Parts Of Speech Table

Parts of Speech Table part of speech

function or "job"

example words

example sentences

Verb

action or state

(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must

Charlie works hard in Miss Kinnian’s class because he wants to be smart.

Noun

thing or person

pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John

Charlie is the main character in the story.

Adjective

describes a noun

a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting

Charlie is an interesting character because he wants to have a surgery that will make him ten times smarter.

Adverb

describes a verb, adjective or adverb

quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really

When Charlie is made fun of by his coworkers, he feels very sad.

Pronoun

replaces a noun

I, you, he, she, some

Miss Kinnian is Charlie’s teacher. She is beautiful.

Preposition

links a noun to another word

to, at, after, on, but

When Charlie’s IQ is at 68, he doesn’t know his friends are making fun of him, but after the surgery he understands this and it makes him sad.

Conjunction

joins clauses or sentences or words

and, but, when

Charlie likes Miss Kinnian and likes working with Algernon.

Interjection

short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence

oh!, ouch!, hi!, well

Help! Charlie is missing and I can’tfind him!

* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com, we use the traditional categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are: • Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech: ○ Lexical Verbs (work, like, run) ○ Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must) • Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under Adjectives •

Adapted from EnglishClub.com