Parts of Speech

Ms. Balaska

Fall 2011

What is a Noun?

A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea

Persons hero teachers audience Brad Pitt

Places museum countries rain forest New Milford

Things stereo songs fences Atlantic Ocean

Ideas sympathy fairness generosity Impressionism

Suggestions for each category:

Identifying Nouns in Sentences

Identify the nouns in the following sentences:

1. As a young woman, Ms. Balaska studied English both at home and at Sacred Heart University, from which she graduated in 2009.

2. During her college career, she recognized the importance of educating children and teens.

You Try!

In your notebook, create a sentence using at least 2 nouns. I will come around and check these while you are working.

…Any volunteers to share their sentence on the board?

Common nouns & Proper nouns

A common noun names any one of a group of persons, places, things, or ideas.

A proper noun names a particular person, place, thing, or idea.

Generally, common nouns are not capitalized; proper nouns are!

Abstract Nouns

An abstract noun names a quality, feeling, or idea. It cannot be perceived by any of the five senses.

To Aladdin’s delight, he received three wishes.

Compound Nouns A compound noun consists of two or more words

that together name a person, a place, a thing, or an idea.

The parts of a compound noun may be written as one word, as separate words, or as a hyphenated word.

One WordSeparate Words

Hyphenated Words

basketball civil rights no-hitter

newspaper Arts and Crafts Club sister-in-law

Complete the exercise below:

For each of the follow common nouns, give a proper noun. Then, write compound next to each compound noun that is listed below.

1. play

2. state

3. street

4. song

5. president

6. newspaper

7. ocean

8. writer

9. poem

10. car

11. planet

12. poet

13. country

14. friend

15. continent

16. actor

17. explorer

18. scientist

19. religion

20. document

Concrete Nouns and Abstract Nouns

A concrete noun names a person, a place, or a thing that can be perceived by one or more of the senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell)

An abstract noun names an idea, a feeling, a quality or a characteristic

Concrete Nouns

Abstract Nouns

dog liberty

sunset beauty

thunder kindness

silk success

Nile River Marxism

Collective Nouns A collective noun names a group of people,

animal, or things

Collective Nouns

crowd audience

flock batch

jury bouquet

litter bunch

orchestra cluster

Possessive Nouns

Nouns also can be used with the possessive “-s”

This usually indicates possession or ownership

How to spell the possessive: Plural: cats Possessive: cat’s

Possessive Nouns (cont.)

Possessive nouns can become tricky. Sometimes a noun can be both plural and possessive at the same time. In this case, when spelling the word, toy will place the apostrophe AFTER the plural -s.

This will make the word end with -s’. Plural: cats Possessive: cat’s Plural possessive: cats’

Practice Makes Perfect!

For each of the following nouns, give the plural form, singular possessive form, and the plural possessive form.

1. James

2. fly

3. man

4. Smith

5. puppy

6. Ms. Balaska

7. woman

8. boss

9. teacher

10. principal

Count nouns and Noncount nouns

Count nouns name something that can be counted. Pencil, friend, hat, sandwich, key,

cloud, fingernail, etc

Noncount nouns name something that cannot be counted. Furniture, respect, rice, air, water, homework,

education Where should I deliver the furniture? (NOT furnitures) How much homework do you have? (NOT how many

homeworks)

USING PRONOUNS

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun in a sentence.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are so named because, except for the pronoun it, they all refer to persons

Used as a subject, as an object, or to show ownership in a sentence.

Personal Pronouns (cont)

Singular (refers to one):

Subjective: I, you, he, she, itPossessive: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, itsObjective: me, you, him, her, it

Plural (refers to more than one):

Subjective: we, you, theyPossessive: our, ours your, yours, their, theirsObjective: us, you, them

Practice

Complete the sentences by writing a subjective case pronoun in the blank.

1. After school, _______ reports to a job at a fast-food restaurant.

2. Gleefully __________ waved hand-painted banners at the football game.

3. Did _______decide to go the movies this weekend?

Agreement of Pronoun and Antecedent

A pronoun should agree with its antecedent in two ways: in number (singular or plural) and in gender (male, female, neutral)

1. My son built his own bookcases. (singular, male)

2. The dog is chasing its tail. (singular, neutral)

Intensive and Reflexive Pronouns

Some pronouns combine with self or selves to form intensive and reflexive pronouns.

Singular: myself, himself, herself, itself,

yourself

Plural: ourselves, themselves, yourselves

Intensive and Reflexive Pronouns

An intensive pronoun follows a noun or pronoun and emphasizes it. I myself love ice cream. For the party, Sarah herself prepared the food.

A reflexive pronoun emphasizes its antecedent and adds information to the sentence. I bought myself an ice cream cone.

(For whom did I buy an ice cream cone? For myself.)

Indefinite Pronouns

An indefinite pronoun takes the place of an unspecified noun.

anybody, anyone, each, either, everybody, everyone, neither, nobody, no one, one, somebody, someone

When the party got loud, somebody called the police.

Anyone may join the drama club.

What is a verb?

Every complete sentence has at least one verb. When you compose sentences, you must choose the correct tense of the verb and make the verb agree with its subject.

The tense of a verb shows the time of the action or the state of being that the verb expresses.

Tenses

There are 6 main verb tenses that we will focus on: Present tense Past tense Future tense Present perfect tense Past perfect tense Future perfect tense

Examples of verbs in each tense…

can you find the verb? Present tense:

The Statue of Liberty stands on Ellis Island. The action occurs right now, in the present, or is

habitually true.

Past tense: Harriet Tubman started the Underground Railroad.

The action occurred in the past.

Future tense: Some baseball cards will become valuable over

time. The action will occur at some time in the future.

Examples of verbs in each tense… can you find the verb?

Present Perfect tense: Scientists have placed a robot on Mars.

The action is completed in the present time. The use of present perfect tense emphasizes the relevance of the action to the current time, right now.

Past Perfect tense: By the 1950s television had become an American

pastime. The action was completed before a specific time in the past.

Examples of verbs in each tense… can you find the verb?

Future perfect tense: By 2040, television will have celebrated its 100th

birthday. The action will be completed before a specific time in

the future.

***NOTICE that the perfect tenses always use a form of have (have, has, or had).

***NOTICE that the future tenses always use will.