Review of Word Class- Parts of Speech
Noun– A noun is a naming word. It is a name of a person, animal, place, thing or and idea. Nouns also cover names like those of institutions, months and days, and abstract ideas. Below are examples of nouns:
Names of people: Uche, Peterson, Adebisi, Falase
Names of places: Beijing, Meiran, Atan Ota, London, Sweden, Canada
Names of things: table, chair, house, lap top, radio etc
Names of Institutions: family, tribe, Christianity, Islam, university etc
Names of months and days: January, February, December, Sunday, Thursday, Friday.
Names of Abstract ideas: beauty, knowledge, emotion, hope, courage, wisdom, empathy etc.
FEATURES OF NOUNS
- Most nouns form their plurals with ending – ‘s’ or –‘es’: girl – girls, box – boxes, church – churches
- Nouns are often used with articles, demonstratives and adjectives, e.g a cup, an hour , a church, that house, black girl, some people.
- Words that end with the following morphemes are usually often nouns-
- age– e,g damage, grainage, homage, image, stoppage.
- al– g arrival, cabbinal, dismissal, mammal, refusal.
- tion– e.g action,option, association, imagination, admonition, composition.
- er- e,g adviser, marker, player, teacher, worker
- ery– machinery, slavery, stationery,
- titude– e.g servitude, solitude
- hood– boyhood, girlhood, childhood, womanhood
- like– childlike,
- ist– bicyclist, evangelist, motorist, socialist
- ity- ability brevity equity, impunity
- ment– arrangement, comment, establishment, government
- ness– firmess, fairness, laziness,
- cy– proficiency, ascendancy, profligacy, legacy, papacy
- ocracy– democracy, aristocracy, autocracy
- ism– Zionism, Feudalism, Nazism, Communism
- ship– scholarship, fellowship, followership, membership
- ster– gangster, trickster, youngster.
Types of Nouns
Proper Nouns: These name a SPECIFIC person, place or thing. Note that the first letter of every proper noun must be written in capital letter regardless of its position in a sentence. E.g We will travel to Atan-Ota on Monday in the month of August. Proper nouns in the sentence above are: Atan-Ota, Monday and August.
Examples of proper nouns are:
Names of persons– Ade, Obi, Chike,
Names of places/countries– Ottawa in Canada, Oslo-Norway, Oshodi, Ado-Ekiti, Ibadan,
Days of the week and months of the years-January, December, Monday, Friday.
Note: The first letter of the proper noun must be written in capital letter regardless of its position in a sentence.
Common Noun: This is the opposite of concrete noun. It is used to name things/person/places which are of general kinds. E.g boy, man, lady, church, mosque, boxes, table, knives.
Concrete Noun: This type of noun can be seen and touched. It is the opposite of abstract noun. Examples of concrete nouns are: books, tables, bag etc.
Abstract Nouns: These only exist in names. They can neither be seen nor touched. These can only be felt. E.g hatred, hunger, pains, intelligence, etc
Count nouns: These are nouns that can be counted. They usually have singular and plural forms, E.g one man- five men, one orange-several oranges, a book-five books.
Non count or mass nouns: These cannot be counted, and they therefore have only singular form. Sand , soap, rice, homework, water. Although, they may be counted when converted to units of measurement. E,g, three bags of rice, a bar of soap, some loaves of bread,
OTHER types of uncountable nouns are: equipment, jewelry, stationery, information, baggage, luggage, machinery, furniture, baggage, damage, -NOTE- These uncountable nouns must not attract –s- to form their plurals.
E.g All the students were instructed to take their baggage. Not baggages
We have got information/some pieces of information about them. Not ‘an information’ or ‘informations’.
The rain wrecked serious damage to the building. Not ‘damages’. Note –The word damages means a fine imposed on someone. E,g He was ordered by the court of law to pay damages for the damage to his car.
Collective nouns: These name a group of people or things. E.g
A troupe of dancers
A troup of soldiers
A band of thieves
A bevy of ladies
A class of students.
Possessive noun/ genitive: These indicate possession. E.g Dr Oyeyemi’s car. Mrs. Alalade’s dress. Mr Jayeola’s house, Adebisi’s radio, The Chief Justice’s pen etc.
NUMBER: There are two numbers in English- singular and plural. This singular relates to one, while the plural relates to more than one. Countable nouns have both singular and plural forms, uncountable nouns have only the singular form.
REGULAR PLURALS– s and es
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| School | schools |
| Mat | mats |
| House | houses |
| Box | boxes |
| Bonus | bonuses |
IRREGULAR PLURAL
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| man | men |
| ox | oxen |
| goose | geese |
| crisis | crises |
| forum | fora |
| formula | formulae |
| symposium | symposia |
| foot | feet |
| parenthesis | parenthesis |
| medium | media |
| index | indices/indexes |
| larva | larvae |
| louse | lice |
| mouse | mice |
| curriculum | curricula |
| axis | axes |
| oasis | oases |
PLURALS IN COMPOUND NOUNS
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| Head of state | heads of states |
| head of department | heads of departments |
| commander in chief | commanders in chief |
| woman doctor | women doctors |
| secretary general | secretaries general |
| woman occupant | women occupants |
| passer-by | passers-by |
| mother-in-law | mothers-in-law |
| grown-up | grown-ups |
| major general | major generals |
| church-goer | church-goers |
| step-son | step-sons |
ZERO PLURALS
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| Gross | gross |
| Deer | deer |
| Sheep | sheep |
| Fish | fish or fishes |
| Series | series |
| Trout | trout |
| Salmon | salmon |
| Person | persons or people |
OTHERS
machinery
information
equipment
advice
jewelry
stationery
furniture
baggage
luggage
NOTE: THESE ARE IN PLURAL FORMS
aircraft(pl) – aircraft
cattle(pl) – cattle
THESE NATURALLY ‘GO’ WITH ‘S’ OR ‘ES’
goods
remains (a body of a dead person)
ashes
headquarters
quarters
congratulations
manners
surroundings
wages
arms
works – (Public works such as road construction)
MORE ON REVIEW OF PARTS OF SPEECH
PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES
Pronouns- Pronouns are words which are used to replace nouns in a sentence. They are mostly used in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of nouns in a sentence. Both nouns and pronouns are used interchangeably in a sentence, therefore they both perform the same function. Examples are: he, they, we etc.
