8 Parts of Speech Nouns Common nouns refer to a person, place, or thing. Examples: writer, library, book.

Proper nouns refer to a specific person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are capitalized. Examples: Patrick OBrian, London, the Thames. Pronouns Pronouns take the place of a noun. Examples: my, me, she, he, his, her. Verbs Verbs are action words. They show action or state of being and indicate the time of that action or state, past, present, or future. Example (from the Patrick OBrian novel H.M.S. Surprise): Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, Jack, you have debauched my sloth. Adjectives Adjectives describe or modify nouns. They specify size, appearance, number, etc. Example (from Patrick OBrians The Golden Ocean): Dont you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Adverbs Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They specify how, when, where, and how much. Example (from OBrians The Mauritius Commander): For very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary Prepositions Prepositions show how a noun or pronoun is related to another word in a sentence (into, behind, around, over). Example (from OBrians Master and Commander): However, she continued to acknowledge the compliments of her audience with a radiant smile, looking very well in pale blue satin and a great double rope of pearlspearls from the Santa Brigida. Conjunctions Conjunctions join words, phrases, or clauses (and, but, or, nor). Example (again, from Master and Commander): For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it Interjections Interjections are exclamations and are usually indicated by the use of the exclamation mark (oh, well, wow, cheers, hooray). Example (from OBrians Testimonies): Oh! It has always seemed to me that books are the supreme decorations of a room.

Parts of speech: a summary

Noun: A noun is a name for someone or something. It can be someone or something in particular, or someone or something in general. Pronoun: A pronoun is a substitute for a noun or a noun phrase. Verb: A verb is the action word in a statement. Some verbs link the subject to a noun, pronoun, or adjective. Adjective: An adjective is a modifier. Usually it modifies, or makes more exact, the meaning of a noun or pronoun. Adverb: An adverb is a modifier. Usually it modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Conjunction: A conjunction is a connector. A coordinate conjunction connects words or groups of words that are grammatically the same. A subordinate conjunction connects a subordinate, or dependent, clause to a main clause. Preposition: A preposition is a connector that introduces a prepositional phrase. It usually connects a noun or noun phrase to the part of the sentence modified by the whole prepositional phrase, and it shows the relation between the two.