The 8 parts of speech
1. Nouns
A noun is a person, place, concept, or object. Basically, anything that’s a “thing” is a noun, whether you’re talking about a basketball court, San Francisco, Cleopatra, or self-preservation.
Nouns fall into two categories:
common nouns and proper nouns.
Common nouns are general names for things, like planet and game show.
Proper nouns are specific names for individual things, like Jupiter and Jeopardy!
2. Pronouns
Pronouns are the words you substitute for specific nouns when the reader or listener knows which specific noun you’re referring to.
You might say “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,”
then follow it with
“she’s always late; next time I’ll tell her to be here a half-hour earlier.”
Instead of saying Jennifer’s name three times in a row, you substituted she and her and your sentences remained grammatically correct.
Pronouns are divided into a range of categories, and we cover them all in our guide to pronouns:
3. Adjectives
Adjectives are the words that describe nouns. Think about your favorite movie. How would you describe it to a friend who’s never seen it?
You might say the movie was funny, engaging, well-written, or suspenseful. When you’re describing the movie with these words, you’re using adjectives. An adjective can go right before the noun it’s describing (I have a black dog), but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, adjectives are at the end of a sentence (my dog is black).
4. Verbs
Go! Be amazing! Run as fast as you can! Win the race! Congratulate every participant for putting in the work to compete!
These bolded words are verbs. Verbs are words that describe specific actions, like running, winning, and being amazing.
Not all verbs refer to literal actions, though. Verbs that refer to feelings or states of being, like to love and to be, are known as nonaction verbs. Conversely, the verbs that do refer to literal actions are known as action verbs.
5. Adverbs
An adverb is a word that describes an adjective, a verb, or another adverb.
Take a look at these examples:
Here’s an example: I entered the room quietly. Quietly is describing how you entered (verb) the room.
Here’s another example: A cheetah is always faster than a lion. Always is describing how frequently a cheetah is faster (adjective) than a lion.
6. Prepositions
Prepositions tell you the relationship between the other words in a sentence.
Here’s an example: I left my bike leaning against the garage. In this sentence, against is the preposition because it tells us where I left my bike.
Here’s another example: She put the pizza in the oven. Without the preposition in, we don’t know where the pizza is.
7. Conjunctions
Conjunctions make it possible to build complex sentences that express multiple ideas.
I like marinara sauce. I like alfredo sauce. I don’t like puttanesca sauce. Each of these three sentences expresses a clear idea. There’s nothing wrong with listing your preferences like this, but it’s not the most efficient way to do it.
Consider instead: I like marinara sauce and alfredo sauce, but I don’t like puttanesca sauce.
In this sentence, and and but are the two conjunctions that link your ideas together.
8. Articles
A pear. The brick house. An exciting experience. These bolded words are known as articles.
Like nouns, articles come in two flavors: definite articles and indefinite articles. And just like the two types of nouns, the type of article you use depends on how specific you need to be about the thing you’re discussing.
A definite article describes one specific noun, like the and this. Example: Did you buy the car?
Now swap in an indefinite article: Did you buy a car?
See how the implication is gone and you’re asking a much more general question?
Figuring out parts of speech
Sometimes, it’s not easy to tell which part of speech a word is. Here are a few easy “hacks” to quickly figure out what part of speech you’re dealing with:
If it’s an adjective plus the ending “-ly,” it’s an adverb. Examples: commonly, quickly.
If you can swap it out for a noun and the sentence still makes sense, it’s a pronoun.
Example: We played basketball. / Steve and I played basketball.
If it’s something you do, and you can modify the sentence to include the word do, it’s a verb.
Examples: I have an umbrella. / I do have an umbrella.
If you can remove the word and the sentence still makes sense, but you lose a detail, the word is most likely an adjective.
Example: She drives a red van. / She drives a van.
If you can remove the word and the sentence doesn’t make sense, it’s likely a preposition.
Example: I left my notebook on the desk. / I left my notebook the desk.
And if you’re ever really stumped, just look the word up. Dictionaries typically list the part of speech a word fits in its entry, and if it fits more than one part of speech, both are listed with examples.
That brings us to another common issue that can confuse writers and language learners:
When a word is two different kinds of speech
Just like Y is sometimes a vowel but sometimes a consonant, there are words that are sometimes one part of speech and other times another.
Here are a few examples:
Work
I went to work (noun).
I went to work in the garden (verb).
Well
She paints very well (adverb).
He’s well-liked in his community (adjective).
I dropped a penny in the well (noun).
But
I cooked breakfast and lunch, but Steve cooked dinner (conjunction).
I brought everything but the pens you asked for (preposition).
Open and closed word classes
The parts of speech fall into two word classes: open and closed.
Open word classes are parts of speech that regularly acquire new words. Language evolves, and usually, evolution happens in these parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. In 2020, new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary included deep fake, truthiness, and contactless.
Closed word classes are the parts of speech that don’t regularly add new words. These parts of speech are more “set in stone” and include pronouns, conjunctions, articles, and prepositions.
What Is a Noun?
