Parts of Speech and Their Functions

English Language · WAEC and JAMB · SS2 and SS3

Every other grammar question in the paper rests on this: lexis and structure items, the grammatical name questions in comprehension, and the expression marks in your essay. WAEC tests the WORK a word does in a sentence, not the dictionary label you memorised.

What you need to know

A word has no fixed part of speech; its job in the sentence decides it. In 'He ran fast', fast is an adverb telling how he ran, but in 'He kept a fast', fast is a noun, and in 'a fast car' it is an adjective.
Nouns divide into countable and uncountable, and the uncountable ones take no plural s. Advice, information, equipment, furniture, luggage, machinery and news are uncountable, so 'he gave me many advices' should be 'he gave me a lot of advice'.
Collective nouns such as team, government, jury and crowd take a singular verb when the group acts as one body: 'The team has won its match.'
Pronouns change form according to their job. Subject forms are I, he, she, we, they; object forms are me, him, her, us, them. After a preposition you must use the object form, so 'between you and I' is wrong and 'between you and me' is right.
A reflexive pronoun such as himself can only be used when the subject and object are the same person. 'Myself and my brother travelled' is wrong; write 'My brother and I travelled.'
Verbs may be transitive, taking an object, or intransitive, taking none. You can discuss something, but you cannot 'discuss about' it, and you reply TO a letter but answer a letter directly.
Auxiliary verbs such as is, has, do, can and will carry tense and mood for the main verb. In 'She has finished', has is the auxiliary and finished is the main verb, so only one of them should show tense.
Adjectives describe nouns and follow a natural order in English: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material. We say 'a beautiful small old wooden stool', not 'a wooden old small beautiful stool'.
Comparison uses -er and -est for short adjectives and more and most for longer ones, and the two systems are never combined. 'More better' and 'most happiest' are both wrong.
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs, telling how, when, where, how often or to what degree. Not every adverb ends in -ly, and some -ly words such as friendly and lonely are adjectives.
Prepositions in English are fixed by usage and must be learnt as whole units: congratulate someone ON something, married TO someone, prefer one thing TO another, capable OF, afraid OF, different FROM, consist OF.
Conjunctions join words, phrases and clauses, and some are used singly, not in pairs. Because and so are never used together, and although is never followed by but: write 'Although he was tired, he came', not 'Although he was tired, but he came.'
Articles depend on the SOUND that follows, not the letter. We say an hour and an honest man because the h is silent, but a university and a European country because they begin with a y sound.
An interjection is a word thrown into a sentence to show feeling, such as Alas, Hurray or Oh, and it is normally followed by a comma or an exclamation mark.

Key terms

Noun: A word that names a person, place, thing, animal, quality or idea.
Pronoun: A word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition, taking a subject or object form according to its role.
Auxiliary verb: A helping verb used with a main verb to show tense, voice, mood or question form.
Adverb: A word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb by telling how, when, where, how often or to what degree.
Preposition: A word placed before a noun or pronoun to show its relationship in space, time or manner to another word.
Conjunction: A word that joins words, phrases or clauses, either as coordinating, subordinating or correlative.
Determiner: A word such as a, an, the, this, some or every that comes before a noun to limit or identify it.

Worked examples

State the part of speech of the underlined word: 'The LIGHT fabric suits the harmattan.'

Ignore what the word usually means on its own and ask what work it is doing here.
It stands immediately before the noun fabric.
It tells us what kind of fabric is being spoken about.
A word that describes or qualifies a noun is an adjective.
Confirm by testing comparison: lighter fabric, lightest fabric. Only adjectives behave this way.

Answer: Adjective, because it qualifies the noun 'fabric'.

Use the word 'well' in two sentences to show two different parts of speech, and name each.

First decide on two different jobs the word can do: describing how an action is done, and naming a thing.
For the adverb, attach it to a verb: 'Chioma sings well.' Here well tells us HOW she sings, so it modifies the verb.
For the noun, give it a determiner and make it the object of a verb: 'They dug a well behind the house.' Here well names a thing and follows the article a.
Name each use clearly, stating the word it relates to in the sentence.

Answer: 'Chioma sings well.' - adverb, modifying the verb 'sings'. 'They dug a well behind the house.' - noun, the object of the verb 'dug'.

The mistake to avoid

Candidates memorise a word as one part of speech and give that answer wherever it appears, so they call 'light' a noun in every sentence. The second habit that costs marks is adding s to uncountable nouns, writing informations, equipments and advices in essays and letters.

In the exam

When asked to name a part of speech, always add the word it relates to: 'adjective, qualifying the noun fabric' earns the mark more safely than 'adjective' alone. In the lexis and structure section, test each option by putting it fully into the sentence and reading the whole sentence aloud in your head rather than judging the option on its own.