Appendix: Parts of Speech

The term parts of speech is used to describe all the categories into which each word of our language fits. This section will cover nine parts of speech that you will be expected to know.

1. Nouns
2. Pronouns
3. Verbs
4. Verb Helpers / Verb Parts
5. Prepositions
6. Conjunctions
7. Adjectives
8. Adverbs
9. Interjections

A noun is a word that is a person, place, thing, idea, or event. You know that a word is a noun when you can put a, an, or the in front of it or when you capitalize it because it is a proper name.

Note the examples below.

person: Melanie, the doctor, a machinist, Norwegians
place: Dallas, Disney Land, a mall, the neighborhood
thing: car, notebook, printer, flowers
idea: success, Theory of Relativity, happiness (anything abstract)
event: Christmas, the Civil War

The senator saluted the flag because he loves America and freedom, and then he went to the luncheon on First Street.

The words in italics in the sentence above are nouns.

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Words such as he, she, him, her, it, and they, we, them, us, and even who and whom are pronouns.

Read the following sentence.

Terry would like Terry’s car keys returned to Terry by tomorrow.

It’s awkward and not the way we would talk. What we would say is the following:

Terry would like his car keys returned to him by tomorrow.

Pronouns make communication easier because we don’t have to repeat a name over and over again. The name or noun that the pronoun refers to (in this case Terry) is called the antecedent.

I went to the Walker Art Center, but it was closed on Mondays.

In the sentence above, it is the pronoun and Walker Art Center is the antecedent, the noun that the pronoun is standing in for.

A verb is a word that expresses two things: 1) action or 2) state of being.

Action verbs are words such as run, study, sleep, and think.

State-of-being verbs (sometimes called linking verbs) include the following:

to be (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been)

became, appear, grow, keep, remain, seem, stay, loom, prove, turn

sound, smell, look, feel, taste (These five can also be action verbs.)

I was bored, so I walked to the park and saw a squirrel attack an old man.

The words in italics in the sentence above are verbs.

Sometimes, verbs have what are called verb helpers or verb parts. These are words that complete the verb in certain sentences. Verb helpers are words such as the following:

shall, should
will, would
have (has, had)
may, might
can, could
do (does, did)

Here are some examples of sentences that contain a verb and a verb helper / part.

The baseball team will win the championship this year.

The book could make a lot of money for the author.

A preposition is a word that links an object (another word, usually a noun) to a word or groups of words. Prepositions can also help us understand relationships in time and space (such as the dog ran around, under, through, between the chairs).

The following is a list of some common prepositions that you should know.

The words in italics in the sentences below are prepositions.

In 1918, the last czar of Russia and his family were brutally murdered by the orders of Lenin.

I went to the store about 5:00, walking between two cars from the state of Nebraska that sat with one wheel on the curb.

A conjunction is a word that links words or parts of sentences together. There are two kinds of conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions link sentence parts that are equal in structure and importance. For example, they link together nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, and so forth.

Coordinating conjunctions can be remembered by using the mnemonic device “FANBOYS.”

Subordinating conjunctions are the other type of conjunction. They link phrases together that are not equal in importance. There are many subordinating conjunctions, but these are some of the most common ones.

Note the italicized subordinating conjunctions in this sentence.

Although he was sick, he still got up and went to class because he was afraid of missing the lecture on parts of speech.

Adjectives describe nouns. They tell something about people, places, things, and ideas. In the phrases below, the adjectives are in italic type. We use them to answer questions such as what kind, which one, and how many.

The blue ship. The red sweater. The florid prose. The bad day. The good semester. The tremendous philosophy.

Adverbs describe verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. The English language regularly forms adverbs by adding –ly to adjectives (although that’s not the only form in which adverbs appear). We use them to answer the questions how, when, where, why, and to what extent. In the sentences below, the adverbs are in italics.

I played noisily during the contest. I took the guitar and smashed it slowly into the amp. The amp crashed loudly into the curtain. The curtain quietly ripped and fell softly on my head. I cried unhappily.

An interjection is a short, usually emotion-laden word or phrase that frequently stands by itself.

Wow! The comma is amazing. Oh no! I forgot to proofread.