What part of speech is "at"?

You will get  two parts of speech for "at": a preposition and a noun.

Explanation:

To determine the part of speech of "at",we need to know the types of parts of speech.Remember that there are eight types of parts of speech in English language.

These  parts of speech are noun,pronoun,verb,adverb,preposition, conjunction and interjection.Remember that determiners are a special type of adjective.

To find out the part of  speech of "at",we need to  remember that a single word in different sentences can functions as different parts of speech.



Now analyse the following example(Identify the parts of speech  in the following sentence):

●She was always shouting at the children.



●Sub.+intransitive  verb+Adverbial


Explanation:We know that a preposition must have a object that may a noun,noun phrase or a prepositional phrase plus can make relation between a noun and a verb.


Here "at" has been used as a preposition because it has a object which is a noun "children" plus here "at" is making relation between an a noun(children) and a verb(shouting).

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Now consider the following example:

●She was always shouting at the children.


Explanation:

Structure of Noun Phrase:

●Determiner+Noun=the children


Remember that every preposition must have a object which may be a noun,noun phrase or noun clause.

Structure of Prepositional Phrase:

●Preposition+Noun phrase

= at the children.


Remember that a prepositional phrase can function as an adverb or adjective.

●●She was always shouting at the children.

In this sentence,"at the children" is a prepositional phrase from structural side but from the functional side," at the children" is an adverbial prepositional phrase as it is modifying the  verb "shouting".









●Identify the parts of speech in the following sentence with at:

●She was always shouting at the children.


Parts of speech:

 She=pronoun

●was=verb, auxiliary verb

●always=adverb

●shouting=verb

●children= noun

Conclusion:We are getting two parts of speech for "at": preposition and noun.

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