28 English Grammar Demystifi ed
VERSATILITY OF ENGLISH WORDS
You learned in Chapter 1 that a sentence must have a subject and a verb to be a
complete sentence. You have seen that subjects are either nouns or pronouns. Look
at the following examples:
James (noun) played the comical (adjective) part to perfection.He (pronoun) played the comical (adjective) part to perfection.Can you simply decide to have an adjective function in place of the noun or
pronoun?
Comical played the James part to perfection.Obviously you can’t. Comical did not play the part; James did.
Interestingly, though, English words have great versatility. For example, consider
the word play. How many different functions can it perform?
Subject: The play takes two hours to perform. (The noun play is what the
sentence is about; it’s what takes [verb] the time.)Verb : James will play the lead part. (The verb will play tells what the subject
will do.)Modifi er: The children love the play area. (The adjective play describes or
modifi es the noun area.)Object: Tom made the best play of the game. (The noun play is the object of
the verb made.)Now experiment with the word work.
Subject: Work starts at 8 A.M. sharp. (The noun work is what the sentence is
about; it’s what starts [verb] at 8 A.M.)Verb : Karra works fi fty hours per week. (The verb works tells what Karra
does.)Object: Karra does many hours of work each week. (The noun work is the
object of the preposition of;of work modifi es hours.)Adjective: The plumber’s work permit allows him to install all new pipes. (The
adjective work modifi es or describes the noun permit.)