Parts of Speech Table

part of
speech function or "job" example words example sentences

Verb action or state (to) be, have, do, like, work, English Club is a web site. I like English
sing, can, must Club.

Noun thing or person pen, dog, work, music, This is my dog. He lives in my house. We
town, London, teacher, live in London.
John

Adjective describes a noun a/an, the, 2, some, good, I have two dogs. My dogs are big. I like
big, red, well, interesting big dogs.

Adverb describes a verb, adjective or quickly, silently, well, badly, My dog eats quickly. When he is very
adverb very, really hungry, he eats really quickly.

Pronoun replaces a noun I, you, he, she, some Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.

Preposition links a noun to another word to, at, after, on, but We went to school on Monday.

Conjunction joins clauses or sentences or and, but, when I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and
words dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats.

Interjection short exclamation, sometimes oh!, ouch!, hi!, well Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I
inserted into a sentence don't know.

Parts of Speech Examples

Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:

verb noun verb noun verb verb

Stop! John works. John is working.

 pronoun verb noun noun verb adjective noun

She loves animals. Animals like kind people.

noun verb noun adverb noun verb adjective noun

Tara speaks English well. Tara speaks good English.

pronoun verb preposition adjective noun adverb

She ran to the station quickly.

pron. verb adj. noun conjunction pron. verb pron.

She likes big snakes but I hate them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

interjection pron. conj. adj. noun verb prep. noun adverb

Well, she and young John walk to school slowly.

Words with More than One Job

Many words in English can have more than one job, or be more than one part of speech. For example, "work" can be a verb and
a noun; "but" can be a conjunction and a preposition; "well" can be an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. In addition,
many nouns can act as adjectives.

To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: "What job is this word doing in this sentence?"

In the table below you can see a few examples. Of course, there are more, even for some of the words in the table. In fact, if
you look in a good dictionary you will see that the word "but" has six jobs to do:

 verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjuction!

word part of speech example

work noun My work is easy.

verb I work in London.

but conjunction John came but Mary didn't come.

preposition Everyone came but Mary.

well adjective Are you well?

adverb She speaks well.

interjection Well! That's expensive!

afternoon noun We ate in the afternoon.

noun acting as adjective We had afternoon tea.

Decide which parts of speech are the underlined words

1. You have to believe in yourself if you ever expect to be successful at something._______________________

2. We left for the mountain just before six in the morning.__________________________________

3. We first went to the store to buy a few things. __________________________________

4. We had a breakfast at a café near the rail station. __________________________________

5. My friend wasn't strong enough to lift his heavy rucksack. __________________________________

6. I helped him carry it. __________________________________

7. The weather was very cold.

8. My friend said, "Oh! What a cold weather!" __________________________________

9. We didn't spend the night there. __________________________________

10. We got back home late at night but we didn't go to sleep immediately. We were very hungry.
__________________________________

Directions: Label the parts of speech for each word in the bold.

This excerpt is taken from chapter one of THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnet.

When (1.) Mary Lennox (2.) was (3.) sent Misselthwaite Manor to live (4.) with her uncle, everybody(5.) said

she was the(6.) most disagreeable looking child ever seen. It was true too.

(7.) She had a little thin face (8.) and a little thin body, thin

light hair and a (9.) sour expression. (10.) Her hair was (11.) yellow and her face was yellow,

(12.) because she had been born(13.) in (14.) India and had always been ill one way (15.) or another.
Decide which parts of speech are the underlined words

1. You have to believe in yourself if you ever expect to be successful at

something. pronoun
2. We left for the mountain just before six in the morning. verb
3. We first went to the store to buy a few things. preposition
4. We had a breakfast at a café near the rail station. noun
5. My friend wasn't strong enough to lift his heavy rucksack. adjective
6. I helped him carry it. pronoun
7. The weather was very cold. adverb
8. My friend said, "Oh! What a cold weather!" interjection
9. We didn't spend the night there. adverb
10. We got back home late at night but we didn't go to sleep immediately. We were very
hungry. conjunction

Quiz 2 answer key:

1. ( Proper) Noun

2. (helping) Verb

3.(Action) verb

4. preposition

5. (Action) verb

6.adverb

7. pronoun

8.(Coordinating) Conjunction

9.adjective

10. (Possessive) pronoun/ adjective

11.adjective

12.( Subordinating) conjunction

13. preposition

14. ( Proper) Noun

15. (Coordinating) conjunction