Parts of Speech

Noun A noun is a person, place, thing or idea.

Types of Nouns Common noun: word used to name any regular, ordinary person, animal, place, thing or idea. Nothing specific. Examples: car, man, bridge, town, water, metal, ammonia Proper noun: name of a specific person, place or thing. Always starts with a capital letter. Examples: Michael, Africa, United Nations, Tower of London Common Nouns / Proper Nouns

Collective and Possessive Nouns Collective Nouns: a word used for a group of people or things Examples: people: audience, crowd, jury, family, group, nation, staff, cast, gang, team Possessive Nouns: noun that owns something in the sentence. Example: The airplane’s engine was loud. (The airplane “owns” the engine.)

Pronouns A word that takes the place of a noun. Examples:

Personal Pronouns Personal pronouns: a pronoun that stands in for a person.

Possessive Pronouns A possessive pronoun is a pronoun that shows ownership. Examples of possessive pronouns are: my, mine, your, his, her, hers, their, theirs, our, ours, its. NOTE: The difference between a possessive pronoun and possessive noun is the ‘s. A possessive noun must have an ‘s to show ownership and a possessive pronoun does not have an ‘s.

Indefinite Pronouns Indefinite pronouns stand in for nouns that are not named specifically. Examples: everyone, someone, anyone, no one, everything, something, anything, nothing, everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody.

Adjectives An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives give us more information about nouns. They tell us: The color of nouns The size of nouns The shape of nouns The texture of nouns The condition of nouns How many there are of the nouns

Adjectives: Articles A, An and The The describes something specific The book is on the table. (describes a specific book) A and an are non-specific and can refer to any noun. A book is on the table. (could be any book) A is used before a word beginning with a consonant. An is used before a word beginning with a vowel.

Verbs Action verbs: tell what the subject of a sentence does. Examples: run, fall, sit, write, see, fly, cry, laugh, bake, build, make, have, buy The hawk flew over the field in search of prey. Linking verbs- show the state or condition of a person or thing. They link the subject with a word in the predicate. Examples: am, is, are, was, were, being, been. Juan is an excellent basketball player.

More Linking Verbs Verbs like appear, become, feel, grow, sound seem, and taste can ALSO be used as linking verbs when they can take the place of the verb be. Lana seemed surprised. Lana was surprised. The puppies look sleepy. The puppies are sleepy.

Verb Phrase/Helping Verb A verb that contains more than one verb is called a verb phrase. The last word in the phrase is called the main verb. All other words in the phrase are called helping verbs. Tom had made several careless mistakes on his test Maria may finish her report by Friday. We will be going to the movies tonight.

Adverbs Adverbs give information about verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. Examples: carefully, slowly, too, somewhere, very, calmly, shyly, often, here, there, never, not, soon, anywhere, daringly They answer the questions: How? (Megan walked slowly.) When? (Class will start soon.) Where? (Tim stood there.) To what extent? (She works out daily.) Hints to recognize adverbs: They often end in –ly. The words very and too are probably the most common adverbs.

Prepositions A preposition is a word that relates a noun or pronoun to another word or sentence. The noun or pronoun that follows a preposition is called the object of the preposition. A preposition, its object and any words that modify the object are called a prepositional phrase.

More Prepositions

Conjunctions Conjunctions are words that connect words or groups of words in a sentence. For And Nor But Or Yet So HINT: The above spells FANBOYS. Coordinating conjunctions include the words and, but, or, or nor. Either…or Neither…nor Not only…but also Both…and

Commas and Conjunctions When listing items, use a comma in between each item and insert and for the last one. Example: WRONG: I fell and hurt my knee and my head and my back and my pride. RIGHT: I fell and hurt my knee, my head, my back and my pride. When coordinating conjunctions (F.A.N.B.O.Y.S) are used to connect two sentences, you must use a comma before the conjunction. Note: If the sentences are very short, you can sometimes leave out the comma.

Interjections Interjections are words that show strong emotion or surprise in a sentence. Examples: Hey! Yikes! Oops! Oh boy! Ouch! Yuck! Yo! Pow! Ugh!