T he Parts of Speech

The Parts of Speech

English 1

There Are 8 Parts of Speech

1. Nouns

2. Pronouns

3. Adjectives

4. Verbs

5. Adverbs

6. Prepositions

7. Conjunctions

8. Interjections

Nouns

Recognition Tools: -”the” in front of common nouns except ideas

-you can take a picture of them

Definition: Person, Place, Thing, or Idea

Ex. boy, mall, toothpick, peace, strength

NounsCommon Nouns: name any one person, place, thing, or idea and is generally not capitalized.

Ex. woman, school, flag, happiness

Proper Nouns: name a specific person, place, thing, or idea and generally is capitalized.

Ex. Sally, Granite City High School, St. Louis Arch, September

NounsCompound Nouns: made up of two or more words used together as a single noun. (They may be written as one word, separate words, or as hyphenated words.)

Ex. firefighter, fire drill, brother-in-law

Collective Nouns: words that name a group of a people, animals, or things.

Ex. audience, flock, assortment

NounsConcrete Nouns: name ACTUAL people, places, and things with physical, material properties

Ex. Pencil, bird, swimming pool

Abstract Nouns: do NOT have actual physical existence

Ex. Freedom, teamwork, evil

PronounsDefinition: Stands in place of a noun.

Recognition Tools:

-related to nouns

-the word they refer to is the antecedent

-memorize them!

PronounsPersonal Pronoun Chart

Singular Plural

1st person I, me, my, mine we, us, our, ours

2nd person you, your, yours

you, your, yours

3rd person he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its

they, them, theirs

PronounsReflexive Pronoun Chart

Singular- self Plural- selves

1st person myself ourselves

2nd person yourself yourselves

3rd person himself, herself, itself

themselves

PronounsDemonstrative Pronouns: used to point out a specific noun when by themselves

-this, that, these, those

-Example: The tacos I made taste better than those.

PronounsInterrogative Pronouns: introduce a question

-who, whom, whose, which, what

Ex. Which of the songs is your favorite?

Relative Pronouns: introduce subordinate clauses (not a complete thought)

-that, which, who, whom, whose

Ex. The ship that you saw is sailing to Greece.

PronounsIndefinite Pronouns: do not always refer back to any specific noun; names a general group

all each more nothing something

another either most one such

any everyone

much other

anybody everybody

neither several

anyone everything

nobody some

anything few none somebody

both many no one someone

Adjectives Definition: modifies nouns or pronouns

Ex. happy, bright, yellow

Recognition Tools:

-Adj. answers: What kind? Which one?How many?

Adjectives Articles

-a, an, and the are ALWAYS adjectives

Adjectives Nouns as adjectives

-Many words that can stand alone as nouns can also be used as adjectives modifying

nouns or pronouns.

Ex. cheese sandwich,

snow sculpture

weather report

VerbsDefinition: what you do or a state of

being

Ex. run, think, been (forms of be)

Recognition Tools:

-action of the subject or other noun

VerbsHelping Verbs- “helps” the main verb express an action or a state of being

Helping Verb Chart

Forms of be am, are, is been, being, be was, were

Forms of have has have had

Forms of do do does did

Modals can, could, may might, must, shall

should, will, would

VerbsAction Verbs: physical or mental activity

Ex. build, think

Linking Verbs: connect subject to the complement

Ex. is, are, was

Other Linking Verbs:

appear, become, feel, grow, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, stay, taste, turn

AdverbsDefinition: modifies verbs, adjectives,

and other adverbs

Ex. too, quite, very, rather, almost, always

*(Some words are always adverbs)

Recognition Tools: Adverbs answer:

When?

Where?

How?

To what extent?

-by ending “-ly”

PrepositionsDefinition: show relation between a

noun and the object

Ex. of, in, under

Recognition Tools:

-prepositional phrases: preps + (opt. modifiers) + object

PrepositionsCommon Prepositions

about before concerning

like since up

above behind down near through upon

across below during of throughout

with

after beneath except off to within

against beside for one toward without

Among between from out under

along beyond in outside underneath

around but (except)

inside over until

at by into past unto

Prepositions

Don’t forget that prepositions can be compound as well.

Ex. according to, because of, next to

ConjunctionsDefinition: joins words, phrases, or clauses, and they indicate the relation between the elements joined.

Ex. but, yet, so

Recognition Tools:

-connects @ junction

-MEMORIZE

ConjunctionsCoordinating Conjunctions

FANBOYS

-for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Correlative Conjunctions

-They come in pairs

-both…and -whether…or

-neither…nor -not only …but also

-either…or

ConjunctionsSubordinating Conjunctions-

-Introduces a subordinate clause

(cannot stand alone as a sentence.)

-AAAWWUBBIS

(as, after, although, while, when, until, because, before, if, since)

ConjunctionsSubordinating Conjunctions

after because since when

although before so that whenever

as even though than where

as if if though wherever

as long as in order that unless whether

as soon as once until while

InterjectionsDefinition: express emotion and have no grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence

Ex. ah, oops, hey, yippee

Recognition Tools:

-sometimes have exclamation or

a comma following them