The parts of speech

The Parts of Speech
Traditional grammar classifies words based on eight parts of speech: the verb, the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection.
Each part of speech explains not what the word is, but how the word is used. In fact, the same word can be a noun in one sentence and a verb or adjective in the next. The next few examplesshow how a word's part of speech can change from one sentence to the next, and following them is a series of sections on the individual parts of speech, followed by an exercise.
Books are made of ink, paper, and glue.
In this sentence, "books" is a noun, the subject of the sentence.
Deborah waits patiently while Bridget books the tickets.
Here "books" is a verb, and its subject is "Bridget."
Wewalk down the street.
In this sentence, "walk" is a verb, and its subject is the pronoun "we."
The mail carrier stood on the walk.
In this example, "walk" is a noun, which is part of a prepositional phrase describing where the mail carrier stood.
The town decided to build a new jail.
Here "jail" is a noun, which is the object of the infinitive phrase "to build."
The sheriff told us that ifwe did not leave town immediately he would jail us.
Here "jail" is part of the compound verb "would jail."
They heard high pitched cries in the middle of the night.
In this sentence, "cries" is a noun acting as the direct object of the verb "heard."
The baby cries all night long and all day long.
But here "cries" is a verb that describes the actions of the subject of the sentence, the baby.The next few sections explain each of the parts of speech in detail. When you have finished, you might want to test yourself by trying the exercise.
What is a Verb?
The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence. A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being. The verb or compound verb is the criticalelement of the predicate of a sentence.
In each of the following sentences, the verb or compound verb is highlighted:
Dracula bites his victims on the neck.
The verb "bites" describes the action Dracula takes.
In early October, Giselle will plant twenty tulip bulbs.
Here the compound verb "will plant" describes an action that will take place in the future.
My first teacher was Miss Crawford, but Iremember the janitor Mr. Weatherbee more vividly.
In this sentence, the verb "was" (the simple past tense of "is") identifies a particular person and the verb "remembered" describes a mental action.
Karl Creelman bicycled around the world in 1899, but his diaries and his bicycle were destroyed.
In this sentence, the compound verb "were destroyed" describes an action which took place in thepast.
What is a Noun?
A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first words which small children learn. The highlighted words in the following sentences are all nouns:
Late last year our neighbours bought a goat.
Portia White was an opera singer.
The bus inspector looked at all the passengers' passes.
According to Plutarch, thelibrary at Alexandria was destroyed in 48 B.C.
Philosophy is of little comfort to the starving.
A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, a subject complement, an object complement, an appositive, an adjective or an adverb.
Noun Gender
Many common nouns, like "engineer" or "teacher," can refer to men or women. Once, many English nouns would change formdepending on their gender -- for example, a man was called an "author" while a woman was called an "authoress" -- but this use of gender-specific nouns is very rare today. Those that are still used occasionally tend to refer to occupational categories, as in the following sentences.
David Garrick was a very prominent eighteenth-century actor.
Sarah Siddons was at the height of her career as an...