Name______________________________
May 28, 2002

Practice with Word Classes

1. Why are there traditionally 8 parts of speech?
 
 
 
 
 

2. What?s wrong with assuming that all languages have exactly 8 parts of speech?
 
 
 
 

3. Name and describe two kinds of tests that we can use to determine if a set of words belongs
to the same part of speech.
 
 
 
 
 

4. Which specific tests can you apply to words to determine if they are nouns? List all of them,
and illustrate how they work (i.e. show what happens when you apply the tests to nouns and
words other than nouns).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

5. What are the different kinds of nouns (there are 5)?
 
 
 
 
 
 

6. What characteristics do each of these different kinds of noun show with each ?noun test??
(use reverse)