home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
/
Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
/
P
/
Part_of_speech
/
INFOTEXT
< prev
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-09-02
|
769b
|
20 lines
The grammatical function of a word, as
categorized in the grammar of Western
languages. The four major parts of speech are
the noun, verb, adjective, and adverb; the
minor parts of speech vary according to
schools of grammatical theory, but include
the article, conjunction, preposition, and
pronoun. In languages like Greek and Latin,
the part of speech of a word tends to be
invariable (usually marked by an ending, or
inflection); in English, it is much harder to
recognize the function of a word simply by
its form. Some English words may have only
one function (for example, and as a
conjunction). Others may have several
functions (for example, fancy, which is a
noun in the phrase `flights of fancy', a verb
in `Fancy that!', and an adjective in `a
fancy hat').