Parts of Speech

 

Q. What are Parts of Speech in English Grammar?  Or   In how many parts an English speech or writing consists of. Name them.

Parts of speech are the basic categories of words according to their function in a sentence. It is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. English has eight main parts of speech, namely, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions & Interjections. In grammar, the parts of speech, also called lexical categories, grammatical categories or word classes is a linguistic category of words.

The parts of speech are commonly divided into two categories:

Open classes – Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and adverbs.

Closed classes – Pronouns, Prepositions, Conjunctions and Interjections.

Eight Parts of Speech in English Grammar

Part of Speech	Basic Function	Examples
Nouns	names a person, place, or thing	Caribbean, ship, Argentina, Mathew
Pronouns	takes the place of a noun	I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who
Verbs	identifies an action or state of being	believe, seem, finish, eat, drink
Adverbs	modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb	lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly
Adjectives	modifies a noun	funny, unique, bright, beautiful, healthy
Prepositions	shows a relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and other words in a sentence	close to, out of, apart from
Conjunction	joins words, phrases, and clauses	and, but, or
Interjections	expresses emotion and can usually stand alone	whoops, ouch

 

1.      Nouns

A noun is a part of speech that identifies a person, place, thing, idea or events. 

·         Name of the person                       Ahmed, Aslam, Michael

·         Name of the place                           Lahore, New York, Jhelum

·         Name of things                                 Pen, book, Gold

·         Name of the state                           illness, childhood, justice

Nouns are the simplest among the 8 parts of speech. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective as depending on the necessity. Nouns are broadly classified into five categories:

Examples:

·         Person – He is the person to see.

·         Person – Wajeeh started to run.

·         Person – Plato was an influential Greek philosopher.

·         Animal – The dog barked at the cat.

·         Animal – Elephants never forget.

·         Place – Harvard and Yale are two famous universities.

·         Place – Look! There’s the Eiffel Tower.

·         Thing – The lamp sits on a table next to the sofa.

·         Thing – Money doesn’t grow on trees.

·         Idea – The theory of relativity is an important concept.

·         Idea – Love is a wonderful emotion.

 

2. Pronouns

Pronouns as part of speech are the words which are used in place of nouns like people, places, or things. They are used to avoid sounding unnatural by reusing the same noun in a sentence multiple times. In the sentence, Faisal saw Murad, and he waved at him, the pronouns he and him take the place of Faisal and Murad respectively. The other examples of pronouns are I, you, she, her, it, everyone, somebody, hers, theirs, etc.

Examples:

·         We are going on vacation.

·         Don’t tell me that you can’t go with us.

·         Anybody who says it won’t be fun has no clue what they are talking about.

·         These are terribly steep stairs.

·         We ran into each other at the mall.

·         I’m not sure which is worse: rain or snow.

·         It is one of the nicest Italian restaurants in town.

·         Richard stared at himself in the mirror.

·         The laundry isn’t going to do itself.

·         Someone spilled orange juice all over the countertop!

 

3. Verbs

Verbs as part of speech are used to signify the actions, processes, conditions, or states of being of people or things. It is basically a word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, that in various languages is inflected for agreement with the subject, for tense, for voice, for mood, or for aspect, and that typically has full descriptive meaning and characterizing quality in it. The different types of verbs are mentioned below:

Examples:

·         I know the answer.

·         She recognized me from across the room.

·         Do you believe everything people tell you?

·         Let’s run to the corner and back.

·         I hear the train coming.

·         Call me when you’re finished with class

·         I am a student.

·         We are circus performers.

·         Please is quiet.

 

4. Adverbs

An adverb is a word that is used to change or qualify the meaning of an adjective, a verb, a clause, another adverb, or any other type of word or phrase with the exception of determiners and adjectives that directly modify nouns. Adverbs normally carry out these functions by answering questions such as:

When? She always arrives early.

How? He drives carefully.

Where? They go everywhere together.

In what way? She eats slowly.

To what extent? It is terribly hot.

Examples:

·         She was walking rapidly.

·         The kids love playing together in the sandbox.

·         Please come inside now.

·         His jokes are always very funny.

·         You don’t really care, do you?

 

 

5. Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe or modify a noun or a pronoun in the sentence. The adjectives are easy to spot because they come immediately before the nouns they modify. They are used to identify or quantify individual people and unique things and are usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify. Some sentences also contain multiple adjectives.

Examples:

·         A beautiful flower. A sharp knife, big class.

·         Fahad is a good boy.

·         He is blind.

·         He has a sharp knife.

·         Anila is a beautiful girl.

·         They live in a big, beautiful house.

·         Since it’s a hot day, Lisa is wearing a sleeveless shirt.

·         The mountaintops are covered in sparkling snow

·         On her birthday, Brenda received an antique vase filled with beautiful aroma.

 

6. Prepositions

A preposition is a word placed before a noun or a pronoun to indicate some relation between the noun or pronoun and some other word. The noun or pronoun that is connected by the preposition is known as the object of the preposition. Some common prepositions are in, on, for, to, of, with, and about, etc 

Examples:

·         I prefer to read in the library.

·         He climbed up the ladder to get into the attic.

·         Please sign your name on the dotted line after you read the contract.

·         Go down the stairs and through the door.

·         He swam across the pool.

·         Take your brother with you.

 

 

 

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions are used to link different clauses together, and to join words, phrases and sentences. By using conjunctions, we can make complex sentences that show a connection between actions and ideas. Examples: and, but, so, although, or, etc. 

Examples:

·         I tried to hit the nail but hit my thumb instead.

·         I have two goldfish and a cat.

·         I’d like a bike for commuting to work.

·         You can have peach ice cream or a brownie sundae.

·         Neither the black dress nor the gray one looks right on me.

·         My dad always worked hard so we could afford the things we wanted.

·         I try very hard in school yet I am not receiving good grades.

 8. Interjections

It is a word used to express emotions or some sudden outburst of feeling. Usually, used as an exclamation (!) by itself or with a comma following it if used at the beginning of a sentence. Though interjections do not relate grammatically to the other parts of the sentence or help the reader understand the relationship between words and phrases in the sentence, they express a wide variety of feelings, such as joy, sorrow, surprise, disgust, etc.

Examples:                                                                                                       

– Oh dear! – My goodness! – Wow! – Ouch! – Yes,

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