Introduction
Sentences are made up of different types of words and each type
has its own job to do in the sentence.
This section includes:

Nouns and pronouns

Adjectives

Prepositions, articles and conjunctions
Nouns and pronouns
Nouns
Common nouns are the names of things, for example, people, places or
objects. A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place or thing,
and always begins with a capital letter.
Amy went to France on Saturday and took her camera with her.
Amy, France and Saturday are proper nouns and camera is a common
noun.
Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that takes the place of nouns, for example:

he

she

them

there

it
Amy took her camera to France.
She took it there.
She is a pronoun that takes the place of Amy, it takes the place of
camera, and there takes the place of France.
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes a noun (the name of a thing or a
place).
It was a terrible book.
The word terrible is an adjective. It tells us what the book (the noun) was
like.
Where can I put an adjective?
Adjectives can come before or after a noun.
The book he read on holiday was terrible.
He read a terrible book on holiday.
Try putting adjectives in different places in your sentences to make your
writing more interesting.
Using more than one adjective
If you want to describe a noun in detail, you can use more than one
adjective.
He had a mouldy, smelly, overpriced sandwich for lunch.
When you have a list of adjectives like this, separate them with commas.
Prepositions, articles and conjunctions
Prepositions
A preposition is a word that tells you where or when something is in
relation to something else, for example:

after

before

on

under

inside

outside
After walking for miles she rested on a small hill.
After tells you when she rested and on tells you where she rested.
Articles
An article is a word that tells you whether a noun is specific or general, for
example a, an, the.
She took a big suitcase on holiday.
A tells you that the noun suitcase is general. It’s not talking about any
particular suitcase, it’s any old big suitcase.
She took the big suitcase on holiday.
The tells you it was a particular suitcase. Perhaps she has a big suitcase
and a small one. She took the big suitcase.
Conjunctions
A conjunction is a word that joins two sentences or clauses, for example:

and

but

although

whenever
He went to the cinema and she went swimming.
Amy took her mp3 player with her but she forgot to put any batteries in
it.
1. What is an adverb?
a word that describes an adjective
a word that describes a verb
a word that describes noun
2. What is an adjective?
a doing word
a word that describes a noun
when you use two words together that start with the same sound
3. An article (e.g. a, an, the) tells you
whether a noun is specific or general
where something is in relation to something else
how big something is in relation to something else
4. What is a verb?
it tells you whether a noun is specific or general
a describing word
a doing word
5. What sort of word is 'nose'?
A noun
An adverb
An adjective
6. What is a pronoun?
a word that takes the place of a noun
the name of a place, a person or a thing
a word that describes a noun
7. What is an adverbial phrase?
more than one word doing the job of an adverb
an adverb and an adjective used together
an adverb placed after the verb it describes
8. What type of word is 'inside'?
verb
pronoun
preposition
9. Why do we use conjunctions?
to describe nouns
to join sentences together
to shorten a sentence
10. What is a clause?
something you find on a cat's paw
a doing word
a short sentence