Parts of speech in English
Parts of speech in English
INDEX OF CONTENTS
- Parts of the sentence
- Prepositive phrases
- Basic sentence structure
- Functional types
- Words with more than one function
In this article we will try to teach you what are parts of speech in English? In this regard, we must classify English words into 9 basic types called “parts of speech” or “classes of words . ” It is very important that you know how to recognize the parts of the speech. This will help you analyze sentences and understand them. It will also help you to correctly construct sentences.
Parts of a sentence
The basic parts of a sentence in English are the subject, the verb, and (often, but not always) the object. The subject is usually a noun, a word that names a person, place or thing. A verb (or predicate) generally follows the subject and identifies an action or state of being. An object receives the action and generally follows the verb.
Prepositive phrases
Like adjectives and adverbs, prepositional phrases add meaning to nouns and verbs in sentences. A prepositional phrase has two basic parts : a preposition plus a noun or a pronoun that serves as the object of the preposition.
Basic sentence structure
There are four basic sentence structures in English:
- A simple sentence is a sentence with a single independent clause (also called a main clause) – Judy laughed.
- Compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses: Judy laughed and Jimmy cried.
- A complex sentence contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause: Jimmy cried when Judy laughed.
- Compound complex sentence contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause: Judy laughed and Jimmy cried as the clowns ran past their seats.
Four functional types of sentences
There are four main types of sentences that can be distinguished by their function and purpose:
- A declarative sentence makes a declaration: babies cry . (los bebes lloran).
- An interrogative sentence asks a question: Why do babies cry? (¿Por qué lloran los bebes?)
- An imperative sentence gives instructions or expresses a request or demand: Please, shut up (Por favor, callate).
- An exclamatory sentence expresses strong feelings by making an exclamation: Shut up! (¡Cállate!)
Parts of the speech:
Part of speech | Function or job | Example words | Example sentences |
Verb | Action or status | (to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must | EnglishClub is a web site. I like EnglishClub. |
Name | Thing or person | pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John | This is my dog. I have lives in my house. We live in London. |
Adjective | describe a noun | good, big, red, well, interesting | My dogs are big. I like big dogs. |
Determined | limits or “determines” a noun | a / an the 2 some many | I have two dogs and some rabbits. |
Adverb | limits or “determines” a noun | quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really | My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly. |
Pronoun | replace a noun | I, you, he, she, some | Tara is Indian. She is beautiful. |
Preposition | link a noun to another word | to, at, after, on, but | We went to school on Monday. |
Conjunction | join clauses or sentences or words | and, but, when | I like dogs and cats. |
Interjection | short exclamation, sometimes inserted in a sentence | oh !, ouch !, hi !, well | Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don’t know. |
Some grammar sources traditionally classify English into 8 parts of speech . Others say 10. Examples of other categorizations are:
Verbs can be treated as two different parts of speech:
- Lexical verbs (work, like, run)
- Auxiliary verbs (be, have, must)
- The determinants can be treated as adjectives, instead of being a separate part of the speech.
Examples of parts of speech
Here are some examples of sentences made with different parts of speech in English:
verb |
Stop |
Name | verb |
John | Works |
Name | verb | verb |
John | Is | Working |
pronoun | verb | Name |
She | Loves | Animals |
Name | verb | Name | verb |
Tara | Speaks | English | Well |
Name | verb | adjective | Name |
Tara | Speaks | Good | English |
pronombre | verbo | preposición | determinado | nombre | adverbio |
she | ran | to | the | station | quickly. |
ella | corrió | a | la | estación | rápidamente |
Pronombre | verbo | adjetivo | Nombre | conjunción | pronombre | verbo | Pronombre |
She | likes | big | snakes | but | I | hate | them |
A ella | Les gustan | grandes | Las serpientes | pero | yo | odio | las |
Words with more than one function
Many English words can have more than one function or be more than one part of speech. For example, to work “trabajar” can be a verb and a noun; but “pero” can be a conjunction and a preposition; well “bien” can be an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. Also, many nouns can act as adjectives.
To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: “What function does this word play in this sentence?
In the following table you can see some examples . Of course, there is more, even for some of the words in the table. In fact, if you look in a good dictionary, you will see that the word “but” has six tasks to do:
verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction
word | part of speech | example |
work | noun | My work is easy. |
work | verb | I work in London. |
but | conjunction | John came but Mary didn’t eat |
but | preposition | Everyone came but Mary. |
well | adjective | Are you well ? |
well | adverb | She speaks well . |
well | interjection | Well ! That’s expensive |
afternoon | noun | We ate in the afternoon |
afternoon | noun acting as adjective | We had afternoon tea. |
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