A Surface Level Information With Reference To Parts of Speech: Just A Recall
A Surface Level Information With Reference To Parts of Speech: Just A Recall
A Surface Level Information With Reference To Parts of Speech: Just A Recall
Lindsay Kramer
February 9, 2021
1. Nouns
noun, whether you’re talking about a basketball court, San Francisco, Cleopatra, or self-
preservation.
Nouns fall into two categories: common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are general
names for things, like planet and game show. Proper nouns are specific names for individual
things, like Jupiter and Jeopardy!
2. Pronouns
Pronouns are the words you substitute for specific nouns when the reader or listener
You might say “Jennifer was supposed to be here at eight,” then follow it with “she’s always
Instead of saying Jennifer’s name three times in a row, you substituted she and her and your
sentences remained grammatically correct. Pronouns are divided into a range of categories, and
we cover them all in our guide to pronouns:
3. Adjectives
Adjectives are the words that describe nouns. Think about your favorite movie. How
describing the movie with these words, you’re using adjectives. An adjective can go right before
the noun it’s describing (I have a black dog), but it doesn’t have to. Sometimes, adjectives are at
These bolded words are verbs. Verbs are words that describe specific actions,
like running, winning, and being amazing.
Not all verbs refer to literal actions, though. Verbs that refer to feelings or states of being, like to
love and to be, are known as nonaction verbs. Conversely, the verbs that do refer to literal
5. Adverbs
An adverb is a word that describes an adjective, a verb, or another adverb. Take a look at
these examples:
room.
6. Prepositions
Prepositions tell you about the relationship between the other words in a sentence.
Here’s an example: I left my bike leaning against the garage. In this sentence, against is the
Here’s another example: She put the pizza in the oven. Without the preposition in, we don’t
Conjunctions make it possible to build complex sentences that express multiple ideas.
I like marinara sauce. I like alfredo sauce. I don’t like puttanesca sauce. Each of these three
sentences express a clear idea. There’s nothing wrong with listing your preferences like this, but
Consider instead: I like marinara sauce and alfredo sauce, but I don’t like puttanesca sauce.
In this sentence, and and but are the two conjunctions that link your ideas together.
8. Articles
articles.
Like nouns, articles come in two flavors: definite articles and indefinite articles. And just like the
two types of nouns, the type of article you use depends on how specific you need to be about the
A definite article describes one specific noun, like the and this. Example: Did you buy the car?
See how the implication is gone and you’re asking a much more general question?
Sometimes, it’s not easy to tell which part of speech a word is. Here are a few easy “hacks” to
If it’s an adjective plus the ending “-ly,” it’s an adverb. Examples: commonly, quickly.
If you can swap it out for a noun and the sentence still makes sense, it’s a pronoun.
If you can remove the word and the sentence still makes sense, but you lose a detail, the
word is most likely an adjective. Example: She drives a red van. / She drives a van.
If you can remove the word and the sentence doesn’t make sense, it’s likely a preposition.
And if you’re ever really stumped, just look the word up. Dictionaries typically list the part of
speech a word fits in its entry, and if it fits more than one part of speech, both are listed with
examples.
That brings us to another common issue that can confuse writers and language learners:
Just like Y is sometimes a vowel but sometimes a consonant, there are words that
are sometimes one part of speech and other times another. Here are a few examples:
Work
o I went to work (noun).
Well
o She paints very well (adverb).
But
o I cooked breakfast and lunch, but Steve cooked dinner (conjunction).
“adult.” Before the 2010s, adult was primarily a noun that referred to a fully grown person. It
could also be used as an adjective to refer to specific types of media, like adult contemporary
music. But then, at right about the turn of the 2010s, the word adulting, a brand-new verb,
appeared in the internet lexicon. As a verb, adulting is the act of doing tasks like paying bills
Open word classes are parts of speech that regularly acquire new words. Language evolves, and
truthiness, and contactless.
Closed word classes are the parts of speech that don’t regularly add new words. These parts of
General Instructions:
Give your reactions about given information through the matrix below. Register What
you SEE, What you FEEL, and What you THINK. Use only bullet ideas (NOT SENTENCES).
Information A.
What I SEE What I FEEL What I THINK
Information B.
What I SEE What I FEEL What I THINK
Information C.
What I SEE What I FEEL What I THINK
Information D.
What I SEE What I FEEL What I THINK
Specific Instructions:
1. PM your turn in outputs. (Note: just PM the task to do with answers)
2. Please do not forget to write your NAME.