WEEK 1 – 8 Parts of Speech

Verb

Verbs are commonly action words.  Verbs are in the following categories:

            Action, State of being, Linking, Groups of words

Verbs have voice

·  Active:  the action of the verb is performed by the subject of the sentence.

·  Passive:  the action of the verb is performed upon the subject of the sentence.

Agreement in number

            Singular subjects and singular verbs; plural subjects and plural verbs

All sentences have verbs

            Imperative sentences may appear to be missing the subject, but it is an understood “you.”

Noun

– Nouns are words, phrases or clauses that name a person, place, thing, idea, or quality.

– Categories for nouns:  common, proper, compound, collective, as adverbs, concrete, abstract, countable, non-countable, verbal nouns (gerunds),

– A noun can be used in a sentence as a: subject, direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition, predicate noun

Pronoun

– A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun.  An antecedent is a word or group of words to which a pronoun refers.  If the antecedent is singular, the pronoun must be singular.  If the antecedent is plural, then the pronoun must be plural.

Adjective

– An adjective is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies (changes, limits, describes, transforms, qualifies) a noun or pronoun.

– Adjectives answer the following questions:  Which one? What kind of? and How many?

– Adjectives may be placed before the noun, after the noun, or after a state of being or linking verb.

Adverb

– An adverb is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies (changes, limits, describes, transforms, qualifies) a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

– Adverbs answer the following questions:  How? When? Where? To what extent? How much? How often?

Preposition

– A preposition is a word that links a noun or pronoun with some other word (usually a noun or a verb).

– A preposition always comes before the noun (object of the preposition)

– Prepositional phrases can be adjectival or adverbial.

Conjunction

A conjunction is a word or words used to join other words, phrases, or clauses.

            Joining words

            Joining phrases

Coordinating conjunctions:  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (“FANBOYS”)

Correlative conjunctions:  either … or; neither … nor; not only … but also; both … and; etc.

Adverbial conjunctions:  although, if, because, since (these join subordinate clauses)

Interjection

An interjection is a word or group of words expressing emotion or feeling.