Parts of Speech
Posted on January 20, 2012 in Parts of SpeechSubscribe
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by Tom Fasano
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A sentence consists of words combined so as to express a complete thought. Each word performs a particular function in expressing that thought, and all words are classified according to their respective functions into eight Parts of Speech.
Pronouns Adjectives |
Adverbs Prepositions |
Interjections |
A Noun is a word that names something: as, horse, student, plagiarism.
The horse ran effortlessly.
The student committed plagiarism.
A Pronoun is a word used in place of a noun: as, she, we, who.
She was here.
We are the people who pay the highest taxes.
An Adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun: as, brown, big, last.
He wore a brown coat.
The soldier took the last train home.
A Verb is a word that expresses an action or state: as, walk, dance, read, sleep, is.
The girls dance gracefully.
My sister sleeps till noon.
An Adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb: as, softly, quickly, very, too, often.
She played the piano softly.
The soup was very hot.
He got into trouble too often.
A Preposition is a connecting word that shows the relation of a noun or a pronoun to some other word in the sentence: as, on, over, to, through, from, of.
The plane flew over the mountain.
The boy threw the ball through the window.
Much of our time is wasted.
A Conjunction is a word that joins words or groups of words in a sentence: as, and, but, because, although.
The officer and his troops fought bravely.
You can be lazy, but don’t expect success.
She left the party because she was sick.
An Interjection is an exclamatory word with little or no grammatical relationship to the rest of the sentence.
Ouch, that hurts.
These eight classes can be divided into four groups according to the relation between the different parts of speech.
(1) Nouns; Pronouns (used in place of nouns); Adjectives (modifiers of nouns).
(2) Verbs; Adverbs (primarily modifiers of verbs).
(3) Prepositions and Conjunctions, both of which are connecting words.
(4) Interjections, which usually have no grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence.
The following sentence contains seven of the Parts of Speech and demonstrates their use.
Several bright engineers worked diligently on the project and completed it.
Engineers and project are nouns — they are the names of things.
It is a pronoun standing for the noun project.
Several and bright are adjectives modifying the noun engineers.
The is an adjective (article) modifying the noun project.
Worked and completed are verbs — they tell what the engineers did: in other words, they make a statement about the engineers.
Diligently is an adverb modifying the verb worked — it describes the manner of their working.
On is a preposition — it shows the relation of the noun project to the verb worked.
And is a conjunction connecting the verbs worked and completed.
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