Parts of Speech Notes

Parts of Speech Notes
The Noun- who?  what?
A Noun’s function is to act as a person, place, thing or idea.  It answers the questions WHO or WHAT…

 

There are four categories of nouns: Proper and Common; Concrete and Abstract

Proper – McDonald’s

Common – restaurant

Concrete – sunlight

Abstract – happiness

 

Nouns will be the SUBJECT in a sentence or an OBJECT.

 

Nouns may end in these suffixes: -ness, -ity, -ion, -sion, -tion, -xion, -hood

 

The Verb

 

A verb’s function is to show action.  A verb can be an action or a state of being (is, are, am, was, were, being, been, be)

 

There are verbs that act alone (run, cry, think, buy) and verb phrases which act together to show action.

A verb phrase contains one or more helping verbs and a main verb.

Helping verbs:

To be - is, are, am, was, were, being, been, be

To do – do, did, does

To have – have, had, has

Modals – can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must

Examples of verb phrases: can laugh, should have tried, will have been beginning.

 

Verbs may end in these suffixes: -ize, -s, -fy, -ing, -ate

 

 

 

The Adjective - What kind?  Which?  How many?

 

An adjective’s function is to tell which, what kind, or how many.

which – those kittens

what kind – blind kittens

how many – several kittens

 

“a”, “an”, and “the” are always adjectives (they are also known as articles).

 

Adjectives may end in these suffixes: -ive, -y, -ious

 

 

The Adverb – Aw, poor loner!

 

An adverb’s function is to tell how, when, where, and to what extent. They modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.

How- She laughed happily.

When- I found out later.

Where- I screamed inside.

What extent- He is very mad.

 

Adverbs usually end in –ly

very, too, not and quite are always adverbs

 

 

 

Prepositions – Co dependent with nouns

 

A preposition tells how, when, where, and to what extent also!

The difference is that it usually is the first word in a prepositional phrase.

 

How: with great gusto

Where: in the frightening, scary, awful graveyard

When: on time

To what extent: in a huge hurry

 

Some common prepositions are:

to

in

inside

above

through

next to

beside

under

around                OF   

by

on

over

with

     for

 

Conjunctions

A conjunction joins words, phrases, and clauses to one another.  You can remember them as :

F or

A nd

N or

B ut

O r

Y et

S  o   

 

This or that        -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - Joins words

To live and to die -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  Joins  phrases

Life is short, so I live for each day.   -  -  Joins clauses

 

 

Darn! Interjections

Interjections express emotion or answer questions.  They are always followed by a comma, period, exclamation mark, or question mark.

 

Examples:

Wow! I love your hair.

No, I didn’t see you there.

Hey?  I didn’t do it. 

 

 

Pronouns

 

Pronouns replace nouns. 

 

Example:

Emily – she

School – it

The class – us

 

There are first person, second person and third person pronouns

 

1                           2                           3

 

I                           you                      she

me                       your                     her    it

mine                    yours                   hers  its

my                                                    he     his

us                                                      they  their

we                                                     theirs         them

our                                                   

ours

 

There are possessive pronouns: mine, my, our, ours, his, her, hers, its, their, theirs

There are reflexive pronouns: myself, itself, themselves, yourself, ourselves

 

 

Indefinite Pronouns

 

Each , some, none, one, any, everyone, someone, anyone,

no one, everybody, all, most,

 

some gum - adj

some of the gum – pronoun