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Good Grammar Pt. 2: There are how many parts of speech?Oct 01 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line The 11 parts of speech are the foundation of our beautiful English language. You don't need to memorize them to learn how they work or what they mean. Hello, and welcome to the second installment of the "Good Grammar" series, a tool in my zany quest to help people speak and write better. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the Part One: "You can't squeak by anymore." Thanks for reading. Let's get started with the basics, parts of speech. Depending on which resource you consult and whom you ask, you most likely will receive quite a few answers to the question of "how many?" For the sake of this essay, let's agree on the fact that there are 11 parts of speech. 1. Nouns A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. Some nouns are concrete things such as light bulb, raindrop or pencil. Others are abstract qualities such as happiness, truth or justice. There are common nouns such as dog, cat and person. Proper nouns give things exact names such as Sparky, Fluffy or Bob. 2. Pronouns Pronouns replace nouns. Believe it or not, there are eight types of pronouns, including demonstrative, relative, indefinite, and so on. We'll save those for another lesson. The most common pronouns are personal pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they. 3. Adjectives Adjectives describe nouns or pronouns. Adjectives talk about the qualities of other things. Think of words such as pretty, blue, large, short, etc. An adjective often answers the question "what kind of?" 4. Adverbs An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Don't get confused here. An adverb answers the questions "when?" "where?" "how?" and "why?" Many adverbs give themselves away with an -ly ending: quickly, beautifully, angrily. Others are not so obvious: when, in addition, etc. Watch out for these. Nine times out of ten, if you can't figure out which part of speech a word is, it's probably a pesky adverb. 5. Verbs Verbs tell about action or state of being. There are transitive verbs, which require objects: "He raises the flag." Others are intransitive verbs, which don't require an object: "He rises at dawn." 6. Conjunctions Conjunctions connect words. The most common type of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet. There are also subordinating conjunctions: however, although, while, etc. Correlative conjunctions are sets of words such as either ... or, neither ... nor, not always ... but also. 7. Prepositions Prepositions show relationships between words. You may have learned a silly song to memorize all of the prepositions. You may have heard that "a preposition is what a squirrel can do to a tree." Forget all that. Prepositions are words such as over, under, through, in, around, etc. 8. Articles A, an, the. Simple as that. 9. Interjections Interjections are words that show strong feelings. Hey! Ouch! Oh! Wow! As shown, they can be followed by exclamation points if the feeling is very strong; if the feeling is only minimal, use a comma. 10. Expletives Expletives are words with no meanings of their own. Thought you'd catch me saying dirty words, huh? &!@#$&!! Not here. Let's go with these "dirty" words: here, there and it. Sentences such as "It was a dark and stormy night" and "There are 11 parts of speech" show the use of expletives. 11. Verbals Verbals are forms of verbs that can be used as parts of speech other than a verb. A gerund is a verbal noun ("Walking is my hobby"), a participle is a verbal adjective ("The burned toast set off the fire alarm"), and an infinitive is a verbal noun, adjective or adverb ("To love is all there is," "She likes to eat," etc.). Use these parts of speech wisely and use them properly. By knowing which part of speech a word is functioning as, you will be able to write clear, eloquent prose. You will be able to say what you mean (just be sure you mean what you say)! And just think how impressed your friends and colleagues will be at the next dinner party or staff meeting when you tell them that there are 11 parts of speech! You will be the talk of the town, the envy of all. Thanks again for humoring me. See you next time! Stay tuned for more.  |
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