网站首页  词典首页

请输入您要查询的词汇:

 

词汇 grammar_british-grammar_word-classes-and-phrase-classes
释义

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

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


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)


See also:


Prepositions


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.


See also:


Pronouns


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.


See also:


Determiners (the, my, some, this)


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.


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 kitchen has got a hole in it.

Adverb phrase (underlined)

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

Prepositional phrase (underlined)

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


See also:


Noun phrases


Verb phrases


Adjective phrases


Adverb phrases


Prepositional phrases



随便看

 

反思网英语在线翻译词典收录了377474条英语词汇在线翻译词条,基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的中英文双语翻译及用法,是英语学习的有利工具。

 

Copyright © 2005-2024 fscai.com All Rights Reserved 更新时间:2025/2/2 18:40:45