8 Parts of Speech Definitions and Examples

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Now that you have understood what is a sentence, its examples, structure, and types. In this unit, we will learn about 8 parts of speech in English grammar.

Every day we talk to our friends, listen to the insult of our parents, make jokes etc. Do you know every speech or sentence is made up of parts? Here in this article, we will discuss these parts in detail. Ready? Our speech or what we write is made up of the following parts:

Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.

Know your name? It is a noun!
Your hometown name? It is a noun!
The laptop or phone in your hand. It is a noun!
Your father saying “Always speak the truth (sach bolo). It is a noun!

Thus a noun is the name of a person, a place or a thing or an idea.

 

A noun can be of many types like:

  1. Proper Noun
  2. Common Noun
  3. Collective Noun
  4. Material Noun
  5. Concrete Nouns
  6. Abstract Noun
  7. Compound Nouns
  8. Countable and Non-Countable Nouns

We’ll discuss these types of the noun in the next unit.

  • Pronoun

Mostly pronoun is considered as pro+noun.  To make it simple, we start a sentence like Kareena Kapoor is a heroine. The green word is a noun. Right?

Now if we write another line for her, which one will be better Kareena Kapoor played a role in 3 Idiots or She played a role in 3 idiots? The second one, right?

We just replaced the noun Kareena Kapoor with She. The word She that replaces name is called pronoun. Thus pronoun is part of speech that is used in place of a noun (as we did). There are hundreds of pronouns! Below are some examples.

 

 

  • Verb

Every day we do something. e.g. we eat pizza, burger, cream roll or play Asphalt 8, GTA San Andreas, Candy Crush, or read boring books. Right?

In addition, many things happen to us. e.g. Teachers punish us for not writing homework or Mamma beats us with a stick for fighting with our siblings. Right?

The words eat, play, read, punish, writing, beats, fighting depict action (in Hindi/Urdu, it means karna ya hona). These words are called verbs.

Thus a verb is a part of speech that indicates action. Got it? A verb has 4 forms: Present, Present Participle, Past and Past Participle. Now let us understand these forms.

 

 

  • Adjective

You often praise your favorite cricketer (He is a good player) or abuse your friend (You are an idiot person) or compliment your parents (I have world’s best dad). Right?

The words good, idiot, best help us to know something or someone (noun or pronoun) in a better way. Thus an adjective is a part of speech that provides information (modifies) about a noun or pronoun.

We have read that a verb has four forms, right? Do you know how many forms does an adjective has? Three! These are called degrees of comparison. Now let us try to understand these concepts with examples.

 

  • Adverb

Now we have understood that the words that we use to describe a person are called adjective. What if we use those words to describe his action? e.g. She is a good girl. Here good is adjective. But when we say She sings well. The information is about her action (or verb). Thus well here acts as an adverb.

Again sometimes we call someone very good. Here good is adjective (we know) and very is adding to the meaning of good. Thus very is an adverb.

An adverb can add to the information of adverb as well! Thus a sentence can have two adverbs with each other. e.g. We say “She sings very well.” Here well is an adverb (as it tells about the action of a person). However very is adding to the meaning of well. Thus it is also an adverb.

So, an adverb is a part of speech that adds to the meaning of a verb, an adjective or another adverb.

 

 

  • Preposition

You might have asked your younger brother to keep a book in the box or you might have walked over the wall or your friend might have danced on the table.

The words in, over, on depict that position. Right?

So the Preposition is a part of speech that indicates location. It links a noun or pronoun to the other words of the sentence.

 

  • Conjunction

Simply conjunctions are the words that join words or phrases or even sentences. A conjunction is also known as a joiner. A conjunction can be of three types Coordinating Conjunctions, Subordinating Conjunctions and Correlative Conjunctions. We will discuss these types later on.

You can memorize subordinating conjunctions by the formula FANBOYS

 

  • Interjection

What happens what your mother slaps you? Ouuuuch! Right?

What do you say when you complete a mission of Candy Crush? Yahooo! Right?

The word Ouuch! Yahoo! Yes! Hurrah! are spoken when something suddenly happens.

Thus An interjection is a spoken word that expresses an emotion. It can also be defined a word used to express some sudden feeling of mind. An interjection is followed by the sign of exclamation (!). An interjection has no grammatical link to the rest of the sentence.

So today, we have gone through an overview of the 8 parts of speech. In the next unit, we will discuss the noun in detail.

Here is another article about 8 Parts of Speech by English Finders