Parts of Speech for the
Lost in Grammar Land
Part I
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives
and adverbs
TCTC Writing Center
Prepared by Jennifer Higgins-Spiers
July, 2007
Parts of Speech? WHAT?
Every word has some sort of ‘job’. They aren’t just
there to take up space. This presentation will go
through all of the parts of speech that you need
to know in order to better understand sentence
writing!
Parts of speech include nouns, pronouns,
adjectives, adverbs, verbs, conjunctions,
prepositions and interjections.
Nouns
• Nouns are people, places, things and ideas. Almost
every word is a noun. Nouns are everywhere!
• Don’t get mixed up with all the different types of parts
in sentences. Subjects are nouns, objects of the
prepositional phrase are nouns, direct objects are
nouns…there are so many nouns that we use in
speaking and writing!
• Nouns can be common or proper. If a noun is
common, it is just a basic, everyday noun. Proper nouns
are PROPER names of people, places and things. All
proper nouns are capitalized.
Examples of common nouns
street, apple , computer, fact, file, bed, shelf
book, pen, fish, school, phone , paper, egg,
pizza, day, holiday, bandana, shirt, woman, step,
disease, country, rain, ball, team, game, wind
laser, foot, feeling, happiness, tragedy, pint, ghost,
delicacy, misfortune, luck, cake, idea, place, thing,
country, city, meal, grass, environment, love, mile,
cliff, cloud, fruit, chicken, college, presentation, nail, wish
Examples of proper nouns
The Constitution of the United States of America,
Spanish, Toni Morrison, UCLA, Dr. Peters,
Greek, Clemson University, Tri-County
Technical College, Gateway, Maroon 5,
President George Bush, Georgia, Wednesday, The
Eagles, Death Valley, Richland Estates,
Pizza Hut, Tiananmen Square, Sears Tower,
Washington Monument, Palmetto State, Ferrari
Noun TEST: A word can be a noun if at least ONE
of the tests works. IF ALL tests ‘fail’ the word, then the word
is NOT a noun!
• dog: the dog, his dog
• Can you put an article, a
Hannah: a Hannah, their Hannah
pronoun or adjective in front apple: an apple, the red apple
of it?
delicious: a delicious, her delicious
• Can you make the word
plural?
• Can you make the word
possessive?
• dog-dogs
Hannah: Hannas
apple: apples
delicious- deliciouses
• dog- a dog’s collar, the dogs’ collars
Hannah- Hannah’s eyes
apple the apple’s taste
delicious- delicious’
Conclusion: dog, Hannah and apple are nouns, but
delicious is NOT a noun. Proper nouns are generally not
pluralized, nor are they grouped with articles or pronouns.
PRONOUNS
What is a pronoun?
A noun that’s good at his job!
Actually, they are words that RENAME nouns.
There are four major types of pronouns:
personal, relative, demonstrative, and indefinite.
Pronouns can also be POSSESSIVE.
Personal pronouns
Singular
• I
• You
• He
• She
• It
Plural
• We
• You
• They
Possessive
•My, mine, our, ours
•Your, yours
•His, her, hers
•Their, theirs
Personal pronouns rename
PEOPLE and THINGS. These
pronouns make writing sentences
much easier. They are great to use
instead of naming the same noun
over and over.
Why personal pronouns rock
This is what sentences would look like without
taking advantage of personal pronouns:
The Glockenstein family went to visit the Glockenstein’s friends
who live in Germany. The Glockensteins met the Glockensteins’
friends at the airport. The Glockenteins and the Glockensteins’
friends were happy to see each other.
The same sentence with personal pronouns:
The Glockenstein family went to visit their friends who live in
Germany. They met their friends at the airport. They were all
very happy to see each other.
Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns RELATE
back to a particular noun
or pronoun within the
sentence.
•
•
•
•
•
Who
Whom
Whose
Which
That
• Who is there? Who refers, in
question form, a person who is
there.
• Heather is the one who can
answer your questions. Who
in this context restates who
Heather is.
• This is the shirt that I was
telling you about! The word
that refers to shirt.
• Whose phone number is
this? Whose is the possessive
form of who
• To whom do I give this? Only
use whom with the words ‘to’ ‘by’
‘for’
Demonstrative pronouns
• When you demonstrate an
activity, you are ‘showing’
someone how to do something.
