The 8 parts of speech

1 Nouns
A noun is a word that names a person, place, concept, or object. Basically, anything that names a
“thing” is a noun, whether you’re talking about a basketball court, San Francisco, Cleopatra,
or self-preservation.
Nouns fall into two categories: common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are general
names for things, like planet and game show. Proper nouns are names or titles for specific things,
like Jupiter and Jeopardy!
2 Pronouns
Pronouns are words you substitute for specific nouns when the reader or listener already knows
which specific noun you’re referring to.
You might say, “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,” then follow it with “She’s always
late; next time I’ll tell her to be here a half hour earlier.”
Instead of saying Jennifer’s name three times in a row, you substituted she and her, and your
sentences remained grammatically correct. Pronouns are divided into a number of categories, and
we cover them all in our guide to pronouns:
3 Adjectives
Adjectives are the words that describe nouns. Think about your favorite movie. How would you
describe it to a friend who’s never seen it?
You might say the movie was funny, engaging, well-written, or suspenseful. When you’re
describing the movie with these words, you’re using adjectives. An adjective can go right before
the noun it’s describing (“I have a black dog”), but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, adjectives are
at the end of a sentence (“My dog is black”).
4 Verbs
Go! Be amazing! Run as fast as you can! Win the race! Congratulate every participant who put in
the work and competed!
Those bolded words are verbs. Verbs are words that describe specific actions,
like running, winning, and being amazing.
Not all verbs refer to literal actions, though. Verbs that refer to feelings or states of being, like to
love and to be, are known as nonaction verbs. Conversely, the verbs that do refer to literal actions
are known as action verbs.
5 Adverbs
An adverb is a word that describes an adjective, a verb, or another adverb.
I entered the room quietly.
Quietly is describing how you entered (verb) the room.
A cheetah is always faster than a lion.
Always is describing how frequently a cheetah is faster (adjective) than a lion.
6 Prepositions
Prepositions tell you the relationships between other words in a sentence.
You might say, “I left my bike leaning against the garage.” In this sentence, against is the
preposition because it tells us where you left your bike.
Here’s another example: “She put the pizza in the oven.” Without the preposition in, we don’t
know where the pizza is.
7 Conjunctions
Conjunctions make it possible to build complex sentences that express multiple ideas.
“I like marinara sauce. I like alfredo sauce. I don’t like puttanesca sauce.” Each of these three
sentences expresses a clear idea. There’s nothing wrong with listing your preferences like this,
but it’s not the most efficient way to do it.
Consider instead: “I like marinara sauce and alfredo sauce, but I don’t like puttanesca sauce.
In this sentence, and and but are the two conjunctions that link your ideas together.
8 Articles
A pear. The brick house. An exciting experience. These bolded words are known as articles.
Articles come in two flavors: definite articles and indefinite articles. And similarly to the two
types of nouns, the type of article you use depends on how specific you need to be about the
thing you’re discussing.
A definite article, like the or this, describes one specific noun.
Did you buy the car?
From the above sentence, we understand that the speaker is referring to a specific previously
discussed car.
Now swap in an indefinite article:
Did you buy a car?
See how the implication that you’re referring back to something specific is gone, and you’re
asking a more general question?
FIGURING OUT PARTS OF SPEECH
Sometimes, it’s not easy to tell which part of speech a word is. Here are a few easy hacks for
quickly figuring out what part of speech you’re dealing with:
If it’s an adjective plus the ending –ly, it’s an adverb. Examples: commonly, quickly.
If you can swap it out for a noun and the sentence still makes sense, it’s a pronoun. Example:
“He played basketball.” / “Steve played basketball.”
If it’s something you do and you can modify the sentence to include the word do, it’s a verb.
Example: “I have an umbrella.” / “I do have an umbrella.”
If you can remove the word and the sentence still makes sense but you lose a detail, the word
is most likely an adjective. Example: “She drives a red van.” / “She drives a van.”
And if you’re ever really stumped, just look the word up. Dictionaries typically list a word’s part
of speech in its entry, and if it has multiple forms with different parts of speech, they are all
listed, with examples.
That brings us to another common issue that can confuse writers and language learners.
When a word can be different parts of speech
Just like y is sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant, there are words that are sometimes
one part of speech and other times another. Here are a few examples:
Work
“I went to work” (noun).
“I work in the garden” (verb).
Well
“She paints very well” (adverb).
“They are finally well now, after weeks of illness” (adjective).
“I dropped a penny into the well” (noun).
But
“I cooked breakfast and lunch, but Steve cooked dinner” (conjunction).
“I brought everything but the pens you asked for” (preposition).
And sometimes, words evolve to add forms that are new parts of speech. One recent example is
the word adult. Before the 2010s, adult was primarily a noun that referred to a fully grown
person. It could also be used as an adjective to refer to specific types of media, like adult
contemporary music. But then, at right about the turn of the 2010s, the word adulting, a brand-
new verb, appeared in the internet lexicon. As a verb, adulting refers to the act of doing tasks
associated with adulthood, like paying bills and grocery shopping.
Open and closed word classes
The parts of speech fall into two word classes: open and closed.
The open word classes are the parts of speech that regularly acquire new words. Language
evolves, and usually, that evolution takes place in nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. In 2022,
new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary
included dumbphone (noun), greenwash (verb), and cringe (adjective).
The closed word classes are the parts of speech that don’t readily acquire new words. These parts
of speech are more set in stone and include pronouns, conjunctions, articles, and prepositions.
NOUNS
Traditional grammarians define a noun as "a person, place, thing, or idea."

