WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

 Pronouns

A conventional definition of pronoun is that it is a word used in place of one or more nouns. It replaces or represents a noun or nouns. For example,
„Ram wondered where Rani was‟ can be rewritten as „he wondered where she was‟.
Pronouns have four sub classes:
 Personal nouns
 Reflexive nouns
 Indefinite pronouns
 Demonstrative nouns
These are explained in the following paragraphs:

(i) Personal pronouns

These have three further categories – Subject, Object and Possessive and each category has three forms – First person, Second person and Third person and each of them can be either singular or plural as shown below:
                                                            Singular                          Plural
First Person
Subject                                                      I                                   We
Object                                                     Me                                  Us
Possessive                                             Mine                                Ours

Second Person
Subject                                                   You                                  You
Object                                                    You                                   You
Possessive                                            Yours                                Yours

Third Person
Subject                                                He, She,                             It They
Object                                                 Him, Her,                           It Them
Possessive                                          His, Hers,                           Its Theirs

(ii) Reflexive Pronouns

These are unique and easily recognizable group of pronouns that end in „–self‟ in singular form or „–selves‟ in plural form as explained below:

Person                         Singular                        Plural

First Person                 Myself                        Ourselves
Second Person           Yourself                       Yourselves
Third Person              Himself                        Themselves

(iii) Indefinite pronouns

These pronouns use the same words as are used in adjectives and can, therefore, be confusing. However, we must remember that the indefinite pronouns stand alone by themselves whereas adjectives always modify nouns. For example,
 Sanjay would like some. Here „some‟ is indefinite pronoun.
 Sanjay would like some spinach. Here some is used as „adjective‟ as it precedes and modifies a noun.

(iv) Demonstrative pronouns

These are a group of four pronouns – „This‟, „That‟, „These‟ and „Those‟. Similar to indefinite pronouns, the same words are also used as adjectives. However, as explained above, pronouns always stand alone - demonstrative pronouns are no exception.

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

Adjectives

Adjectives play three roles as below:
(i) Noun modifiers
As noun modifiers, they always precede the nouns they modify e.g.
 Loud explosion
 Beautiful girl
 Sick old man
 Golden voice etc

(ii) Predicate adjectives

The predicate adjectives follow the linking or descriptive verbs and describe the subject e.g.
 The play was terrific
 The crust turned brown
 Please keep quiet

(a) Articles

In all there are three articles (the, a, an) in the English language and can be categorized as:
 Definite article – „the‟ is the only article in this category
 Indefinite articles – „a‟ and „an‟ are the only two articles in this category
Their applications are discussed as follows:
Definite article – the use of „the‟:
 To define, particularize or single out a noun e.g., I have read „the‟ book.
 To make obvious of what we mean e.g., „The‟ movie ran for three hours.
 To single out the superlative form of noun e.g., „The‟ best employee of „the‟ firm.
 To highlight title of the dignitary e.g., „The‟ Chief Justice
 To single out things that are one of its kind e.g., „the‟ sky, „the‟ sun, „the‟ moon etc
 To common noun that represents a class e.g., „The‟ staff should be part of management.
 To adjectives that indicate a class of persons e.g., „The‟ rich should help „the‟ poor.
 To a distributive measure e.g., Milk is sold by „the‟ litre or by „the‟ kilogram.
 To abstract nouns when particularized e.g., „The‟ honesty of taxi driver was applauded.
 To the names of rivers, mountains, seas, scriptures, newspapers etc e.g., The Ganga, The Himalayas, The Arabian Sea, The Geeta, The Hindustan Times etc
Indefinite article – use of „a‟ and „an‟
Article „a‟ is used:
 In singular nouns e.g., a meeting, a message, a class etc
 With words starting with a consonant e.g., a man, a situation, a behaviour etc
 With words beginning with sound of „y‟ or with „o‟ as in one e.g., a young-man, a one-rupee coin
Article „an‟ is used:
 In singular nouns starting with a vowel e.g., an engineer, an officer etc
 With words where first alphabet is not sounded e.g., an honourable person.

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

WORDS AS BUILDING BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE

Word is a fundamental building block of any language. These are used in different parts of a sentence. Word‟s part in a sentence or speech is not inherent in the word itself – it comes from the way the word is used in the sentence. It is thus an important part of the skill set of the communicators.
Words can be placed in any part of the sentence or speech. It is decided by the way it is going to be used i.e., whether as a noun, a verb, an adjective etc. Important types of words have been detailed in the following paragraphs:

(1) Nouns

Noun is a Latin word and its literal meaning is „name‟ – it is the naming ability of words. We need to name:
 A person
 A place
 A thing
 An idea
Types of nouns are:

(i) Proper nouns

These are names of specific persons, place or entity. First alphabet of these nouns is always in capital e.g., Anil, Agra etc

(ii) Common nouns

These are names of generic category like „boy‟, „boss‟, „brother‟ etc. Here first alphabet is not a capital. A quick test is that if noun can be modified quickly by adding an adjective, it must be a common noun! For example, a good boy, a nice boss, the older brother etc

(2) Verbs

Verb is a word used to express action or to describe a state of being. Verbs are of two types:

(i) Action verbs

They express action e.g.,
 Sheena smiled
 Ruchi replied etc

(ii) Linking verbs

They describe the subject e.g.,
 Food was tasty
 Book became the best seller
 Movie got a very good response

Tenses of verbs

All verbs have tenses. Two importance aspects of tense are:
(i) All verbs have three tense forms:
 Present e.g., „is”
 Past e.g., „was‟
 Future e.g., „will / shall‟

(ii) All verbs have four conjugation forms:

Present                       Past                      Participle                      Continuous

Write                         Wrote                     Written                          Writing
Speak                         Spoke                     Spoken                          Speaking