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,bookcan be used as a noun or as a verb;fastcan be used as an adjective or an adverb:
It’s an interestingbook.(noun)
We ought tobooka holiday soon.(verb)
He lovesfastcars.(adjective)
Don’t drive sofast!(adverb)
Typical word-class suffixes
A suffix can often, but not always, tell us if a word is a noun, verb, adjectiveor adverb:
nouns | verbs | adjectives | adverbs |
station government cruelty | soften identify industrialise | drinkable Japanese useless | carefully easily sadly |
A good learner’s dictionary will tell you what class or classes a word belongs to.
See also:
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Suffixes
Word formation
Other word classes
The other word classes include prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions and interjections.
Prepositions
Prepositionsdescribe the relationship between words from the major word classes. They include words such asat, in, on, across, behind, for:
We wenttothe topofthe mountain.(todescribes the relationship betweenwentandtop;ofdescribes the relationship betweentopandmountain)
Are you readyforlunch yet?(fordescribes the relationship betweenreadyandlunch)
See also:
Prepositions
Pronouns
Pronounsare 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 asyou, it, we, mine, ours, theirs, someone, anyone, one, this, those:
That’s Gerry in the photo.Helives in Barcelona.
This jacket’smine.Thatmust be Linda’s.
See also:
Pronouns
Determiners
Determinerscome before nouns. They show what type of reference the noun is making. They include words such asa/an, the, my, his, some, this, both:
Have you gotaruler I can borrow?
I needsomepaper formyprinter.
Thisphone isn’t easy to use.
See also:
Determiners (the, my,some,this)
Conjunctions
Conjunctionsshow a link between one word, phrase or clause and another word, phrase or clause. They includeand, but, when, if, because:
JoeandDan are brothers.
It was okay,butI wouldn’t recommend it as a restaurant.
We’ll ring youwhenwe get to London.
See also:
Conjunctions
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!
See also:
Interjections (ouch, hooray)
Discourse markers (so, right, okay)
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]oldbox[PM (clause)]you left in the kitchenhas got a hole in it.
Adverb phrase(underlined)
It all happened[ADJ]very[H]suddenly.
Prepositional phrase(underlined)
[H]The President[C]ofthe United Statesarrives tomorrow.
See also:
Noun phrases
Verb phrases
Adjective phrases
Adverb phrases
Prepositional phrases