Child designates a person; therefore, child is a noun.

Similarly, democracy designates an idea; therefore, democracy is a noun.

In addition, nouns can be identified by the presence of signal words such as the.
Word order can also provide clues about nouns. For example, in the following sentence, it is
clear that the part of speech that will fit into slot #1 and slot #2 must be nouns:
Often, suffixes will suggest that a word is a noun. For example, -tion, -ness, -ment, or -er at
the end of a word usually signify that the word is a noun, as in suggestion, happiness,
involvement, and diner.
Nouns may be made plural, usually with the suffix -s or -es, as in books and foxes.
Nouns show ownership with the addition of an apostrophe and, sometimes, an additional -s, as in
a book's pages, twenty students' essays.
Common nouns such as school, business, or person designate an entire class.
Proper nouns, on the other hand, designate a specific example of a class: Towson University,
Black and Decker Company, Joe. Proper nouns are capitalized.
Nouns may be countable (1 fork, 2 forks, 3 forks, etc.) or non-countable (sugar, oil).
Nouns may signify concreteness (computer, fingernail) or abstractness (peace, friendship).
Functions of Nouns
Subject (S) - a noun or pronoun partnered with a predicate verb.
A subject
1. does an action with an action verb
2. exists with a verb of being
3. is renamed or described after a verb of being or a linking verb
4. is acted upon with a passive verb
A. Object of Preposition (OP) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after a
preposition in a a prepositional phrase.
B. Direct Object (DO) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after an action verb. A
direct object "receives" or is the "object" of the action.
C. Retained Object (RO) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after a passive
verb.
D. Indirect Object (IO) - a noun or pronoun answering "to whom/what" or "for whom/what"
after an action verb.
An indirect object always precedes a direct object never has the word “to” or “for” stated
E. Subjective Complement (SC) - a noun, pronoun, or adjective that renames or describes
(equals) the subject after a verb of being or a linking verb.
F. Objective Complement (OC) - a noun, pronoun, or adjective that renames or describes
(equals) the direct object.
Test for OC: insert "to be" between the DO and the OC
G. Appositive (App) - a noun or pronoun that renames another noun; An appositive is usually
placed next to the noun it renames.
Gourmet renames the noun Joe. Therefore, gourmet is an appositive of Joe.
When an appositive is not placed next to the noun it renames, the appositive is called a delayed
appositive.
A delayed appositive may rename the word it in some sentence constructions.
In the above sentence, the appositive to meet you renames it. It (to meet you) is a pleasure.
In this sentence, pleasure is the subjective complement of it.
 Therefore, it = pleasure = to meet you.
NOUNS
Traditional grammarians define a noun as "a person, place, thing, or idea."
                Child designates a person; therefore, child is a noun.
                Similarly, democracy designates an idea; therefore, democracy is a noun.
In addition, nouns can be identified by the presence of signal words such as the.
Word order can also provide clues about nouns.  For example, in the following sentence, it is
clear that the part of speech that will fit into slot #1 and slot #2 must be nouns:

                                
Often, suffixes will suggest that a word is a noun.  For example, -tion,  -ness, -ment,  or -er  at
the end of a word usually signify that the word is a noun, as
in suggestion, happiness, involvement, and diner.
Nouns may be made plural, usually with the suffix -s or -es, as in books and foxes.
Nouns show ownership with the addition of an apostrophe and, sometimes, an additional -s, as in
a book's pages, twenty students' essays.
Common nouns such as school, business, or person designate an entire class.
Proper nouns, on the other hand, designate a specific example of a class:  Towson University,
Black and Decker Company, Joe.  Proper nouns are capitalized.
Nouns may be countable (1 fork, 2 forks, 3 forks, etc.) or non-countable (sugar, oil).
Nouns may signify concreteness (computer, fingernail) or abstractness (peace, friendship).
   
Functions of Nouns
Subject (S) - a noun or pronoun partnered with a predicate verb.
A subject
         1.  does an action with an action verb

                               
        2.  exists with a verb of being
                              
            3.  is renamed or described after a verb of being or a linking verb

                              
            4.  is acted upon with a passive verb

                                
    
Object of Preposition (OP) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after
a preposition in a a prepositional phrase.

                            
       
Direct Object (DO) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after an action verb.  A
direct object "receives" or is the "object" of the action.

                            
       
Retained Object (RO) - a noun or pronoun answering "whom" or "what" after a passive verb.
                            
       
Indirect Object (IO) - a noun or pronoun answering "to whom/what" or "for whom/what" after
an action verb.
An indirect object
always precedes a direct object
never has the word “to” or “for” stated

                
  
Subjective Complement (SC) - a noun, pronoun, or adjective that renames or describes (equals)
the subject after a verb of being or a linking verb.

                        
     
Objective Complement (OC) - a noun, pronoun, or adjective that renames or describes (equals)
the direct object.
        Test for OC: insert "to be" between the DO and the OC
                                                  
        
Appositive (App) - a noun or pronoun that renames another noun; An appositive is usually
placed next to the noun it renames..

                        
   Gourmet renames the noun Joe.  Therefore, gourmet is an appositive of Joe.
  When an appositive is not placed next to the noun it renames, the appositive is called a delayed
appositive.

                    
 
    A delayed appositive may rename the word it in some sentence constructions
    In the above sentence, the appositive to meet you renames it.    It (to meet you) is a pleasure.
    In this sentence, pleasure is the subjective complement of it.
    Therefore, it = pleasure = to meet you