Parts of speech

Charles Dube, Highway to Success

THIS is a sequel of the work on story writing presented on this page last week. A story write’s glossary includes different parts of speech for an improved piece of work. I am referring to the following parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions to name but a few.

Nouns — these are naming words for people, places, things and ideas. Examples, person: child, police. Places — playing ground, city, Bulawayo, kitchen. Things — moon, fish, hat, jacket. Ideas — hope, impatience, democracy. We have different types of nouns such as concrete and abstract nouns. A concrete noun names an object that occupies space or can be recognised by any of the senses. Examples are: whisper, stone, scent, sand.

An abstract noun names an idea, a quality, or a characteristic. Examples here are: grief, friendship, confusion, patience. We have singular and plural nouns. Most nouns are singular or plural.

A singular noun names one person, place, thing or idea. A plural noun names more than one. Examples of singular nouns: man, boy, car, tomato, and story. Examples of plural nouns: boys, cars, men, stories and tomatoes.

We also have possessive nouns. The possessive form of a noun can show possession, ownership, or the general relationship between two nouns. For instance, if we want to say “the chair of the teacher,” we can say “teacher’s chair.

To form the possessive of a singular noun, even one that ends in s, add an apostrophe and an s. Examples, John’s car. James’s car. To form the possessive of a plural noun that ends in s, add just an apostrophe. Examples: the Josephs’ house or the girls’ dormitories.

To form the possessive of a plural noun that does not end in s, add an apostrophe and an s. Examples: the women’s club or the men’s business cards.

Common and proper nouns. A common noun is the general — not the particular name of a person, place, thing or idea.

On the other hand, a proper noun is the name of a particular person, place, thing or idea. Proper nouns are capitalised. Common nouns are usually not capitalised.

Study these examples of proper nouns. Person — Charles Dube, Thomas Hardy, Nicola Pierce, Sihle Ncube. Examples of places: Bulawayo, Zambia, Gweru. Thing — Bulawayo Centre, National Milling Company. Idea — Christianity, Romanticism, Socialism. Collective nouns — A collective noun is singular in form but names a group. Examples: family, troop, fleet, crew, committee flock. From nouns we move on to pronouns.

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun, a group of words acting as a noun, or another pronoun.

Examples of pronouns: Rose read the poem aloud. She paused for questions at intervals. The pronoun she takes the place of the noun Rose. Jane and Mary are twins. Both attend the same school. The pronoun both takes the place of the nouns Jane and Mary.

Verbs: A verb is a word that expresses an action or state of being and is necessary to make a statement. Examples: The maid cleaned the house. She pushed the bicycle all the way. Verbs express time — present, past, and future by means of various tense forms. Examples — present tense — I sing the chorus. Past tense — I sang the chorus. Future tense — I will sing the chorus.

Adjectives: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun by limiting its meaning. Examples: two dollars, grey socks, any objections.

An adjective may describe a noun or pronoun by answering one of these questions: What kind? Which one? How many? How much? Examples — What kind? Black shirt. Which one? That attitude, second option. How many? Ten pages or several attempts A story writer uses such adjectives to add more information to a noun.

Adjectives that compare. Many adjectives have different forms to indicate their degree of comparison. The positive form indicates no comparison. The comparative form compares two nouns or pronouns. The superlative form compares more than two nouns or pronouns. Examples:

Positive — slow, lucky, good/well, bad Comparative — slower luckier, better, worse Superlative — slowest, luckiest, best, worst. A story writer uses adverbs to add more information to a verb, telling the reader how, for example, slowly, “when” for an example, yesterday, or “where” upstairs. An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb by making its meaning more specific. The following sentences illustrate the use of adverbs to modify verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Examples: Modifying verbs — She ran quickly. (quickly). Modifying adjectives — she is very talented. (very) Modifying adverbs — He runs quite fast. Adverbs also tell when, where, how, and to what degree. Example — when — I arrived here yesterday. Where — He hid in the classroom. How — He beat her hard with a stick. To what degree — The car was dangerously speeding. Prepositions should be properly used in a well written story.

Students may want to know what a preposition is. A preposition is a word that shows the relationship of a noun or a pronoun to another word in a sentence.

The mother of the two girls we met lives here. Of shows the relationship of the mother to the two girls.

They met before school started. Before expresses the time relationship between the start of school and meeting time. Use of exclamations marks adds value to the story. Use exclamation marks after something short and punchy, often this will be a command or warning. (For example, stop!)

Use quotation marks with direct quotations. Use quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation.

Place quotation marks around the quotation only, not around purely introductory or explanatory remarks. Use single quotation marks around a quotation.

In writing dialogue begin a new paragraph and use a new set of quotation marks every time the speaker changes.

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