Parts of Speech for the Lost in Grammar Land Part I

Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs

TCTC Writing Center Prepared by Jennifer Higgins-Spiers July, 2007

Parts of Speech? WHAT?

Every word has some sort of ‘job’. They aren’t just there to take up space. This presentation will go through all of the parts of speech that you need to know in order to better understand sentence writing!

Parts of speech include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.

Nouns

• • • Nouns are people, places, things and ideas. Almost every word is a noun. Nouns are everywhere!

Don’t get mixed up with all the different types of parts in sentences. Subjects are nouns, objects of the prepositional phrase are nouns, direct objects are nouns…there are so many nouns that we use in speaking and writing! Nouns can be common or proper. If a noun is common, it is just a basic, everyday noun. Proper nouns are PROPER names of people, places and things. All proper nouns are capitalized.

Examples of common nouns

street, apple , computer, fact, file, bed, shelf book, pen, fish, school, phone , paper, egg, pizza, day, holiday, bandana, shirt, woman, step, disease, country, rain, ball, team, game, wind laser, foot, feeling, happiness, tragedy, pint, ghost, delicacy, misfortune, luck, cake, idea, place, thing, country, city, meal, grass, environment, love, mile, cliff, cloud, fruit, chicken, college, presentation, nail, wish

Examples of proper nouns

The Constitution of the United States of America, Spanish, Toni Morrison, UCLA, Dr. Peters, Greek, Clemson University, Tri-County Technical College, Gateway, Maroon 5, President George Bush, Georgia, Wednesday, The Eagles, Death Valley, Richland Estates, Pizza Hut, Tiananmen Square, Sears Tower, Washington Monument, Palmetto State, Ferrari

• • •

Noun TEST:

A word can be a noun if at least ONE of the tests works. IF ALL tests ‘fail’ the word, then the word is NOT a noun!

Can you put an article, a pronoun or adjective in front of it?

• dog: the dog, his dog Hannah: a Hannah, their Hannah apple: an apple, the red apple delicious: a delicious, her delicious Can you make the word plural?

• dog-dogs Hannah: Hannas apple: apples delicious- deliciouses Can you make the word possessive?

• dog- a dog’s collar, the dogs’ collars Hannah- Hannah’s eyes apple the apple’s taste delicious- delicious’

Conclusion: dog, Hannah and apple are nouns, but delicious is NOT a noun. Proper nouns are generally not pluralized, nor are they grouped with articles or pronouns.

PRONOUNS

What is a pronoun?

A noun that’s good at his job!

Actually, they are words that RENAME nouns. There are four major types of pronouns: personal, relative, demonstrative, and indefinite. Pronouns can also be POSSESSIVE.

Personal pronouns

• • • • •

Singular Plural Possessive

I You He • • • We You They • • My, mine, our, ours Your, yours She It • His, her, hers • Their, theirs

Personal pronouns rename PEOPLE and THINGS. These pronouns make writing sentences much easier. They are great to use instead of naming the same noun

over and over.

Why personal pronouns rock

This is what sentences would look like without taking advantage of personal pronouns: The Glockenstein family went to visit the Glockenstein’s friends who live in Germany. The Glockensteins met the Glockensteins’ friends at the airport. The Glockenteins and the Glockensteins’ friends were happy to see each other.

The same sentence with personal pronouns:

The Glockenstein family went to visit their friends who live in Germany. They met their friends at the airport. They were all very happy to see each other.

• • • • •

Relative pronouns RELATE back to a particular noun or pronoun within the sentence

.

Who Whom Whose Which That

Relative Pronouns

• • • • • Who is there? Who refers, in

question form, a person who is there.

Heather is the one who can answer your questions.

in this context restates who

Heather is.

Who

This is the shirt that I was telling you about! The word

that

refers to shirt.

Whose phone number is this?

Whose

form of

who

is the possessive

To whom do I give this? Only

use whom with the words ‘to’ ‘by’ ‘for’

• • •

Demonstrative pronouns

When you demonstrate an activity, you are ‘showing’ someone how to do something.

