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Parts of Speech

Lesson 1 Parts of Speech

The Basics

Essential Question

What roles do words play as the building blocks of all sentences?

Grammar in the World

Every day, you share your ideas by arranging many different types of words in order to create phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs.

You may not realize it, but as you speak and write, you follow rules about the types of words, when you can use them, and how they are used. Identifying parts of speech allows you to understand all the ways you can arrange and rearrange words in order to share your message.

What Do I Know?

What do you already know about the parts of speech? Take this quiz to find out.

Building Blocks

Grammar is a complex system and structure of language. The Mizzou Academy Grammar Lab spotlights one skill (or block) at a time, but it’s often helpful to see how a skill works together with other, related blocks to build the language structure as a whole. You may find the following resource topics helpful as context for this lesson:

Learn About Parts of Speech

First, watch the following video to learn more about the parts of speech.

Video: Parts of Speech

Source: Mizzou Academy

Video transcript

[Theme music]

in the English language there are eight

00:02

parts of speech first up is the noun

00:05

which is a person place thing or idea

00:08

there are proper nouns which are very

00:11

specific like a person's name the brand

00:13

name of a product or a city proper nouns

00:16

are capitalized then there are common

00:18

nouns which are less specific so instead

00:21

of BOM which is a proper noun you might

00:23

use man which is a common noun and

00:26

common nouns are not capitalized verbs

00:31

are actions or states of being the main

00:34

type of verb is the action verb it tell

00:37

us what action is taking place and can

00:39

show a physical action like running or a

00:41

mental action like thinking the main job

00:44

of the action verb is to answer the

00:46

question what is the subject doing next

00:49

up are helping verbs they don't mean

00:52

anything by themselves instead they help

00:55

you understand what action is taking

00:57

place sentences can use just one helping

01:00

verb for example Mike will eat a

01:02

sandwich for lunch however there can be

01:05

up to three helping verbs in one

01:07

sentence for example Mike must have been

01:10

hungry because he ate three hamburgers

01:13

linking verbs show a relationship

01:15

between the subject and another noun or

01:17

adjective and include B verbs such as am

01:21

r was at work and since reverbs like

01:25

look and smell sound taste and field

01:28

some words can be action or linking

01:31

verbs depending on where they show up in

01:32

this sentence if I say Mike looked for

01:35

deals at the pawn shop looked is an

01:38

action verb because there is a noun or

01:40

object after the verb however if I say

01:43

Mike looked silly shopping in his pyjama

01:46

pants looked is a linking verb because

01:49

there is an adjective after the verb

01:53

adjectives describe a noun or a proper

01:56

noun and can help describe how the noun

01:59

looks sounds smells tastes or feels the

02:02

size of the noun and how many there are

02:05

an adverb also describes but instead of

02:10

describing nouns and pronouns adverbs

02:12

describe verbs adjectives or other

02:14

adverbs adverbs often end in ly but they

02:18

don't always have to there are a few

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different types of adverbs of

02:23

manner say how something is done so I

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might say that Amanda danced well or

02:28

gracefully adverbs of time say when

02:31

something happens or was done so if I

02:34

say Helen came to my house it doesn't

02:37

say when but if I had yesterday now it

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does in this instance yesterday is an

02:42

adverb because it says when she came by

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adverbs of place tell where something

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happened if I start with I looked for my

02:50

lost socks it doesn't say where I looked

02:53

but I can add everywhere as an adverb

02:55

that says where I look for my socks

02:58

adverbs of degree describe the degree or

03:02

intensity of something so my shirt might

03:05

be colorful but it might also be very

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colorful or incredibly colorful

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a preposition refers to words that

03:15

specify a location or a point in time

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such as above below throughout outside

03:22

before near or since for example if I

03:26

want to say where I found my socks I

03:28

might say I found them under the bed by

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the bed or on top of the bed all of

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these are prepositions that help point

03:36

to where the socks were in relation to

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another object conjunctions are words to

03:43

join words phrases and clauses together

03:46

such as and yet but for nor or and so

03:53

for example you might have a peanut

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butter and jelly sandwich for lunch or