Nouns are everywhere in our writing. But what are all the types of nouns you come across, and how do you use them?
What is a noun?
A noun is a word that names something, such as a person, place, thing, or idea. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective.
Make your writing shine
Types of nouns
Nouns form a large proportion of English vocabulary and they come in a wide variety of types. Nouns can name a person:
Albert Einstein
the president
my mother
a girl
Nouns can also name a place:
Mount Vesuvius
Disneyland
my bedroom
Nouns can also name things, although sometimes they might be intangible things, such as concepts, activities, or processes. Some might even be hypothetical or imaginary things.
Shoe
Faucet
Freedom
The Elder Wand
Basketball
Proper nouns vs. common nouns
One important distinction to be made is whether a noun is a proper noun or a common noun. A proper noun is a specific name of a person, place, or thing, and is always capitalized.
Does Tina have much homework to do this evening?
Tina is the name of a specific person.
I would like to visit Old Faithful.
Old Faithful is the specific name of a geological phenomenon.
The opposite of a proper noun is a common noun, sometimes known as a generic noun. A common noun is the generic name of an item in a class or group and is not capitalized unless appearing at the beginning of a sentence or in a title.
The girl crossed the river.
Girl is a common noun; we do not learn the identity of the girl by reading this sentence, though we know the action she takes. River is also a common noun in this sentence.
Types of common nouns
Common or generic nouns can be broken down into three subtypes: concrete nouns, abstract nouns, and collective nouns. A concrete noun is something that is perceived by the senses; something that is physical or real.
I heard the doorbell.
My keyboard is sticky.
Doorbell and keyboard are real things that can be sensed.
Conversely, an abstract noun is something that cannot be perceived by the senses.
We can’t imagine the courage it took to do that.
Courage is an abstract noun. Courage can’t be seen, heard, or sensed in any other way, but we know it exists.
A collective noun denotes a group or collection of people or things.
That pack of lies is disgraceful.
Pack of lies as used here is a collective noun. Collective nouns take a singular verb as if they are one entity – in this case, the singular verb is.
A pride of lions roamed the savannah.
Pride of lions is also a collective noun.
Nouns as subjects
Every sentence must have a subject, and that subject will always be a noun. The subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing that is doing or being the verb in that sentence.
Maria is happy.
Maria is the subject of this sentence and the corresponding verb is a form of to be (is).
Nouns as objects
Nouns can also be objects of a verb in a sentence. An object can be either a direct object (a noun that receives the action performed by the subject) or an indirect object (a noun that is the recipient of a direct object).
Give the books to her.
A book is a direct object (what is being given) and her is the indirect object (who the books are being given to).
Nouns as subject and object complements
Another type of noun use is called a subject complement. In this example, the noun teacher is used as a subject complement.
Mary is a teacher.
Subject complements normally follow linking verbs like to be, become, or seem. A teacher is what Mary is.
A related usage of nouns is called an object complement.
I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Husband and wife are nouns used as object complements in this sentence. Verbs that denote making, naming, or creating are often followed by object complements.
Appositive nouns and nouns as modifiers
An appositive noun is a noun that immediately follows another noun in order to further define or identify it.
My brother, Michael, is six years old.
Michael is an appositive here, further identifying the subject of the sentence, my brother.
Sometimes, nouns can be used adjectivally as well.
He is a speed demon.
Speed is a normally a noun, but here it is acting as an adjective to modify demon.
Plural nouns
Plural nouns, unlike collective nouns, require plural verbs. Many English plural nouns can be formed by adding -s or -es to the singular form, although there are many exceptions.
cat—cats
These two cats are both black.
Note the plural verb are.
tax—taxes
house—houses
Countable nouns vs. uncountable nouns
Countable nouns are nouns which can be counted, even if the number might be extraordinarily high (like counting all the people in the world). Countable nouns can be used with a/an, the, some, any, a few, and many.
Here is a cat.
Cat is singular and—obviously—countable.
Here are a few cats.
Here are some cats.
Uncountable nouns are nouns that come in a state or quantity which is impossible to count; liquids are uncountable, as are things that act like liquids (sand, air). They are always considered to be singular, and can be used with some, any, a little, and much.
An I.Q. test measures intelligence.
Intelligence is an uncountable noun.
Students don’t seem to have much homework these days.
This example refers to an unspecified, unquantifiable amount of homework, so homework is an uncountable noun.
Possessive nouns
Possessive nouns are nouns which possess something; i.e., they have something. You can identify a possessive noun by the apostrophe; most nouns show the possessive with an apostrophe and an s.
The cat’s toy was missing.
The cat possesses the toy, and we denote this by use of ‑’s at the end of cat.
When a singular noun ends in the letter s or z, the same format often applies. This is a matter of style, however, and some style guides suggest leaving off the extra s.
I have been invited to the boss’s house for dinner.
Mrs. Sanchez’s coat is still hanging on the back of her chair.
Plural nouns ending in s take only an apostrophe to form a possessive.
My nieces’ prom dresses were exquisite.
if you want any other topic you can choose from below just click on it.
