Parts of Speech

We can categorize English words into 9 basic types called “parts of speech” or “word classes”. It’s quite important to recognize parts of speech. This helps you to analyze sentences and understand them. It also helps you to construct good sentences.

Parts of Speech Table

This is a summary of the 9 parts of speech*. You can find more detail if you click on each part of speech.

part of speech	function or “job”	example words	example sentences
Verb	action or state	(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must	Light Line News is a web site. I like Light Line News.
Noun	thing or person	pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John	This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London.
Adjective	describes a noun	good, big, red, well, interesting	My dogs are big. I like big dogs.
Determiner	limits or “determines” a noun	a/an, the, 2, some, many	I have two dogs and some rabbits.
Adverb	describes a verb, adjective or adverb	quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really	My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly.
Pronoun	replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, some	Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
Preposition	links a noun to another word	to, at, after, on, but	We went to school on Monday.
Conjunction	joins clauses or sentences or words	and, but, when	I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don’t like cats.
Interjunction	short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence	oh!, ouch!, hi!, well	Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don’t know.

Parts of Speech Examples

Here are some examples of sentences made with different English parts of speech:

verb
Stop!

 

noun	verb	verb
John	is	working.

 

noun	verb
John	works.

 

pronoun	verb	noun
She	loves	animals.

 

noun	verb	noun	adverb
Tara	speaks	English	well.

 

noun	verb	adjective	noun
Tara	speaks	good	English.