Online Parts of Speech RAP:
http://www.teachertube.com/video/parts-of-speech-rap-song-325819?utm_source=video-google&utm_medium=video-view&utm_term=video&utm_content=video-page&utm_campaign=video-view-page
Online Parts of Speech Quizzes to help you practice:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/grammargames/pandapopPartsofSpeech.htm
http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=8-parts-speech-test-practice
http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/grammar/parts_of_speech/quiz395.html
http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/215.html
http://ereadinggames.com/super-grammar-ninja/
Great Website to use as a STUDY GUIDE:
file:///C:/Users/rwallace/Documents/Sadlier%20Vocabulary%20Program/English%20Grammar%20For%20Dummies%20Cheat%20Sheet.html
Parts of Speech Study Guide
1. Verb = A word that shows physical or mental action or state of being
Examples: jump, hop, run, walk (physical action) Talk, think, wonder (mental actions) Am, is, are, was, be, been, were, should (state of being)
2. ADJECTIVE = A word that gives more information/modifies/describes
a person, place, thing, idea, feeling or animal
Examples: big dog, blue car, annoying duck, great idea
3. ADVERB = A word that tells how, when or where an action is performed, and often ends in –ly
Examples: coming soon - tells WHEN
Walk slowly - (ends in –ly) and tells HOW
4. Preposition = A word that shows a relationship between objects in time or location. Think of the "SQUIRREL IN THE TREE"
Examples: Over, under, beneath, beside, below, after, before, in, out, inside
Prepositional Phrases- a fragment that shows a relationship between time and place
Examples: Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, on a blanket
5. Noun = A word that names a person, place, thing, idea, feeling or animal
Examples: Sue, Greer High School, McDonald's (Proper nouns)
Dog, bird, store, school (Common nouns)
6. Conjunction = A word that joins other words or phrases
Examples: FANBOYS = for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
7. Pronoun = word that takes the place of a noun or a naming word
Examples: She, her, him, he, me, I, you, we, they, us, them,
His, hers, ours, yours
NOUNS
A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea:
People farmer, mechanic, father, Professor Haskins, editors, Marcia
Places ocean, Canada, porch, Spain, classroom
Things scissors, giraffe, pen, smiles, tugboat, skateboard, braces, drill
Ideas love, inspiration, courage, anxiety, eagerness, happiness
All nouns are either common or proper nouns:
A common noun names any person, place, or thing. Examples are basketball, video, wizard, coin, woman, and coach.
A proper noun names a specific person, place, or thing and begins with a capital letter. Examples are Winston Churchill, Babe Ruth, Mr. Richard Turner, and Chicago.
Know the difference between a common and a proper noun:
Common Nouns Proper Nouns
hospital Mercy General Hospital
woman Martha Washington
school Sayville Middle School
newspaper The New York Times
Here are some specific types of nouns:
A collective noun names a group of people or things. Examples of collective nouns are jury, herd, fl ock, family, fl eet, club, class, and group.
A compound noun is a noun consisting of more than a single word. It could be separate words such as social studies, physical education, and dining room. It could be two words joined by a hyphen such as merry-go-round, thirty-three, sister-in-law, and great- grandmother. It could be a combined word such as schoolteacher, bookkeeper, landlord, and headmaster.
Plural Nouns are more than one thing. We usually add an "s" to the noun to make it plural.
But we
have some rules:
A Possessive noun shows ownership (having or owning something).
Possessive nouns are formed by adding an apostrophe and "s" or only an apostrophe. Examples are John's car or the car belongs to John. Mark is John’s brother.
The possessive noun is also used to refer to restaurants, churches, shops and colleges combined with the job title or name of the owner. Examples are the doctor's office, the grocer's store, or the Smith's house.
Common expressions such as Sunday's newspaper or the water's edge also use this type of noun
When we want to show that someone owns something, we use (‘s) to make a singular possessive noun.
Noun Possessive
Sally Sally’s cat
cat the cat’s tail
Boris Boris’s pencil
Remember:
If you have an “s” at the end of a word you need to ask yourself two questions:
PRONOUNS
A pronoun is a word used in place of one or more nouns. We use pronouns to:
◗ Refer to a noun (called its antecedent) that usually comes before the pronoun
◗ Make our writing clearer, smoother, and less awkward
• to name specific people or places such as you, she or I
• to point to non-specific people or things such as everyone, nobody or who
• to point to something such as this dress
• to refer back to the subject such as He hurt himself.
• to show mutual action such as The boys were wrestling and hurt each other.
• to add emphasis such as I myself love pronouns.
