Parts of Speech
Mastering language can be a very technical process. Never mind the artistic skill that goes into being a good writer — understanding things like parts of speech, sentence diagramming, and other grammatical terms are paramount for writers who want not only to produce concise text, but who want to be able to communicate effectively with other writers and editors about content.
Parts of speech explain how words are used in context. Each word in the English language can be categorized into one of the eight parts of speech. According to Wikipedia:
Parts of speech: In grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question.
However, many words fit into more than one category, depending on how the word is used. For example: dance can be used as a noun or as a verb:
Noun: I am going to the dance.
Verb: I dance every day.
Nouns and verbs are the most common parts of speech, but there are several more. Here’s a complete list, including definitions:
Eight Parts of Speech
Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. Often, adjectives are descriptive as in comfortable or red. Traditionally, adjectives included determiners, words that indicate definiteness as in articles a vs. the, or quantity as in one, some, or many. Linguists are increasingly separating determiners as unique parts of speech.
Adverb: Adverbs are like adjectives in that they are modifiers, but they modify any other type of word or phrase except for nouns. For instance, they modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, etc. Examples include quickly, and dark (as in dark red where the adverb dark modifies the adjective red).
Conjunction: A small group of words that form connections between words, phrases, or clauses. The most common are and, or, but, and yet. Others include because and however.
Interjection: According to dictionary.com: any member of a class of words expressing emotion, distinguished in most languages by their use in grammatical isolation, as Hey! Oh! Ouch! Ugh!
Noun: Often taught as person (girl), place (island), or thing (car), a noun is a word that can function as the subject or object of a sentence, either independently or as part of a phrase.
Preposition: A preposition is used to introduce a prepositional phrase. Normally, a preposition is found before a noun or pronoun, and often indicates placement. Common prepositions include to, in, at, over, under, by, since.
Pronoun: A pronoun is a word used to substitute another word. Common pronouns include you, they, we, he, she, and it.
Verb: Indicates action (walk), including occurrences (begin), states of being, or relations between things (button activates computer).
Now that you know all the parts of speech, the next step would be to identify them in sentences, which would take us into sentence diagramming. That’s beyond the scope of this particular article, but it’s something you should try on your own. Take a look at a few sentences and try labeling different words by identifying which parts of speech they belong to. With a little practice, you’ll be able to name the parts of speech in any sentence with ease.
Very useful refresher! Thanks!
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Anytime!
Being reminded of these lessons is always welcomed.
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I like to refresh my grammar skills too!
My English book just finished a review of these and sentence structure.
I used to love diagramming sentences back in grammar school.
My mother taught me to diagram sentences. (They didn’t teach that in my language arts classes.) I thought it was stupid at the time. Now, I diagram awkward sentences, and never fails to help me figure out where I went wrong.
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To this day, I’m surprised how little we did sentence diagramming in grammar school. Even back then it felt like an unfinished lesson. What a shame.
I agree. When you know the parts of speech, you can start to see just how flexible English is.
Google is a good example. Initially, Google was a proper noun, the name of a company. Now, after a little over a decade, google is the verb to use to describe searching for something on the interwebs. Same deal with Tivo.
Thanks for the refresher.
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I love the example with Google. Yes, you nailed that one!
Hi Melissa .. I’m always in need of revising my grammar – I seemed to lose out at school .. trying to do French, Latin and English and I lost the plot .. I guess I’m a reasonable writer – but I really, at times!, at not sure why!
I hope through your auspices I’ll pick up some grammar revision lessons ..
All the best – Hilary Melton-Butcher
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Too many languages can be confusing. I took four years of French in high school and when I took a semester of Spanish in college, I kept pronouncing everything with a French accent, and sometimes I even got mixed up and put the French word down on a test. Ugh! Now I wish I’d stuck with Spanish, because eventually I would have gotten it all straightened out. Instead, I went back to taking French. Anyway, I think learning other languages sort of expands one’s abilities in their native language.
Hi Melissa .. I had a ‘worse’ happening .. I used to play squash with an Australian friend, so I’d picked up some Oz; I went out to Zimbabwe (Rhodesia then), and South Africa, and so came back with two more English pick ups; I then went to the States (6 days only) for a friend’s wedding and came back to the UK – I couldn’t speak my own language .. the words simply wouldn’t come out – strange time!!
However as you say .. I’m so pleased I have a smattering of quite a few languages .. not to speak .. Latin, French, Italian, Afrikaans, German .. but they all help. I worked with East Europeans for a while, and the African names .. as you say learning is grist to the mill.
Here in England we do have this large cultural mix .. so we’re always being ‘assaulted’ with new sounds ..
Grammar – now that’s another matter! Have a good weekend ..
Hilary Melton-Butcher
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Hilary, I know the feeling. I haven’t been completely immersed in a culture where another language is spoken, but I’ve worked and lived in places where the language was a little different. New accents, slang words, and ways of stringing words together all made their way into how I spoke. I thought it was pretty cool!