ENGLISH LANGUAGE

GRAMMAR
LESSON ONE
PARTS OF SPEECH
 OBJECTIVES

Upon successful completion of this lesson, the learner will be able to

1. identify the eight parts of speech in simple sentences.

2. explain the function of each part of speech.

 LESSON ONE
PARTS OF SPEECH
Introduction
Parts of speech
a class or category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its
grammatical function. The study of parts of speech helps us to
understand the use or function of words and how they are put
together to make meaningful communication.
The idea of putting thins together into classes or categories is a first
step in understanding parts of speech.
We use parts of speech as a way to make it easier to talk about
language.
 Some examples of categories.
COUNTRIES BIRDS VEHICLES MAMMALS
Ghana parrot van whale
Nigeria dove truck human
Liberia eagle car elephant
Sierra Leone sparrow bus monkey
Gambia seagull motorcycle dog

Countries, birds, vehicles and mammals are categories or

classification. If I tell you that seagull is a bird, you would understand
exactly what seagull is. If we did not have the class or category bird, it
would be hard to explain what is meant by the word seagull. It is very
convenient to have classes or categories to talk about similar things.
 PARTS OF SPEECH

The example below shows how helpful it is to know about the parts of
speech. Look at the sentence:
 The man surreptitiously (secretly) entered the room.
You probably don't know the meaning of the word surreptitiously, but if
you know about parts of speech, you will recognize that it is an
adverb and that it tells you something about how the man entered
the room.
When you look up a word in a dictionary, you will find not only the
meaning of the word but also what part of speech it is. This
information is very helpful in understanding the full meaning of the
word and knowing how to use it.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF SPEECH?
Every word in English can be placed into at least one of eight groups, or
classifications. The system of classifying words based on their
function is known as the parts of speech

The 8 parts of speech that are used to describe English words are:
 Nouns
 Verbs
 Adjectives
 Adverbs
 Pronouns
 Prepositions
 Conjunction
 Interjection
In some books articles are added to the parts of speech
 Articles (classified under adjectives)
 PARTS OF SPEECH
Understanding the eight parts of speech will help a learner understand
the grammatical explanations of some of the mistakes you make and
figure out how to correct them.
Some words can be classified under more than one part of speech. In
order to identify what part of speech a word is, you have to look at
what the word is doing in a specific sentence before you can classify
it (name its part of speech). For example, look at these sentences.
 He ran fast so he wouldn’t be late. (describes how he ran...fast is an
adverb)
 They will fast to raise money for UNICEF. (tells about an
action...here fast is a verb)
 Their fast lasted for three days. (names a thing...fast is a noun)
 PARTS OF SPEECH
NOUNS
Words that name people, places , things and ideas are called nouns.
The following table lists a variety of nouns.
Examples of Nouns
PEOPLE: cashier Carol boys Obama
PLACES: province Freetown lake church mosque
THINGS:
ANIMALS: cat camel bug dog lizard bird
OBJECTS: fork television car book phone
SUBSTANCES: iron air gold
ACTIONS: (a) race (the) dance (the) hits
MEASURES: kilogram centimetre day month
QUALITIES: happiness honesty beauty
 PARTS OF SPEECH
Nouns
Nouns can be found anywhere in a sentence, and most sentences
contain several nouns. Nouns can easily be identified by looking for
a, an, the (articles). The naming word that comes after them is
usually a noun. Sometimes nouns appear without these (articles),
but you can usually insert them without changing the meaning of the
sentence.
Kofi and his sons visited the continent of Australia and saw some
kangaroos.
Kofi is a noun that names a person.
Sons name people
continent names a place
Australia names a place
lions names a thing (animal).
 PARTS OF SPEECH
PRONOUNS
A pronoun is a word used in place of one or more nouns.
We use pronouns to:
 Refer to a noun (called its antecedent) that usually comes before the
pronoun
 Make our writing clearer, smoother, and less awkward
In the sentence, “Buari feels that he can win the race,” he is the
pronoun, and Buari is the antecedent.
In the sentence, “Lisette and Heidi know that they are best friends,”
they is the pronoun, and Lisette and Heidi are the noun antecedents.
Examine the sentences below. For each pronoun printed in bold type,
think of a noun it could replace.
He took it when they saw it.
(e.g. Kofi saw the football when the boys saw the dog.)
Everybody was glad when it was over.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
VERBS
VERBS
A verb is a word (run) or a phrase (run out of) which expresses the
existence of a state (love, seem) or the doing of an action (take, play).
The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence. The verb or
compound verb is the critical element of the predicate of a sentence.
Here are some hints that may help you locate verbs.
 A sentence is not a sentence without at least one verb except in the
case of one- worded sentences. (one word sentence: sit, stop, why
etc)
 Verbs usually tell about an action.
 Verbs are often found in the middle of sentences.
 Verbs may consist of one word.
 Verb phrases may have up to five words.
 Verb phrases can be interrupted by adverbs like not, never, always.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
VERBS
Verbs change their form to tell about actions taking place at
different times.
For example,
We walked to the store yesterday can be changed to show the action
happening in the future. We will walk to the store tomorrow. The
word walked became will walk; therefore, they are verbs
Here are some sentences that show verbs at work. Notice that some
verbs have more than one word and are sometimes interrupted by
small words that are not part of the verb.

