PARTS OF SPEECH

PARTS OF SPEECH

NOUN: A word that names a person, place, thing, idea, animal, quality, or action. Nouns function as the subject

of the sentence. They also function as objects, complements, appositives, and modifiers, as well as in direct address.

Examples: child, John, New York, books, pizza, love, pony, generosity

Edwin, my brother, is a professional musician.

PRONOUN: A word that takes the position of a noun and functions as nouns do.

Examples: he, she, it myself, me, theirs, ours, we, you, yours

He attended a luncheon in his honor on Wednesday.

ADJECTIVE: A word that modifes, qualifies or describes nouns and pronouns. Generally, adjectives appear

immediately before the words they modify.

Examples: pretty girl, talented doctor, young athlete, blue book

The small child begged for a bedtime story.

VERB: A word denoting action, occurrence, or existence.

Examples: ran, jump, shout, sweat, thinks, feels, sleeps, eat, laugh, are, is, was, has

The President met with foreign diplomats on Tuesday.

ADVERB: A word that modifies verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. An "ly" ending almost always changes an

adjective to an adverb.

Examples: spoke quickly, ran hastily, worked frantically

Kelly reluctantly agreed to serve on my committee.

Many adverbs do not end in "ly." However, all adverbs identify when, where, how, how far, how much, etc.

Examples: hang low, stand straight, added wrong, study hard

Kelly never loses her temper.

PREPOSITION: A word that establishes a relationship between its object and another word in the sentence.

The relationship can be one of time, space, direction, place accompaniment, cause, or manner.

Examples: on, between, down, in, of, since, to (not a complete list)

Jack sat beside Jill on the bus.

CONJUNCTION: A word that functions as a connector between words, phrases, and clauses. There are

coordinating, correlating, and subordinating conjunctions.*

Examples: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (coordinating)

when, until after, before, although (subordinating)

I work part-time although I don't need the money.

ARTICLE: A word that is used before a noun and functions as an adjective

Examples: The (definite article), a and an (indefinite articles)

The bees that were on the flowers stung Kaye.

A man gave us directions to the airport.

[A is used before a noun beginning with a consonant sound]

An article in the paper caught my attention.

[An is used before a noun beginning with a vowel sound]

INTERJECTION: An exclamation expressing emotion.

Examples: Wow! Help! Stop! Ouch!

Wow! Look at all the snow.