to London.

    Interjections

    Interjections are mostly exclamation words (e.g. gosh! wow! oh!), which show people’s
    reactions to events and situations:

    A: I’m giving up my job.

    B: Oh. Yippee! I don’t have to go to work tomorrow!

    Gosh! What an awful smell!

    Phrase classes
    The different word classes can form the basis of phrases. When they do this, they operate as
    the head of the phrase. So, a noun operates as the head of a noun phrase, a verb as the head of
    a verb phrase, and so on. Heads of phrases (H) can have words before them (e.g. determiners
    (det), adjectives (adj), adverbs (adv)) or after them (e.g. postmodifiers (pm) or complements
    (c)):

    Noun phrase (underlined)

    [DET]That [ADJ] [H]old box [PM (clause)]you left in the kitchen has got a hole in it.

    Adverb phrase (underlined)

    It all happened [ADJ]very [H]suddenly.

    Prepositional phrase (underlined)

    [H]The President [C]of the United States arrives tomorrow.

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