In English, there are nine basic types of words. These types are called parts of speech. The parts of speech are nouns, articles, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
Nouns, Articles, and Pronouns
Nouns (for example, boy or tree) stand for people, places, or things. They are identifying words or names and fall into two categories: common and proper. A common noun is any general word or name (president, country, clock). A proper noun is the name of a specific person, place, or thing (Abraham Lincoln, Germany, Big Ben). Proper nouns are capitalized when they are written.
Nouns can be singular or plural (house, houses). Nouns can also have ownership of other nouns. This is called possession. An apostrophe followed by an s is used to show possession (a girl’s book, the farmer’s cow). Articles (a, an, the) tell whether a noun is general (a tree) or specific (the tree). Pronouns (he, she, it) replace nouns (she played).
Verbs
Verbs are action words (laugh, grow) that tell what nouns or pronouns do. They create the information in a sentence. Verbs can take different forms to tell when the action is taking place. This is called the tense. The main tenses are past, present, and future (she walked, she walks, she will walk).
A verb can have an active or a passive voice. The active voice is when the subject of the sentence is doing the action. “The man killed the bear” is written in the active voice. The passive voice is when the subject is being acted upon. “The bear was killed by the man” is in the passive voice.
Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs are descriptive words. Adjectives (young, green) describe nouns or pronouns. They may come before the noun (the red wagon) or after the noun (the wagon is red). Adverbs (loudly, quickly) describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Some adverbs are made by adding an -ly to an adjective. However, most adverbs do not have a form that is easy to spot.
Other Types of Words
Prepositions (on, in) tell how the words in a sentence relate to one another in time or space. Conjunctions (and, but, or) combine parts of a sentence, or whole sentences, into one sentence. They also show how the parts are connected. Interjections (hey, ouch) are added to a sentence to show emotion.
