Parts of Speech

A Guide to the Basic Parts of Speech

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

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.

Adjectives

• Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns.

• Examples of adjectives :– The red ball– The fast child– The tall woman– The beautiful flower

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.)

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.

Singular Plural

Subject Object Reflexive Subject Object Reflexive

First I You Myself We Our Ourselves

Second You Yourself You Yourself

Third Masculine He Him Himself They Them Themselves

Feminine She Her Herself

Neuter It It Itself

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.