English Parts of Speech and Word Formation Rules

Vocabulary and rule-based flashcards generated from lecture notes on English word classes, suffixes, and sentence positions.

Eight Parts of Speech in English

The main categories of words in English: Noun (Danh từ), Verb (Động từ), Adjective (Tính từ), Adverb (Trạng từ), Pronoun (Đại từ), Preposition (Giới từ), Conjunction (Liên từ), and Interjection (Thán từ).

Noun Suffixes for People or Professions

Suffixes used to form nouns referring to people: -or (actor), -er (villager), -ee (employee), -ist (economist), -ician (physician), and -ant (assistant).

Noun Suffixes for Abstract Concepts & States

Common noun-forming suffixes including -ism (heroism), -nce (importance), -ness (darkness), -ion (pollution), -ment (accomplishment), -(i)ty (purity), -age (marriage), -ship (friendship), -th (growth), -dom (freedom), -hood (childhood), -ure (closure), -cy (accuracy), and -(t)ry (bravery).

Noun Suffixes for Fields of Study & Writing

Suffixes such as -logy (archaeology, sociology, biology) and -graphy (bibliography, biography).

Adjective Suffixes

Suffixes used to form adjectives: -ent (independent), -ant (important), -ful (beautiful), -less (careless), -ic (historic), -ive (passive), -ous (dangerous), -ible (horrible), -able (reliable), -al (central), -ory (mandatory), -ary (temporary), -y (happy), -ly (friendly), -ate (accurate), and -ish (foolish).

Verb Endings

Prefixes and suffixes used to form verbs: -en / en- (strengthen, entrust), -ate (associate), -ize (apologize), and -ify (satisfy).

Adverb Endings

Suffixes used to form adverbs: -ly (happily), -wise (clockwise), and -ward (backward, inward, onward).

Syntactic Positions of Nouns

Nouns occur after adjectives (adj + N), after transitive verbs (V + O), after prepositions, after determiners/articles/possessives, before tensed verbs as subjects, or after 'enough' (enough + N).

Syntactic Positions of Adjectives

Adjectives occur before nouns (Adj + N), after 'to be', after linking verbs (become, get, look, feel, taste, smell, seem), after adverbs (adv + adj), after keep/make, after 'too' (be + too + adj), before 'enough' (be + adj + enough), and in exclamatory structures.

Syntactic Positions of Adverbs

Adverbs occur after ordinary verbs, before adjectives, between verb phrases, at the beginning of a sentence before a comma, after 'too' (V + too + adv), in 'so…that' structures (V + so + adv + that), and before 'enough' (V + adv + enough).

Mandatory / Compulsory

Adjectives ending in -ory meaning required or obligatory (bắt buộc).

Likelihood

A noun formed with the suffix -hood meaning probability or possibility (khả năng).

Bankruptcy

A noun formed with the suffix -cy meaning the state of being bankrupt (sự phá sản).

Clockwise

An adverb formed with the suffix -wise meaning in the direction of the hands of a clock (theo chiều kim đồng hồ).