Parts of Speech

In grammar, a lexical category (also known as word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech0 is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items) , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb , among others. In simpler explanation , the parts of speech explains the way of words that can be used in various context. Every word in the English language functions as at least one part of speech; many words can serve at different times, as two or more parts of speech, depending on the context.


There are Nine parts of Speech:

1. Noun - A word or phrase that names a person, place, thing, quality or act. A noun maybe used as the subject of a verb, the object of a verb, an identifying noun, the object of a preposition, or an appositive (an explanatory phrase coupled with a subject or object)

* Person: Mr. Park likes to play tennis.
* Place: Seoul is the capital of Korea.
* Thing: To bake a cake, you need an oven.

2. Verb - A word or phrase that express action, existence, or occurrence (throw, be, happen). Verbs can be transitive, requiring an object (her in i met her)or intransitive requiring only a subject (The sun
rises) . Some verbs , like feel are both transitive (Feel the fabric) and intransitive (I feel cold , in which cold is an adjective not an object).

* Action: He was running through the forest
* State of being: Claudia was sad that particular morning.

3. Pronoun - A word that substitutes for a noun and refers to a person, place, thing, idea, or act that was mentioned previously or that can be inferred from the context of the sentence (he, she, it, that ).

* Guillermo was studying for the mid-term exam when he realized that it was three o’clock in the morning

Note: (There are actually many types of pronouns: personal, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite, relative, possessive, reflexive, and reciprocal)

4. Adjective - A word or combination of words that modifies a noun (blue-green, central, half-baked, temporary).

* The beautiful woman only wanted a couple of pairs of shoes.
* The rainy day made us even sadder.

5. Adverb - A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb (slowly, obstinately, much).

* The little girl walked happily through the park.
* The orphan hungrily ate the hot stew.

6. Conjunction - A word that connects other words, phrases, or sentences (and, but, or, because).

* Manuel and Marisol loved to cook.
* You will go to school, or you will fail.
* I am happy because I just received my check.
* It has been cloudy since the morning.

7. Article - Any of three words used to signal the presence of a noun. A and an are known as indefinite articles; the is the definite article.

* The bicycle was not only red but shiny.
* A yellow moon always appears in October.
* An excellent student, Armando passed all his exams.

8. Preposition - A word or phrase that shows the relationship of a noun to another noun (at, by, in, to, from, with).

* The cat was on the table.
* The dog was under the table.
* These are some common prepositions: (For, on, to, up, at, under, above, toward, With, between, in, behind, From, upon, into and off )

9. Interjection – expressive word, phrase, or sound used as an exclamation and capable of standing by itself (oh, Lord, damn, my goodness).

* Wow, you knocked that ball out of the park.
* Oh, you really need to take care of yourself.
* Huh, what did you say?
* Ah, now I understand the problem.