Mr. Sinkinson, p. ___
English 7
The Parts of Speech
Notes
NOUN- A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea
Compound nouns – nouns made up of more than one word. May be written as one word, as
a hyphenated word, or as two or more words.
one word grandmother
hyphenated word great-grandmother
two words grand piano
Proper nouns – name a specific person, place, thing, or idea. Begin with a capital letter.
Examples: Mr. Bannak, Pennfield, Philadelphia Eagles, Buddhism
Common noun – names any one of a group of persons, places, things, or ideas.
Examples: teacher, school, team, religion
Concrete noun – names a person, place, thing, or idea that can be recognized by one or
more of the senses.
Examples: book, song, heat, Lincoln Financial Field
Abstract noun – names an idea, a feeling, a quality, or a characteristic.
Examples: love, fun, freedom, pride, beauty
PRONOUN – a pronoun is a word used in place of one or more nouns or pronouns.
Antecedent – the word that a pronoun stands for (or refers to).
ADJECTIVES – an adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun.
Modify – to modify a word means to describe the word or to make its meaning more definite.
An adjective tells what kind, which one, how much, or how many.
Adjectives are usually before the word that they modify but may also come after the word.
Articles – the most common adjectives are a, an, and the. They are called articles.
Other parts of speech can be used as adjectives.
VERBS – a verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being.
Action verb – a verb that expresses a physical or mental action.
Linking (State of being) verb – a verb that expresses a state of being. Many linking verbs are
forms of the Verb be. Others can include appear, become, feel, grow, look, remain, seem,
smell, sound, stay, taste, and turn.
Some words may be either action or linking verbs, depending on how they are used.
Verb phrase – more than one word can function as a single verb. When more than one word
is functioning as a single verb, it is called a verb phrase.
Helping verb – helps the main verb to express an action or state of being.
am
is
are
was
were
be
been
has
have
had
do
does
did
may
might
must
can
could
shall
should
will
would
ADVERBS – an adverb is a word that modifies a verb, and adjective, or another adverb.
Modify – to modify a word means to describe the word or to make its meaning more definite.
An adverb answers the following questions:
where?
how often?
when?
or
how?
how long?
to what extent?
or
how much?
“not” and “n’t” – the word not is almost always an adverb used to modify a verb. Even when
it is part of a contraction (can’t), the contracted or shortened n’t is still an adverb and not part
of the verb.
Many adverbs end in –ly, but not all words that end in –ly are adverbs. If you aren’t sure
whether or not a word is an adverb, ask yourself what it modifies.
Adverbs may appear before, after, or between the words they modify.
When an adverb modifies a verb phrase, it frequently comes in the middle of the phrase.
Adverbs that introduce questions must come at the beginning of the sentence.
PREPOSITIONS – a preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun
and another word in the sentence.
Some words may be used as prepositions or as adverbs. Prepositions always have an object,
and adverbs never do. If you can’t tell whether a word is used as an adverb or a preposition,
look for an object.
CONJUNCTIONS – a conjunction is a word that joins words or groups of words.
The most common conjunctions are and, but, and or.
The word for can be a preposition or a conjunction.
Some conjunctions work in pairs and are called correlative conjunctions.
INTERJECTIONS – an interjection is a word that expresses strong emotion.
Interjections have no grammatical relationship to the rest of the sentence.
Interjections are usually followed by an exclamation point, but they can also be set off by
commas.