 The driver drove the car to the house.

 The mobile phone fell the bag.
 The police was secretly tailing the suspect.
 The cat was chasing the mouse.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
VERBS
Helping or auxiliary verbs are verbs that do not show any action. They
precede the main verb. All of the following verbs may be helping
verbs:
be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been, has, have, had, do, does,
did, can, will, shall, should, could, would, may, might, and must
My sister is a nurse; I am a teacher; Our father was a doctor.
Sometimes helping verbs are used to show how a person is feeling or
to describe a quality.
 Kofi and Ama were unhappy with their performance.
 She is beautiful and intelligent.
 They were always late.
 Martin had walked quickly to the bus stop to avoid being late.
 Martin must have walked quickly to the bus stop to avoid being late.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
ADJECTIVES
Nouns name a person, place or thing. To describe nouns adjectives are
used in order to give a reader a clearer picture of a noun. This is
done by adding “detail” words like tall, ten, green and cute in front of
the noun.
An adjective is a word which describes or modifies a noun or
pronoun. They tell what kind, which one or how many. A modifier is a
word that limits, changes, or alters the meaning of another word. An
adjective limits, changes, or alters the meaning of a noun or
pronoun. Adjectives are usually placed before the noun.
 The dark, puffy clouds
 A happy, carefree child
 Some tall, stately trees
 A rich dark chocolate layer cake
 Five huge leafy bushes
 PARTS OF SPEECH
ADVERBS
You have just learned that adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Another
type of describing word or modifier is the adverb. Adverbs also limit,
change, or alter the words they modify.
Adverbs modify verbs (She danced gracefully), other adverbs (The lawyer
spoke very quickly), whole sentences (Thankfully, the game ended
before it started raining), and even noun phrases (Therefore, the
lawyer rested), an adjective (The lawyer was extremely busy), and
pronouns (Almost everyone showed up)
An adverb answers four specific questions about the word it modifies:
where? (here, inside, there, across, out), when? (never, tomorrow,
afterward, before, while), how? (irritatingly, swiftly, suspiciously,
fervently), and to what extent? (so, very, too, extremely, really).
Memorizing these questions will help you identify adverbs. You can also
look for words that end in -ly, as long as you remember that not all such
words are adverbs. For example, friendly, neighborly, costly, ugly, burly,
lovely, lonely, motherly, and cowardly are adjectives, not adverbs.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
PREPOSITIONS
Preposition are joining words, sometimes called connectives, which are
used to show a time, place, ownership or relation between two
nouns/pronouns or a noun and a verb. Prepositions and the
nouns/pronouns that follow them are always grouped together and
treated as a single grammar unit, called prepositional phrases.
preposition + noun or pronoun = prepositional phrase
Time: after + the party = (after the party)
Place: under + the table = (under the table)
Ownership: of + our town = (of our town)
Prepositions are always the first word in a prepositional phrase.
Prepositional phrases are used to add more detail to a sentence. The
following sentence gives no details about the person or her actions:
The girl walked.
Where did the girl walk? Perhaps she walked around the building:
The girl walked around the building.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
PREPOSITIONS
The word around is a preposition which tells the relationship between the
girl walked and the building. Other prepositions show different
relationships between the girl walked and the building: Consider these
prepositions.
The girl walked through the building.
The girl walked into the building.
The girl walked behind the building.
The girl walked to the building.
The girl walked beside the building.
The girl walked near the building.
In each sentence above, the prepositional phrases give more information
about the verb “walked” by telling where she walked. Adverb phrases
can also be used to tell how, in what way, when. Anything that
modifies a verb is an adverb; therefore, these prepositional phrases,
telling where she walked, are called prepositional adverb phrases.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
PREPOSITIONS
Here are some common prepositions:

