Eight Parts of Speech

Nouns

A teacher is a person. A classroom is a place. A book is a thing.

Joy is a feeling.
A concrete noun names a person, place, or thing that you
can identify using your five senses.
E.g: student, forest, or cup.

Abstract nouns name abstractions, or ideas, feelings, or

qualities that you cannot identify using your five senses.
E.g. bravery, freedom, and knowledge
Pronoun

Like a noun, a pronoun names a person, place, thing, or

abstraction.

E.g. The woman ran in a 5K race. She got third place in her
age group.
Both sentences refer to the same noun, woman. In the
second sentence, the word she substitutes for the noun
woman.
Verb

Verbs are the parts of speech that describe what

something or someone does or is.

(1) An action verb describes what a noun or pronoun is

doing. E.g. I wash the dishes after dinner every night.
(Wash is what I do to the dishes every night.)
(2) Some verbs do not describe action. Instead, they
describe being. This kind of verb is called a linking verb.

Linking verbs do what their name says: They link, or

connect, a noun or a pronoun to other words that tell you
something about it, or what it is.
E.g. Washington, DC, is the nation’s capital.
(Is in the first sentence links Washington, DC, to words that
tell you what it is—the nation’s capital.)
Modifiers

Modifiers are words that modify, or change, the meaning of

another word in some way. There are two kinds of
modifiers: adjectives and adverbs.
Adjectives describe nouns, and adverbs describe verbs.
Adjective

• An adjective tells us more about a noun by describing it

more fully. An adjective also makes a noun easier to
identify because it provides specific information about it.
E.g. Vivian is walking two friendly, playful dogs.

• Now you know more about the dogs Vivian walks. The
adjective two tells you how many dogs there are, and the
adjectives friendly and playful tell you what kind of dogs
they are.
Adjective

• Keep in mind that sometimes an adjective may not come

before the word it describes, but after it.
E.g. The house Indira bought is bright and spacious.

• The adjectives bright and spacious come after the noun

they describe, house.
Adverb

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other

adverbs.

E.g. Juan swims slowly.

(The adverb slowly adds a detail that describes the verb
swims. Now you know how Juan swims.)
Adverb

Juan swims daily.

The adverb daily tells you something about the verb swims.
Now you know when Juan swims.

Juan swims there.

The adverb there tells you something about the verb swims.
Now you know where Juan swims.
Prepositions

A preposition is a word that links a noun to another word. It

often helps specify the noun and often describes
location.

E.g. The boy by the tree.

(This tells you which boy or where the boy is located.)
Conjunctions

A conjunction links words, phrases, and clauses.

E.g. I like most cheeses, but I don’t like cream cheese.

The conjunction but links the two independent clauses.

An independent clause is a clause that can stand alone

as a sentence. The clause I like most cheeses could be a
sentence by itself and so could the clause I don’t like
cream cheese.
Coordinating conjunctions link two words, phrases, or
clauses that have equal weight grammatically.

There are seven coordinating conjunctions:

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. You can remember the
coordinating conjunctions by using the acronym FANBOYS.
Interjections

• An interjection is a word or short phrase that expresses

feeling or the emotion of the writer.

E.g. Ouch! I bumped my head on the window.

(The interjection ouch shows that the author is in pain.)