Understanding Verbs, Adjectives, and Other Parts of Speech

Adjectives and Their Qualities

An adjective is a word that accompanies and complements a noun. Its form consists of a stem and morphemes that indicate gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural).

Superlatives and Degrees of Comparison

Absolute and relative superlatives are forms of adjectives that semantically express the highest degree of a quality for a relational noun. Adjectives also express different degrees of comparison:

• Positive: The base form of the adjective.
• Comparative: Used to compare nouns, indicating equality, superiority, or inferiority.

Derivational Morphemes

Adjectives can be modified with derivational morphemes, such as prefixes, suffixes, and diminutives.

The Verb: Action and State

A verb is a word that expresses an action or a variable process. It consists of a verbal lexeme (the root) and a morpheme.

Verbal Morphemes

The morpheme of a verb provides grammatical information about:

• Person: Who performs the action.
• Number: How many performed the action.
• Time: The time at which the action develops (e.g., past, future).
• Mood: How the action is presented (e.g., indicative, subjunctive, imperative).
• Aspect: Indicates if an action is completed or in development.

Verb Conjugations and Forms

Verbs are grouped into conjugations (e.g., first, second, third). A verb has two main types of forms:

• Personal Forms: These change based on the subject and can be simple or compound.
• Non-Personal Forms: These do not change for person or number and include the infinitive, gerund, and participle.

Regular and Irregular Verbs

Regular verbs maintain the same stem shape throughout their conjugation. Irregular verbs are those that suffer modifications during conjugation.

Verbal Periphrasis

A verbal periphrasis is a combination of two verb forms that function as a single verb. It consists of an auxiliary verb, which provides grammatical meaning, and a main verb.

Types of Periphrasis

• Modal Periphrasis: Expresses possibility or obligation.
• Aspectual Periphrasis: Indicates the phase of an action, such as an inchoative periphrasis, which marks the beginning of an action.

The Adverb: Modifying Words

An adverb is an invariable word, meaning it does not support changes for gender or number.

Types of Adverbs

• By Form: Adverbs can be simple, derived, or part of compound adverbial phrases.
• By Meaning: They can express concepts such as time, place, quantity, affirmation, negation, and doubt.

The Pronoun: Replacing Nouns

A pronoun is a word used to replace a noun and does not have its own particular meaning.

Types of Pronouns

• Personal: Represent the three grammatical persons.
• Demonstrative: Mark the distance of an object relative to the speaker.
• Possessive: Indicate permanent membership or ownership (e.g., mine, yours, his).
• Indefinite: Refer to a person or thing in a non-specific way (e.g., some, any, much).
• Numeral: Indicate a number or position.
  • Cardinal: one, seven, thousand
  • Ordinal: first
  • Fractional: half
  • Multiplicative: double, triple
• Interrogative and Exclamatory: Used to ask questions or make exclamations (e.g., What? How much? Which? Who?).
• Relative: Connect a clause to a noun (e.g., that, who, which).

Determiners and Articles

A determiner is a word that precedes a noun to indicate its kind and number. The article is a type of determiner that has no particular meaning on its own.

Types of Determiners

• Articles (indefinite)
• Demonstratives
• Possessives
• Indefinites
• Numerals
• Interrogatives and Exclamatories