English Grammar: An Introduction

We have now looked at English words from various points of view. In Unit 2 we classified them according to parts of speech. In Unit 3 we subclassified the parts of speech in terms of the meanings of the words and combined them in phrases. In Unit 4 we analysed the words morphologically and noted that the four major parts of speech have characteristic affixes. Both meanings and affixes can help us to identify the part of speech of a word.

We have also begun to attach labels to words in sentences. These are

FORM labels: N, V, Aj, Av, d, a, pn, pr, c, i, n

FUNCTION labels: M, H

The form label denotes the part of speech of a word and is placed below it. The function label denotes its role in the sentence and is placed above it.