TYPES OF PRONOUNS
Personal pronouns: Examples I, we, they , us etc.
Possessive pronouns: yours, his, hers, theirs, its, yours etc.
Demonstrative pronouns: this that these those.
Interrogative pronouns: who which, whom, whose, etc.
Reflexive pronouns: myself, themselves, yourselves/yourself, ourselves, oneself etc.
Reciprocal pronouns: each other and one another.
Relative pronoun: which, whom, whose, who, that etc.
Indefinite pronouns: someone, somebody, anything, anyone, everything, everyone, nobody, nothing etc.
ADJECTIVES
These are words that describe or qualify nouns. Adjectives are said to perform attributive functions when they are placed before noun. E.g, A red shirt, a gentle lady.
However, an adjective performs a predicative function if it is placed after a link verb. E.g the shirt is red, the lady is gentle.
Kind of Adjectives
Adjectives of Colour: red, green, black – a red shirt, a green basket
Adjectives of Size – e.g big , small, long
Adjectives of Age – old young
Adjectives of Shape – rectangular, circular, round, spherical
Adjectives of Origin – Nigerian, Ghanaian, Canadian
Adjectives of Number– one , two, three, twenty
Demonstrative Adjectives – this, these, that, those
Possessive Adjectives – your, my, her, their
Distributive Adjectives – each, some, every , any
FORMATION OF ADJECTIVES
– cal – grammatical, classical,
– ic – authentic historic, workaholic
– eous advantageous
– ious– melodious, odious, copious, superstitious
– uous – promiscuous, continuous, conspicuous
– ive – meditative, sedative, curative
– able – edible, curable, sensible, marketable
– al – illegal, regal, digital, rural, brutal
– ial – social, crucial, essential, commercial
VERB
A verb expresses action and a state of being. Examples of verbs are sing, dance, jump, is, are, am, etc.
TYPES OF VERBS
Lexical Verb: This type of verb expresses action. It can stand on its own without depending on other type of verb. Another name for lexical verb is ‘main verb’. Examples are: speak, pray, write etc.
Auxiliary verbs: There are two types of auxiliary verbs. Those that are not capable of independent existence, and those that can stand on their own while they express a state. Those that can stand on their own and function like main verbs are called PRIMARY AUXILIARY VERBS- E.g be, am, is , are, was, were, being, been. While those that can stand on their own are called MODAL AUXILIARY VERBS-E.g can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would. Others are ought to, dare, need.
Finite and Non-Finite Verbs
Finite verb agrees with the subject in terms of person, tense and number. E.g She works hard – Present tense. She worked hard- Past tense.
Olu speaks good English Language- Singular subject + singular verb
Olu and Bola speak good English Language- Plural subject + plural verb.
Non-Finite Verbs– They do not agree with the subject in terms of person, number and tense. They belong to the following group. Infinitive- ‘to work’, ‘to eat’, ‘to dance’. They usually have –ing- ending. E.g dancing, singing, praying, cooking, etc.
Transitive Verb: This type of verb receives object. E.g He killed a snake.[ a snake is the dirtect object of the verb killed].
Intransitive Verb: This type of verb does not require an object. E.g She died, They cooked, We prayed.
C: Spelling: Doubling of Consonants. Rules of Spelling
Words of one syllable with one vowel and a consonant at the end double the consonant before adding suffixes beginning with a vowel.
Examples:
big –bigger
bat –batting
drop –dropped
drum –drummer
When the vowel is doubled (o,a) ,do not double the consonant.
Examples:
boat – boating
boil – boiled
cheap –cheapest
sweet – sweeter
Exception: wool – woollen
Words of more than one syllable (ad/mit) –i-vowel, t-consonant
Double the final consonant when the accent is on the last syllable:
Examples:
admit –admittance
begin –beginning
forget –forgetting
occur –occurrence
Words of more than one syllable not accented on the last syllable.
Do not double the consonant if you add an ending that begins with a vowel
Examples
enter – entering
happen –happened
inhabit – inhabitant
refer – reference
Note – A final “p” is doubled
Examples:
Handicap –Handicapped
Kidnap –kidnapped
Worship – Worshipped
Exception : Develop – Developed
In words ending with “c” add “k” before the suffix
Examples:
frolic – frolicked
mimic – mimicked
panic – panicky
Evaluation
Write five words where consonants are doubled.
GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTION
Give the correct spelling for following words: libary, envinronment, milenium, writting, maneuver, continious, optamologist, neccessary, duely.
WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT
What are monophthongs?
State at least four types of essay and define them.
See also