about beyond out

above by outside
across down over
after during past
against except since
along for through
among from toward
at in under
before inside until
below into up
beneath of with
beside off without
between on within
 PARTS OF SPEECH
INTERJECTIONS
Perhaps the easiest part of speech to find is the interjection. An
interjection is a word or group of words used to express strong
feeling or emotion. It can be an actual word, or merely a sound and
is followed by an exclamation mark (!) or a comma.
Unlike all the other parts of speech, the interjection is not linked in any
way to any other word in the sentence.
The following are some examples of interjections:
Wow! Oh!
Oh, no! Ouch!
Never! Fabulous!
Fantastic! Ah!
No! Wow!
 PARTS OF SPEECH
INTERJECTIONS

Interjections are uncommon in formal academic prose, except in direct

quotations.
The highlighted words in the following sentences are interjections:
 Ouch, that hurt!
 Oh no, I forgot that the exam was today.
 Hey! Put that down!
 I heard one guy say to another guy, "He has a new car, eh?"
 I don’t know about you but, good lord, I think taxes are too high!
 Wow! I never knew that.
 Oh, did I do that?
 PARTS OF SPEECH
CONJUNCTIONS
Conjunctions, like prepositions, are also joining words or connectives.
Conjunctions are used to join words, phrases, or clauses. Conjunctions
can be found in any position in a sentence except the very end.
We can use the elimination method to find conjunctions. It works like
this: identify all the words you can in a sentence, those that are left
over are probably conjunctions. Look at these examples.

When lightning struck the old barn, it burnt quickly

? noun verb adj adj noun pronoun verb adv
The word when looks like it might be an adverb, but does it tell you at
what time?
No, the word itself doesn’t add any new information. What it does do is
introduce a group of words that tells specifically when something
happened.
 PARTS OF SPEECH
CONJUNCTIONS
You can use a conjunction to link words, phrases, and clauses.
You use a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) to join
individual words, phrases, and independent clauses.
A subordinating conjunction introduces a dependent clause and
indicates the nature of the relationship among the independent
clause(s) and the dependent clause(s). The most common
subordinating conjunctions are: after, although, as, because, before,
how, if, once, since, than, that, though, until, when, where, whether, and
while.
Correlative conjunctions always appear in pairs -- you use them to link
equivalent sentence elements. The most common correlative
conjunctions are: both...and, either...or, neither...nor, not only...but also,
so...as, and whether...or.
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ (1)
For each underlined word in the following sentences, identify and write
the part of speech on the line next to the number. Each part of speech
is used at least once. Each correct answer earns 5 points. Use the
following abbreviations:
noun—N adverb—ADV pronoun—PRO preposition—PREP
verb—V conjunction—CONJ adjective—ADJ interjection—INT
 
