English Grammar: The Parts of Speech

Parts of Speech — Summary

Words are classified into eight groups according to the work that they do in sentences. These eight groups are called the parts of speech. The parts of speech are known as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

A noun is a word that is used to name something. Nouns name persons, places, animals, objects of various kinds, substances, qualities, actions, and measures, such as year, pound, quart, etc.

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun or a name. Pronouns are commonly used to avoid the awkward repetition of nouns.

A verb is usually regarded as the most important part of speech because it is impossible to make a statement without using a verb. A verb is a word that expresses action, condition, or state of being.

Most verbs express action. There is a small, but very important group of verbs that do not express action. With the help of some other word, these verbs usually describe the condition of the person, place, or thing that is being talked about. They are called linking verbs to distinguish them from action verbs. The verb to be is the most important linking verb. The forms is, are, was, and were belong to the verb to be.

A verb is not always a single word. Sometimes it is made up of two, three, and even four verb forms. When the verb is made up of more than one form, it is called a verb phrase. The verb form at the end of the phrase is called the principal verb. The other verbs forms are called auxiliary verbs, or helping verbs.

It is possible to have a sentence with only a noun or a pronoun and a verb. This is the essential framework or skeleton of a sentence. But it is often desirable and necessary to add other parts of speech to make our meaning clearer, or to make our sentences more interesting. Adjectives and adverbs are used for this purpose.

Adjectives and adverbs are modifiers; that is, their chief purpose is to modify or change the meaning in some way. Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.

The words a, an and the are called articles although they function just like adjectives. The word the is called the definite article, and the words a and an are called the indefinite articles.

Another important part of speech is the preposition. A preposition has an entirely different function in the sentence. It is used to show the relationship between certain words. One of these words is the noun or pronoun which follows the preposition. This noun or pronoun is called the object of the preposition.

We often need to use words that serve to connect words and groups of words. The part of speech that performs this function is the conjunction. The most commonly used conjunctions are and, but, or.

There are a number of words whose purpose is to express strong feeling or sudden emotion. Such words are called interjections. An interjection is usually independent of the rest of the sentence.

One of the most important facts to keep in mind from the very beginning is the fact that the same words are often used as different parts of speech. Adjectives are commonly used as nouns, and nouns are commonly used as adjectives. A word might be a preposition in one sentence, and an adverb in another sentence. The only way to tell the part of speech of a word is to study its function in a particular sentence.