Grammar – Parts of Speech
PARTS OF SPEECH Words are classified according to the functions they serve in a sentence. The parts of speech are: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Each of the following parts of speech has its own separate handout with lots of extra information, examples, and practice sentences. If you would like to learn more, please ask one of the tutors!
Nouns:
A noun is usually a word for a person, place, or thing. Nouns identify the grammatical subjects and objects of sentences. They answer the question “What is this sentence about?” • • • •
Adjectives:
Adjectives modify nouns, which means they provide extra information about the noun. They answer questions like “which one?” (that cow, Julian’s cow), “what kind?” (a brown cow, a pregnant cow), and “how many?” (some cows, three cows). • • •
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Updated by: A. Tuzlak, July 2010
Nouns often appear after an article: a bath, the door. Nouns can be modified by adjectives: a hot bath, the open door. Most nouns have both a singular form (bath) and a plural form (baths). A few plurals are irregular (child, children). Proper nouns are names of people, cities, countries, days of the week, and certain other unique objects. In English, these are usually capitalized: Toronto, Wednesday, India, Bow Valley College, Nelson Mandela.
Adjectives usually appear before the nouns they modify (a cold day) or after a linking verb (the day was cold). Short descriptive adjectives usually have three different forms that can be used to compare nouns. (Today is cold; yesterday was colder; the day before was the coldest.) If more than one adjective modifies a noun, the adjectives are placed in a traditional order according to what quality they describe. The order of adjectives is opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Adjectives never modify other adjectives; if you need to modify an adjective, use an adverb (a very cold day).
Grammar – Parts of Speech
Verbs:
A verb is a word that describes an action or state. It tells us what the noun is “doing.” Verbs are very complex in English. If you would like more help with them, please ask the tutors. •
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Updated by: A. Tuzlak, July 2010
Verbs change to signal when an action took place (tense) and whether the action stopped or continued (aspect). o The most common tense markers in English are: -ed for actions that occurred in the past, and -s (third person singular only) for actions that occur in the present or habitually. Unfortunately, many common verbs have irregular forms and must be memorized. o Adding -ing to a verb makes the present participle, used in continuous tenses. Adding -ed makes the past participle, used in perfect tenses. Some past participles are irregular. o Participles have many uses in English; note that they do not always act as verbs! (For example, in the painted toy the word “painted” is an adjective, not a verb.) Some verbs do not have meaning of their own, but clarify the meaning of other verbs. These are called helping verbs or auxiliary verbs. o In the sentence “If I had won the lottery, I would have bought a new house”, had, would, and have are helping verbs. They do not mean anything by themselves, but they give us more information about the tense and aspect of won and bought. Some verbs are transitive, which means that they take a noun as a direct object. Other verbs are intransitive, which means that they can stand by themselves. Some verbs can be used both ways. o The verb buy is transitive: “I bought a house.” A direct object is needed to complete the meaning; “buy” cannot stand by itself. o The verb sleep is intransitive. “She slept” cannot take a direct object. More information can be provided by a prepositional phrase: “She slept on the floor” or “She slept for an hour.” o Many verbs work both ways. “He played” (intransitive) and “He played a game” (transitive) are both grammatical. Questions follow special rules. The helping verb do is added in some tenses, and the other parts of the sentence can be moved or reversed. For example, “He took his medicine” turns into “Did he take his medicine?”
Grammar – Parts of Speech
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Adverbs:
Negative forms of verbs are created with the help of the auxiliary verb do. “I do not like cheese.” Remember that do not is often contracted to don’t and did not is often contracted to didn’t.
Adverbs modify verbs in the same way that adjectives modify nouns. They answer questions like “how?” (please drive carefully), “when?” (I played that game yesterday), “where?” (she lives there), and “how often?” (he pushed the button twice). •
Many adverbs end in -ly. In fact, many adverbs are simply adjectives with a -ly ending attached. Compare the horse is quick (quick describes the horse) to the horse walks quickly (quick describes the way the horse walks). • Some adverbs function to negate or limit the idea in a verb. For example, “he never laughs” and “I do not agree.”
Pronouns:
Pronouns replace nouns in sentences. Words like I, they, mine, herself, who, and someone can all serve as pronouns; they help avoid the constant repetition of names. Pronouns behave almost exactly like nouns, but they follow some special rules. For example, a pronoun’s form will change depending on whether it is the subject or the object of the sentence: compare I sent a letter to her and She sent a letter to me.
Prepositions:
Prepositions are words that introduce prepositional phrases, which add times, locations, and other information to a sentence: at the bank, under the table, before the game, without my sister, to the beach, for the children, between the buildings, about a subject, with a hammer.
• Some verbs take prepositions and others do not: we watch television (no preposition), but we look at the birds. • Sometimes the meaning of a verb changes if you use a different preposition with it. For example, looking at a bird means watching it, while looking for a bird means that you are trying to find it. Many of these meanings are idiomatic and must be memorized.
Conjunctions:
Updated by: A. Tuzlak, July 2010
Conjunctions serve to link the parts of a sentence together. They include common words like and, but, or, and therefore.
Grammar – Parts of Speech
Interjections:
Words and noises which do not refer to anything in particular but which express a speaker’s emotion. They include oh, ouch, drat, hello, and similar words. In writing, they are often followed by an exclamation point.
Remember! The same word can function as a different part of speech in different sentences. It is important to understand how each word functions in each sentence you read. We walk down the street.
Here, walk is a verb, ruled by the subject we.
We went for a nice walk.
Here, walk is a noun, modified by the adjective nice.
Exercise Read the following sentences, and decide whether each of the italicized words is a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, or an interjection. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
That tropical fish is an amazing colour. Let’s go fishing by the lake tomorrow. My daughter likes feeding the ducks. Jimmy ducked when Sarah threw the snowball. I love this song. I love this. She hurt herself climbing the stairs. I saw that the dog was hurt and wanted to help. Many birds fly south for the winter. My cat was chasing a fly around the house. When my brother moved, he gave me all his favourite books. Please call the airline so that we can book our tickets. Her coat was much too heavy for the spring weather. I need to be there at 3:00 to meet her. Rats! I lost my keys again. Clean the house carefully so that rats don’t get into the walls. The skilled carpenter made a beautiful table. The carpenter works skillfully. He was tired so he left the party early. My uncle has a scar on his left leg.
Updated by: A. Tuzlak, July 2010
Grammar – Parts of Speech
Answers 1. 5. 9. 13. 17.
Noun Adjective Verb Adjective Adjective
Updated by: A. Tuzlak, July 2010
2. 6. 10. 14. 18.
Verb Pronoun Noun Pronoun Adverb
3. 7. 11. 15. 19.
Noun Verb Noun Interjection Verb
4. 8. 12. 16. 20.
Verb Adjective Verb Noun Adjective
