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How to Identify Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs & Adverbs
It is almost impossible to write a sentence without a verb or a
noun, since these parts of speech
constitute many of the words in the English language. Adverbs
and adjectives modify verbs and
nouns respectively. They give the reader a better description of
a noun, and they let us know moreexactly how a verb was completed.
English speakers need to be able to identify the different parts
of
speech.
tep !
"etermine whether the word represents an idea, person, place or
thing. If so, then it is a noun.
#ords such as $materialism,$ $%eorge #ashington,$ $pain$ or
$basket$ are nouns, and they
respectively describe an idea, a person, a place and a
thing.
tep &
'heck whether the word describes something. Any word that
describes how old something is, what
color it is, what condition it is or what it looks like is an
adjective.
tep (
ee whether the word represents an action. If so, then it is a
verb. Any word that is an action, such
as see, hear, read or dance, is a verb.
How to Recognize Adverbs and Adjectives in a Sentence
As their names suggest, the role of adjectives and adverbs is to
add information to a sentence. They
add detail and color to objects and actions that would otherwise
appear boring and vague, but they
can sometimes be difficult to identify and easy to confuse. In
order to identify adjectives or adverbsin a sentence, you must
first have a general understanding of how they work and the parts
of speech
that each modifies.
How Adjectives Work
According to )urdue *niversity+s nline #riting -ab, an
adjective+s purpose is to describe a noun
by answering the uestions /which one01 /what kind01 or /how
many01 In the sentence, /The
biggest office is mine,1 the word /office1 is a noun, and the
word /biggest1 distinguishes which
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office is being described. In the sentence, /The old car
sputtered by,1 the adjective /old1 describes
what kind of car is passing. The sentence /everal children were
injured1 uses the adjective
/several1 to clarify how many children were involved.
How to ocate Adjectives
8ecause an adjective+s job is to modify a noun, it helps to find
the nouns in a sentence. -ook for
words that name people, places, things or ideas, such as
/mayor,1 /city,1 /pencil1 or /love.1 9ark
these words in the sentence, then look at each one individually
to see if any of the words nearby add
information to the noun by answering /what kind01 /which one01
or /how many01 %enerally, an
adjective will come before the noun it modifies, as /old1 comes
before /man1 in /The old man
walked home.1 #hen a noun is followed by a linking verb : forms
of /be,1 /feel,1 /taste,1 /smell,1
/sound,1 /look,1 /appear1 or /seem1 used to indicate a state of
being : an adjective will follow the
linking verb to describe the noun. ;or example, in the sentence
/The food smells delicious,1 the
verb /smells1 connects the noun /food1 to its description,
/delicious.1
How Adverbs Work
The main role of an adverb is to modify a verb, an adjective or
another adverb by answering the
uestion /how01 In the sentence, /The cat jumped uickly from the
porch,1 the adverb /uickly1
describes the verb /jumped1 by telling how it happened. An
adjective is modified in the sentence,
/The house is incredibly large.1 The house is described by the
adjective /large,1 while the adverb
/incredibly1 tells us how large. In the example of /The spy
whispered uite softly,1 the adverb
/softly1 explains how the spy whispered, while the adverb /uite1
tells how softly the whisper was
executed, showing how an adverb may modify another adverb.
How to ocate Adverbs
Adverbs generally end in /
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/>ormally we eat at noon,1 where /normally1 modifies the verb
/eat.1
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