PARTS OF SPEECH

Osei Yaw Akoto (PhD)

Department of English
KNUST, Ghana
Class policies
1. Use of nose mask
2. Reading assignments
3. Group and individual assignments: oral and written components
4. Participation in class
5. Asking questions: Freedom of speech
6. Responding to questions
7. Seating arrangement in class
8. Use of phones
9. Lateness
10. Absenteeism (resulting from sickness, etc.)
11. Lecture hall sanitation
 PARTS OF SPEECH/WORD CLASS
1. Noun 5. Preposition
2. Adjective 6. conjunction
3. Verb 7. pronoun
4. Adverb 8. interjection
9. Determiner
 CLASSIFICATION OF WORD CLASS

Major (open) Word Class Minor (closed) Word Class

1.Noun 1. Preposition
2.Adjective 2. Conjunction
3.Verb 3. Pronoun
4.Adverb 4. Interjection
5. Determiner
Student Activity
Identify the parts of speech of the underlined words
1. To see the lecturer, you must book an appointment.
2. Flying aeroplanes can be dangerous.
3. I am satisfied with the attitude of the students towards studies.
4. ‘Come’ is a verb.
 HOW TO IDENTIFY WORD CLASS

1.Notional principle (based on the idea that

comes to mind when the word is
mentioned/seen)
2.Morphological/formal principle (based on
the form/structure of the word)
3.Functional principle (based on the role
words played in a sentence)
 STUDENT ACTIVITY 1

Describe the process of

separating salt from
sand. 10 minutes
 STUDENT ACTIVITY
1.Count the number of words
2.Classify the words into their classes
(noun, verb, preposition, etc.)
Word Class Frequency Percentage
Noun
Verb
Adverb
Adjective
Pronoun
Conjunction
Preposition
Determiner
 STUDENTS ACTIVITY 2: Analyse Expert Writing
in Science
1.Count the number of words
2.Classify the words into their classes
(noun, verb, preposition, etc.)
 QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION

1.Why are some word classes not

used in academic writing?
2.Why are the percentages of
some word classes higher than
others?
NOTE
• Some parts of speech are considered more academic
than others.
• Some parts of speech are considered more formal
than others. This is normally informed by the
disciplinary norms. For instance, guidebooks report
that hard sciences such as Chemistry, Physics, Nursing,
Optometry, etc. avoid the use of personal pronouns,
which are also preferred by the soft sciences such as
Philosophy, Sociology, Economics, Linguistics, etc.
USAGE
NOUN
Capitalization
• A word can occur at one of the three places in a
sentence:
• Initial
• Medial
• Final
• Proper nouns are always capitalized irrespective
of where they occur in a sentence.
Subtypes of proper nouns
1. Personal names
2. Months
3. Days
4. Festivals
5. Countries
6. Continents
7. Place names
8. Lakes/rivers/mountains
9. Institutional names
10. Academic disciplines
 Nouns and determiners: Rules
1. Proper nouns do not require determiners (The Gambia???)
2. Every singular countable noun requires a determiner
1. My father and pastor has/have travelled.
2. My father and my pastor has/have travelled.
3. Some determiners (e.g. ‘a’, an) can select countable nouns
only.
4. Some determiners (e.g. ‘much’, ‘little’) can select non-
countable nouns only.
5. Some determiners can select both count and non-count
nouns.
Nouns and determiners: Categories of errors
1. Wrong usage
2. Redundant usage
3. Omission of determiner
Gender sensitive use of nouns
• Avoid using nouns in all contexts regardless of the gender
Examples
S/N Masculine Feminine Neuter

