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1.4 pArts of speecH
Part of speech is the classification of words within a sentence based on their functions. They are the foundations of a
language.
When we speak or write, we use sentences to express ourselves. Therefore, sentences are important. A ‘sentence’ is
a group of words that communicate a complete meaning, thought, or action. For example, Mohit studies in Class XI.
A group of words, which does not make complete sense, is known as a phrase. For example, Mohit studies.
A Sentence always begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark. Read
aloud the examples given below.
Ð ÐHow many questions did you answer?
Ð ÐMeena goes to school every day.
Ð ÐWow!! That’s brilliant!
1.4.1 Using Capitals
All sentences begin with a capital letter, always. It is easy to know what to capitalise if you remember the acronym
MINTS. MINTS is a set of simple rules that help you capitalise words correctly. Each letter in the word MINTS refers to
one capitalisation rule.
Alphabet M I N T S
Months I Names Titles Starting letter of
sentences
Rule Capitalise the Capitalise the Capitalise the first Capitalise the first Capitalise the first
first letter in letter ‘I’ when letter in the names letter in the titles letter of every
the names of all used as a word of people, places, used before people’s sentence.
months. in any sentence. rivers, seas, oceans, names.
mountains, islands,
and days.
Example Mona will visit Every day, I play This Sunday, Nirmala Doctor Sanjay and The cat ran after
Dehradun in cricket with my will be in Mizoram. Ms. Pallav are the mouse.
November. brother. associates.
1.4.2 Punctuation
There are 15 basic punctuation marks or signs used in English. These include full stop or period, comma, question
mark, exclamation mark, apostrophe, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, parenthesis, quotation mark, and bullet point.
Punctuation marks Sign Use Example
It marks the end of a sentence. It is also used This is a sentence. This is another
to show abbreviations of long words. For sentence.
Full stop .
example, ‘professor’ can be shortened as Sanjay is a professor.
‘Prof.’, when used as a title before a name. His patients call him Prof. Sanjay.
Communication Skills-IV 21

