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Parts of Speech

Noun
A noun is a word that names a person, animal, place, thing, idea, or concept. There
are more nouns in the English Language than any other kind of words.
Examples:
Persons: girl, boy, instructor, student, Mr. Smith, Peter, president
Animals: dog, cat, shark, hamster, fish, bear, flea
Places: gym, store, school, Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, village, Europe
Things: computer, pen, notebook, mailbox, bush, tree, cornflakes
Ideas: liberty, panic, attention, knowledge, compassion, worship

Pronoun
A Pronoun is a word used in place of a VouV.

Usually pronouns refer to something that was already mentioned in previous

sentence or understood by the listener or reader. They are very useful words
because when you use them, you do not need to repeat nouns all the time.
Examples:
Subject ProVouVs: , you, she, he, it, we, they are used as a subject or predicate
noun.
y She is a teacher.
y t was he who said that.
bject ProVouVs: me, you, him, her, them, us, it are used as an indirect
object, direct object, or object of a preposition.
y Ôhe baked him a pie.
y I can hardly see it.
y They are going with us.
Possessive ProVouVs: mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, ours, its take the place of
possessive nouns.
y If this isn¶t ours, it must be theirs.
y 0ours is much better than mine.
cdjective
An adjective is a word that serves to modify a noun or pronoun by describing,
identifying, orquantifying its specific characteristics. Essentially, the purpose of an
adjective is to answer the following questions:
y ^ow many are there?
y Œhat kind is it?
y Œhich one is it?
Examples:
Œhen discussing adjectives many teachers have their students brainstorm a list of
the adjectives they encounter on a regular basis. This list may include:
y £ed, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, and white are
adjectives because they describe the color of something.
y Tall, short, fat, thin, pretty, and ugly are adjectives that can be used to
describe the physical characteristic of a person.
y ºany, quirky, vivacious, exuberant, determined, diligent, and adaptable are
adjectives because they outline personality traits.

Ñerbs
A noun or a pronoun, no matter how many modifiers it may have, cannot make a
sentence. The noun or pronoun must act in some way, or something must be said
about it. The part of speech that performs this function is the verb.
Œords such as M
 
 and 
 are action verbs. Ôometimes action verbs
express an action that cannot be seen:   

 


  andM
M
ÀraVsitive aV IVtraVsitive Verbs
There are two large classes of action verbs ± transitive and intransitive.
A verb is traVsitive when the action it expresses is directed toward a person or
thing named in the sentence. The actioV passes from the doer (the subject) to
the receiver of the action (the object)
× 
Jane ate the apple. (The action of the verb 
 is directed toward. The
subject is  and the object is )
John threw the ball. (The action of the verb
 is directed toward. The
subject is   and the object is the )
A verb is iVtraVsitive when it expresses action (or helps to make a statement)
without reference to the object.

× 
The children behave very well.
The bus arrive on time.
The same verb may be transitive in one sentence and intransitive in another.
× 
Ôhe speaks English. (Transitive ± the object is × )
Ôhe speaks fluently. (Intransitive ± there is no object)