Questions tagged [parts-of-speech]

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Is there a word that cover "length of things"? [closed]

There's several measurement words that shares the same standard units, e.g. Measure Unit Example Size of things/animals feet/metres The crab is 91 cm (35.8") long Height of things/animals feet/...
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Is "unalive" both a verb and a noun?

An emerging colloquialism that is trending at the moment is "unalive", used, for example, in the sentence: The police officer who was sued has a tendency to unalive someone he stops for a ...
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What parts of speech are in 'assisting the Allies'?

There is the sentence: In 1917, the United States entered the War assisting the Allies. The problem is 'assisting the Allies.' What parts of speech are they? Are they a type of clause? Adjectival, ...
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What is the word class of 'third' here?

What is the word class of third in the following sentence? When two dogs fight over a bone the third carries it away. Is it a pronoun (because it replaces dog) or an adjective describing the third ...
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"Give me what you wish".. here what part of speech is "what"?

Why is what is a certain type of part of speech as used here?
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Is 'dead' a form of the word 'die' or 'dies'?

Can you help settle a debate for me and my friends? Last night we were playing a rather silly word game where you have a card with a word or phrase on it, and you have to try to get your teammates to ...
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What does "Stack Exchange" function as in "I love Internet forums, for example Stack Exchange"?

Notice that in the sentence I love Internet forums, like Stack Exchange "like" is a preposition and "Stack Exchange" is its object. Substitute "like" with "for ...
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What part of speech is ‘just’ in the sentence “It’s just me”? [closed]

I looked up just in some dictionaries, and they all say it’s an adverb (or at least, that it can be an adverb; apparently it can also be an adjective, a noun, a verb, or even an interjection): ...
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Can “standalone” ever be an adverb?

Is it correct to use word standalone as an adverb? All the major dictionaries only mention that it is an adjective. However, I’ve seen many sources use it as an adverb. For example: This program can ...
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What is 'fighting' in 'He went down fighting'?

What part of speech would the word fighting be in: He went down fighting.
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In the sentence: "I went to school on Sunday afternoon." when it follows a day of the week, is the word "afternoon" an adjective/noun.....? [closed]

In the sentence: "I went to school on Monday afternoon." or "It was a beautiful Monday afternoon.....", is the word "afternoon" an adjective/noun.....?
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Is "Up" an adverb or not?

Since I heard that "He climbed the mountain up" is incorrect, I've been asking people why that is. The composition He (Subject) + climbed (transitive verb) + the mountain (direct object) + ...
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Are possessive determiners like *my* adjectives or pronouns?

I'm reading the textbook "Complete English Grammar rules" by Peter Herring There are two forms of personal pronouns in the possessive case: possessive determiners, and possessive pronouns. ...
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Percipient vs Prescient

According to what I have come to understand, prescient is an adjective meaning psychic but percipient is a noun meaning a perceiver. So how can these two be synonyms? Can anyone kindly explain to me ...
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Is “X is learning very like Y” grammatical in English, and if it is not, then why? [closed]

Like can be used as an adverb. I have seen that very can modify adverbs in another post (it just can’t modify verbs). Yet this sentence feels odd. Why? Why would the addition of much make the sentence ...
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What is a named or unnamed word?

In the Star Assessments for early literacy, they refer to something called a "named word" and "unnamed word" without defining what that means. Examples include: Identify a ...
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part of speech 'oat'

The word 'oat' in 'My father loves soy, coconut and oat milks'. I am wondering why the 'oat' is treated as a noun
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"Exactly noon" parts of speech

What are the parts of speech in this phrase? exactly noon Any dictionary will say that "exactly" is an adverb, and that "noon" is a noun, but I haven't heard of adverbs modifying ...
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What part of speech do ordinal numerals belong to? [closed]

Consider the below sentence. On the first of February, the meeting shall take place. What part of speech does the ordinal numeral 'first' belong to? I am aware that under some analyses, ordinal ...
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Is ‘just’ an adjective in ‘just anyone’?

Given this sentence: Nina wouldn’t give her phone number to just anyone. I’ve checked several dictionaries (Oxford, Longman, Cambridge, Macmillan) for the word just from the example above. It looks ...
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Are there any class-changing prefixes in English?

Whenever I do a Google search about affixes, I find information like 'Prefixes usually do not change the class of the base word, but suffixes usually do change the class of the word' (UEfAP). As I ...
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1 answer
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Is "before" also an adjective? [duplicate]

I searched "define before" in Google and found out "before" is not listed as an adjective in most dictionaries. Google's built-in dictionary, which is one of the Oxford ...
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Is this infinitive a noun or an adverb?

In the following sentences... Watch me whip. You make me feel special. The word "whip" and the phrase "feel special" are infinitives without "to." However, I'm not ...
2 votes
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I am looking for a word that is synonymous with "syntactic expletive" to describe the purpose of the word "there" [duplicate]

It is a word that describes the purpose of the word "there" in a sentence such as, "There is a bird in the tree." Expletive is one word, but there is another, longer word, and I ...
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3 answers
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Example word that is a homograph and preposition

My research involves the study of word frequency in American English and the importance of context when connecting text representations to different speech representations. I would like to know if ...
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"Past" as a Verb [duplicate]

I have come across a sentence in a financial media website Investopedia, which reads, "Time-barred debt is typically debt that has past the statute of limitations and cannot be collected." ...
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Can an abbreviation of a verb be classified as a nominalisation?

