--- title: Word classes: the jobs words do — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Word classes: the jobs words do», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In «The hungry fox quickly ate the cake under the table», fox and cake and table are nouns (naming words), ate is a verb (doing or being), --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Word classes: the jobs words do # Word classes: the jobs words do Lesson 27 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/1/) — In «The hungry fox quickly ate the cake under the table», fox and cake and table are nouns (naming words), ate is a verb (doing or being), hungry is an adjective (it describes the noun fox), quickly is an adverb (it tells how he ate), the is a determiner, and under is a preposition (it shows where). - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/2/) — A word's class depends on its job in THIS sentence. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/6/) — Always look at the job, not just the word. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/7/) — Lily lists adjectives: big, red, happy, quickly. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/8/) — Quickly is the odd one out: it describes how something is done, so it's an adverb. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/10/) — And not all adverbs end in -ly: soon, very, often and fast can be adverbs too. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/12/) — Conjunctions join: «I was tired but I kept going.» Proper nouns name one particular person, place or thing, so they need a capital: Ellie must write London, not london. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/13/) — Little words like my, your and his before a noun are determiners in school grammar (possessive determiners), while mine and yours standing alone are pronouns. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/14/) — Slang has word classes too. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/15/) — Kayla in London says, «Bare words have jobs, innit» (bare is London slang for lots of). - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/16/) — Freya in Melbourne asks, «Arvo is a noun, yeah nah?» (arvo is Australian for afternoon, and yeah nah means no or not really). - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/17/) — Arvo names a time of day, so it is a noun. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/19/) — A noun names a person, place, thing or idea: girl, Leeds, table, happiness. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/20/) — A proper noun names one particular person, place or thing and starts with a capital letter: Ellie, London, Tuesday. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/21/) — A verb is a doing or being word: run, eat, is, think. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/22/) — An adjective describes a noun: a big dog, a red hat, a friendly girl. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/23/) — An adverb describes a verb, an adjective or another adverb: she ran quickly, very tall, super fun. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/24/) — Many adverbs end in -ly, but friendly, lovely and silly are adjectives, and soon, often and very are adverbs without -ly. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/25/) — A pronoun stands in for a noun: he, she, it, they, we, him, her, them, mine, yours. - [26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/26/) — A determiner comes before a noun to show which or how many: the, a, an, this, some, two, my, your. - [27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/27/) — My, your, his, her, our and their before a noun are called possessive determiners in school grammar. - [28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/28/) — A preposition shows where or when one thing is in relation to another: under, on, after, before, between. - [30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/30/) — The same word can belong to different classes depending on its job in the sentence. - [32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/27-word-classes-the-jobs-words-do/32/) — Slang: «bare» (London) means lots of; «arvo» (Australia) means afternoon; «yeah nah» (Australia, New Zealand) means no or not really; «well» before a describing word (Britain) means very, as in «well good». - ← previous: [Sentences: capital letters, full stops and the four types](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/26-sentences-capital-letters-full-stops-and-the-four-types/) - next →: [Clauses: main, subordinate and joining words](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/28-clauses-main-subordinate-and-joining-words/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)