UNIT 1

PARTS OF SPEECH

We can categorize English words into 8 basic types or classes. These classes are called
"parts of speech". Following is an overview of the eight parts of speech, and a quiz to check
your understanding:

PARTS OF SPEECH TABLE

PART OF
NO FUNCTION EXAMPLE WORDS EXAMPLE SENTENCES
SPEECH
EnglishClub.com is a web
(to) be, have, do, like,
1 Verb Action or state site.
work, sing, can, must
I like EnglishClub.com.
pen, dog, work, This is my dog.
2 Noun Thing or person music, town, London, He lives in my house.
teacher, John We live in London.
a/an, the, 69, some,
My dog is big.
3 Adjective Describes a noun good, big, red, well,
I like big dogs.
interesting
My dog eats quickly.
Describes a verb, quickly, silently, well,
4 Adverb When he is very hungry,
adjective or adverb badly, very, really
he eats really quickly.

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

Links a noun to another We went to school on

6 Preposition to, at, after, on, but
word Monday.
I like dogs and I like cats.
Joins clauses or I like cats and dogs.
7 Conjunction and, but, when
sentences or words I like dogs but I don't like
cats.
Short exclamation, Ouch! That hurts!
8 Interjection sometimes inserted into oh!, ouch!, hi!, well Hi! How are you?
a sentence Well, I don't know.
PARTS OF SPEECH EXAMPLES

Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:

Noun Verb Adjective Noun

John speaks good English.

Pronoun Verb Preposition Adjective Noun Adverb

She ran to the station quickly.

Pron. Verb Adj. Noun Conjunction Pron. Verb Pron.

She likes big snakes but I hate them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

Interjection Pron. Conj. Adj. Noun Verb Prep. Noun Adverb

Well, she and young John walk to school slowly.

WORDS WITH MORE THAN ONE FUNCTION

Many words in English can have more than one function, 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 function 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. In fact, if you look in a good dictionary you will see that the
word but has six functions to do:

 Verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction!

Word Part Of Speech Example

Noun My work is easy.
Work
Verb I work in London.
Conjunction John came but Mary didn't come.
But
Preposition Everyone came but Mary.
Adjective Are you well?
Well Adverb She speaks well.
Interjection Well! That's expensive!
Noun We ate in the afternoon.
Afternoon
Noun acting as adjective We had afternoon tea.