Vocabulary - His First Flight | Prose by Liam O'Flaherty
Understanding Word Forms
Read the following sentences to see how words can change their form (part of speech) without changing the core meaning of the sentence.
Set 1
1. The young seagull uttered a joyful scream. (adjective)
2. The young seagull screamed with joy. (noun)
3. The young seagull screamed joyfully. (adverb)
Set 2
1. The young bird pretended to be falling asleep. (verb)
2. The young bird made a pretension of falling asleep. (noun)
3. The young bird made a pretentious posture of falling asleep. (adjective)
Note that in Set 1, the adjective ‘joyful’ is changed to its noun form ‘joy’ and to its adverb form ‘joyfully’.
In Set 2, the verb ‘pretend’ has been transformed to its noun form ‘pretension’ and to its adjective form ‘pretentious’.
We can transform a sentence by interchanging parts of speech without changing its meaning.
C. Change the parts of speech of the given words in the chart.
D. Read the following sentences and change the form of the underlined words as directed.
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His family was screaming and offering him food. (to adjective)
To Adjective: She is a screaming beast.
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The young seagull gave out a loud call. (to adverb)
To Adverb: The young seagull called out loudly.
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The bird cackled amusedly while flying. (to noun)
To Noun: The bird cackled with amusement.
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The depth of the sea from the ledge scared the seagull. (to adjective)
Adjective: The seagull was scared of the deep sea.
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The successful flight of the bird was a proud moment for the seagull’s family. (to verb)
To Verb: The bird flew successfully.
E. Use the following words to construct meaningful sentences on your own.
- coward - Tom is a coward.
- gradual - The economic growth is gradual.
- praise - Always praise the good deeds of others.
- courageous - Gandhiji was very courageous.
- starvation - My health is spoiled because of starvation.