20100130

Parts of Speech

Adjectives

  • Describe or limit the meaning of nouns and pronouns.
  • They answer one of three questions:
  • Which one?
  • What kind?
  • How many?
    • The good students.
    • The great book.
  • Change when used as comparatives (great, greater, greatest).
  • Usually precede the nouns they modify.

Adverbs

  • Add to or modify the meaning of verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.
  • Adverbs help answer:
  • How?
  • When?
  • Where?
    • They read their assignments eagerly
  • Most adverbs end in ~ly.

  • Adverbs generally follow or precede the verbs they modify.

Conjunctions

  • Connect words, phrases, and clauses within a sentence.
    • I came to class, but I was five minutes late.
  • Some conjunctions (however, but, moreover, etc) also show the relationship between ideas.

Interjections

  • An interjection is a word added to a sentence to convey emotion.
  • It is not grammatically related to any other part of the sentence.
  • You usually follow an interjection with an exclamation mark.
  • Interjections are uncommon in formal academic prose, except in direct quotations.
    • Watch out!
    • Wow!

Nouns

  • Name persons, places, things, and ideas.

  • Classes of nouns.

  • Common nouns - refer to non-specific places, things and ideas.
  • Proper nouns - refer to specific person, places, or things and always begin with a capital letter.

  • Nouns are capitalized when referring to specific people , places, or things.

Pronouns

  • Pronouns take the place of a noun.
    • He went with her to the concert.
  • Pronouns change form according to the noun they replace.

Prepositions

  • Prepositions show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and some other word in a sentence.
    • He came into the room and sat at the table.
  • Prepositions usually come before a noun or pronoun to form a prepositional phrase.

Verbs

  • Verbs express action or state of being.
    • The people cheered the speaker.
  • Verb forms changes to reflect person and time.
  • Verbs agree with the subject in person and number.

See: http://www.johnsesl.com/templates/grammar/partsofspeech.php.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/partsp.html



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