Word Forms

Warm-Up

Can you spot a noun when you see one? How about a verb? Adjective? Adverb? Take a look at the paragraph below. Certain nouns have been highlighted in the same color; similarly, certain verbs have been highlighted in another color; certain adjectives are yet another color; and certain adverbs are still another color. So here’s the question: what color are the nouns? What color are the verbs? How about the adjectives and adverbs? What colors are they?

Words that are underlined contain links.

Choose Your Vice

         Do you smoke cigarettes? Do you consume alcohol? If you answered, “yes,” to either of these questions, you’ll be interested to know that smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are two problematic habits with a lot in common. First, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol can both be addictive. Once addicted, smokers and alcoholics often have a very hard time giving up their vice, and some even have to seek professional help to break the habit effectively. Another thing that excessive smoking and drinking have in common is that they can both cause health problems. Smoking can cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and even heart attacks and stroke. Similarly, the health effects of excessive drinking can include high blood pressure and liver disease. Finally, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption can both affect your physical appearance. People who smoke excessively often have to deal with yellow-stained teeth, halitosis (bad breath) and “smoker’s face,” a condition that is characterized by wrinkles, gaunt features and an odd skin tone. Long-term, excessive drinking can also affect the complexion, as well as cause weight gain since alcohol is high in calories and low in nutrition. As you can see, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol in excess or for a long time can cause similar problems for the user. Smokers and drinkers should think twice before lighting their next cigarette or pouring their next drink.

OK, so let’s see how you did. The table below displays the word forms of the highlighted words in the text. Study the table to see which word form is blue, which one is green, and which are red and orange.

Notice that some of the words in the table look similar. They are spelled similarly but not exactly the same. They seem to be related because they have similar meanings but different forms.

All languages consist of words, but not all words act alike or have the same function. The major word forms that are important to study in English are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. First, we’re going to look at them and their functions, and then we’ll study some common endings for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

 

Lecture 1: Nouns and Verbs

NOUNS

A noun is a word that describes a 1) person, 2) place or 3) thing. For example, teacher, father, president, supervisor, doctor and student are all people and they are all nouns. Some “people nouns” are actually proper nouns, like Amadeus Mozart, George Bush, Dr. Oswego, Professor Alvarez, Sam, Betty, and even Spot, a common name for a dog in the United States. These are the names of people (or animals), but they are also nouns, proper nouns to be exact. “Place nouns” can also be proper nouns, like San Francisco, Florida, the Bronx and Peru, or they can be common nouns, like church, home, school, park and work. The “thing” category of nouns is very broad and can include both concrete and abstract nouns. A concrete noun is something you can touch, like bed, computer, airplane, glasses and wall. An abstract noun can be an idea, a concept or an emotion. Obviously, these are not things you can touch. Some examples include communism, love, Spanish, frustration, and the present perfect tense.

Now that we know what a noun is, let’s turn our attention to another question: where can we find nouns in a sentence. In an effort to find an answer to this question, let’s look at this definition of the word custom, which, by the way, is a noun.

A custom is a practice that is followed by people of a particular group or region.

 

There are a lot of nouns in this definition. Can you find them? They are in some very predictable places. Let’s look at these places one by one:

• The subject of the sentence or clause: The word custom is the subject of this sentence, and a subject is ALWAYS a noun. Therefore, custom is a noun. Since we all know that ALL formal sentences in English MUST have a subject, we can, therefore, also conclude that all sentences in English have at least one noun.
  
  
• The object of the verb: You might also find a noun after the verb of a sentence. The verb of our sentence is is, and after it, we find the noun practice. This is the object of the verb. The object of a verb is ALWAYS a noun.
  
  
• After an article, possessive adjective or demonstrative: Another place you will always find a noun is after an article (a, an or the) or after a possessive adjective (ex. my, your, their, our, etc.). We see this rule at work in three places in our sentence:

a custom       a practice       a particular group

• In these phrases, custom, practice and group are nouns. It is important to notice that the noun doesn’t always have to come immediately after the article. Look at the noun phrase “a particular group.” Here we have an adjective that appears between the article and the noun. That’s ok and actually quite common. The important thing is that you MUST use an article or a possessive adjective with a noun. Demonstratives (this, that, these, and those) do not have to be followed by a noun, but often they are. Here are some examples of possessive adjectives and demonstratives followed by nouns:

my language     their conversation     those situations     this burning cigarette

• After a preposition: Another place you will ALWAYS find a noun is after a preposition. You CANNOT use a preposition without a noun. We can see this rule at work in our sentence in the following prepositional phrases:

by people       of a particular group or region

• In these examples we can see that by is a preposition and it is followed by the noun people. Similarly, of  is a preposition, but it is actually followed by two nouns: group and region. Do you know why? Notice that we have the word or in that phrase. You should remember from your studies on parallel structures that words like "or"  join words of the same form. In this case, "or" is connecting two nouns: group and region.

Of course, there may be some other places for nouns in a sentence, but these rules show you some of the most common places you will find a noun hiding. Now let’s turn our attention to verbs.