The Basics: Parts of Speech

Writing can get to be a bit technical sometimes. Knowing the parts of speech will help you in all aspects of writing. When I write, I often read aloud what I have written, particularly when I am working with a challenging section of my compositions.  In areas that I find myself struggling, it is usually due to one of two errors: either the clarity of my writing is not precise, or the word order is incorrect.  Often, incorrect word order effects the clarity of my writing.

In general, while I try to write in a manner which is easily accessible to everybody, I also have to assume that you will know and understand some basic grammar terminology. This blog entry is an overview of the various parts of speech.

noun:

A noun is a person, place, or thing.

"Person" may be a specific person, such as Glenn Alperin (the author of this blog), or an occupation, such as a policeman, mother, or secretary. "Things" may be either tangible (stone, computer, pool, etc.) or intangible (love, taxes, normality, etc.). A "proper noun" is a noun which refers to a specific place or person by name. Proper nouns are always capitalized. When a noun refers to more than one person, place, or thing, it is called a "plural noun".

Example sentences:

The boy ate his lunch.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
It was his anger which caused him to slam the door to the car.
The children screamed when they saw the spiders.

article:

English has three articles: "a", "an", and "the". "A" and "an" are used to refer to a singular noun which is not specific. Use "an" instead of "a" if the next word in the sentence begins with either a vowel or a vowel sound. Use "the" when referring to a specific noun regardless of whether the noun is singular or plural.

Example sentences:

How do you find an elephant?
An honest person will always tell the truth.
She picked up a habit of biting her nails.
The boy ran to the store.
She ran under a tree to avoid the torrential rain.

pronoun:

A pronoun is used to replace a noun in a sentence. I, you, he, she, we, they, it, and one are all pronouns.

The pronoun "one" is used to replace a singular person in a generic sense. As a result, it does not directly replace a noun, but it does replace a noun indirectly.

In the examples below, I am going to put the pronouns in bold and the nouns which they are replacing in italics.

Allison was very hungry. She ate all of the cookies.
It was one of the best concerts in the world.
People who believe they know everything are fools.
One must study in order to get good grades.

adjective:

An adjective describes a noun.

All colors can function as adjectives (red, blue, green, etc.) Tangible descriptive words (fat, tall, enormous) as well as intangible descriptive words (funny, serious, angry) are all adjectives.

Example sentences:

The quick girl outran the slow boy.
Every blue shirt looked unfashionable to him.

verb:

A verb is an action word. When something is happening, that is a verb being used. Walk, run, swim, and climb are all verbs.

Example sentences:

The robber demanded the money.
Joe goes on a walk.
They are having a good time at the party.

adverb:

While a verb describes an action, an adverb describes how that action is performed. Adverbs usually end with the letters "ly", but this is not always the case. Adverbs can also be used to describe other adverbs. Happily, angrily, hardly, very, and fast are all adverbs.

In the examples below, I will put the adverbs in bold and the verbs they are describing in italics.

The man walks silently through the forest.
The dog perked its ears up suddenly at the sound of thunder in the distance.
The robber quickly ran away.
The boy ran very fast.
When his father went for a walk, Brian went for a walk too.

preposition:

A preposition is used to describe a direction with respect to a noun. A preposition is placed either before the article or after the noun. Around, through, over, underneath, and below are all prepositions.

Example sentences:

Above the mountains, the hawk flew toward the west.
Quietly, the student went down the hall and into the principal's office.
Brett took the present to his friend's birthday party.

gerund:

A gerund is a word which would normally be a verb ending in "ing" but which functions as an adjective. The examples below will demonstrate the use of a gerund.

Example sentences:

The barking dog knew something was wrong.
Julia was just walking along when she saw a howling wolf cautiously approaching her.

conjunction:

A conjunction is a word which connects two separate words or parts of a sentence together. In English, the standard set of conjunctions include all of the following words: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. These can be remembered using the mnemonic FANBOYS.

Example sentences:

Bob decided not to skip school for he knew he would get in trouble if he was caught.
Oliver ate the banana and Carol ate the pear.
She did not travel by airplane nor did she travel by boat.
We had planned to go to the beach but the weather forecast called for thunderstorms.
The funds have to be raised or the production will have to be canceled.
Everybody knew how the movie would end yet they all went to see it anyway.
The athletes wanted to gain some muscle mass so they began a regular exercise regimen.

These conjunctions express thought or ideas which are of equal weight on either side of the conjunction. There are also other conjunctions which may place more emphasis on one part of the sentence or the other. Some examples include the following words: because, finally, until, after, before.

interjection:

An interjection is a word or collection of words which is used to express emotion. Interjections are typically used alone and function as sentences all by themselves.

Examples sentences:

Yeehaw!
Ouch!
Psst!
Wow!
Oh no!

A specific note regarding parts of speech:

Depending on how the word is used, some words may be used as more than one part of speech. For example:

The red in the rainbow dazzled her eyes.	In this sentence, the word "red" is a noun. It is the specific color of red.
The girl was wearing a red blouse.	In this sentence, the word "red" is an adjective. It describes the blouse.

Advanced Parts of Speech

More advanced writers and grammarians may point out that there are other parts of speech I have not covered here. My intent here is not to be incomplete but to give only basic guidance which I may refer to in other blog entries. Therefore, I believe it is worthy of mentioning demonstratives and modifers here.

Demonstratives include all of the following words: "this", "that", "these", "those", "yon", and "yonder". Of course, English being the language that it is, there are technically three kinds of demonstratives: demonstrative pronouns, demonstrative determiners, and demonstrative adverbs. For an in-depth discussion of demonstratives, you can read a good overview, as discussed by Wikipedia, here.

Modifiers function as adjectives, but in a very particular way. You can read an overview of modifiers, as discussed by Wikipedia, here.

I believe that an in depth discussion of these two parts of speech may be overly complicating and I expect that it is likely that most writers will know and understand the usage of these parts of speech even if they are not familiar with them by name. If you disagree and choose to let me know, or if you think there are other parts of speech you think I should include in this list, I may either add to this list or write a separate discussion about the parts of speech I have not included here.

©2013 Glenn Alperin

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