Parts of Speech

Parts of Speech are a very important lesson in English grammar. It is a linguistic category of words that is classified based on the behavior of the lexical term. There are eight parts of speech in English grammar – Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.

Noun: Noun is a part of speech that refers to a concrete entity. Nouns are names of people, places, and things and so on. For example: Johnson & Johnson is the most popular brand for kid’s clothes. Here ‘Johnson & Johnson’ is the name of the brand and a noun in the sentence.

Pronoun: Pronoun is a part of speech that is used as a substitute of noun. As for example: Today is Tina’s birthday and her father gave her a Barbie doll. In this sentence ‘her’ is a pronoun that is used instead of the noun Tina.

Verb: Verb is a part of speech that signifies an activity or a process being performed or done by the noun. As for example: Tina is playing with her Barbie doll. Here, the activity Tina is performing is ‘playing’ and therefore playing is the verb.

Adjective: An adjective is a part of speech that qualifies or modifies a noun or pronoun by stating something about it. An adjective generally precedes the noun or pronoun that it modifies. As for example: Tina is a beautiful girl. Here ‘beautiful’ is an adjective as it is describing the noun Tina.

Adverb: An adverb is a part of speech that modifies an adjective, verb or other adverb. As for example: Mother quickly bought two tops for girls from the market. Here quickly is modifying the verb bought and therefore quickly is the adverb.

Preposition: A preposition is a part of speech that describes a relation between other word and phrases in a sentence. As for example: Mother bought tops for girls from the nearest kid’s store. Here, from is the preposition.

Conjunction: A conjunction is a part of speech that joins two words or phrases. As for example: Ram and Hari are good friends. Here, and is the conjunction.

Interjection: An interjection is an exclamation used to denote emotions. As for example: Alas, the old man is dead. Here, Alas is the interjection that denotes the emotion of sadness.