English Grammar Demystified - A Self Teaching Guide

26 English Grammar Demystifi ed

Parts of Speech

Use the following chart to reacquaint yourself with the parts of speech.

Part of Speech Function Examples

Noun, pronoun Names a person, place, or thing Elliot, President Adams, cat, he,

she, them

Verb Provides the action or state fl y, stand, walk, count, is, are, be

of being

Adjective Modifi es or describes a noun tall, noisy, blue, hot

Adverb Modifi es or describes a verb, noisily, easily, hardly

adjective, or other adverb

Preposition Introduces a relationship between on, in, up, over, to

a noun or pronoun and other

words in a sentence

Conjunction Joins words, phrases, and clauses and, but, or, yet

Interjection Expresses emotion ah, oh, wow

Article Identifi es or points out a noun a, an, the

One way to understand English grammar is to think of words as having two

names: a grammatical name, called a part of speech, and a function name that tells

what it does in the sentence. Look at the following sentence:

The tennis ball hit the opponent on his head.

Article adjective noun verb article noun preposition pronoun noun

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

The tennis ball hit the opponent on his head.

↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

Identifi es describes subject verb identifi es object introduces describes object

Why is it important to know and understand this concept? The simple answer is

that correct English usage depends upon it. The following examples will explain

this. First, think of the pronouns he and him. The pronoun he functions as the sub-

ject of a sentence. Him functions as an object. The different function categories of

pronouns are explained later in this chapter.

Function:

Part of

Speech: