A noun�s the name of anything/As school, or Garden, Hoop or Swing./Adjectives tell the kind of noun/As Great, Small, Pretty, White or Brown./Instead of Nouns the Pronouns stand/her head, his face, your arm, my hand./Verbs tell something being done/to Read, Count, Laugh, Sing, Jump or Run./How things are done the Adverbs tell/as Slowly, Quickly, Ill, or Well/Conjunctions join the words together/as men and women, wind or weather/The Preposition stands before/a noun, as In or Through a door./The Interjection shows surprise/as Oh! How pretty! Ah! How wise!/The whole are called Nine Parts of Speech/which reading, writing, speaking teach. (Anonymous)
These parts of speech work as players on a sports team. The Four �Stars� Are Nouns (Including Pronouns), Verbs, Adjectives, And Adverbs. The �support� players -- called �function words� because of what they do in helping to make a meaningful sentence -- are prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. The �reserves� are determiners (noun modifiers e.g. any, both, whose, or articles e.g. the a, an), auxiliaries (helping verbs -- like is, was, were, has, had, shall, will, would, could -- which combine with the main verb to form verb phrase like �he has arrived�); subordinators (dependent clauses that cannot stand alone as a full sentence, like when, while, as, since, because, whereas); relatives (referring to or qualifying something that has just gone before, as the pronoun �who� in �the man who left� or whose, whom, that, which); intensifiers (a word that adds emphasis but not additional meaning -- much, really, too, very, so); and sentence-starters (such as well, now, oh, why). Syntax involves understanding what role each word plays in the arrangement of parts of a sentence.
Traditionally, the parts of speech go back at least as far as Aristotle (384-22 B.C.). Since then the elements of English have become far, far more complicated. So to complete the parts of speech, the following will be only �get acquainted� comments. Adjectives (�not standing alone�) are words used to modify a noun or pronoun. To modify is to restrict, limit, or make more definite the meaning of a word. Most sentences have two parts -- the subject (a noun or pronoun which tells what the sentence is about) and the predicate (which tells what is said about the subject or what the subject does). A predicate contains a verb or an adjective that describes the subject. Descriptive adjectives tell �what kind� -- e.g. little, hot, red. Limiting adjectives tell �which one� and �how many.� Put another way, an adjective is a word, phrase, or clause (a group of words containing a subject and a predicate) that describes, or modifies, or limits a noun in its meaning in some way.
An Adverb (�added word�) is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies or qualifies the meaning of a verb (or adjective or another adverb). Many adverbs are formed by adding �-ly� to an adjective, as in kind, kindly. Adverbs are used to denote place (where, there); time (now, then); or manner (thus, poorly). A Preposition (�put before�) is a word showing the relation of a noun or pronoun to some other word in the sentence -- e.g. of, by, for, with, over, under, beyond: �hit the nail with a hammer.� Conjunction (�join�) is a word joining words -- and, but, either/or, for, yet, still, nor, before, until, where, as. An Interjection (�something thrown in or into�) is a word that expresses emotion but has a grammatical relation to other words in the sentence. Examples: Bravo! Ha! Hurray! Ouch! Gosh! and similar exclamations.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D
