21.1 Parts of Speech
In English, words are used in one of eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, conjunction, preposition, and interjection. This table includes an explanation and examples of each of the eight parts of speech.
Noun | Person, place, or thing | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | Iowa | book | arm |
horse | idea | month | |||
Pronoun | Takes the place of a noun | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | he | it | I |
her | my | theirs | |||
Adjective | Describes a noun or pronoun | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | sticky | funny | crazy |
long | cold | round | |||
Verb | Shows action or state of being | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | run | jump | felt |
think | is | gone | |||
Adverb | Describes a verb, another adverb, or an adjective and tells how, where, or when something is done | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | slowly | easily | very |
often | heavily | sharply | |||
Conjunction | Joins words, phrases, and clauses | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | and | because | but |
since | or | so | |||
Preposition | First word in a phrase that indicates the relationship of the phrase to other words in the sentence | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | in | on | to |
after | at | over | |||
Interjection | A word that shows emotion and is not related to the rest of the sentence | Wow! After the game, silly Mary ate her apples and carrots quickly. | Hey | Wow | Look |
Super | Oh | Yuck |
Candela Citations
CC licensed content, Shared previously
- Writers Handbook. Authored by: Anonymous. Provided by: Anonymous. Located at: http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/writers-handbook/. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike