Chapter 5
Grammatical Categories and Word Classes
Exercise 5.5Word Classes
Identify the word class of up in each of the following:
Your time is up.
She's in an up mood.
He upped the ante.
The balloons rose up into the sky.
The dog tore up the slipper.
Life is full of ups and downs.
They live just up the street from us.
Identify the word class of down in each of the following:
Alex is feeling rather down today.
Would you write your address down for me?
On a dare, he downed the whole beer.
That was a first down, wasn't it?
The computers are down today.
He ran down the stairs.
He looked down because he was embarrassed.
In the passage from E. B. White's “The Ring of Time” given below, identify the words in bold as belonging to one of the following categories:
| count noun | transitive verb |
| mass noun | copulative verb |
| abstract noun | intransitive verb |
| concrete noun | adverb |
| collective noun | degree word |
| attributive adjective | preposition |
| predicative adjective | determiner |
| auxiliary |
It has been ambitious and plucky of me to attempt to describe what is indescribable, and I have failed, as I knew I would. But I have discharged my duty to my society; and besides, a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is too much for him. At any rate, it is worth reporting that long before the circus comes to town, its most notable performances have already been given. Under the bright lights of the finished show, a performer need only reflect the electric candle power that is directed upon him; but in the dark and dirty old training rings and in the makeshift cages, whatever light is generated, whatever excitement, whatever beauty, must come from original sources - from internal fires of professional hunger and delight, from the exuberance and gravity of youth. It is the difference between planetary light and the combustion of the stars. (White 1934: 145)
A
A
V
Adv
Prt
N
P
A
Prt
V
N
A
P
Adv
| ambitious | predicative adjective |
| failed | intransitive verb |
| discharged | transitive verb |
| my | determiner |
| duty | abstract noun (also count) |
| society | collective noun (also count) |
| stunt | concrete noun (also count) |
| too | degree word |
| long | adverb |
| most | degree word |
| already | adverb |
| under | preposition |
| need | auxiliary |
| reflect | transitive verb |
| makeshift | attributive adjective |
| is | auxiliary |
| whatever | determiner |
| beauty | mass noun (also abstract) |
| must | auxiliary |
| exuberance | mass noun (also abstract) |
| is | copula verb |
| difference | abstract noun |
| between | preposition |
| planetary | attributive adjective |