1. Parts of speech Parts of words
Learning New Words
Parts of speech
Parts of words

2. Ways to Learn Vocabulary
Context
Word Parts
Dictionary
Today we’ll be looking at parts of speech and suffixes.

3. Parts of Speech Part of speech Definition Example Noun
A person, place, thing, or idea
Boy, bike, street, park
Pronoun
A word that stands in place of a noun
His, he
Verb
An action or state of being
Rode, turned
Adjective
A word that describes a noun
Little, red
Adverb
A word that describes a verb, adjective, another adverb, or a whole sentence
Quickly, carefully
Determiner
A word that “points out” a noun
The, this, that
Preposition
A word that shows a connection between a noun and the verb in the sentence—usually a connection of place or time
Down, into
Conjunction
A word that joins words or thoughts
and

4. Closed Classes
“Closed classes” of parts of speech are groups of words that are set. In other words, people will probably not make new words in these categories.
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Pronouns
Determiners

5. Open Classes
“Open classes” of parts of speech are groups of words that can grow. In other words, people do make new words in these categories.
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Most of your unfamiliar words will be open-class words.

6. Figuring Out the Part of Speech
You can figure out the part of speech of a word with two main clues:
Sentence position
Suffixes
Today, we will look at suffixes.

7. Figuring Out the Part of Speech: Suffixes
A suffix is a group of sounds that is put on the end of a word.
In English, suffixes usually give us grammatical information.
Past tense: /-ed/ (usually indicates a verb or an adjective)
Plural: /-s/ (can indicate a noun)

8. Figuring Out the Part of Speech: Suffixes
Other suffixes give us a different kind of grammatical information: The part of speech (see handout).

9. Figuring Out the Part of Speech: Sentence Position
Nouns:
Often come before verbs.
Often come after determiners (“the” or “a”).
The Sioux prepared for war.
Often come after adjectives.
The shy wanderoo hid behind the trees.

10. Figuring Out the Part of Speech: Sentence Position
Verbs
Often come after nouns.
Are usually central; often, you can tell they are the action of a sentence.
“The man gesticulated wildly because he couldn’t talk with the marshmallows in his mouth.”

11. Figuring Out the Part of Speech: Sentence Position
Adjectives
Often come before nouns. (My laconic uncle.)
Sometimes come after a word like “is” or “become,” and describe a noun that comes before the “is” or “become.” (My uncle is laconic.)

12. Figuring Out Adverbs
Adverbs can come almost anywhere in a sentence; one of the best ways to identify an adverb is that they often end in /-ly/.