English Grammar 2 – Word Classes WORD CLASSES
Lexical words (content words) Fu F n u c n t c i t o i n o n w o w r o d r s d
(Mainly convey the meaning / content)
(Mainly show the relationships of language units) Singular: Pronouns Common nouns Countable -
Personal: I, you, he, she,… me, him, her, us, Plural: them,… -
Reflexive: myself, yourself, themselves, …
Uncountable: always singular Noun -
Possessive: mine, yours, hers, his, its, theirs, s ours
Proper nouns: names -
Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
(without nouns after them): E.g.: I like this. Who’s that? -
Indefinite: someone, something, anybody, anything .... Auxiliary verbs Lexical verbs
 be, have, do: NOT ALWAYS AUXILIARY
What are you doing? I have been here for an hour.
I don’t understand the exercise.
 modal verbs: can, could, would, should, may, might, 1
English Grammar 2 – Word Classes must ....
Adjectives: often go with nouns
Determiners: always go before nouns
- attributive: adj + noun: a nice bag, an expensive car -
Articles: a, an, the, zero article
- predicative: noun + be / seem/ look ...+ adj: This bag is nice. -
Possessive determiners: my, your, his, etc. -
Quantifiers: all, both, each, every, some, any, (a) few, (a)
little, much, many, enough, either, neither, no -
Numerals: one, two, first, second, etc -
Demonstrative determiners: this, that, these, those (with
nouns after them): this book, that person
Adverbs: often go with adjectives or verbs
Prepositions: about, after, around, at, by, down, for, from, into, -
She sings beautifully.
like, of, off, on, since, to, towards, with, without, because of, instead -
It was an extremely bad match.
of, as for, according to, etc.
Notes: Some words may belong to more than one word class!
Adverbial particles (go with verbs): look up, sit down, turn
>>> In order to identify the word class, we need to see the word around in context. E.g.:
Coordinators (are used to link equal language units): -
I’ve never seen that before. >>> adverb
and, but, or, not only … but also, either … or…, both … and… 2
English Grammar 2 – Word Classes -
He was there before her. >>> preposition
Subordinators (are used to introduce dependent clauses): -
They’d started before I arrived. >>> subordinator
because, if, since, that, etc. 3