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PARTS OF SPEECH NOTES:
NOUN - a person, place, thing or idea
Common vs. proper nouns:
Proper nouns are the name of a specific person, place or thing, and they are always capitalized.
Example of common: student
Example of proper: Sam Smith
Concrete vs. abstract nouns:
Concrete nouns can be identified by one of your five senses (see, smell, touch, taste, hear) and are
represented by persons, places or things.
Examples: teacher, city, desk
Abstract nouns are emotions, ideas or concepts and have no physical presence in reality; they
cannot be identified by your five senses.
Examples: sadness, democracy, rebellion
Singular vs. plural nouns:
Singular represents one while plural represents more than one.
Collective nouns:
Singular nouns that represent groups of individual people, places or things.
Examples: flock, audience, team
Possessive nouns:
Possessive nouns own or possess something. They use an apostrophe to indicate possession.
Examples: The cat's milk. Three cats' milk.
Compound nouns:
Compound nouns are singular nouns made up of more than one word:
Examples: football, Kalispell Middle School, President Obama
VERB - an action word (but not always!)
There are three basic types of verbs: action, helping and linking.
Action verbs:
Either physical (to run) or mental (to think).
Helping verbs:
These words "help" action verbs by specifying the time (tense) in which the action takes place.
Example: The girls are dancing and will dance again tomorrow. (Are tells us the action is happening
in the present and will tells us the action will happen in the future.)
Linking verbs:
Linking verbs link (connect) nouns or pronouns to adjectives.
Example: The boys are adventurous. (Are connects the noun "boys" to the adjective "adventurous".)
Examples of linking verbs include: feel, taste, look, smell, appear, grow, remain, stay, turn, seem,
sound, become, prove, is, am, are, was, were, be, being, etc.
At the 8th grade level, you'll need to know a bit more about verbs.
There are also three types of verbs known as "verbals". They include: gerunds, participles, and
infinitives.
Gerunds:
Gerunds are verbs ending in "ing" that are used as nouns.
Example: Skiing is my favorite activity.
Participles:
Participles are verbs ending in "ed" or "ing" that act as adjectives.
Example: The polished ring is beautiful. That boiling water can give you a terrible burn.
Be careful to avoid misplaced or dangling participles!
Climbing the steep mountain, the rocky trail was difficult for Amy. (misplaced - the trail wasn’t
doing the climbing)
Exhausted from vacuuming the floors, the laundry was even more tiring. (dangling - who was
exhausted?)
Infinitives:
Infinitives are verbs with the word "to" in front, and they can act as a noun, adjective, or adverb.
Example: To sleep until 9:00 is my favorite way to start my day. (noun)
The teacher gave me back my assignments to organize. (adjective)
I must finish my homework to succeed. (adverb)
Be careful that you don't split your infinitives!
Try not to put a word between "to" and "the verb" (correct). Try to not put a word between "to" and
"the verb" (not correct).
There are also "moods" in verbs that let us know the writer's attitude about the subject. These are
called: indicative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive.
Indicative:
Makes a statement such as this example: This website contains information about the parts of
speech.
Interrogative:
Asks a question such as this example: Do you know how to navigate this website?
Imperative:
Gives a command such as this example: Look for the link on the staff websites page.
Conditional:
Makes a statement in which the results are dependent on a given situation such as these
examples: (hint – look for “might”, “could”, “should”, “would”, “may”, “will”)
If you check the website, you might find the answer. (a certain or probably certain situation)
If you study language, you could grow up to be an English teacher. (a hypothetical situation)
If I weren't an English teacher, I'd be a P.E. teacher. (a contrary or unreal situation)
Subjunctive:
Makes a statement that expresses emotion, doubt, or a wish, or one that is contrary, as in these
examples: (hint – look for “were” instead of “was” with a singular subject)
I wish she were more interested in reading. (a wish)
If I were you, I’d spend more time studying my notes. (doubt)
The teacher marked her absent as if she were not present today. (contrary)
If I ruled the world, we would get to eat pizza every day! (emotion)
PRONOUN - a word that takes the place of a noun
Antecedent:
The antecedent is the word replaced by the pronoun.
Example: Robert ran the length of the field, and he scored the winning touchdown. (He is the
pronoun that replaced Robert, while Robert is the antecedent of the pronoun he.)
Some pronouns are used as the subject of a sentence (I, he, she, they, we) while their counterparts
are used as the direct object of the verb (me, him, her, them, us). Two pronouns (you, it) are gender
neutral and can used as either the subject or object.
Example: They like pizza. (They is the subject of the sentence.) The delivery person gave the pizza
to them. (them is the direct object of the verb.)
ADJECTIVE - a word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun
Example: The brisk wind blew sparkling snowflakes across the landscape. (Brisk describes the
wind and sparkling describes the snowflakes.)
Article - a subcategory of adjective, it is represented by the words: a, an, the.
ADVERB - a word that describes or modifies a verb (action or linking), adjective or other
adverb
Note: Most adverbs end in the suffix "ly"
Examples:
The couple danced slowly. (The adverb describes a verb - slowly describes how they danced.) The
test was really difficult. (The adverb describes an adjective - really describes how difficult the test
was.)
The snowboarder raced very recklessly. (The adverb describes another adverb - very describes
how recklessly he raced.)
CONJUNCTION - a connecting word
There are coordinating conjunctions such as: and, but, for, so, or yet, and there are also correlative
conjunctions that work in pairs such as: either-or, neither-nor, both-and, whether-or, not only-but
also.
Examples:
He likes cake and ice cream.
Either you like the dessert or you don't like it.
There are also subjunctive conjunctions which join an independent clause and dependent clause.
Example:
Although he prefers fudge without nuts, he will also eat fudge with nuts.
PREPOSITION - a word that shows a relationship between a noun or pronoun and other
words in a sentence; a preposition conveys these relationships: comparison, direction,
place, possession, agency, purpose, source and time
Note: A preposition and its noun phrase is called a "prepositional phrase".
Another important note: A preposition never goes at the end of a sentence. In that case we would
call it an adverb.
Examples:
The airplane flew over the mountains. (over is a preposition which shows a relationship between
airplane and mountains)
The airplane flew over. (over is an adverb which shows how the plane flew)
Here are the 25 most common prepositions: of, in, to, for, with, on, at, from, by, about, as, into, like,
through, after, over, between, out, against, during, without, before, under, around, among
INTERJECTION - a word or phrase used to express emotion
Note: If the interjection stands by itself or if it's at the end of a sentence or line of dialog, it usually is
followed by an exclamation point. If it's at the beginning of a sentence or imbedded within, remember
to surround it with commas.
Examples:
Ouch!
So you think I'm funny, huh?
Hey, put me down!
After I eat all this Thanksgiving dinner, by golly, I'm going to need a nap.
Here are some common interjections: hey, wow, yay, gosh, whoa, gee, darn, huh, alas, ouch, yikes,
yeah, hmm, stop, oh, eek, oops