Personal pronouns refer to people and things.
They are divided into three categories:
1. first person (referring to the person who is speaking: I went to the mall)
2. second person (referring to the person spoken to: Joey, can you see the bus?)
3. third person (referring to anyone or anything else: Bob saw us do this assignment)
Singular Plural
First person: I, my, mine, me we, our,
(the person speaking) ours, us
Second person you, your, yours you, your,
(the person spoken to) yours
Third person he, his, him, she they, their
(someone else speaking) hers, it, its theirs, them
APPOSITIVES
An appositive is a noun or a pronoun that identifies or explains the noun or pronoun it follows. It gives us more information, but it is not essential to the sentence.
For example:
My dog, Fido, won a medal.
My German friend, Brigitta Han, is visiting.
Verbs describe (1) an action, (2) a state or (3) an occurrence:-
1. ACTION VERBS are something that someone or something is doing, such as run, talk, play, go, cook, speak, etc.
For example, in the phrase: "He is running", the two words 'is running' is the present continuous form of the verb 'to run'.
Here are a few more examples:
2. 'STATE' VERBS
Examples:
3. 'OCCURRENCE' VERBS
Examples:
REGULAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS
With regular verbs, the past and perfect forms end with '~ed', e.g. talk/talked.
Irregular verbs do not end their past and perfect forms with '~ed'. They change quite differently e.g. speak/spoke/spoken, sing/sang/sung.
AUXILIARY VERBS are words that "help" the verb. e.g.
The verbs to be, to have and to do are used as auxiliary verbs. Their present, past, singular and plural forms all being used as appropriate.
MODAL AUXILIARY VERBS: can, could, may, might, would, shall, should, must, ought to.
Examples:
Note that Modal Auxiliary Verbs have no infinitives.
Helping Verbs
Notice how helping verbs work together with main verbs to make a complete verb phrase.
Examples:
is leaving
may become
might have remained
had seemed
should move
might have thought
shall be going
could jump
Sometimes the parts of a verb phrase are interrupted by other parts of speech.
Examples:
Did you hear President Bush’s speech?
Has the D.J. played the new CD for you?
The word not is always an adverb. It is never part of a helping verb, even when it is joined to a verb as in a contraction (–n’t) such as in the word can’t or didn’t.
Examples:
He should not have borrowed his book.
He shouldn’t have borrowed his book.
Adjectives
A word that describes a noun or gives us
more information about a noun.
Examples:
adj. noun adj. noun
Mary wears the red coat on a windy day.
The big, black dog barked at the tall, thin man.
An adjective modifies, qualifies or limits the meaning of
a noun or a pronoun. It answers the questions,
What kind? Which one(s)? How many? How much?
• Carrie read an interesting story. ( What kind of story?)
• The recent article has that information. ( Which article?)
• Kent owns those surfboards. ( Which surfboards?)
• Wendy paid fifty dollars for the jacket. ( How many dollars?)
• Much space was devoted to her artwork. ( How much space?)
The words a, an, and the are the most frequently used adjectives. Although they are sometimes referred to as articles,limiting adjectives, or noun markers, they are really adjectives.
Examples:
The old house was deserted.
An apple a day is good for you!
An adjective can come before or after the noun or pronoun it describes:
• Older cards are found on the table. ( Which cards?)
• Tall players and intelligent coaches were interviewed by the interested reporter. ( Which
• players? Which coaches? Which reporter?)
• Tired and hungry , the campers reached the lodge. ( What kind of campers?)
• The campers, tired and hungry , reached the lodge. ( What kind of campers?)
There are several types of adjectives:
A proper adjective is formed from a proper noun. It always begins with a capital letter.
Italian bread Midas touch Canadian sunset
A compound adjective is a word composed of two or more words. Sometimes these words are hyphenated.
thank-you black-and-blue mark hometown hero
Demonstrative Adjectives
A demonstrative adjective is one that points out a specific person or thing.
This and that modify singular nouns.
This points to a person or thing nearby.
That points to a person or thing farther away.
Example: This apple goes on that table in the corner.
These and those modify plural nouns.
These points to persons or things nearby.
Those points to persons or things farther away.
Please Note: THEM is a pronoun! Never use it to describe a noun.
Comparative Adjectives
Comparative adjectives compare one thing or person to another. You add –er to the adjective.
Example: Tom is bigger than Fred.
Superlative adjectives compare one thing or person to many things. You add –est to the adjective.
Example: Tom is the biggest boy in this class.
For some adjectives of two or more syllables and ALL adjectives of three or more syllables, use more or less for the comparative and most or least to form the superlative.
