Eight parts of speech

When determining the usage of words in sentences, it is helpful to understand the eight parts of speech. The eight basic parts of speech are simple. They are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. All English words fit into one of these grammatical categories. Many English words function as more than one part of speech. Take the word fly for example. When you fly in a plane, it is a verb; when you swat a fly, it is a noun; and when you wear fly shades, it is a slang adjective. English can be confusing because words can mean more than one thing, but if you know your eight parts of speech, you will avoid confusion.

Verbs are words used to express action, condition, or a state of being. They are used in speech to move the meanings of sentences along. An action verb expresses an action. Words such as throw, create, and draw express physical action. Mental actions can be expressed by words such as believe, desire, and visualize. Verbs such as be and feel are used to show states of being. Helping verbs, or auxiliary verbs, are used to help the main verb express action or create verb phrases. Some examples of auxiliary verbs are would, might and am.

Nouns are words that name a person, place, thing or idea. A few examples of nouns are person, place, thing and idea. Proper nouns name specific things such as Jeff, California, and English. To change a noun from singular form to plural form an s or es must be added to the end of the word. Two examples are thing/things and dish/dishes. Some nouns have irregular plural forms and are a little harder to spell sometimes. A couple of these nouns are man/men, and reality/realities. To show ownership, one must add an apostrophe s to the end of a singular noun, or just an apostrophe to a plural noun. Examples of the possessive form are Jeff’s possession and fools’ wisdom.