Parts-of-speech.Info - POS tagging online

A cool site which can help confirm your knowledge of word classes, or aid you in tackling large amounts of text for a research project. It colour-codes a text you paste in according to the *most likely* part of speech (word class) each word would statistically represent.

BEWARE! It's just an algorithm, and it's not as clever as you! It will make errors, and needs a human to check each suggested tag.

https://parts-of-speech.info/

Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns

Good article on 'nominalisation', which doesn't just complain about conversion, but distinguishes it from affixations and explores the motivation for using a noun instead of a verb.

Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/

Exercises in Pronouns

Excellent find from A2 student Rachel: a series of exercises to explore your personal pronoun usage and beliefs. Part of an Internet-based research project stemming from a book, The Secret Life of Pronouns.

http://www.secretlifeofpronouns.com/exercises.php

Reed-Kellogg Diagrammer

This is fun to play with. It only handles short, and complete, sentences. Try it out with these.

I suspect it'll have difficulty with this one, because there's a hidden 'that'.

http://1aiway.com/nlp4net/services/enparser/default.aspx

I, You, He or She?

A very readable account of the choice of point of view in fiction, from the perspective of a writer who does the choosing.

I, You, He or She – Some Thoughts on Point of View
http://www.michaelpryor.com.au/articles/i-you-he-or-she-some-thoughts-on-point-of-view/

Zombie Nouns

"They cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings." Nice.

Zombie Nouns
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/zombie-nouns/?ref=global-home

How to Find Verbs

Trouble figuring out what words count as 'verbs' in a sentence? This page gives some examples, with notes and how-to suggestions.

Not all the terminology here matches what we use in AS Language study, but the ideas are fine.

GRAMMAR, HOW TO FIND VERBS KEY

Article: Conjunctions.

Exploring conjunctions, using beef and sex. If you're not sure about conjunctions, this article would appear to be the ideal way to learn. I like this site. 

Conjunctions.
http://nastyguide.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/conjunctions/

Why Concrete Language Communicates Truth

The article stretches the concept of 'concrete' a little with verbs, to favour active over passive form for example, but this is still convincing stuff. 

Why Concrete Language Communicates Truth — PsyBlog
http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/06/why-concrete-language-communicates-truth.php

Verbs that Aren't

When is a 'doing word' not a verb? This article covers those words and phrases that look like they ought to be verbs, but grammatically aren't. 

The Different Kinds of Verbal Phrases in the English Language
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-different-kinds-of-verbal-phrases-in-the-english-language-a377570

The Verbification of the Nation

We've called it conversion or class change. 

The Verbification of the Nation
http://www.grammar.net/verbification

The opposite change is 'nominalisation'. Just in case you wanted to know.