For example, in the abbreviation for the fictional organisation "SCP Foundation", "SCP" is short for "Secure, Contain, Protect." Would this classify the term "SCP&...
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'On board' as a complex PP

Consider the below sentence. On board the ship there is a crew of wise men. To which category of speech does 'board' belong in the above sentence? Insofar as I understand, 'board' is a constituent ...
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Are "close" and "open" verbs or adjectives? [closed]

I'm really hard stuck trying to comprehend whether these two words simultaneously have two natures. I read: The door is open The door is opened Difference? The door is close The door is closed ...
4 votes
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Can an imperative sentence have a subject?

Can an imperative sentence have a subject? This is a followup to this comment. User Schmuddi asserted that: English imperative sentences are subjectless. but did not cite any source or authority. I ...
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Why is "brick" in "a brick house" a noun, whereas "plastic" in "a plastic bucket" is an adjective?

Taking these classifications from Oxford's Lexico: plastic brick
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Unidentified word or construction [closed]

There is a puzzling sequence of words in the following text (bold type). We live in a society in which money is needed to survive. Unfortunately, many people work in no-end jobs just to have some ...
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What is the part-of-speech of "intimates" in this article? [closed]

Commander Robert Broadhurst told MPs yesterday that there were "several intimates" from the Chinese that the London leg of the Olympic torch relay would have been switched to another capital ...
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In "The car was parked", what part of speech is "parked"? [duplicate]

In "The car was parked", what part of speech is "parked"? I'm thinking adjective, but someone else thinks it's a verb.
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A to-infinitive is formed with 'to' plus the base form of a verb. What part of speech does 'to' belong to?

I want to go home. Here the word to belongs to what part of speech?
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What do you call a verb/phrase following a noun ending in 'er' [duplicate]

Is there a term for the verb, and/or the pair of words, where the verb ends in 'er' following a noun? Examples: mind reader star gazer grounds keeper
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Grammatically analyze "Why drivers were left stranded" [closed]

Grammatically analyze below Why drivers were left stranded. "Why" is the interrogative, but not sure if it is describing drivers. "Were left" is the verb, but not sure the ...
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Do verbs refer to the tangible or the intangible? [closed]

This might be a dumb question but do verbs (or any other part of speech besides nouns) actually refer to elements of existence in a tangible way? To be clear I would say that something is tangible if ...
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Only as an adverb

Why is only an adverb instead of an adjective in the following sentences? Only Sue and Mark bothered to turn up for the meeting. Only an idiot would do that. Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/...
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What is the classification for a rote saying like "there but for the grace of God.."? [duplicate]

I'm not after the proverbial or apotropaic aspects of this, or chant or mantra. Just the "event-centric common utterance" aspects. "Knock on wood" is similar I guess. There's a ...
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What is the function of "accountable?" [duplicate]

What is the function of "accountable?" I know it is an adjective describing people but is it a direct object? I want to hold the people accountable
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What is the function of "Monday?"

What is the function of "Monday?" Is it a direct object of starts or an adverb? Mask mandate starts Monday.
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What part of speech is it? [closed]

DRIVING in the town centre is banned during the day. I think they should ban DRIVING in the town centre during the day What part of speech is DRIVING in these sentences? Is it a noun?
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Why is "purchase" pronounced the same as a verb and as a noun, unlike other words such as increase? [closed]

Many words which can act as a noun and a verb pronounce differently in the different parts of speech. As a verb, the stress in on the second syllable, while as a noun, the first, such as INcrease (...
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Noun + Gerund Structure Differences [closed]

Just need your insights on the sentences that really boggle my mind. The first sentence below is an excerpt taken from the following article: The effect of smoking on bone healing It is difficult to ...
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What is the part of speech/ function of "John asked him?" [closed]

What is the part of speech/ function of "John asked him" below? Bob revealed the deep question John asked him.
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Is this a gerund phrase after hate?

"I hate not being able to control my temper." From my understanding, hate is one of those verbs that is followed by a gerund OR an infinitive. In this situation, is "being" a ...
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What is the grammatical function/ part of speech of "to increase funding" and "to help countries adapt?"

What is the grammatical function/ part of speech of "to increase funding" and "to help countries adapt?" The United States has been under pressure to increase funding to help ...
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What is the part of speech of "over the past two quarters?"

What is the part of speech of "over the past two quarters" in the sentence below? Is it an adverb? If so what is it modifying? Yet the revenue and profitability figures of the three over ...
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Which part of speech is "as" in each example of mine?

I've come across something that has stumped me a bit. I think that the following usage of "as" is conjunctive. Am I correct? He is the same as the dog is. Is the following usage of "...

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