1. Chairman Chairwoman Chair/Chairperson

1. Spokesman Spokeswoman Spokesperson

1. Policeman Policewoman Police Officer

Pluralization: nouns must be appropriately
pluralized.
• Regular nouns form their plural counterparts by
adding ‘s’ (or its variants ‘ies’, ‘es’)
NB: Some so-called non-counts nouns in some
context can be justifiably pluralized: e.g. water-
waters, sand-sands, sugar-sugars, salt-salts
• Irregular nouns (see the next slide)
S/n Singular forms Plural forms
i. -us (e.g. alumnus, locus, nucleus… -I (e.g. alumni, loci, nuclei…
ii. -us(e.g. corpus, genus -ra(e.g. corpora, genera
iii. -a(e.g. alga, formula, antenna, vertebra, -ae(e.g. algae, formulae, antennae,
vertebrae
iv. -um(e.g. addendum, bacterium, curriculum, erratum, -a(e.g. addenda, bacteria, curricula, errata,
ovum) ova
v. -ex/-ix(e.g. appendix, codex, index, matrix -ices(e.g. appendices, codices, indices,
matrices
vi. -is(e.g. oasis, analysis, thesis -es(e.g. oases, analyses, theses
vii. -on(e.g. automaton, criterion, phenomenon -a(e.g. automata, criteria, phenomena
viii. -eau(e.g. bureau -eaux(e.g. bureaux
• Nominal adjectives
• Structure: The plus adjective
1. They are structurally singular but semantically plural.
e.g. The poor are all welcome in the house of God
2. Sometimes too depending on the context it may select a
singular verb.
e.g. Which of the students do you admire, the short or the
tall one? The short does not share (not do) my worldviews.
I admire the tall one.
•Some nouns are structurally plural but can
be used as singular or plural depending on
context. (e.g. news, economics,
mathematics, ethics)
•Inappropriate creation of words (e.g.
delayance; )
Functions of nouns
1. Subject: Professors are producers of knowledge.
2. Direct Object: The students made notes.
3. Indirect object: The lecturer awarded the students marks.
4. Subject Complement: Africa is a continent.
5. Object complement: We named the child Sika.
6. Adjectival complement: I am sure Ghana will win the game.
7. Prepositional complement: It depends on the role of the teachers.
8. Appositive: Dr. Afriyie, the cardiologist, is internationally respected.
 VERB
1. Errors: Tense shift
2. Functions of verbs
3. Tense harmony (e.g. He said that his name was …)
Tense

Tense indicates the time when an action

occurs.
Regular vs Irregular verbs
Irregular verbs form their past through
several ways:
Regular Verbs

•Regular verbs form their past and past

participle forms by adding ‘ed’ (or its
variants ‘d’, ‘ied’) to the base form.
Spelling Rules for Regular
1. To form the present tense when the infinitive or base form ends in –ch, -
ss or –x, -es is added rather than just –s, as in march/marches and
toss/tosses. When the base form ends in-y, the -y changes to ’I’ before
the –es is added, as in try/tries and cry/cries
2. To form the present participle when the infinitive or base form ends in –
e, the ‘e’ is removed from the infinitive or base form before adding –ing,
as manage/managing and engage/engaging. NB: Note that ageing can
also be spelt aging.
3. When a verb consists of one syllable and ends in a single consonant
which is preceded by a single vowel, you double the consonant when
adding –ed to form the past tense or past participle, or –ing to form
Regular verbs
Infinitive Present Past Continuous Perfective

To end End(s) Ended Ending Ended

 Irregular verbs
Infinitive Present Past Continuous Perfective
To see See(s) Saw Seeing Seen
Sequence of Tenses (Verb-verb Concord)
• Verbs in a sentence must be have a common tense.
• There should be uniformity in tense between or among
verbs in a sentence.
e.g. He told me that he would come. (Past –Past)
He tells me that he will come. (Present –Present)
I went; I saw; I conquered. (Past – Past)
I go; I see; I conquer. (Present-Present)
I will go; I will see; I will conquer. (Future – Future)
Exceptions to the Rule
1. In universal truth: e.g. Our Geography lecturer
said that Ghana is in Africa.
2. In definitions: We were told that Biology is the
study of living things.
3. In personal names: What did I say my name is?
The rule can only be applied when there is a
change of name.
4. Others (Student Assignment) Go and search for
other exceptions to the rule
Types of Verb
A. Transitive verbs: They accept objects.
1. Mono-transitive: They accept one object. (e.g. I bought a book.)
2. Di-transitive: They accept two objects (direct and indirect). (e.g. We sent
them money).
3. Complex transitive: They accept object and complement. (e.g. We call her
Miss Intelligence.
B. Intransitive verbs: They do not accept objects.

NB: Most verbs can be used transitively and intransitively depending on

the context of use.
Singular Verb vs Plural Verb
• There is an `s` (and its variants such as `es`, `ies`) called singular
marker.
• When it is added to a verb, it becomes singular. E.g. comes, goes,
eats, prays, teaches, tries…
• BUT when a verb is without the singualr marker `s`, it is considered
plural. E.g. Come, go, eat, pray, teach, try...
• We shall revisit this under subject-verb concord rule (i.e. Singular
subject: SINGULAR VERB, and Plural Subject: PLURAL VERB)
VOICE
Voice in verbs determines whether the subject of a
sentence performs or receives the action of the verb.
Types of Voice
There are two forms of voice in English: Active Voice
and Passive Voice.
 Active Voice

