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After becoming familiar with the word classes already discussed in this unit, you will realise that they do not make much sense without determiners, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. These word classes have been previously described as the grammatical glue that brings clauses and sentences together. Let’s discuss them individually.
Determiners
Determiners are very similar to adjectives in that they modify nouns and pronouns. However, the difference between adjectives and determiners is that determiners convey no meaning when they appear on their own. The most common determiners used in the English language are ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’. Some adjectives and pronouns also function as determiners; they are still relatively easy to recognise if you are aware of why they are also determiners. You may remember from when we covered pronouns that all of the demonstrative pronouns – ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’, ‘those’ – also function as determiners. Take a look at the others:
- There are those that determine quantity: ‘a thousand times’, ‘some’, ‘little’, ‘one’, ‘ten’, ‘lots’.
- That denote possession: ‘my drink’. Possessive determiners include the possessive forms of the personal pronouns ‘my’, ‘your’, ‘his’, ‘her’, ‘its’, ‘our’, ‘their’, but exclude the possessive pronouns ‘mine’, ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’.
- That ask questions: ‘whose drink?’
- That express emotion: ‘what the heck!’
Prepositions
Preposition means placed before. A preposition is placed before a noun or pronoun. It provides information on where a noun is in relation to another word. Here are some examples of prepositions: ‘as’, ‘for’, ‘after’, ‘by’, ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘to’, ‘up’. Prepositions have an ability to unite two elements and show space, time and reason. Look at the following table that includes some common prepositions:
| Space | Time | Reason | Complex |
|---|---|---|---|
| above | after | as | except for |
| along | at | but | in accordance with |
| amid | before | by | in front of |
| beside(s) | during | for | instead of |
| between | past | in | other than |
| beyond | since | than | owing to |
| into | until | to | up to |
| near | with/without | ||
| over | |||
| under |
Conjunctions
You can remember conjunctions by referring to them as linking words. They join sentences, clauses, phrases or single words. You may be familiar with these from looking at the different sentence types earlier in the course. Conjunctions are either coordinate, which illustrate equality of importance in the units they are linking, or subordinate conjunctions, which establish that what is being linked is unequal in meaning or importance. Here are some examples of the conjunctions:
| Coordinate Conjunctions | Subordinate Conjunctions |
|---|---|
| and | after |
| but | although |
| for | because |
| nor | before |
| or | once |
| so | since |
| yet | though |
Coordinate conjunctions are an essential ingredient of compound sentences.
There are a wide range of subordinate conjunctions in the English language and the ones above are just some of the most common. They are words that are only ever a part of complex and compound-complex sentences. If a sentence has a subordinate conjunction, then it is not a simple or a compound sentence.
Interjections
Interjections can be words that express emotions. They ‘interject’ a sentence or conversation and usually appear on their own. Interjections are normally too short to be actual sentences and so we call them ‘sentence fragments’. Here are some examples of interjections:
- Gosh!
- Hello
- Whoa!
- Yikes!
- Yum
- Like
- Well
- Right
- Yeah
