Parts of Speech ReviewEQ: What are the eight parts of speech?

Nouns

• A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea.

The flamingo glared at Dominic from the water of Sarasota Bay. He couldn’t decide if the bird inspired more excitement or fear in him.

flamingo, water, and bird = thingsSarasota Bay = a place

Dominic = a personexcitement and fear = ideas

Pronouns

• A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. The word or group of words to which the pronoun refers is called the antecedent.

When Sasquatch saw a flower, herealized that the world could be a beautiful place.

he = pronoun

Sasquatch = antecedent

The pronoun he replaces the antecedent Sasquatch so that the sentence does not sound repetitive.

Pronoun Examples

Singular Plural

First PersonI, memy, minemyself

we, usour, oursourselves

Second Personyouyour, yoursyourself

youyour, yoursyourselves

Third Personhe, him, she, her, ithis, her, hers, itshimself, herself, itself

they, themtheir, theirsthemselves

Verbs• A verb expresses an action or state of

being.

• An action verb tells what something or someone does; actions can be physical or mental.• Physical – The sheep speak Spanish.

Mental — They also know French and Portuguese.

• Verbs also express time — past, present, and future — by using tense forms.

Present — The sheep speak Spanish.Past — The sheep spoke Spanish.Future — The sheep will speak Spanish.

Adjectives

• An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun by limiting its meaning; it tells what kind, which one, how many, or how much.

• Nouns, possessive pronouns, and possessive nouns can also be adjectives:• Noun — volleyball practice

• Possessive pronoun — his gorilla

• Possessive noun — Denise’s unicorn

sleepy unicornwhite unicornone unicorn

enough unicorns

Adverbs

• An adverb describes or modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb; it makes the meaning more specific by telling how, when, where, why, howoften, and how much.

The bear always waved gleefullyat the tourists.

The adverbs always and gleefullymodify the verb waved.

Adverbs

• Adverbs answer the questions of when? where? how? and to what degree?

• The tourists are here!

• The sheep demand pizza often.

• The Sasquatch carefully picked the flower.

• The flamingo stood in the bay today.

Prepositions

• A preposition shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and some other word in a sentence. Often the relationship is one of location (spatial) or time (temporal).

Felix is aggressive before lunch.

Before tells the time relationship between Felix’s aggression and the object of preposition, lunch.

Prepositions

I will bring chicken soup to my brother’s bar mitzvah.

• To shows the relationship between the chicken soup and the object of preposition, my brother’s bar mitzvah.

The comic book store is aroundthe corner.

• Around shows the spatial relationship between the comic book store and the object of preposition, the corner.

Commonly Used Prepositions

about before in to

across behind inside since

after during into through

against for on until

at from out within

Together, the preposition and objection of preposition combine to form a prepositional phrase.

Conjunctions

• Conjunctions are words that join single words or groups of words.

• A coordinating conjunction joins words or groups of words that have equal grammatical weight in a sentence. An easy acronym for remembering coordinating conjunctions is FANBOYS.

The llama winked at me, for I gave her half of my peanut butter sandwich.When used as a coordinating conjunction, for means because.

F A N B O Y S

for and nor but or yet so

Interjections

• An interjection is a word or phrase used to indicate emotion or surprise. Interjections are separated from sentences using punctuation.

Wow! I didn’t know you had a pet jackalope.

Interjection Examples

Ah Oh Shh Wow

Alas Oops Well Yipes

Hey Ouch Why Yuck