Word Classes

Together these categories form three of the four main word classes – nouns, verbs and adjectives:

• noun: a word that names a thing or concept
• verb: a word that shows a state of being, action or event (we can call this a process)
• adjective: a word that modifies a noun.

In addition, a fourth major class of word is the adverb. Adverbs act in a similar manner to adjectives, but they modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, for example:

He ran quickly (adverb modifying the verb ‘ran’).

It was a very slow game (adverb modifying the adjective ‘slow’).

They were incredibly well organised (adverb modifying another adverb ‘well’).

These four word classes have the most members and are generally open to new membership. Nearly every new word that comes into the English language can be placed in one of these classes. Consequently, noun, verb, adjective and adverb are known as open or lexical word classes.

In contrast, a smaller group of word classes exists that tend to have a much smaller membership, have very fewer new members and tend to be used to provide connections and cohesion between other words. The following are known as closed or grammatical word classes:

• pronoun: substitutes for a noun, often referring back or forwards to them (e.g., ‘he’, ‘she’ ‘they’ ‘it’)
• determiner: adds detail or clarity to nouns (e.g., ‘the’, ‘my’, ‘some’)
• preposition: provides connections between words often showing a sense of place or time (e.g., ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘between’, ‘during’)
• conjunction: provides connections between the larger structures phrases, clauses and sentences (see Unit 6, e.g., ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘because’).

All information from Cambridge Elevate.