NOUN: a person, place, thing, idea, feeling, or animal
Ex: cat, leader, girls, Ms. Jones, love, school, trust
PRONOUN: takes the place of a noun
Ex: he, she, it, we, they, none, everybody
VERB: expresses action or state of being
Ex: run, think, buy, feel
ADJECTIVE: describes nouns and pronouns; tells us “Which one?” “How many?” “What kind?”
Ex: four, blue, big, silly, the, a, an
ARTICLE: the little word before a noun. Sometimes considered an adjective
Ex: the, a, an
ADVERB: describes verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Tells us “How?” “When?” “Why?” “Where?” “In what way?” “Under what condition?” “To what extent?”
Ex: frequently, yesterday, sometimes, never, very, quietly
PREPOSITION: shows the relationship (often direction) between noun or pronoun and some other word. (Think of any relationship between the noun ‘airplane’ and a cloud)
Ex: to, up, around, by, through
CONJUNCTION: joins words or groups of words
Ex: and, but, or, yet, because, although
INTERJECTION: expresses sudden emotion.
Ex: Oh! Ouch! No! Oops! Yikes!
Strategies for finding parts of speech in a sentence:
1. Find the main VERB in the sentence and underline it twice.
2. Find the subject of the sentence by asking “Who or what is doing the action?” The subject will be a noun. Underline the subject once.
3. Now, it should be easier to figure out the functions of the other words in the sentence.
4. So… Do the other words modify other words? Do they connect? Do they stand in for other words? Do they show emotion but not affect that sentence grammatically?