Parts of speech are groups of words that have certain characteristics — lexical, morphological, and syntactic. For each group, you can ask specific, unique to it, questions.
The main and serving parts of speech
All parts of speech are divided into two large groups - independent (significant) and official. The main difference between them is that the former have the ability to name objects and actions, while the latter only indicate the relationship between them. Independent words can form phrases and sentences, while service words provide their connections in syntactic constructions. If without independent words there can be no text, then without official words this text will not be coherent. Significant (independent) parts of speech include nouns, adjectives, numerals, verbs, participles, participles, adverbs, pronouns. A group of service words is a union, an excuse, a particle, an interjection.
How to determine part of speech?
Usually the question that we ask to the word helps in this. For example, take the words "cosmos" and "man." What? - space, who? - human. These are the questions that are asked to the noun. This part of the speech calls the subject, has several characteristic morphological features, such as animation, narrative, gender, declension, case, number. In sentences, the noun most often plays the role of subject and complement, but it can also be the nominal part of the compound predicate.
What part of speech is the category of words to which questions of action are asked - what to do (do)? In the sentence "Man masters the cosmos," the first word is a noun and fulfills the mission of the subject. To the second word, we ask the question: what is the person doing? - mastering. This is a verb that in a sentence fulfills the predicate's task. The verb in Russian describes the action of the object, has characteristic morphological properties: time, voice, species, gender, mood, face, conjugation, transitivity.
Next, we consider what part of the speech answers the question “what?”. This name is an adjective, the meaning of which is a description of the characteristic of an object or person. Let us give an example: "A man is mastering an immense cosmos." In this sentence, the attribute of the subject characterizes the word "immense", answering the question "what?". This adjective in this sentence plays the role of definition.
The adjective also has its morphological characteristics, these are degrees of comparison, short and full forms, declension, number, gender, case, ranks by value.
However, the name adjective is not the only part of speech that answers the question “what?”. In the Russian language there are three more categories of words that are asked the same question. Get to know them better.
Participle
This linguistic part is called by some linguists a special form of the verb, others are called the verb adjective, and others are called the mixed part of speech. Communion combines the properties of an adjective and a verb. It characterizes the attribute of an object in action (a procedural attribute), expressing it as not constant, but changing in time. Let's check: the kitten (which one?) Is playing, the encyclopedia (which?) Is walking, the watchman (which?) Dozes off, the summer (what?) Is eventful, etc. What part of the speech answers the question “what?” in these examples? Of course, this is a participle, which has borrowed grammatical features from the name of the adjective (gender, case, number, full and short forms) and from the verb (type, time, voice, transitive, recurrence).
The syntactic role of participles usually comes down to definition, in short form the participle is part of a compound predicate, and as part of a participial turn, this part of speech can play the role of any secondary member.
Pronoun
What part of the speech answers the question “what?”? This is a pronoun whose task is not to name an object or sign, but to point to it. This part of speech is able to vary by cases, by numbers, by gender. It is known that in the Russian language there are nine lexical-semantic categories of pronouns. It should be remembered that the question "what?" You can not ask all of them.
Demonstrative Pronouns
They distinguish among others a specific attribute, quantity or object. Examples:
- "Here (what?) Is this house where I spent my childhood."
- "Turning to the left, you will see (which?) That same square."
- “It was (what?) That evening I remembered brighter than others.”
Definitive pronouns
They indicate a generalized sign of persons and objects. Examples:
- “I think (what?) Everyone wants the best.”
- “Choose (what?) Any tool.”
Relative pronouns
This group acts as allied words, linking the subordinate clause to the main one. Examples:
- "The garden (which one?) That was planted near the house was wonderful."
- "The magical dreams (what?) That I dreamed in a foreign land, gave the illusory joy of meeting my homeland."
In a sentence, these pronouns act as definitions.
Numeral
Also related to what part of the speech answers the question “what?”, Ordinal numbers. To the words “first, third, tenth, hundredth”, etc., they ask the questions “which?” or "which one?" Examples:
- "The interlocutors showed special interest in my (what?) Second craft."
- “Every (which?) Tenth batch of goods turned out to be defective.”
Finally
Summarize the above and highlight the main thing. What part of the speech characterizes the object in terms of its constant attribute and qualities? Only the adjective name. However, the questions “what?”, “What?”, “Which?” they also ask for other significant parts of speech: communion, certain pronouns, and ordinal numbers.