Examples:
The test is more difficult than I expected. Comparative
Carol is the most generous girl of all. Superlative
Kate is less talkative than Tom. Comparative
Mary is the least talkative of all the girls. Superlative
Adverbs
It is a word that describes a verb, adjective or another adverb. It tells us these things:
Where?: there, here, outside, inside, away
When?: now, then, later, immediately, yesterday
How?: quickly, slowly, stupidly, gracefully, gradually
How often
or How long?: never, once, twice, frequently
How much?: hardly, extremely, greatly, too, more
Adverbs have three main positions in the sentence:
Front (before the subject):
- Now we will study adverbs.
Middle (between the subject and the main verb):
- We often study adverbs.
End (after the verb or object):
- We study adverbs carefully.
An adverb is a word that modifies (gives more information about) a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
◗ Many adverbs end in - ly .
◗ Adverbs answer any of these four questions: Where? When? How? To what extent?
◗ Adverbs make writing more specific and more exact.
• Here are some adverbs that do not end in - ly :
again almost alone already also
always away even ever here
just later never not now
nowhere often perhaps quite rather
seldom so sometimes somewhat somewhere
soon then there today too
very yesterday yet
Adverbs answer questions about the verb:
Where? When? How? and To what extent?
John ate quickly. ( How did he eat?)
I walk there. ( Where did I walk?)
Leigh will eat soon. ( When will Leigh eat?)
Adverbs answer questions about the adjective in the sentence:
Where? When? How? and To what extent?
Rex is very happy.
(Very modifies the adjective happy and answers the question, To what extent?)
The program was too unrealistic.
(Too modifies the adjective unrealistic and answers the
question, To what extent?)
Adverbs modify other adverbs and answer:
Where? When? How? and To what extent?
Warren walks too quickly.
(Too modifies the adverb quickly and answers the question, How quickly?)
He moved rather recently.
(Rather modifies the adverb recently and answers the question, How recently?)
Comparative and Superlative Adverbs
When two actions are being compared, the comparative degree is used.
Example:
Amy ran faster than Beth.
Sally laughs harder than he does.
Use –er to form the comparative degree.
When three or more actions are being compared, the superlative degree is used.
Example:
Maureen ran the fastest of all.
Use –est to form the superlative degree of one-syllable words.
Use more, less (comparative) or most, least (superlative) with longer adverbs and with adverbs that end in –ly.
Examples:
Luis clapped more enthusiastically than Bob.
Ms. Baker ran the least energetically of all the runners.
Please Note: When is a word an adjective, and when is it an adverb? Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. Adverbs do not. Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Adjectives do not.
Gerunds
If you put –ing on the end of a verb, you
can turn the verb into a noun.
That noun is called a gerund.
I run. (Run in this sentence is a verb.)
Running is fun. (Running in this sentence is a noun/gerund.)
Prepositions
A common preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and another word in the sentence, or a verb and another word.
The man swam under the bridge.
(Under connects the idea of swam and bridge.)
She walked down the aisle.
(Down connects walked and aisle.)
Some of the more commonly used prepositions are:
aboard about above across
after against along among
around as at before
behind below beneath beside
besides between beyond but
by concerning despite down
during except for from
in inside into like
near of off on
onto opposite out outside
over past since through
throughout till to toward
under underneath until up
upon with within without
Some of the commonly used compound prepositions:
according to by means of instead of
ahead of in addition to next to
aside from in back of on account of
as of in front of on top of
because of in place of out of
Prepositional Phrases
A phrase is a group of closely related words used as a single part of speech but not containing a subject and a predicate.
For example:
The writer of this novel is signing books.
The airplane flew above the clouds.
A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begin with a preposition and end with a noun or pronoun.
Example:
He took the train to New York.
On Wednesday Mary will be 12 years old.
The noun or pronoun in the prepositional phrase is called the object of the preposition.
Example:
He took the train to New York. (In this sentence, New York is the object of the preposition.)
A prepositional phrase is always related to another word in a sentence. It modifies the word in the same way an adjective or adverb does.
An adverb phrase is a prepositional phrase that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. It usually tells where, when, how, why or to what extent.
An adjective phrase is a prepositional phrase that modifies a noun or pronoun. It tells which one, how many and what kind.
A prepositional phrase can be used to describe a noun or a pronoun. When the prepositional phrase is being used as an adjective it answers the questions, which one, what kind or how many.
Example:
The bird in the tree whistled.
(The prepositional phrase in the tree answers which one.)
HOMEWORK: Study Parts of Speech Definitions!