Parts of Speech

A Guide to the Basic Parts of

Speech

Nouns
Nouns are the names of persons,
places, and things.
Examples of nouns :
Teacher, doctor, parent, president
House, school, office, coffee shop
Ball, wagon, car, magazine

Verbs
Verbs are action words or being* words.
Examples of verbs :
Action words: to jump, to run, to sit, to stand
Being words: to be

*Being words are those that show something existing.

Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe or
modify nouns.
Examples of adjectives :
The
The
The
The

red ball
fast child
tall woman
beautiful flower

Adverbs
Adverbs are words that describe or
modify verbs, adjectives, or other
adverbs.
Examples of adverbs :
The girl wrote quickly.
The shoppers picked carefully through the
apples.
His wagon is very red.
We went to the park yesterday. (Yesterday is
an adverb because it modifies when we
went to the park.)

Pronouns
Pronouns are words that take the place of
nouns or other pronouns. They are used to
make writing and speech more smooth
and less repetitive.
Singular
Plural
First

Subject

Object

Reflexive

Subject

Object

Reflexive

You

Myself

We

Our

Ourselves

Second
Third

You

Yourself

Masculine

He

Him

Himself

Feminine

She

Her

Herself

It

It

Itself

Neuter

You
They

Yourself
Them

Themselves

Pronouns
Examples of pronouns :
Bob filled his car with gas, then drove it
to the beach.
I put the dogs bone in its cage.
You can deliver the roses at noon. Just
bring them up to the house.
Jim introduced himself to the crowd.

Prepositions
Prepositions are words that link together
other parts of a sentence and are often
used to show relationships between
those parts, such as where one object is
positioned next to another.
Prepositions usually are part of
prepositional phrases, in which a
preposition is joined with nouns,
adjectives, and adverbs.

Prepositions
Examples of prepositions:
On, under, of, at, over, with, by, near, far, close.

Examples of prepositional phrases (the

underlined word in each is the preposition):
On the car.
Under the office.
Of the people
At the fair.
Over the moon.

Articles
There are three articles in English: a, an, and
the.
A and An are called indefinite articles.
The is called the definite article.

Articles modify nouns. As such, they are

considered both articles and adjectives.
Examples of articles:
I want a book.
(I dont want any specific book. Any book will work.)
I want the book.
(I want one specific book.)

Interjections
Interjections are words that are used
to exclaim or protest or command.
They can stand on their own or be
part of a larger sentence.
Examples of interjections:
No!
Uhm, I dont know where he is.
Phew! That was close.