M3: Parts of Speech Overview

We can categorize English words into 8, 9 or 10 basic types (people don't agree on how many) called "parts of speech" or "word classes". It's quite important to recognize parts of speech. This helps you to analyze sentences and understand them. It also helps you to construct good sentences.

* Some grammar sources traditionally categorize English into 8 parts of speech. Others say 10. Here we will use 9. Examples of other categorizations are: Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech: lexical Verbs (work, like, run) auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must) Determiners may be treated as adjectives, instead of being a separate part of speech.

These are the 9 parts of speech you need to be able to identify and understand.  Remember, you use these different parts of speech all the time, you may not think about it, though.  As a teacher of English learners, you will need to develop more awareness of what parts of speech are, how and when to use different parts of speech, and how to explain it to others (your students!).

 

Part of speech	function	example words	example sentences
verb	action or state	be, have, do, work	I love Texas State.
noun	person, place, or thing	pen, dog, work, music	This is my dog.  He likes to sleep on my bed.
adjective	describes a noun	good, maroon, interesting	Boko is a good mascot.
adverb	describes a verb	quickly, very, well	Your years at Texas State will go by quickly.
pronoun	replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, herself, it	Texas State is a large university.  It is a great place!
preposition	links a noun to another word	to, at, on, but	We went to class at Texas State.
conjunction	joins clauses or sentences or words	and, but, yet	I love Texas State and San Marcos and the river.
interjection	short exclamation	ouch! hi! well	Ouch!  Bobcats lost another football game.  That hurts.
determiner	limits or determines a noun	a/an, the, some, many, numbers	I went to the game and ate two hotdogs and drank some beer.