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you might have a ham and cheese sandwich

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interjection which is a word that

04:05

expresses strong emotions can often

04:08

stand by themselves as a sentence and

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are typically followed by an exclamation

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point such as pouch Wow or hooray the

04:17

last part of speech is the article such

04:20

as a and and though it's a small word

04:23

but it signifies that there is the

04:25

presence of a now

04:27

now let's look at how all of these work

04:29

together to form a sentence here's an

04:32

example that has all of the parts of

04:34

speech Wow the hungry cat chased the

04:38

mouse under the table and quickly ate it

04:40

Wow is an interjection Pat is a noun and

04:44

the subject of the sentence

04:46

hungry describes the cat so that makes

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it an adjective the cat chased which is

04:53

the verb the cat chases a mouse which is

04:57

another noun and the object of the verb

04:59

he chased the mouse under the table so

05:02

table is another noun under is the

05:05

preposition that says where and the is

05:08

the article and is a conjunction quickly

05:12

is an adverb that describes how the cat

05:15

ate the mouse ate is another verb and it

05:19

is a pronoun that takes the place of the

05:22

mouse well now you know more than you

05:25

ever wanted to about the parts of speech

[Outro music]

The Parts of Speech

Click on the tabs below to learn more details about each part of speech:

Noun

What is it?

A noun is a word or group of words that represent:

a person (such as ‘Michael’, ‘teacher’, or ‘police officer’),
a place (such as ‘France’ or ‘school’),
a thing or activity (such as ‘coffee’ or ‘football’), or
a quality or idea (such as ‘danger’ or ‘happiness’).

How is it used?

Nouns can be used as the subject or object of a verb (as in ‘The teacher arrived’ or ‘We like the teacher’) or as the object of a preposition (as in ‘good at football’). They may also rename another noun or pronoun that is fulfilling any of those roles as appositives.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Verb

What is it?

A verb is a word or group of words used to describe:

an act
an occurrence
a state of being

How is it used?

Action verbs and linking verbs can be the main, or root, verbs in a sentence:

Action verb: I saw a flamingo.
Linking verb: I am scared of flamingos.

Helping verbs extend the meaning of action and linking verbs:

I have seen a flamingo at the zoo.

Source: Grammar Revolution Links to an external site.

Adjective

What is it?

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun.

How is it used?

In phrases: ‘black hat’ ‘black’ is an adjective

In sentences: ‘It makes her happy’ ‘happy’ is an adjective.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Adverb

What is it?	An adverb is a word that adds to the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a whole sentence.
How is it used?	Describing a verb: He ran slowly. Describing an adjective: It is very hot. Describing a sentence: Naturally, we want you to come.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Preposition

What is it?

A preposition is a word that is used before a noun, pronoun, or gerund to show place, time, direction, etc.

Tip: prepositions added before nouns change the resulting phrase to an adjective or adverb.

How is it used?

The trees in the park.

I gave it to him.

I am afraid of getting bit by a flamingo.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Article

What is it?

An article is a word used before a noun to show whether the noun refers to a particular example of something or to a general example of something.

How is it used?

In English, ‘the’ is called the definite article, and ‘a’ and ‘an’ are called the indefinite articles.

Definite article: Do you see the flamingo over there?
Indefinite article: I have never seen a flamingo up close.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Conjunction

What is it?

A conjunction is a word such as ‘and’, ‘but’, or ‘because’.

How is it used?

Conjunctions join parallel parts of a sentence (parts of speech, phrases, and clauses of similar types):

I love to swim in the summer and ski in the winter.
I want to go see the flamingo exhibit, but I have to finish my homework.

Source: Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Interjection

What is it?	An interjection is a word or phrase used to express a strong feeling such as shock, pain, or pleasure.
How is it used?	Wow! That flamingo is so pink! Ouch! I think that flamingo just bit me!

Source:Longman dictionary online Links to an external site.

Do I Get It?

Complete the review activity below to check your understanding of parts of speech.