The basic parts of speech in English are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, interjections, and conjunctions.
Nouns
Nouns are a class of words that include people, places, things, or ideas. Common nouns refer to ordinary things, like “car” or “school.” Proper nouns are names of particular people, places, or things, like “Thomas” or “Volkswagen.” Pronouns are a special kind of noun.
Pronouns
Pronouns are a class of words that stand in for other nouns or noun phrases. “I” stands in for my given name, “Kimberly.” “She” stands in for the woman I want to talk about. “It” or “that” can stand in for words referring to individual items or whole situations.
Adjectives
Adjectives are a class of words that describe nouns. “Good,” “bad,” “happy,” “sad,” “black,” and “white” are all adjectives.
Verbs
Verbs are a class of words that show action. Verbs make things happen! “Be,” “sleep,” “eat,” “drink,” and “walk” are all verbs.
Adverbs
Adverbs are words that describe; however, unlike adjectives, which describe nouns, adverbs describe verbs. “Well,” “quickly,” and “playfully” are all adverbs. Most (but not all) words in this class end in “-ly.” There is a trend in casual English for adjectives to function as adverbs.
Adverbs are commonly overused.
Prepositions
Prepositions are a class of words that show how nouns are related to other words in a clause. They often show position, timing, or reasoning. “On,” “for,” “after,” and “about” are prepositions.It is OK to end a sentence with a preposition, sometimes.
Interjections
This class of words includes interrupting words or remarks, like “hey,” “oh,” and “wow.” They typically interrupt thoughts and stand on their own with punctuation.
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are a class of words that introduce and connect words as well as certain groups of words (clauses) into sentences and lists. “And,” “or,” “nor,” “although,” and “but” are all conjunctions.
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