Review of the word class: Parts of Speech- Noun, Pronoun, Verb and Adjective. Spelling; Doubling of Consonants 

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In today’s class, we will be talking about a review of word class: parts of speech, spelling,etc.. Enjoy the class!

Review of the word class: Parts of Speech- Noun, Pronoun, Verb and Adjective. Spelling.

Doubling of Consonants.

 

Review of word-class: Parts of speech

• Noun:

A noun is a naming word. It is the name of a person, animal, place, thing or an 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, Fayemi

Names of places: Beijing, Meiran, Atan Ota, London, Sweden, Canada

Names of things: table, chair, house, laptop, 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 noun

1. Most nouns form their plurals with ending – ‘s’ or –‘es’: girl – girls, box – boxes, church – churches
2. Nouns are often used with articles, demonstratives and adjectives, e.g a cup, an hour, a church, that house, black girl, some people.
3. Words that end with the following morphemes are usually often nouns-

• age– e,g damage, grainage, homage, image, stoppage.
• al– g arrival, 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– firmness, 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 noun

• Proper noun:

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 a 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 an 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

• Countable 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.

• Uncountable 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, jewellery, stationery, information, baggage, luggage, machinery, furniture, baggage, damage, -NOTE- These uncountable nouns must not attract –s- to form their plurals.

E.g.

1. All the students were instructed to take their baggage. (Not baggages)
2. We have got information/some pieces of information about them. (Not ‘an information’ or ‘informations’).
3. The rain wreaked 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 troop of soldiers

A band of thieves

A bevvy 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

These naturally go with “s” or ‘es”

1. goods
2. remains (a body of a dead person)
3. ashes
4. headquarters
5. quarters
6. congratulations
7. manners
8. surroundings
9. wages
10. arms
11. works – (Public works such as road construction)

• 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

1. Personal pronouns: Examples I, we, they, us etc.
2. Possessive pronouns: yours, his, hers, theirs, its, yours etc.
3. Demonstrative pronouns: this that these those.
4. Interrogative pronouns: who which, whom, whose, etc.
5. Reflexive pronouns: myself, themselves, yourselves/yourself, ourselves, oneself etc.
6. Reciprocal pronouns: each other and one another.
7. Relative pronoun: which, whom, whose, who, that etc.
8. 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 a 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

1. Adjectives of Colour: red, green, black – a red shirt, a green basket
2. Adjectives of Size – e.g. big, small, long
3. Adjectives of Age – old young
4. Adjectives of Shape – rectangular, circular, round, spherical
5. Adjectives of Origin – Nigerian, Ghanaian, Canadian
6. Adjectives of Number– one, two, three, twenty
7. Demonstrative Adjectives – this, these, that, those
8. Possessive Adjectives – your, my, her, their
9. 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 verb

• Lexical Verb: This type of verb expresses action. It can stand on its own without depending on other types of verb. Another name for lexical verb is the ‘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 as 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 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.

E.g.

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 the object. E.g. He killed a snake.[ a snake is the direct object of the verb killed].
• Intransitive Verb: This type of verb does not require an object. E.g. She died, They cooked, We prayed.

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:

1. big –bigger
2. bat –batting
3. drop –dropped
4. drum –drummer

• When the vowel is doubled (o,a) , do not double the consonant.

Examples:

1. boat – boating
2. boil – boiled
3. cheap –cheapest
4. 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:

1. admit –admittance
2. begin –beginning
3. forget –forgetting
4. 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:

1. enter – entering
2. happen –happened
3. inhabit – inhabitant
4. refer – reference

Note: A final “p” is doubled

Examples:

1. Handicap –Handicapped
2. Kidnap –kidnapped
3. Worship – Worshipped

Exception: Develop – Developed

• In words ending with “c” add “k” before the suffix

Examples:

1. frolic  – frolicked
2. mimic – mimicked
3. panic – panicky

Self-evaluation:

Write five words where consonants are doubled.

Reading assignment

Read page 273 of Effective English.

General self-evaluation

Give the correct spelling for the following words: libary, envinronment, milenium, writting, maneuver, continious, optamologist, neccessary, duely.

Weekend assignment

1. What are monophthongs?
2. State at least four types of essay and define them.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about Reading Skills; Word Meanings in Context Structure: Introduction to Phrasal Verbs; More on Parts of Speech- Adverb, Conjunction and Preposition. Vocabulary Development: Words Associated with Libraries.  We hope you enjoyed the class.

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