The eight parts of speech areverbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions,andinterjections.
Sentence Types
There are four (4) kinds of sentences:declarative, imperative, interrogative,andexclamatory.
Parts of Speech - Adjectives
I will share it with you, but all that is really important is that adjectives modify or affect the meaning of nouns and pronouns and tell uswhich, whose, what kind,andhow manyabout the nouns or pronouns they modify. They generally come before the noun or pronoun they modify, but there are exceptions to that rule. How and why they are different will be explained in later lessons. They still tell uswhich, whose, what kind,andhow many.
There are seven (7) words in the English language that are always adjectives. They are the articlesa, an,andtheand the possessivesmy, our, your,andtheir. (The possessives are from the possessive pronoun list but are always used with nouns as adjectives.) Being only seven in number, one should memorize them so they are immediately recognized as adjectives.
Parts of Speech -Adverbs
Adverbs are words that modify (1) verbs, (2) adjectives, and (3) other adverbs. They tellhow(manner),when(time),where(place),how much(degree), andwhy(cause).Whyis a common one-word adverb that tells why. Adverbs that tell ushow, when, where,andwhyalways modify the verb. Adverbs that tell ushow muchmodify adjectives or other adverbs. These adverbs are also calledqualifiersbecause they strengthen or weaken the words they modify.
Parts of Speech - Prepositions
Aprepositionis a word that begins aprepositional phraseand shows the relationship between its object and another word in the sentence. Aprepositionmust always have an object. Aprepositional phrasestarts with apreposition, ends with anobject, and may havemodifiersbetween the proposition and object of the preposition.
Here is a list of common words that can be used as prepositions:about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but (when it means except), by, concerning, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, out, outside, over, past, since, through, to, toward, under, until, up, upon, with, within,andwithout.
These words can be used as other parts of speech. What part of speech it is depends on how it is used in that sentence. Many of the common words used as prepositions can be used as adverbs. Words are prepositions if they have an object to complete them. To decide which it is say theprepositionfollowed bywhomorwhat.If a noun or a pronoun answers the question, the word is apreposition.
Parts of Speech - Conjunctions
A conjunction is a word that joins other words, phrases (groups of words), or clauses (groups of words with a subject and verb).Co-ordinate conjunctionsjoin words, phrases, or clauses of equal rank. There are two kinds:simpleandcorrelative. Subordinate conjunctionsjoin dependent clauses to independent clauses. I will refer to them simply asco-ordinate, correlative,andsubordinate.
Theco-ordinateconjunctions are the following:and, but, or, nor, for,andyet.(Forandyetcan only join clauses.)
Thecorrelativeconjunctions are always in pairs. They areeither-or, neither-nor, both-and, not only-but also,andwhether-or.
Some commonsubordinateconjunctions areafter, although, as, as if, because, before, if, since, so that, than, unless, until, when, where, while.
Parts of the Sentence - Predicate Nominative
Apredicate nominativeorpredicate nouncompletes a linking verb and renames the subject. It is acomplementorcompleterbecause it completes the verb.Predicate nominativescomplete only linking verbs. The linking verbs include the following: the helping verbsis, am, are, was, were, be, being,andbeen;the sense verbslook, taste, smell, feel,andsound; and verbs likebecome, seem, appear, grow, continue, stay,andturn.
The verb in a sentence having apredicate nominativecan always be replaced by the wordequals
Parts of the Sentence - Direct Object
Adirect objectreceives the action performed by the subject. The verb used with a direct object is always anaction verb. Another way of saying it is that the subject does the verb to the direct object. Example: The car hit the tree. To find thedirect object, say the subject and verb followed bywhomorwhat.The car hitwhom or what?Treeanswers the question sotreeis thedirect object.
If nothing answers the questionwhom or what, you know that there is nodirect object.Example: The car sped past. The car spedwhom or what? Nothing answers the question so the sentence has nodirect object.
Thedirect objectmust be a noun or pronoun. Adirect objectwill never be in a prepositional phrase. Thedirect objectwill not equal the subject as the predicate nominative, nor does it have a linking verb as a predicate nominative sentences does.
Parts of the Sentence - Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Since we have studied predicate nominatives and direct objects, we can now learn abouttransitiveandintransitiveverbs.
Intransitive linkingare sentences with a predicate nominative or predicate adjective. Examples: The girl is Mary. (predicate nominative) The girl is cute. (predicate adjective)
Intransitive completeare all the verbs that don't fit one of the other kinds of transitive or intransitive verbs. Examples: The bell rang suddenly. The girl knitted all evening. (There is no receiver of the action.) They were here. (no action or predicate nominative or predicate adjective.)
Parts of the Sentence - Nouns of Address
Nouns
or nominatives of address are the persons or things to which you are speaking. They are set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma or commas, may have modifiers, and are not related to the rest of the sentence grammatically. You can remove them and a complete sentence remains. They may be first, last or in the middle of the sentence. Examples: John, where are you going? Where are you going, John? Where, John, are you going?
