Hello Everyone and welcome to the lesson about
Parts of speech.
In this introductory lesson about parts of speech,
we will be learning names of parts of speech,
their definitions and functions in a sentence,
and some common examples.
The common question about parts of speech is why we need to learn them?
Parts of speech are the basics of English grammar.
We need to know about them in order to differentiate between different
word classes and place and use them accurately in written and spoken
English language. There are eight parts of speech in the English language: noun,
pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
So what are parts of speech? The words in the English language are given different
names depending on the function they perform in a sentence. The words denoting
names of things, people, places or abstract ideas are called nouns.
The words showing action or state of being are called verbs and so on.
Let's learn about them in a little bit more detail.
Nouns
Nouns are naming words. So a noun can be a name of a person, thing, place, idea. concept or emotion.
Here are some examples of nouns:
Mary, Dan, Sara ; as you can see these are name of people. So name of
persons, name of people,... they all are nouns
name of common things chair,book, lock, cigar, mirror, Florida, Japan, market
playground, stage, auditorium.All these are names of countries, cities or common
places.Charity, love, disgust, fraud, loan hope, hatred; ...all these are names of ideas
concepts or emotions. The next in the list is the pronoun. A pronoun is made up of
two words, "pro" which means in place of in Latin and noun.
So "pronoun" means in place of a noun
A word used in place of a noun or noun phrase is called a pronoun. It
is used to avoid the repetition of nouns in a sentence or paragraph. Some common
examples are he/she/it I, you, they, her, me, them etc.
Let's take a look at this paragraph. The first paragraph over here is full of nouns.
In the next paragraph, we will be changing these nuns with pronouns because they
have been used unnecessarily over and over again.
So let's read this paragraph," Sarah went to the market. The market was full of
shoppers. Sarah was surprised to see so many people. Sarah knew it was Sunday and
the market will close soon. While Sarah was quickly trying to finish Sarah's
shopping, someone told Sarah that the market will be open till late night that
day."
So here is the next paragraph, "Sarah went to the market. It was full of
shoppers. She was surprised to see so many people. She knew it was Sunday and
the market will go soon. While she was quickly trying to finish her shopping,
someone told her that the market will be open till late night that day.
So you can see in this paragraph all the nouns have been replaced with
pronouns, wherever they were needed
Next, we have "Verb". A verb shows an action or a state of being.
It shows what someone or something is doing.
You will find many words in a paragraph
or during a conversation. Some common examples are: play, eat, walk, work, sit, ponder
think, view, cook drink etc.
So let's take a look at some examples:
"Dan works hard all day." "
"Sarah makes good food."
"Anna found an old necklace in her cupboard or in her closet."
"The shopkeeper sells cheap stuff."
"I can run faster than you."
"She planned a picnic with her family."
"Ian was thinking deeply."
"I am happy."
So the word "am" here is used
to express a feeling of being, of being in a situation. In all other sentences
the highlighted words works, makes, found, sells, runs, planned,
thinking,... they all are verbs because they show the kind of action
which is being done by the subject and the subject can either be a noun or
pronoun, as you can see in the sentences. In the last sentence, The word "am" ...it
shows a state of being in a situation. In the same way if we say, she's funny. He is
clever. They are fine. All those is, am, ares are verbs because they show a state of
being or a situation of the subject.
So next on the list is "adjectives". An
adjective describes a noun or pronoun.
It gives more information about them just
as "an empty glass". Here the word "empty" describes the noun 'glass."
So the glass can be "a full glass", "a beautiful glass."a metal glass", "a carved
glass", "an ugly glass", "a broken glass" etc.
So all the words describing or qualifying the noun "glass" will be called adjectives
since they tell something about the noun or pronoun.
Here are some examples. "The weather is cold."
So the word "cold", It describes the weather.What is the
weather like. It could be cold weather. It could be hot weather.It could be
humid weather. In the same way, you are a lucky boy. The word lucky...
it tells about the noun "boy"."This house has a very old history."
So history could be old or it
could be recent, right? I got a nice pair of socks from the New market from
So the pair of socks is nice. right? and the market is near.
Have you got bad /sore throat?
So the throat is bad or sore.The word "bad/sore" is telling
something about the noun "throat".
"The shopping mall is noisy and crowded."
So noisy and crowded tell something about how the shopping mall is.
So they all those words highlighted in blue are
adjectives in these sentences.
Next comes
"adverb".Adverbs describe a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
They tell us, for example, how, when, where or how often an action was done.
There are five basic types of adverbs in English language namely adverbs of
manner, like how an action is being done, adverbs of time, when it was done, place,
where; frequency, how often something is done and the degree to what extent.
So now we have some examples of adverbs
so here are some simple sentences, "He gives quietly",
"He eats quickly". "He eats carefully" All adverbs describe how he
eats. right?
So you can eat quickly. You can eat carefully or quietly or whatever
manner you are eating. So the manner would be called an adverb.
"I am very happy today."
In this sentence the adverb "very" describes the adjective "happy" so since
the adverbs also qualify "adjectives"; so here we have an example in the sentence
"You're always late for school." The adverb "always" describes
the adjective "late."Okay... So let's take a look at prepositions.
What is a preposition?
A preposition shows the relationship of a noun, a noun phrase or pronoun to another word
in a sentence. So examples are on, to, for, about, in, out, before.
So you must be very familiar with all these words.
The most common prepositions are of time, place
and relationship. We'll be studying more about it in the upcoming lessons
but here we have some brief introduction and some examples.right?
So examples of a preposition in a sentence are:
"The cat is sitting on the wall." So the sentence tells
where the cat is sitting.The preposition tells where the cat is
sitting. It could be sitting under the wall. It could be sitting beside the wall.
But in this sentence, it shows the place where it's sitting
so it is sitting on the wall.
"My wallet was in my pocket a while ago." ..."in" my pocket.
"The dog tried to jump over that wooden fence"
"My exams will be held in the month of May'; or in May
Anna's sister will be travelling with her to New York.
So all the highlighted words we can see here are all propositions.
They connect the subject of a sentence with another word in a sentence and
show the relationship between them.
The seventh part of speech is conjunction.
A Conjunction joins or connects words, phrases, clauses and sentences
It shows the connection and logical relation between them. While, although, whereas,
but, still, and, though etc. So here are some examples: Sarah and Ann are friends.
I was tired but I tried to finish my work.
I cooked food while my sister cleaned the house.
So in these sentences "Sarah and Anna"... So we joined two words with the word "and"
so and is a conjunction. In the next sentence
"I was tired but I tried to finish my work"; could be two different sentences. I
was tired. I tried to finish my work. But we have joined them with the word "but" to
make a logical sense.
I cooked food while my sister cleaned
the house. In this sentence, you want to tell that I cooked food while at the
same time my sister cleaned the house. So you will use the word "while" to connect
these sentences and make a logical sense.
The last one on the list are interjections.
Interjections are short exclamations used more in spoken
English than in written English. It is used to express certain emotion of anger
admiration, pain joy, etc. Some examples are Hurray! we have won the game.
Ouch! This cut is so painful.
Wow! this is such a beautiful painting.
The interjections always come with an exclamation mark at the end.
So this is something to be remembered while writing interjections in written language.