consensus is that we should hold another meeting.
3 effected, principle, off, licence, prophesies
4 alternative, licensed, complimentary, dependent, counsel, affected, principal, except, storeys, ensure
3.12 Hyphenation
Words are sometimes joined together with a hyphen to make a compound word (Attorney-General), or have a prefix attached with a hyphen (ex-President), or include a hyphen to ensure correct pronunciation (de-ice). Programs for word processing generally adjust spacing to avoid line-end hyphenation; however, it is still widely used in newspapers where columns of text are quite narrow.
The various uses of hyphenation are detailed in Section 7.7.
4 Parts of speech
Words are classified according to their function in sentences. These word classes are called parts of speech. There are eight parts of speech in English: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. We will look at each of them briefly.
Usually, a part of speech consists of just one word, but its function can be performed by a group of words (a phrase); or a whole clause – a more meaningful group of words that can even be a whole sentence. For example, look at these three sentences:
The aim is what we have to keep in mind all the time.
Preventing trouble is what we have to keep in mind all the time.
How we should prevent trouble is what we have to keep in mind all the time.
The second part of the sentence is the same in each example. The beginning of the sentence, the subject, means the same in each sentence, but the function of naming that subject is expressed in the first by a single noun, in the second by a noun phrase and in the third by a noun clause.
Labels such as noun, verb, phrase and clause are terms that you need in order to talk about writing. They help you to understand sentence structure, and therefore paragraph and document structure; they also help you to explain to others how their writing could be improved.
4.1 Noun
Nouns name things. There are several types of noun – common, proper, collective and abstract.
Common nouns name everyday things that you can touch:
The children used the table as a cubbyhouse and held a party with their toys.
Proper nouns name particular things and always begin with a capital letter:
Joe visited Canberra on Sunday and stayed at the Royal Hotel.
Collective nouns name groups of things:
The huge audience was cheering as the winning basketball team collected their medals.
Note that singular collective nouns can have singular or plural connotations, depending on whether they are regarded as single units or separate individuals in a given context – for example:
The jury was considering its verdict – singular, because the jury here is acting as one unit
The jury dispersed to their respective homes after the trial – plural, because here the jury means ‘the individual members of the jury’.
Abstract nouns name things that you cannot touch, like feelings and emotions:
‘Happiness is the freedom to do what you want’ he said.
Nouns also have number, gender and case.
Number indicates whether there is one or more of the given noun. Plural number is marked by one of the regular or irregular plural markers – see Sections 3.7 and 3.8.
Gender is sometimes marked by a special ending – for example -or/-ess, as in actor (masculine) and actress (feminine). However, gender marking is disappearing from writing and everyday language, so that it is becoming usual to use actor for both male and female stage performers. Most nouns are neuter.
Case of English nouns is only clear from the position and function of the noun in the sentence:
The assistant (subjective case) made six copies of the report.
The manager praised the assistant (objective case) on the quality of the reports.
The assistant’s (possessive case) work was excellent.
Activity 4a
Identify the nouns in these sentences and say as much as you can about their type, number, gender and case:
1 The congregation in the church on Sunday prayed for peace.
2 One boy in the choir gave the other boys a fright by dropping all the books.
3 The news was given to Peter’s parents by the constable.
Solutions 4a
1 congregation (collective, singular, neuter, subjective); church (common, sg, n, obj); Sunday (proper, sg, n, obj); peace (abstract, sg, n, obj)
2 boy (common, sg, masculine, subj); choir (collective, sg, n, obj) ; boys (common, plural, masc, indirect obj); fright (abstract, sg, n, obj); books (common, pl, n, obj)
3 news (common, sg, n, subj); Peter’s (proper, sg, masc, possessive); parents (common, pl, common, obj); constable (common, sg, common, obj)
4.1.1 Articles
You will have noticed that nouns can be, and often are, preceded by a, an or the. These little words are called articles (or sometimes determiners). Articles are sometimes discussed as separate parts of speech and sometimes included among adjectives. As they only ever occur with nouns and noun phrases, or with words functioning as nouns, only a short comment is needed here.
A and an are called indefinite articles; a is used before a noun or noun phrase beginning with a consonant – a book, a ripe apple; while an is used before a noun or noun phrase beginning with a vowel – an apple, an exciting story. See Section 3.6 for the definition of vowel and consonant. Some people use an before words starting with the letter h (an hotel), but this is not modern English – it is pronunciation of words that English has borrowed from French, in the way French people would say them. As we speak and write English, we should treat all such words in the same way as English words. So the acceptable style is a hotel because the h is treated as a consonant.
The is the definite article and is used before any noun or noun phrase when we
