Eight Parts of Speech in English

Presenter - Shubha Chowdhary

There are thousands of words in any language. But not all words have the
same job. For example, some words express "action". Other words express
a "thing". Other words "join" one word to another word. These are the
"building blocks" of the language. Think of them like the parts of a house.
When we want to build a house, we use concrete to make the foundations
or base. We use bricks to make the walls. We use window frames to make
the windows, and door frames to make the doorways. And we use cement
to join them all together. Each part of the house has its own job. And
when we want to build a sentence, we use the different types of word.
Each type of word has its own job.
We can categorize English words into 8 basic types or classes. These
classes are called "parts of speech".
It's quite important to recognize parts of speech. This helps you to analyze
sentences and understand them. It also helps you to construct good
sentences.
 Parts of Speech Table
Parts of Speech Function or ‘job’ Example words Example Sentences

Verb action or state (to) be, have, do, Shubha is a good

like, work, sing, girl. I like Shubha.
can, must
Noun Thing or person pen, dog, work, This is my dog. He
music, town, lives in my house.
London, teacher, We live in London.
John
Adjective Describes a noun a/an, the, 69, My dog is big. I like
some, good, big, big dogs.
red, well,
interesting
Adverb describes a verb, quickly, silently, My dog eats
adjective or adverb well, badly, very, quickly. When he is
really very hungry, he
eats really quickly.
 Parts of Speech Table (Contd.)
Parts of Speech Function or ‘job’ Example words Example Sentences

Pronoun Replaces a noun I, you, he, she, Tara is Indian. She

some is beautiful.
Preposition links a noun to to, at, after, on, but We went to school
another word on Monday.
Conjunction joins clauses or and, but, when I like dogs and I like
sentences or words cats. I like cats and
dogs. I like dogs
but I don't like cats.
Interjection short exclamation, oh!, ouch!, hi!, well Ouch! That hurts!
sometimes Hi! How are you?
inserted into a Well, I don't know.
sentence
 Parts of Speech Examples
Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:
Verb Noun Verb Noun Verb Verb
Stop! John Works. John is working.

Pronoun Verb Noun Noun Verb Adjective Noun

She loves animals. Animals like kind people.

Noun Verb Noun Adverb

Tara speaks English well.

Noun Verb Adjective Noun

Rajendra speaks good English.

 Parts of Speech Examples (Contd.)

Pronoun Verb Preposition Adjective Noun adverb

She ran to the station quickly.

Pron. verb Adj. Noun Conj. Pron. Verb Pron.

She likes big snakes but I hate them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

Interje Pron. Conj. Adj. Noun Verb Prep. Noun Adverb
ction
Well, she and young John walk to school slowly.
 Words with more than one Job
Many words in English can have more than one job, or be more than one
part of speech. For example, "work" can be a verb and a noun; "but" can
be a conjunction and a preposition; "well" can be an adjective, an adverb
and an interjection. In addition, many nouns can act as adjectives.
To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: "What job is this word doing in
this sentence?"
In the table below you can see a few examples. Of course, there are more,
even for some of the words in the table.

Word Part of Speech Example

Work Noun My work is easy.
Verb I work in London.
but Conjunction John came but Mary didn't come.
Preposition Everyone came but Mary.
 Words with more than one Job (Contd.)

Word Part of Speech Example

well Adjective Are you well?
Adverb She speaks well.
Interjection Well! That's expensive!
afternoon Noun We ate in the afternoon.
Noun acting as adjective We had afternoon tea.
 Verb

The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a verb. You can
make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!" You cannot
make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.
Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true.
Many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example,
words like run, fight, do and work all convey action.
But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of
existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem and
belong all convey state.
A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John speaks English", John is
the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say
that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:
• action (Ram plays football.)
• state (Anthony seems kind.)
There is something very special about verbs in English. Most other words
(adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although
nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change in
form. For example, the verb to work has five forms:
to work, work, works, worked, working
 Verb (Contd.)
Types of verbs
Auxiliary Verb:
An auxiliary verb (also know as a helping verb) determines the mood or
tense of another verb in a phrase: "It will rain tonight." The primary
auxiliaries are be, have, and do. The modal auxiliaries include can, could,
may, must, should, will, and would.
Lexical Verb:
A lexical verb (also known as a full or main verb) is any verb in English that
isn't an auxiliary verb: it conveys a real meaning and doesn't depend on
another verb: "It rained all night.“
Dynamic Verb:
A dynamic verb indicates an action, process, or sensation: "I bought a new
guitar.“
Stative Verb:
A stative verb (such as be, have, know, like, own, and seem) describes a
state, situation, or condition: "Now I own a Gibson Explorer."
Finite Verb:
A finite verb expresses tense and can occur on its own in a main clause:
"She walked to school.“
 Verb (Contd.)
Nonfinite Verb:
A nonfinite verb (an infinitive or participle) doesn't show a distinction in
tense and can occur on its own only in a dependent phrase or clause:
"While walking to school, she spotted a blue jay."
Regular Verb:
A regular verb (also known as a weak verb) forms its past tense and past
participle by adding -d or -ed (or in some cases -t) to the base form: "We
finished the project."
Irregular Verb:
An irregular verb (also known as a strong verb) doesn't form the past
tense by adding -d or -ed: “Arun ate the wrapper on his candy bar."
Transitive Verb:
A transitive verb is followed by a direct object: "She sells seashells."
Intransitive Verb:
An intransitive verb doesn't take a direct object: "He sat there quietly."
(This distinction is especially tricky because many verbs have both a
transitive and an intransitive function.)
 Noun

The simple definition is: a person, place, animal or thing. Here are some
examples:
person: man, woman, teacher, John, Mary
place: home, office, town, countryside, America
animal: dog, cat, monkey, snake
thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love

Types of Nouns:
Countable Noun:
Countable nouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count.
For example: "pen". We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or
more pens. Here are some more countable nouns:
• dog, cat, animal, man, person
• bottle, box, liter
• coin, note, dollar
• cup, plate, fork
• table, chair, suitcase, bag
 Noun (Contd.)

Countable nouns can be singular or plural:

• My dog is playing.
• My dogs are hungry.

Uncountable Noun:
Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide
into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot
count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we
cannot count "milk" itself. Here are some more uncountable nouns:
• music, art, love, happiness
• advice, information, news
• furniture, luggage
• rice, sugar, butter, water
• electricity, gas, power
• money, currency
 Noun (Contd.)

Proper Noun:
A proper noun is the special word (or name) that we use for a person,
place or organization, like John, Marie, London, France or Sony. A name is
a noun, but a very special noun - a proper noun. Proper nouns have
special rules.
Common Noun Proper Noun
Man, boy John
Woman, girl Mary
Country, town England, London
Company Ford, Sony
Shop, restaurant Maceys, McDonalds
Month, day of the week January, Sunday
Book, film Wuthering Heights, Titanic
 Noun (Contd.)
Compound Noun:
A compound noun is a noun that is made with two or more words. A
compound noun is usually [noun + noun] or [adjective + noun], but there
are exceptions. It is important to understand and recognize compound
nouns. Each compound noun acts as a single unit and can be modified by
adjectives and other nouns.
There are three forms for compound nouns:
• open or spaced - space between words (tennis shoe)
• hyphenated - hyphen between words (six-pack)
• closed or solid - no space or hyphen between words (bedroom)
 Adjective
An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. (By "noun" we
include pronouns and noun phrases.)
• An adjective "qualifies" or "modifies" a noun (a big dog).
• Adjectives can be used before a noun (I like Chinese food) or after certain
verbs (It is hard).
• We can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young
French lady).
Thank You