Page 25 - DENG103_English - I

English–I

Notes
Colours Fruits Drinks Languages

blue banana milk Spanish
red apple water Arabic
yellow orange soda Japanese
green grape beer English
black lemon coffee Korean
Colours, fruits, drinks, and languages are categories. If I tell you that Grebo is a language, you
would understand exactly what Grebo is. If we did not have the category language, it would
be hard to explain what is meant by the word Grebo. It is very convenient to have categories to
talk about similar things. Let’s look at some more examples of categories. In the list below,
which does not belong with the others?
(a) violin
(b) hammer
(c) drums
(d) piano

(e) guitar
If you chose hammer, you are right. Violin, drums, piano, and guitar are used to make music,
but a hammer is not used to make music. Hammer doesn’t fit with the other words because
it is a tool and all of the others are musical instruments.
Let’s try another example. Which of these does not belong with the others?
(a) hammer

(b) saw
(c) violin
(d) screwdriver
(e) wrench
This time, the word violin does not belong because it is not a tool. It is very useful to
have categories like musical instruments and tools to organize our ideas. The parts of
speech are categories used to organize or classify words according to how they are used. We
use parts of speech as a way to make it easier to talk about language.
The philosopher Aristotle and later scientists studied animals and classified them according to
what they have in common. For example, eagles, robins and sparrows are kinds
of birds; sharks, salmon and tuna are kinds of fish; and dogs, horses and elephants are kinds
of mammals.
Aristotle and others also studied language and classified words according to what they have
in common. We usually use 8 categories or parts of speech to classify all the words we use in
English. This classification is not perfect. Sometimes it is hard to tell which category a word
belongs in. The same word may belong in different categories depending on how it is used.
There may be better ways to classify English than by using the 8 parts of speech. But
this classification has been used for a long time and many grammar books use it, so it is easier
to keep on using it. It is possible to speak or learn a language without knowing the parts of
speech, but for most of us, knowing about parts of speech makes things easier.

18 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY