Parts of Speech Noun A noun is a

Parts of Speech

Noun A noun is a person, place, thing or idea.

Types of Nouns � Common noun: word used to name any regular, ordinary person, animal, place, thing or idea. Nothing specific. ◦ Examples: car, man, bridge, town, water, metal, ammonia � Proper noun: name of a specific person, place or thing. Always starts with a capital letter. ◦ Examples: Michael, Africa, United Nations, Tower of London

Collective and Possessive Nouns Collective Nouns: a word used for a group of people or things ◦ Examples: people: audience, crowd, jury, family, group, nation, staff, cast, gang, team Possessive Nouns: noun that owns something in the sentence. ◦ Example: The airplane’s engine was loud. (The airplane “owns” the engine. )

Compound and Verbal Nouns � Compound nouns: nouns made up of two or more words. Some compound nouns are hyphenated. ◦ One word examples: shoelace, keyboard, flashlight, applesauce, notebook, bedroom. ◦ Hyphenated examples: editor-in-chief, greatgrandfather, mother-in-law ◦ Two words: police officer, high school, post office � Verbal nouns: nouns formed by verbs. They are a type of common noun. ◦ Examples: I love swimming. (Swimming is the name of an activity. It is formed by the verb to swim. ) ◦ Critical thinking is required to solve this problem. (Thinking is the name of an activity. )

Pronouns A word that takes the place of a noun. ◦ Examples:

Personal Pronouns Personal pronouns: a pronoun that stands in for a person.

Indefinite Pronouns Indefinite pronouns stand in for nouns that are not named specifically. ◦ Examples: everyone, someone, anyone, no one, everything, something, anything, nothing, everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody.

Adjectives �An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. �Adjectives give us more information about nouns �They tell us: �The color of nouns �The size of nouns �The shape of nouns �The texture of nouns �The condition of nouns �How many there are of the nouns

Adjectives: Articles A, An and The �The describes something specific ◦ The book is on the table. (describes a specific book) �A and an are non-specific and can refer to any noun. ◦ A book is on the table. (could be any book) �A is used before a word beginning with a consonant. An is used before a word beginning with a vowel.

Verbs � Action verbs: tell what the subject of a sentence does. ◦ Examples: run, fall, sit, write, see, fly, cry, laugh, bake, build, make, have, buy �The hawk flew over the field in search of prey. � Linking verbs- show the state or condition of a person or thing. They link the subject with a word in the predicate. ◦ Examples: am, is, are, was, were, being, been. �Juan is an excellent basketball player.

More Linking Verbs like appear, become, feel, grow, sound seem, and taste can ALSO be used as linking verbs when they can take the place of the verb be. ◦ Lana seemed surprised. ◦ Lana was surprised. ◦ The puppies look sleepy. ◦ The puppies are sleepy.

Verb Phrase/Helping Verb �A verb that contains more than one verb is called a verb phrase. �The last word in the phrase is called the main verb. �All other words in the phrase are called helping verbs. ◦ Tom had made several careless mistakes on his test ◦ Maria may finish her report by Friday. ◦ We will be going to the movies tonight.

Adverbs � Adverbs give information about verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. ◦ Examples: carefully, slowly, too, somewhere, very, calmly, shyly, often, here, there, never, not, soon, anywhere, daringly � They ◦ ◦ answer the questions: How? (Megan walked slowly. ) Where? (Class will start soon. ) When? (Tim stood there. ) To what extent? (She works out daily. ) � Hints to recognize adverbs: ◦ They often end in –ly. ◦ The words very and too are probably the most common adverbs.

Prepositions �A preposition is a word that relates a noun or pronoun to another word or sentence. �The noun or pronoun that follows a preposition is called the object of the preposition. �A preposition, its object and any words that modify the object are called a prepositional phrase. �

More Prepositions

Conjunctions � Conjunctions are words that connect words or groups of words in a sentence. ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ � For And Nor But Or Yet So HINT: The above spells FANBOYS. Coordinating conjunctions include the words and, but, or nor. ◦ ◦ Either…or Neither…nor Not only…but also Both…and

Commas and Conjunctions �When listing items, use a comma in between each item and insert and for the last one. �Example: �WRONG: I fell and hurt my knee and my head and my back and my pride. �RIGHT: I fell and hurt my knee, my head, my back and my pride. �When coordinating conjunctions (F. A. N. B. O. Y. S) are used to connect two sentences, you must use a comma before the conjunction. ◦ Note: If the sentences are very short, you can sometimes leave out the comma.

Interjections � Interjections are words that show strong emotion or surprise in a sentence. � Examples: ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Hey! Yikes! Oops! Oh boy! Ouch! Yuck! Oops! Yo! Pow! Ugh!

Parts of Speech Test