The English language parts of speech

What are the 8 parts of speech?

The eight parts of speech refer to nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and articles. Based on its part of speech, you can identify a word’s meaning and how it functions grammatically. Understanding how to use each part of speech helps you analyze your writing and craft clearer, more interesting sentences.

1. Nouns

Nouns are words referring to people, places, things, and ideas. Common nouns describe general things, like the word “lake” while proper nouns represent specific names, like “Lake Michigan.” Typically, proper nouns should start with a capital letter.

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Nouns can be singular or plural and may function in various ways. Each sentence should include a noun as the subject, but additional nouns can be used as direct objects, indirect objects, or objects of a preposition.

2. Pronouns

While sentences require a noun to be grammatically correct, you can also use a pronoun as the subject of the sentence instead. Pronouns usually represent a specific noun, like a person. The noun “man” can also be described using the pronoun “he.” Possessive pronouns refer to pronouns used to show ownership in a sentence. For example, in the sentence “He walked to his car,” the word “his” is a possessive pronoun.

3. Verbs

Verbs express actions, feelings, or states of being. Grammatically correct sentences include at least one verb but can also include helping verbs like “can” or “will.”

A verb must agree with its subject—if the subject of the sentence is singular, the verb should also be singular. Verbs also change slightly to express tense. For example, the verb “dance” in the present tense would be written as “danced” in the past tense.

4. Adjectives

Adjectives modify or describe nouns and pronouns. These words address qualities of a noun like their type and quantity. Adjectives often appear directly before the noun they’re modifying, but they can also appear later in the sentence. For example, the sentence “I own a blue car,” could be written as “My car is blue.”

5. Adverbs

An adverb describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. However, adverbs never describe nouns or pronouns. Adverbs often end in “-ly” and answer the when, where, how, and why of a sentence.

6. Prepositions

A preposition indicates location, time, or direction by modifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Prepositions usually appear as a part of a prepositional phrase that functions as an adjective or adverb in a sentence. For example, the sentence “We jumped in the pool,” includes the prepositional phrase “in the pool.” The preposition “in” describes the subject’s location relative to a location, the pool. The prepositional phrase, as a whole, acts as an adverb that modifies the verb “jumped.”

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses together to explain the relationship between them. Using conjunctions improves your writing by allowing you to vary your sentence structure. The coordinating conjunctions “and,” “but,” “or,” and “for” should be used when joining two grammatically equal parts of a sentence. On the other hand, subordinating conjunctions like “because,” “although,” and “while” connect dependent and independent clauses together.

8. Articles

Articles include the words “the,” “a”, and “an.” These simple words explain who or what you’re referring to in a sentence. Definite articles, like “the” and “this” describe one specific noun, while indefinite articles like “a” or “an” are used more generally. For example, the question “Did you feed the cat?” refers to a specific cat, while “Did you feed a cat?” is less specific and sounds confusing in the original context.

Understanding the eight parts of speech helps you craft more intentional, eloquent sentences. If you’re unsure about how to use one of these parts of speech, try using a grammar checker before submitting a big project or sending an important email.