PARTS OF SPEECH, the basic building blocks of language.
Andrew Yiannakis, Ph.D.
Research Professor
University of New Mexico
Research Professor
University of New Mexico
Linda Yiannakis, MS., CCC-SLP
The English language contains nine key building blocks that are referred to as Parts of Speech. Knowing what they are, and how they are used, are essential foundational knowledge blocks that make up the skill set of an educated person.
1. ARTICLES
There are are two types of articles. Think of them as noun identifiers.
(i) Definite Articles:
The word “THE” in English is a form of a definite article. The form THE is more specific because it’s used to refer to a clearly defined item as in “give me THE book”.
Clearly, the person demanding the book isn’t asking for just any book!
(ii) Indefinite Articles: For example, the words “A” and “AN”.
Examples: There is A book I really want to find; and, we had tea in AN English country garden.
It is called an indefinite article because “a” or “an” don’t specify which book, or English country garden.
In other languages such as Greek, French or Spanish articles reflect the gender and number (e.g., singular or plural) of the noun they identify. In Greek, for example, we have “O Anthropos” (man-male); “H Thea Athina” (the goddess Athina-female), and “TA Spitia Mou” (my houses-neuter). However, such changes to the articles are not found in English.
2. NOUNS
A word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality.
Examples: Teacher, house, beauty, car, mountain, computer
3. PRONOUNS
A word that is used instead of a noun. Examples: she, it, who, me, I, her, them, etc.
Example: Linda loaned the book to ME (ME is the pronoun which is used in lieu of my name)
4. ADJECTIVES
A word that describes or qualifies a noun, or pronoun.
Examples: The house is BIG; she has a SHARP brain; his car is FAST. BIG, SHARP and FAST are all adjectives that say something more about the nouns in the examples above. That is, the nouns house, brain and car.
5. VERBS (verbs refer to action or experience)
A word or phrase that describes an action, condition, state of being, or experience.
Examples: “to RUN”; “to KEEP”; “to FEEL”, “to SHOUT”, “to WORK”, “to LEARN” and “to BE” are all verbs.
6. ADVERBS (think of adverbs as modifiers)
A word that describes or gives more information about another word. It modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb.
Examples: She ran QUICKLY; he smiled CHEERFULLY; she arrived EARLY; he works HARD, are all adverbs that modify words they are paired with (e.g., verbs, nouns, etc.)
7. PREPOSITIONS (mostly referring to direction, location and time)
A word used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, location, or time.
Examples:
The preposition “on” in “The keys are ON the table” shows location. “We are staying FOR one month” shows time. And, “he went TOWARD the light” shows direction.
NOTE: Prepositions take an object. Therefore you must use object pronouns such as me, him, her, us, and them, after a preposition.
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