Nouns 

are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a
sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when
they're the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns  in these cases.
Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.


o Parts of Speech
o Nouns
o Pronouns
o Verbs
o Adjectives
o Adverbs
o Prepositions
o Conjunctions
o Interjections

ThoughtCo.
By 

Richard Nordquist

Updated March 11, 2020

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main
categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such
as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.
Parts of Speech

 Word types can be divided into nine parts of speech:

 nouns

 pronouns
  verbs

 adjectives

 adverbs

 prepositions

 conjunctions

 articles/determiners

 interjections

 Some words can be considered more than one part of speech, depending on
context and usage.
 Interjections can form complete sentences on their own.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the
nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include
only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won't make you witty, healthy,
wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won't even make
you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence
structure and the English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.
Open and Closed Word Classes
The parts of speech are commonly divided into open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs) and closed classes (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions,
articles/determiners, and interjections). The idea is that open classes can be altered and
added to as language develops and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For
example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.
In contemporary linguistics, the label part of speech has generally been discarded in favor
of the term word classor syntactic category. These terms make words easier to qualify
objectively based on word construction rather than context. Within word classes, there is
the lexical or open class and the function or closed class.
The 9 Parts of Speech
Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.
Noun
Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a
sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when
they're the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases.
Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.
Pronoun
Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that
refer only to people. Examples: I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody,
ourselves.
Verb
Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a
sentence subject's state of being (is, was). Verbs change form based on tense (present,
past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples: sing, dance, believes, seemed,
finish, eat, drink, be, became
Adjective
Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind,
and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something
more clearly. Examples: hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.
Adverb
Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where,
how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Examples: softly,
lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly, sometimes.
Preposition
Prepositions show spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and
the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase, which
contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to,
out of, apart from.
Conjunction
Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating,
subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.
Articles and Determiners
Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are
different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax.
Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite
articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few,
which, what.