1.__________ They attended the concert last weekend.
2. __________Several cats ran into Ryan’s garage.
3. __________The truck driver delivered the packages quickly.
4. __________Fast runners won all the awards at the track meet.
5.__________ My friends and I walked home after school.
6.__________ I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch
yesterday.
7.__________ She was counting the ballots during social studies class.
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ(1)
8.__________ Hey ! That is my seat.
9.__________ Will they finish the test on time?
10._________ The diagram was pretty complicated for us.
11._________ He will practice his musical piece soon.
12._________ Richard saw the awesome sight from the air.
13._________ Her sister is the oldest member of the group.
14._________ Check the score, Tom.
15._________ Will the students be able to find the answer by
themselves?
16._________ Are you sure of yourself?
17._________ They slowly carried the couch down the stairs.
18._________ Can you see beyond the hills from the top of the tower?
19._________ Hurray! Our team has finally scored a touchdown.
20._________ The troop had been scattered throughout the woods.
 Number correct________ x 5 =________ %
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ(2)
On the line next to the number, write the first letter of the word indicated
by the part of speech in the parentheses. Underline the indicated word
within the sentence. If your consecutive letters are correct, you will
spell out the names of four trees in items 1 through 12 and four first
names in items 13 to 25. Write these six names on the lines below the
last numbered item. Each correct answer is worth 4 points.
1.____A___ (preposition) He walked around the corner.
2._________(pronoun) Lisette hopes that she will sing with the choir.
3._________ (pronoun) Can Karen help him with the science project?
4._________ (noun) Have you seen the eraser?
5._________ (noun) The lock was stuck.
6._________ (noun) She purchased the margarine with him.
7._________ (adjective) Older people tire more easily.
8._________ (adjective) He is agile.
9._________ (adjective) Kind people are often rewarded.
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ(2)
10.________ (adverb) The police officer ran fast.
11.________ (adverb) My sister answered the question intelligently.
12.________ (adverb) You really should see this art exhibit, Kenny.
13.________ (preposition) Cindy fell by the stairs.
14.________ (preposition) Can you jump over the hurdle?
15.________ (preposition) May I sit between you two?
16.________ (verb) Joke about it now.
17.________ (verb) They overcharged me.
18.________ (verb) Eric, eat up.
19.________ (conjunction) I cannot go, for I have much to do.
20.________ (conjunction) I like peanuts and potato chips.
21.________ (conjunction) He wants to buy the house, yet he knows it is
too expensive.
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ(2)
22.________ (interjection) Jeepers! This is a great deal.
23.________ (interjection) Ah! The sun is so warm.
24.________ (interjection) No! I will never try that.
25.________ (adverb) Frank eventually walked her brother to the
station.
The four trees are________________ ,_____________,
______________,and _______________
The four first names are______________, _____________,
____________ , and _______________
 
Number correct ___________X 4 =_________ %
 PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ(3)
Read this paragraph.
Kareem’s first job was with Antrak Airlines as a bush pilot. He regularly
flew supplies and construction equipment from Obuasi to Tamale.
Sometimes he carried groceries like milk, fruit, and meat. Once he
even transported a medical team to a small settlement on the Afadza
Mountain. He loved the beauty of the landscapes he saw and the
honesty of the people he met. He was pleased with his success and
happy in his work.
In the paragraph above, find one example of each of the following: (11)
a. Common noun g. Count noun
b. Proper noun h. Non-count noun
c. Concrete noun i. Possessive noun
d. Abstract noun j. Singular noun
e. Collective noun k. Plural noun
f. Noun used as an adjective
ANSWERS TO PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ
Quiz (1) Quiz (2) 21. Y
1. Verb 1. A 22. J
2. Preposition 2. S 23. A
3. Adverb 3. H 24. N
4. Adjective 4. E 25. E
5. Preposition 5. L
6. Conjunction 6. M The four trees
7. Pronoun 7. O are:
8. Interjection 8. A 26. Ash
9. Pronoun 9. K 27. Elm
10. Noun 10. F 28. Oak
11. Adverb 11. I 29. Fir
12. Adjective 12. R The four first
13. Noun 13. B names are:
14. Verb 14. O 30. Bob
15. Pronoun 15. B 31. Joe
16. Pronoun 16. J 32. Fay
17. Adverb 17. O 33. Jane
18. Preposition 18. E
19. Interjection 19. F
20. Noun 20. A
 ANSWERS TO PARTS OF SPEECH QUIZ
Answers for quiz 3 will vary
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wren P.C., Martin H, Revised By N.D.V. PRASADA RAO, M.A., D.T.E.,
(1999). “English Grammar & Composition” S. Chand & Company Ltd.
Ram Nagar, New Delhi.

Academic Studies English, Support Materials and Exercises for Grammar:

Part I Parts of Speech. FALL 1998. Available from the World Wide Web
http://www.nald.ca/CLR/

Curme, George O. (1978; original 1931, 1935). A Grammar of the English

Language: Volumes I (Parts of Speech) & II (Syntax). Verbatim Books

Learning Express LLC. (2010) Grammar Success in 20 Minutes a Day.

2nd Edition, United States: LearningExpress, LLC, New York.