Demonstrative pronouns work the same way. They SHOW the reader what is being ‘written’ about. The subjects and/or objects of the sentence are EMPHASIZED with demonstrative pronouns. These can also ‘describe’ the nouns through the demonstration.

• • • • • This- refers to something NEAR That- refers to something FAR These- refers to things NEAR Those- refers to things FAR This book is long. (refers to a book that belongs to the speaker) That book is long (refers to a book tha does NOT belong to the speaker, perhaps it’s a book that is being talked about, but the book is not present) These books are heavy (refers to the books the speaker is carrying) Those books are heavy (refers to books that the speaker is not carrying)

• • • •

Indefinite pronouns

Indefinite pronouns relate to a particular sort of nouns, but the gender/number is not specified.

Always Singular

one, someone, anyone, everyone •

Always Plural

both

Either singular or plural, depending on context

• all something, anything, everything • • few many • any somebody, anybody, everybody no one, either, neither • • others several • • • more most none • some

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

Possessive pronouns show ownership, just as nouns have a possessive nature.

Jessica’s

book (Jessica’s is a possessive noun) Her book (Her is a possessive pronoun) That book is Jessica’s That book is hers.

YOU DO NOT PUT AN APOSTROPHE FOR POSSESSIVE PERSONAL PRONOUNS!

Hers– NOT her’s Theirs NOT their’s Yours Its NOT your’s NOT it’s

The different jobs of nouns and pronouns

Don’t let all of this technical grammatical jargon fool you. Nouns and pronouns are present EVERYWHERE, so it is very likely that you can have more than one noun/pronoun in a sentence. The subjects of sentences, as well as direct objects, objects of a phrase are ALWAYS a noun or a pronoun.

Everybody PN, subject but David knew that his zipper N, direct object PN N was down.

Zebras are wild N, subject animals , and they N, direct object PN live on the African continent .

N, object of the preposition

Adjectives

Adjectives are descriptive words. They DESCRIBE nouns and pronouns. These descriptive words include words from our senses…scent, taste, sound, appearance, and touch. These are very easy to find. The red balloon. (Appearance) The cake smells delicious . (scent) He has a loud voice. (sound) The kitten’s fur is so soft ! (touch)

Pronouns as Adjectives?

If you think grammar is crazy, you are right! Pronouns can act like another part of speech, depending on how they are used within the sentence. Therefore, pronouns can ALSO be adjectives. His friend  his DESCRIBES the friend. Not her friend…not this friend…but HIS friend. That freak  that DESCRIBES/names/stresses the KIND of freak. Not THIS freak…but THAT freak.

Adverbs

• • • • Adverbs are also description words, but they describe ADJECTIVES, VERBS and OTHER ADVERBS. These description words answer the questions how, when, where, how often and to what extent. These words are probably harder to find than any other part of speech. MOST adverbs end in –ly, but remember HOW they are formed and WHAT they describe– that will help you more than just memorizing –ly words!

• • • • • • •

How do I find Adverbs?

Josh runs quickly.

 He runs HOW?

Quickly.

(describes the verb run) They are having a party Outside.

outside.

 WHERE are they having the party? (describes the verb having) Tomorrow , we will go shopping.  WHEN (describes the verb go).

will we go? Tomorrow.

We like to visit Grandpa every day .  HOW OFTEN grandpa? Every day (describes verb visit) do we visit She is extremely happy.  TO WHAT EXTENT is she happy? Extremely. (describes adjective happy) You speak too slowly speak? Slowly.

slowly) !  There are two adverbs here. To what extent is slowly? Too.

How do you (describes adverb I do Not.

n’t know what an adverb is!  (describes verb know) You know this to what extent ?

End of Part I

• • If you thought you were finished, you’re wrong! There are still several parts of speech to cover! You’re not in the clear yet! The next presentation will cover verbs, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.