Parts of Speech

There are eight parts of speech:

1. nouns
2. pronouns
3. adjectives
4. verbs
5. adverbs
6. prepositions
7. conjunctions
8. interjections

We have a short review at the beginning of the first or second semester.

Pronouns

Pronouns take the place of nouns. The noun a pronoun replaces is called the antecedent.

Personal Pronouns

	Singular	Plural
First person	I me mine	we us ours
Second person	you yours	you yours
Third person	he him hisshe her hers it its	they them theirs

Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns

	Singular	Plural
First person	myself	ourselves
Second person	yourself	yourselves
Third person	himselfherself itself	themselves

Demonstrative Pronouns

• this
• that
• these
• those

These words can be used as adjectives as well. (As it was in that sentence. And that one.)

Interrogative Pronouns

• what
• which
• who
• whom
• whose

Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns introduce dependant clauses.

• that
• which
• who
• whom
• whose

Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns or pronouns. They usually answer one of three questions:

What kind?	Which one?	How much/many?
big truck tall building small mouse short actress old car exciting story	this one that time fourteenth person last answer middle row	some time all people no students larger share fifteen marbles more milk

Changing Parts of Speech

Sometimes words can serve both as nouns and adjectives:

• How often do you watch television? (noun)
• What is your favorite television program? (adjective)

Sometimes words can serve both as nouns and pronouns:

• Each did the assignment. (pronoun)
• Each person did the assigment. (adjective)¹

Verbs

A verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being. There are two types of verbs: action and linking.

Action Verbs

Action verbs express actions. They may be mental or physical actions.

Physical actions	Mental actions
dig jump swim eat drink	think remember decide understand predict

Linking Verbs

Linking verbs express a state or a condition. Nothing is happening in the sentence; the linking verb is merely linking together a noun or a pronoun with a condition.

• I am hungry. (“Am” links “I” and “hungry.” “Hungry” is a state; I won’t always be hungry.)
• I remain tired. (“Remain” links “I” and “Tired.” “Tired” is a state; I won’t always be hungry.)

A linking verb simply works like an equals mark.

• I = hungry.
• I = tired.

A good way to test if a verb is a linking verb or not is to replace the verb in question with the appropriate form of “be.” If the sense of the sentence doesn’t change, it’s linking verb; if the sense of the sentence is radically different, it is an action verb.

These two sentences mean the same thing.

• I remain tired. (Replace “remain” with the proper form of “be.”)
• I am tired.

These two sentences don’t mean the same thing.

• I ate a hamburger. (Replace “ate” with the proper form of “be.”)
• I was a hamburger.

The second sentence doesn’t even make sense, so “ate” is an action verb.

1. These four examples are from Elements of Writing by James Kinneavy and John Warriner. [↩]