Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class [1] or grammatical category [2] [3]) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties.
In modern grammar, a particle is a function word that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart meaning, i.e., it does not have its own lexical definition. [citation needed] According to this definition, particles are a separate part of speech and are distinct from other classes of function words, such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs.
English parts of speech are based on Latin and Greek parts of speech. [40] Some English grammar rules were adopted from Latin, for example John Dryden is thought to have created the rule no sentences can end in a preposition because Latin cannot end sentences in prepositions.
For example, it is possible to utter an interjection like ouch! or bloody hell! on its own, whereas a different part of speech that may seem similar in function and length, such as the conjunction the, cannot be uttered alone (you can not just say the! independently in English). [3] Further distinctions can be made based on function.
In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated CONJ or CNJ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses, which are called its conjuncts.That description is vague enough to overlap with those of other parts of speech because what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each language.
For example, in English the root catch and the suffix -ing are both morphemes; catch may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with -ing to form the new word catching. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech , and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number , tense , and aspect .
The parts of speech are an important element of traditional grammars, since patterns of inflection and rules of syntax each depend on a word's part of speech. [12]Although systems vary somewhat, typically traditional grammars name eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
Part-of-speech tagging is harder than just having a list of words and their parts of speech, because some words can represent more than one part of speech at different times, and because some parts of speech are complex. This is not rare—in natural languages (as opposed to many artificial languages), a large percentage of word-forms are ...