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May 29, 2023 · part of speech. : a class of words (as adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, or verbs) identified according to the kinds of ideas they express and the way they work in a sentence.
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- Nouns
- Pronouns
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Prepositions
- Conjunctions
- Interjections
- Other Parts of Speech
- Interesting Language Articles
A nounis a word that refers to a person, concept, place, or thing. Nouns can act as the subject of a sentence (i.e., the person or thing performing the action) or as the object of a verb (i.e., the person or thing affected by the action). There are numerous types of nouns, including common nouns (used to refer to nonspecific people, concepts, place...
A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Pronouns typically refer back to an antecedent (a previously mentioned noun) and must demonstrate correct pronoun-antecedent agreement. Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, places, concepts, and things. There are numerous types of pronouns, including personal pronouns (used in place of the proper na...
A verbis a word that describes an action (e.g., “jump”), occurrence (e.g., “become”), or state of being (e.g., “exist”). Verbs indicate what the subject of a sentence is doing. Every complete sentence must contain at least one verb. Verbs can change form depending on subject (e.g., first person singular), tense (e.g., simple past), mood (e.g., inte...
An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives can be attributive, appearing before a noun (e.g., “a red hat”), or predicative, appearing after a noun with the use of a linking verb like “to be” (e.g., “the hat is red”). Adjectives can also have a comparative function. Comparative adjectives compare two or more things. Superlat...
An adverbis a word that can modify a verb, adjective, adverb, or sentence. Adverbs are often formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective (e.g., “slow” becomes “slowly”), although not all adverbs have this ending, and not all words with this ending are adverbs. There are numerous types of adverbs, including adverbs of manner (used to describe ...
A preposition is a word (e.g., “at”) or phrase (e.g., “on top of”) used to show the relationship between the different parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be used to indicate aspects such as time, place, and direction.
A conjunctionis a word used to connect different parts of a sentence (e.g., words, phrases, or clauses). The main types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions (used to connect items that are grammatically equal), subordinating conjunctions (used to introduce a dependent clause), and correlative conjunctions(used in pairs to join grammaticall...
An interjectionis a word or phrase used to express a feeling, give a command, or greet someone. Interjections are a grammatically independent part of speech, so they can often be excluded from a sentence without affecting the meaning. Types of interjections include volitive interjections (used to make a demand or request), emotive interjections (us...
The traditional classification of English words into eight parts of speech is by no means the only one or the objective truth. Grammarians have often divided them into more or fewer classes. Other commonly mentioned parts of speech include determiners and articles.
If you want to know more about nouns, pronouns, verbs, and other parts of speech, make sure to check out some of our language articles with explanations and examples.
- Nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, place, concept, or object. Basically, anything that names a “thing” is a noun, whether you’re talking about a basketball court, San Francisco, Cleopatra, or self-preservation.
- Pronouns. Pronouns are words you substitute for specific nouns when the reader or listener already knows which specific noun you’re referring to. You might say, “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,” then follow it with “She’s always late; next time I’ll tell her to be here a half hour earlier.”
- Adjectives. Adjectives are the words that describe nouns. Think about your favorite movie. How would you describe it to a friend who’s never seen it? You might say the movie was funny, engaging, well-written, or suspenseful.
- Verbs. Go! Be amazing! Run as fast as you can! Win the race! Congratulate every participant who put in the work and competed! Those bolded words are verbs.
part of speech, lexical category to which a word is assigned based on its function in a sentence. There are eight parts of speech in traditional English grammar: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition, and interjection.
noun. a class of words sharing important syntactic or semantic features; a group of words in a language that may occur in similar positions or fulfil similar functions in a sentence. The chief parts of speech in English are noun, pronoun, adjective, determiner, adverb, verb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection POS.
May 2, 2024 · A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.
Every word can be categorized as a part of speech based on its function in a sentence. In English there are usually eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and yikes!
