Teaching the eight parts of Speech

In the English language, there are eight parts of speech. Everything you’ve ever said directly relates to either one, or a combination of these different components. In this chapter, we go back to school (so to speak) and discuss Verbs, Interjections, Pronouns, Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs, Conjunctions and Prepositions. The second of our graded assessments will involve teaching the eight parts of speech.

There are eight parts of speech in the English language: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The part of speech indicates how the word functions in meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence. An individual word can function as more than one part of speech when used in different circumstances. Understanding parts of speech is essential for determining the correct deﬁnition of a word when using the dictionary.

1. Noun:

A noun is a word for a person, place, thing, or idea. Nouns are often used with an article (the, a, an), but not always. Proper nouns always start with a capital letter; common nouns do not. Nouns can be singular or plural, concrete or abstract. Nouns show possession by adding 's.

2. Pronoun:

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Pronouns are further deﬁned by type: personal pronouns refer to speciﬁc persons or things; possessive pronouns indicate ownership; reﬂexive pronouns are used to emphasize another noun or pronoun; and demonstrative pronouns identify, point to, or refer to nouns.

3. Verb:

The verb in a sentence expresses action or being. A verb must agree with its subject in number (both are singular or both are plural). Verbs also take different forms to express tense.

4. Adjective:

An adjective is a word used to modify or describe a noun or a pronoun. It usually answers the question of which one, what kind, or how many.

5. Adverb:

An adverb describes or modiﬁes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, but never a noun. It usually answers the questions of when, where, how, why, under what conditions, or to what degree. Adverbs often end in -ly.

6. Preposition:

A preposition is a word placed before a noun or pronoun to form a phrase modifying another word in the sentence. Therefore a preposition is always part of a prepositional phrase. The prepositional phrase almost always functions as an adjective or as an adverb.

7. Conjunction:

A conjunction joins words, phrases, or clauses, and indicates the relationship between the elements joined. Coordinating conjunctions connect grammatically equal elements: and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet. Subordinating conjunctions connect clauses that are not equal: because, although, while, since.

8. Interjections:

An interjection is a word used to express strong emotion. It is often followed by an exclamation point.