The Full Explanation of The Parts of Speech

 Parts of speech:

According to their meanings, forms, and functions in the sentence all English words can be classified into eight groups, called Parts of speech.  These eight groups are: Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections.

*Amazingly, only eight parts of speech are used to classify hundreds of thousands of words. The challenge is that many of words can be used for more than one part of speech.

1)   Identifying characteristics of Nouns:

-Nouns are parts of speech which include words denoting, persons, places, things, qualities, actions, or ideas.

Examples:  a teacher, England, Japan, writing, happiness, a book, freedom, etc.

The articles “a”, “an”, and “the” are ‘markers’ indicating that a noun is to follow

Examples:  A book, an article, the boy.

-The functions of Nouns in the sentence are:  Subjects, Objects and Complements.

Examples:  Jhon, is a famous British singer, will sing his best songs in this concert.

Nouns are identified by these special endings: -tion, -ment, -ness, -ism, -ence, -er, -or, -ance, -ure, -al, -ship, -ing, -hood, -ist, -th, etc.

*Compound Nouns:  Made of two or more words: ice water, notebook, and brother-in-law, etc.

*Appositive: Noun or noun phrase that identifies a nearby noun or pronoun. My son Billy is happy.

2)   Identifying characteristics of Pronouns:

Pronouns are parts of speech which substitute or take the place of nouns in the sentence.

*Professional or alternate name used by nouns to enhance their careers.

Pro means “for Pronoun means “for Nouns”

Example:  The mother is preparing dinner for the guests.

                  She is preparing it for them.

The syntactical functions of pronouns are similar to those of nouns and adjectives, accordingly pronouns are classed, as Noun-pronouns and adjective-pronouns.

Examples:  He is watching TV (subject).    Jhon can do this (object).[ Noun-pronouns]

My pencil is here (attribute).          Give the needy some coins (adjective pronouns)

Type of pronouns

Personal: I, me, mine, my / you, your / he, him, his / she, her / we, our, us / they, them, their / it

Indefinite (not specific): all, any, anyone, both, each, either, everyone, few, many...

Interrogative (ask questions): what? Which? Who?, whom?, whose?...

Demonstrative (point out): this, that, these, those...

Reflexive (reflect back): myself, yourself, himself, herself, themselves...

Relative (link dependent clauses): that, which, who, whoever, whom, whose...

Antecedent: The noun or noun phrase a pronoun refers to. John made his bed.

Ante means “before.” Cede means “to go.” An antecedent in a sense “goes before” or existed before the pronoun, although it can occur afterwards in a sentence.

 It was John’s bed.

3)   Identifying characteristics of adjectives:

-Adjectives are parts of speech which modify or qualify nouns or pronouns:

Examples: white color.  Famous writer.  Good way.  That  boy.   My book.

-As it is shown in these examples, adjectives are always placed near the word they modify.

-The main syntactical functions of adjectives in the sentence is that of an attribute:

   This happy news cheered all the family.

Adjectives have these special endings: -ous, -ive, ful, -al, -ible or -able, -ent or – ant, -ing,

-ish, -ile … etc.

*Adjective advertises details about a noun or pronoun by telling what kind, how many, which one…

Articles (the, a, an) are also adjectives.

Proper Adjectives are Proper Nouns used as adjectives: Boston bank, French fries.

4)   Identifying characteristics of verbs:

Verbs are parts of speech which indicate an action or a process, a state or condition.

Examples: They run.  The boxers are fighting.

                    It becomes dark.  She is writing an e-mail.

Verbs, together with Nouns form the central core of the sentence.

           He is gossiping.  The bands have been singing for two hours.

The main syntactical function of verbs in the sentence is that of the predicate or the essential part of the predicate.

              He is singing [verb-predicate]

            He is singing lovely songs [part of the predicate]

Verbs take –s for the third person singular, -ed for the past tense and past participle (regular verbs), - ing for the present participle.

Plays  ; played; has played; playing.

Phrasal Verbs generally consist of a verb plus a preposition: Turn up the music.

5)   Identifying characteristics of adverbs

-Adverbs are parts of speech which modify Verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. In addition, an adverb may modify a phrase, clause, or even the rest of the sentence in which appear it.

   He walks quickly.                He is very quick walker.

   He walks very quickly.         Finally, they managed to solve the problem

-An adverb is used with how, what, when, or where the action takes place.

-The syntactical functions of an adverb is that of an adverbial modifier of time; place; manner.

-Most adverbs are formed from adjectives with addition of “-ly” ending:

Slow-slowly           bad-badly                   brilliant-brilliantly

*Only an adverb   can modify an adjective (very good) or another adverb (very loudly).

*Adverbial Conjunctives connect independent clauses in a compound sentence: Consequently, hence, however, moreover, nevertheless, otherwise, therefore...

6)   Identifying characteristics of Preposition:

-Prepositions as part of speech are words which show the relationship between a noun or its equivalent and some other words in the sentence:

Examples: In March, at home, of great importance, before the sunset, for me.

-Prepositions introduce Prepositional Phrases which consist of prepositions followed by nouns, plus any modifier of nouns:

On purpose, after breakfast, of mine , In the sitting room.

*Prepositional phrases can be used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. The noun or pronoun at the end of the phrase is the object of the preposition.

More propositions:

Time: before/after, during, past, until

Location: above/below, across, along, around, behind, beside, between,

In/out, into, near/far, on/off, over/under, through, up/down, within

Multipurpose: about, against, as, at, by, of, for, from, to, with, without.

7)   Conjunctions:

-Conjunctions are words that serve to connect words, phrases, or clauses. Conjunctions are classed as coordinative and subordinate.

The Coordinative Conjunctions (equal rank items): for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, FANBOYS.

And the Correlatives (item pairs): both-and, either-or, neither-nor. Connect words, phrases, or clauses that are independent of each other and have equal grammatical rank.

Examples: -Cars and trains are means of transport.

                 -Are you going to the wedding party, or will you stay home?

                 -Both Mark and Bob are famous rock stars.

Some connectors, called Conjunctive Adverbs are used to connect parts of the sentence (words, phrases, or clauses. These connectors are: “therefore”, “furthermore”, “consequently”, “however”, “nevertheless”, “then”, “hence”.

Examples: The road was wet and slippery; consequently, there were many accidents.

The subordinate Conjunctions (dependent clauses): after, although, as, as if, because, before, if, once, since, so that, that, unless, until, when, where, while, as soon as….connect subordinate clauses.

Examples: -She felt terrible about losing her rings because they were made of gold.

                   -Although she went on a strict diet, she continued to gain weight.

8) Interjections:

An interjection is an expression of emotion that either stands alone or is inserted into a sentence without being grammatically related to it. It may be followed by an exclamatory mark or by a comma.

Examples:  “Oh, yes.” I replied.                Wow! He has beaten another world record.