In a situation where the subject performs the action expressed

by the verb, that verb is said to be in the active voice.
Thus a verb is said to be in the active voice when its form shows
that the subject performs or does something or is the doer of
the action.
Examples of sentences with Active Voice
• Examples
i. Dzifa ate the food.
ii. The school authorities have sent the boarders home.
iii.Sometimes, parents send their children to school.
iv. The teacher commended the students.
v. John is washing the car.
 Passive Voice

A verb is said to be in the passive voice when its form signifies that
something is done to the subject.
That is, if a subject receives the action expressed by a verb, that verb is in
the Passive Voice.
The subject does not perform any action but rather it is acted upon.
The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive.
Passive Forms of the Active Forms

i. The food was eaten by Dzifa.

ii. The boarders have been sent home by the school
authorities.
iii.Sometimes, children are sent to school by their parents.
iv.The students were commended by the teacher.
v. The car is being washed by John.
Formation of the Passive

• The passive is formed by using the relevant form of the verb

“be” (am, is, are, was, were, being, been) or the verb “to
get” (get, getting, got) with the past participle of the verb.
• The tense of a passive verb is determined by the tense of the
auxiliary.
 Active Passive

1 Some animals eat meat. (Present Meat is eaten by some animals.

tense)
2 The girls ate all the food. (Past tense) All the food was eaten by the girls.

3 You are helping me. (Present I am being helped by you.

Continuous)
4 The boys will attend the meeting. The meeting will be attended by the boys.
(Future Tense)
5 Akos was driving a Mercedes. (Past A Mercedes was being driven by Akos.
Continuous)
• Note that when an active sentence is turned into a passive sentence,
the subject of the active sentence becomes an agent (not an object)
in the passive sentence.
• The agent is usually introduced by the preposition by as in the
following examples.
Active Passive
• Someone has stolen my phone. My phone has been stolen by
someone.
• Parliament will pass the bill. The bill will be passed by parliament.
• She is helping us. We are being helped by her.
• Only transitive verbs (verbs that take direct objects) can be changed into the
passive voice. This is because the subject of the active voice acts on the object
through the action expressed by the verb.
• Let us consider the examples below.
Active Passive
• Amma hates boys Boys are hated by Ama
• The young lady has written several poems Several poems have been
written by the young lady.
• Did you do this work? Was this work done by you?
• The underlined verbs in the active construction are transitive because they take
direct objects (the words in bold type). You can see that the direct objects
become the subject of the passive construction.
• In contrast, intransitive verbs (verbs without direct objects) cannot be
changed into the passive voice. Consider the following examples.
i. The story sounds incredible.
ii. I am very hungry.
iii.They will be here tomorrow.
iv.The children were swimming in the river.
• The sentences cannot be changed into the passive construction
because the verbs are intransitive.
• We cannot have, for example, * Sounds incredible the story
• What follows each of the verbs is a complement, not a direct object.
 AGENTLESS PASSIVE

Sometimes, when we are not interested in the agent, we drop it for the focus to be
on what has gone on rather than who/what the agent is or was.
This is known as agentless passive or short passive.
Let’s consider the following examples:
• My phone has been stolen.
• The bill will be passed tomorrow.
• We are being cheated.
• The road was constructed in 1990.
• The villagers were attacked at dawn.
• The match was telecast live.
Functions of the agentless/short passive
• It enables us to drop something that will be
obligatory in the active i.e. the subject of the
active.
• It enables speakers to distance themselves from
certain obligations and commitments.
Prepositional Passives
• In such constructions the subject of a passive may relate to an object
of a preposition rather than the verb.
• The preposition is usually stranded; no actual complement follows it,
but we can understand the complement as being retrieved from the
subject.
Examples
i a. The VC is looking into the case.
i b. The case is being looked into.
ii a. He took advantage of her.
ii b. She was taken advantage of.

iii a. Someone has tampered with the tape.

Iii b. The tape has been tampered with.
Get-passives
These are passives with get (instead of be which we have been
considering so far).
• The student got punished by the teacher.
• They didn’t get released until later.
• He got elected President again in 2020.
 Assignment
Rewrite each of the following sentences by changing the verb into the
passive voice.
1. The patient takes the medicine two times a day.
2. Your parents will find out the truth.
3. The girls were making too many calls.
4. An armed robber stole my mother’s jewellery.
5. We advised the youth to live chaste lives.
.
Change the following sentences which are in the passive voice to
active voice
1. The keys have been handed to the new tenant by the landlord.
2. The children will be taught how to swim at the programme.
3. A parcel was delivered at the S.T.C. bus terminal by my father.
4. The dog is sometimes frightened by a strange noise.
5. An appeal is being made by the staff of KNUST
ADJECTIVE USAGE
1. Gradable adjectives: positive, comparative and superlative
2. Rules on adjective sequence (Assignment)
3. Functions of adjectives
4. Adjectives used as nouns (nominal adjectives):
1. They are structurally singular
2. They always accept plural verbs (e.g. The righteous are always happy.)
 Comparison of Adjective

