Parts Of Speech

Words can be considered as the smallest independent elements in language and communication. In the English language, words can be classified under 8 major word types or parts of speech namely, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. In this article, you will learn more about the most common and simplest word type, which are the nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

Noun

A noun is generally defined as a person, place, or thing; however, ideas are also nouns. Nouns have sometimes been defined in terms of the grammatical categories to which they are subject (classed by gender, inflected for case and number). Such definitions tend to be language-specific, since nouns do not have the same categories in all languages. Nouns are often preceded by "noun markers," the words a, an, and the. The word answering "who or what" asked after a noun marker will be a noun. Nouns usually form a plural by adding an s. If you are unsure if a word is a noun, try adding s to mean more than one. If it works, the word is probably a noun.

Nouns have these characteristics:

They are abstract or concrete.

Abstract nouns name things we cannot see, touch, or detect readily through our senses. Abstract nouns name ideas (existentialism, democracy), measurements (weight, percent), emotions (smile, love), or qualities (responsibility). Concrete nouns, on the other hand, name persons, including animals (cousins, Roger Rabbit), places (mountain, home), or things we can see, touch, or otherwise detect through our senses (smoke, beer).

They are proper or common.

A proper noun identifies a particular person, animal, place, thing, or idea--Roger Rabbit, for example. The first letter of each word of a proper noun is capitalized. A common noun does not name a particular person or thing; rather, it refers to a whole class or type. Common nouns do not require capitalization.

Most are singular or plural

Most nouns are made plural with the addition of s or es. Thus, instructor becomes instructors, and class becomes classes. Some nouns have irregular plural forms: man becomes men, and woman becomes women. Child becomes children, and person becomes people. Some nouns have the same form in both singular and plural: "A moose is crossing the river. No, wait--three moose are crossing the river!"

Some are collective.

A collective noun names a collection or group of things. Although a collective noun refers to a group of many things, it is usually singular in form.

Pronoun

A pronoun is a part of a speech which functions as a replacement for a noun. Pronouns are used in place of anoun that has already been mentioned or that is already known, often to avoid repeating the noun. For example, you could say, “Najwa is a nice girl". Then you could replace the noun “Najwa” with the word “She” and get the following sentence: “She is a nice girl.” “She” is a pronoun.

Example sentences:

He doesn’t want go with them.
Would they help us?
His house is bigger than ours.
Who is she?

Verb

A verb is a word that describes action or doing or a state of being. Verb is used to show an act/acts from subject, situation, or conditions. The second part of this definition is important, as many believe that verbs are always action words that can be visualized. This is true of action verbs: Go, jump, sleep, eat, think, be, change, become, drive, etc.

Regular Verb

Verb that past tense and participle form added suffix -ed to base form.

Base Form	Study	Walk	Clean
Past Tense	Studied	Walked	Cleaned
Past Participle	Studied	Walked	Cleaned

Irregular Verb

Verb that past tense and participle form added with anyways. There is verb that both in past tense and participle has same form. And also there is verb that has different form between base form, past tense, and participle. And others have many same forms between past tense and participle form.

Irregular Verb	Base Form	Past Tense	Past Participle
Same base form, past tense, & participle form	Let	Let	Let
	Put	Put	Put
	Read	Read	Read
Different base form, past tense, & participle form	Break	Broke	Broken
	Forget	Forgot	Forgotten
	Go	Went	Gone
Same past tense & participle form	Have	Had	Had
	Leave	Left	Left
	Meet	Met	Met
Same base form & participle form	Come	Came	Come
Same base form & participle form	Run	Ran	Run

Adverbs

Similar to adjectives, an adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. They answer the questions: how, when, where, why, or under what conditions. A number of words are always adverbs. They include: not, very, often, here, almost, always, never, there, and too. Adverbs very often end with -ly. However, be careful: not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. Various adverbs, among others:

Adverb of time (yesterday, now)
Adverb of manner (softly, quickly)
Adverb of degree (very, so)
Adverb of modality (likely, maybe)
Adverb of frequency (always, sometimes)
Adverb of place (here, somewhere)
Adverb of focus (also, only)

Example sentences:

The teacher carefully graded the homework (Carefully is an adverb that modifies the action verb to grade)
We left it here (here modifies the verb phrase left it, indicating place)
I worked yesterday (yesterday modifies the verb worked, indicating time)

Adjectives

Adjective is used to explain noun or pronoun. Essentially, it provides more information about a person, place, or thing. . Adjectives are words which describe only nouns. They tell what kind? or how many? The noun markers a, an, and the are always adjectives.

An adjective often comes before a noun:

A yellow flower.
A dark sky.
An interesting story.

And sometimes an adjective comes after a verb:

My flower is yellow.
The sky became dark.
His story seemed interesting.

But adjectives can also modify pronouns (She is beautiful). Look at these examples:

They were empty.
I thought it seemed strange.
Those are not expensive.

Devi Sakinah Maharani

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