The Basics

For foundation studies of the English Language, you will learn that there are eight parts of speech: the noun, the verb, the pronoun, the adverb, the adjective, the preposition, the conjunction and the interjection.

This is what you will learn in “primary school”. But as you progress to more advanced English studies, you will discover that there is a ninth, tenth and even eleventh part of speech, such as the pronominal adjective and the conjunctive pronoun.

I will cover these additional parts of speech in The Parts of Speech: Combinations and Variations. For now, let’s stick to the basics:

1. The noun – the name of a place, thing, person or idea.
2. The verb – a word denoting action or state of being.
3. The pronoun – a word used to stand in place of a noun or noun phrase, or refer to some noun or noun phrase not stated but implied.
4. The adverb – a word used to modify an adjective, verb or another adverb.
5. The adjective – a word used to modify a noun.
6. The conjunction – a word used to join to words, phrases or clauses in a sentence.
7. The preposition – a word used to show the relationship between an object and something else in the sentence.
8. The interjection – a word or word team which shows strong feelings or exclamations.

Remember the rule of thumb! A word can only be labeled as a particular part of speech based on its use in a particular sentence.