<P> There are historical, social, cultural and regional variations of English . Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some dialects . This article describes a generalized present - day Standard English--a form of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers from formal to informal . There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are more minor than differences in vocabulary and pronunciation . </P> <P> Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Indo - European in favor of analytic constructions . The personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive Germanic case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the "Saxon genitive or English possessive" (-'s). </P> <P> Eight "word classes" or "parts of speech" are commonly distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions . Nouns form the largest word class, and verbs the second - largest . Unlike many Indo - European languages, English nouns do not have grammatical gender . </P> <P> Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs form open classes--word classes that readily accept new members, such as the noun celebutante (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles), and other similar relatively new words . The others are considered to be closed classes . For example, it is rare for a new pronoun to enter the language . Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech . Interjections are another word class, but these are not described here as they do not form part of the clause and sentence structure of the language . </P>

How many parts of speech exist in english grammar