Simple Comparative Superlative

Long Longer Longest
Let’s Remind Ourselves….
•Language is…..
•Dynamic
•Contextual
•Rule-governed
Which of the following sentences contains
the correct order of adjectives?
a. I bought a small new yellow English dictionary.
b. I bought a yellow new small English dictionary.
c. I bought an English new small yellow
dictionary.
d. I bought an English yellow new small
dictionary.
Order of Adjectives Rule: NOSASCOMP
Errors on adjectives
1. Use of double comparative: (e.g. This one
is more better than the other one).
2. Use of double superlative (e.g. It was the
most happiest day in my life)
3. Use of comparative and positive forms
(e.g. I was more happy than he was).
ADVERB
1. Gradable adverbs???
2. Sequence of adverb
3. Placement of adverb
4. Function of adverbs
PREPOSITION
 Myths on Preposition Usage
1. Never end a sentence with preposition. There’s
nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a
preposition.
But avoid unnecessary use of preposition at the
end of a sentence as:
a. ‘Where was he at?
b. Where did you go to?
c. The boy will go later on.
 Conventions on Preposition Usage in Academic
Writing
1. Replace prepositional phrases with brief noun strings, adverbs, verbs, or possessives
The following sentence contains five prepositions, making the text wordy and choppy:
The number of colonies observed without delay after culture was a reflection of the
efficacy of the drug.
Several changes can be made to improve the sentence’s conciseness:
“number of colonies” → “colony number” (brief noun string, or an attributive noun plus
a noun)
“without delay” → “immediately” (adverb)
“was a reflection of” → “reflected” (verb)
“efficacy of the drug” → “drug’s efficacy” (possessive)
The revised sentence is thus as follows:
The colony number observed immediately after culture reflected the drug’s efficacy.
Conventions on Preposition Usage in Academic
Writing
2. Shorten or remove unnecessary prepositional
phrases
• Common examples of prepositional phrases that
can be abridged include “in order to,” which is
often shortened to “to,” and “with regard to,”
which can be replaced with “regarding” or
“concerning.”
 Conventions on Preposition Usage in Academic
Writing
• Replace passive voice with active voice
• Passive phrasing may also add unnecessary prepositions. For
example, if the above example were written passively, it would
read as follows:
• The efficacy of the drug was reflected by the number of
colonies observed without delay after culture. (passive)
• This sentence construction adds an unnecessary preposition
(“by”). Active voice would eliminate this extra preposition:
The number of colonies observed without delay after culture
reflected the efficacy of the drug. (active)
Errors on Preposition Use
1. Errors of Commission (Wrong Use)
a. Let us take a critical look of (?) some of the wanton
sleaze and corruptions the…government has
perpetrated on the good people of Ghana all this
while.
b. I disagree with (to) what she said.
c. senior, junior, superior, inferior etc., are followed
by to, and not than.
Choose the appropriate prepositions in the
sentences below.
1.The old person died……..malaria. (a. of
b. with c. from d. off)
2.The lecture didn’t come ………(a. on b.
off c. of d. through)
3.The student is allergic………pepper. (a.
to b. with c. in d. on)
Errors of Omission: The prepositions are
usually omitted.
1. Draw (up) the programme for the forthcoming
event.
2. Operate: The surgeon operates (upon/on) the
patient.
3. Deliver: My mother delivered (of) a baby.
4. Unheeded: Please note that the Board cannot be
held responsible if this advice goes unheeded (to).
(National Accreditation Board, Ghana, website,
30/11/2016)
 Redundant Use of Preposition
• The verbs below are non-prepositional verbs. Thus, they require no
prepositions; all the preposition indicated must be omitted.
• But when such verbs function as nouns (or their noun counterparts are used)
they require such prepositions.
(a) Contesting for
(b) Vote for (not for ‘humans’): We voted XXX for development and progress.
(c) Awaiting for
(d) Demand for
(e) Advocate for
(f) Emphasize on
(g) Highlight on
(h) Stress on
(i) Behove on
Redundant Use of Preposition
(a) Seek for
(b) Enter into (a room) but into covenant, agreement, contract.
(c) Investigate into
(d) Air out
(e) Voice out
(f) Comprise of (if comprise is used in an active form it accepts no
preposition but if in the passive, a preposition ‘of’ is required
(g) Discuss about
(h) Mention about