Parts of Speech - Identification

sponsored links

The words in English can be classified (according to their functions in a sentence) into Parts of Speech as follows.

• Noun
• Pronoun
• Adjective
• Verb
• Adverb
• Preposition
• Conjunction
• Interjection

Noun : 

Simply we can call it as the Naming Word. A name of a Person, Place, Animal, Thing, etc..

Examples : Shivani, Bangalore, Tiger, Table, etc..,

Pronoun : 

A word used for or in the place of noun.

Examples : She, It, They etc.,

Adjective :

A word that qualifies or describes a noun or a pronoun.

Examples : Our team played a good game

                                                adj.     noun

                 Every sentence that he spoke was listened to with great attention.

                   adj.       noun

                All these proposals are good.

                                                     adj.

Note : Some words are used either as pronouns or as adjectives as in the following examples.

Verb :

A verb expresses what the subject of a sentence is or does, or has, or what is done to it.

Ex :

    Shivani teaches Maths.

                 verb

    She has taught the subject for twenty-five years.

            verb

    She is a capable teacher 

          verb

Adverb :

A word that modifies an adjective  or a verb or another adverb.

Ex :

         I am deeply grateful to you for your timely help.

                   adv      adj

         This horse runs very fast. 

                           v      adv  adj

Preposition :

Look at the words underlined in these sentences.

Work in the college begins at 10 a.m.

He wrote the document with a pen.

The professor gave a lecture on Superconductivity.

The P.M. reaches Bangalore after the President does.

The words underlined are called Prepositions because they normally take position before (pre) a noun. The preposition is said to 'govern' the noun that follows it. The noun is said to be the 'object' of the preposition.

Besides single-word prepositions, there are also phrases which do the work of prepositions and are called 'Phrase Prepositions'.

Types of Prepositions :

• Single - word Prepositions : 
•  In, On, After, At, With, Under, Above, etc. (These are Simple Prepositions)
• Phrase Prepositions (Complex Prepositions) :
• Some types of Complex Preposition structures with examples are given below. 
• Adverb + Preposition :
• Along with, Apart From, As for, As to, Away from, Onto, Outof, Together with, Upto, Such as.
• Verb / Adjective / Conjunction, etc. + Preposition :
• Except for, Owing to, Due to, But for, Because of....
• Preposition + Noun + Preposition :
• By means of, On account of, In comparison with, In accordance with, In view of, In spite of, Instead of...

CONJUNCTION :

A Conjunction is a word that joins words, phrases and sentences.

Ex :

       Delhi and Calcutta are densely populated cities.

       She must be either the President or the Secretary of Pakistan.

       The professor read the essay and was impressed by it.

       He is not only intelligent in his studies but also industrious in his life.

INTERJECTION :

Word which expresses a strong or sudden feeling.

         Surprise, Joy, Fear, Sadness, etc.    It is not grammatically connected with the rest of the sentence. Usually, exclamation mark is put after it.

Example :

              Ah1 Hurrah! Well!  Dear!  Oh!