• Demonstrative pronouns work
the same way. They SHOW the
reader what is being ‘written’
about.
• The subjects and/or objects of
the sentence are
EMPHASIZED with
demonstrative pronouns. These
can also ‘describe’ the nouns
through the demonstration.
• This- refers to something NEAR
That- refers to something FAR
These- refers to things NEAR
Those- refers to things FAR
• This book is long.
(refers to a book that belongs to the
speaker)
• That book is long (refers to a book tha
does NOT belong to the speaker,
perhaps it’s a book that is being talked
about, but the book is not present)
• These books are heavy (refers to the
books the speaker is carrying)
• Those books are heavy (refers to books
that the speaker is not carrying)
Indefinite pronouns
Indefinite pronouns relate to a particular sort
of nouns, but the gender/number is not
specified.
Always Singular
• one, someone, anyone,
everyone
• something, anything,
everything
• somebody, anybody,
everybody
• no one, either, neither
Always
Plural
• both
• few
• many
• others
• several
•
•
•
•
•
•
Either singular or
plural, depending
on context
all
any
more
most
none
some
POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS
Possessive pronouns show ownership, just as nouns
have a possessive nature.
Jessica’s book (Jessica’s is a possessive noun)
Her book (Her is a possessive pronoun)
That book is Jessica’s
That book is hers.
YOU DO NOT PUT AN APOSTROPHE FOR
POSSESSIVE PERSONAL PRONOUNS!
Hers– NOT her’s
Theirs- NOT their’s
Yours- NOT your’s
Its- NOT it’s
The different jobs of nouns and
pronouns
Don’t let all of this technical grammatical jargon fool you. Nouns
and pronouns are present EVERYWHERE, so it is very likely
that you can have more than one noun/pronoun in a sentence.
The subjects of sentences, as well as direct objects, objects of a
phrase are ALWAYS a noun or a pronoun.
Everybody but David knew that his zipper was down.
PN, subject
N, direct object PN N
Zebras are wild animals, and they live on the African continent.
N, subject
N, direct object PN
N, object of the
preposition
Adjectives
Adjectives are descriptive words. They
DESCRIBE nouns and pronouns. These
descriptive words include words from our
senses…scent, taste, sound, appearance, and
touch. These are very easy to find.
The red balloon. (Appearance)
The cake smells delicious. (scent)
He has a loud voice. (sound)
The kitten’s fur is so soft! (touch)
Pronouns as Adjectives?
If you think grammar is crazy, you are right! Pronouns
can act like another part of speech, depending on how
they are used within the sentence. Therefore, pronouns
can ALSO be adjectives.
His friend  his DESCRIBES the friend. Not her
friend…not this friend…but HIS friend.
That freak that DESCRIBES/names/stresses the
KIND of freak. Not THIS freak…but THAT freak.
Adverbs
• Adverbs are also description words, but they describe
ADJECTIVES, VERBS and OTHER ADVERBS.
• These description words answer the questions how,
when, where, how often and to what extent.
• These words are probably harder to find than any other
part of speech.
• MOST adverbs end in –ly, but remember HOW they
are formed and WHAT they describe– that will help
you more than just memorizing –ly words!
How do I find Adverbs?
• Josh runs quickly.  He runs HOW? Quickly. (describes the verb run)
• They are having a party outside. WHERE are they having the party?
Outside. (describes the verb having)
• Tomorrow, we will go shopping. WHEN will we go? Tomorrow.
(describes the verb go).
• We like to visit Grandpa every day. HOW OFTEN do we visit
grandpa? Every day (describes verb visit)
• She is extremely happy. TO WHAT EXTENT is she happy?
Extremely. (describes adjective happy)
• You speak too slowly!  There are two adverbs here. How do you
speak? Slowly. To what extent is slowly? Too. (describes adverb
slowly)
• I don’t know what an adverb is!  You know this to what extent?
Not. (describes verb know)
End of Part I
• If you thought you were finished, you’re wrong!
There are still several parts of speech to cover!
You’re not in the clear yet!
• The next presentation will cover verbs,
conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.