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Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Parts of Speech

Part of speech

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

/ˌpɑːt əv ˈspiːtʃ/nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, part of speech means: One of the classes into which words are grouped by their grammatical behaviour, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction.

In Turkish: sözcük türü, kelime türü

How it is used

Common in teaching and dictionaries (Which part of speech is 'fast' here?). Linguists often prefer the terms word class or lexical category. The plural is parts of speech.

Example sentences

  1. 'Fast' can belong to four parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective and adverb.

  2. Dictionaries show the part of speech right after the headword, for example n. or adj.

Common collocations

  • identify the part of speech
  • the eight parts of speech
  • word class
  • lexical category
  • nounA word that names a person, place, thing, idea or feeling and can usually be the subject or object of a verb, such as teacher, Ankara, chair or freedom.
  • verbA word that shows an action, event or state, such as run, become or know; in English it changes its form to show tense and agreement.
  • adjectiveA word that describes a noun or pronoun or gives more information about it, such as tall, interesting or Turkish.
  • adverbA word that adds information to a verb, an adjective, another adverb or a whole sentence, such as how, when, where or how often something happens.
  • determinerA word that comes before a noun to show which one or how much is meant, such as the, a, this, my, some, every or two.

More terms: Parts of Speech

Practise with graded reading

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