05. Word Classes: Verbs, Auxiliaries, Adjectives, Adverbs

Objectives for this lesson

  • Use morphological and syntactic features to identify the word classes of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
  • Distinguish between auxiliaries and main verbs.

Verbs

  • Semantic definition
👆 Click me Defined by meaning as a word that expresses an action, being, or state of being
  • Morphological definition
👆 Click me Defined by the morphological changes applicable to verbs: can be used in both present and past tenses; has both an –s and –ing form
- Example:
--- Base form: talk
--- Present tense (third person singular): talks
--- Past tense: talked
--- Past participle: talked
--- -ing form: talking
  • Many of our most common verbs are irregular!

Auxiliaries

  • Minor (or “function”) class of words
  • Signalers of verbs (“helping verbs”)

Challenge: Add one, two, three, four auxiliaries to this sentence: He goes.

Function of auxiliaries

  • Determining tense, aspect, and voice
  • Adding information about likelihood, ability, obligation, etc.
  • Structuring questions and negatives

Exercise: Identify Auxiliaries and Main Verbs

  1. Mary had been having so much fun.
  2. She should have called her mom.
  3. She will be grounded.
  4. Now, she has to stay home all weekend.
  5. Mary is frustrating her parents.
  6. Curfews can be frustrating.

Adjectives

  • Semantic definition: “Describing words”
  • Morphological definition:
👆 Click me Defined by the morphological features applicable to adjectives: have an adjective-making morpheme; takes comparative and superlative morphemes
  • What are some adjective derivational suffixes?
  • What are some adjective inflectional suffixes? image

Comparative (-er or more)

Superlative (-est or most)

Adverbs

  • Semantic definition:
👆 Click me words that usually modify (limit or restrict the meaning of) verbs
  • Morphological definition:
👆 Click me Defined by the morphological features applicable to adverbs: have an adverb-making morpheme; takes comparative and superlative morphemes

They are almost the same as adjectives morphologically. How do we further tell them apart?

  • Syntactic feature:
👆 Click me Adjectives proceed or follow nouns; adverbs can be (almost) anywhere in the sentence.

Different roles for adjectives

image

  • Adverbs are usually grouped according to the extra information they add to verbs:
    • Time: now, today, nowadays, yesterday
    • Duration: already, always, still, yet
    • Frequency: often, seldom, never, sometimes, always
    • Location: there, here, everywhere, somewhere, elsewhere, upstairs, abroad, outside, nearby
    • Direction: away, thence
    • Concession: still, yet
    • Sequence: afterward, next, then

Note: Some words look like adverbs but are not:

  • He ran towards us.

Quizzes

Quiz: Identifying verbs
Quiz: Auxiliary and main verbs
Quiz: Identifying adjectives
Quiz: Identifying adverbs
Quiz: Review of the major word classes