Parts of Speech

1. Parts of Speech A Guide to the Basic Parts of Speech

2. Nouns • Nouns are the names of persons, places, and things. • Examples of nouns : • Teacher, doctor, parent, president • House, school, office, coffee shop • Ball, wagon, car, magazine

3. Verbs • Verbs are action words or being* words. • Examples of verbs : • Action words: to jump, to run, to sit, to stand • Being words: to be *Being words are those that show something existing.

4. Adjectives • Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns. • Examples of adjectives : • The red ball • The fast child • The tall woman • The beautiful flower

5. Adverbs • Adverbs are words that describe or modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. • Examples of adverbs : • The girl wrote quickly. • The shoppers picked carefully through the apples. • His wagon is very red. • We went to the park yesterday. (Yesterday is an adverb because it modifies when “we” went to the park.)

6. Pronouns • Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns or other pronouns. They are used to make writing and speech more smooth and less repetitive.

7. Pronouns • Examples of pronouns : • Bob filled his car with gas, then drove it to the beach. • I put the dog’s bone in its cage. • You can deliver the roses at noon. Just bring them up to the house. • Jim introduced himself to the crowd.

8. Prepositions • Prepositions are words that link together other parts of a sentence and are often used to show relationships between those parts, such as where one object is positioned next to another. • Prepositions usually are part of prepositional phrases, in which a preposition is joined with nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

9. Prepositions • Examples of prepositions: • On, under, of, at, over, with, by, near, far, close. • Examples of prepositional phrases (the underlined word in each is the preposition): • On the car. • Under the office. • Of the people • At the fair. • Over the moon.

10. Articles • There are three articles in English: a, an, and the. • A and An are called indefinite articles. • The is called the definite article. • Articles modify nouns. As such, they are considered both articles and adjectives. • Examples of articles: • I want a book. (I don’t want any specific book. Any book will work.) • I want the book. (I want one specific book.)

11. Interjections • Interjections are words that are used to exclaim or protest or command. They can stand on their own or be part of a larger sentence. • Examples of interjections: • No! • Uhm, I don’t know where he is. • Phew! That was close.