Parts of Speech By Piret Lehiste
Parts of Speech
By
Piret Lehiste
Parts of Speech
Morphology is a field of linguistics focused on the study of the forms and formation of words in a language.
In Greek: ‘morph’ (shape, form) + ‘logos’ (study)
Morphology deals with the internal structure of words.
A part of speech is a linguistic category of words sharing syntactic or morphological behaviour and semantic properties (such as a noun or a verb).
Parts of speech describe the job a word does in a sentence.
Nouns A noun is a word that names a person, place, a thing, or an idea.
Examples: Person: uncle, baby, John
Thing: car, door, book
Idea: truth, beauty
Verbs A verb is a word that expresses action or a state of being.
Examples: The students did their homework.
Studying grammar rocks :) I live in Tallinn.
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that modifies a noun by limiting its meaning.
Examples: romantic story
many ideas
Scottish wool
Adverbs
An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb by making its meaning more specific. Adverbs modify by answering the questions “when”, “where”, “how”.
Examples: She often drinks tea with milk.
Jack carefully polished his car.
Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that can take the place of a noun.
Examples: I, me, their, myself,
these, each other
Prepositions
A preposition is a word that shows the relationship of a noun or pronoun to some other word in a sentence.
Examples: above, behind, during, from, since, through, without
Conjunctions
A conjunction is a word that joins single words or groups of words.
Examples:
or, but, because, while, although
Interjections
An interjection is a word or phrase that expresses emotion or exclamation.
Examples:
wow, ouch, hey, hello, oops
Articles
Articles are used to indicate nouns and to specify their application.
Examples:
a / an – indefinite article
the – definite article
I bought myself a guitar.
He can play the guitar very well.
Numerals
A numeral is a word that represents a number or shows the order of objects through counting.
Examples: three, one hundred, fifth
A POEM
Every name is called a noun, As field and fountain, street and town; In place of noun the pronoun stands As he and she can clap their hands;
The adjective describes a thing, As magic wand and bridal ring;
The verb means action, something done - To read, to write, to jump, to run;
How things are done, the adverbs tell, As quickly, slowly, badly, well;
The preposition shows relation, As in the street, or at the station; Conjunctions join, in many ways,
Sentences, words, or phrase and phrase; The interjection cries out, ‘Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!‘
Through poetry, we learn how each
Of these make up the parts of speech
Parts of Speech
Identify all the parts of speech in the following sentence:
Yesterday we went to the cinema because John had luckily received two free tickets.
Match the parts of speech with their examples in the word cloud.
Key 1 yesterday - adverb
we - pronoun
went - verb
to - preposition
the - article
cinema - noun
because - conjunction
John - noun
had - verb
luckily - adverb
received - verb
two - numeral
free - adjective
tickets - noun
Key 2
Noun: cloud, interest
Verb: irritate, organise
Adjective: strong, funny
Adverb: seriously, angrily
Preposition: under, during
Conjunction: although, if
Interjection: wow, hello
Numeral: thirty, fourth
Pronoun: herself
Article: the