Exemplary Prose:
Essential Writing Skills in Context

Parts of Speech

I know you've all heard of the parts of speech (even if you can't rattle them off), so consider this page a quick refresher. The parts of speech are as follows:

nouns

pronouns

verbs

adjectives

adverbs

prepositions

conjunctions

interjections

If these names don't ring a bell, you must have been sleeping when they played Grammar Rock during Saturday morning cartoons. To help you remember, here's a little ditty from McGuffey's Reader:

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:

Their heads, your face, its paw, his hand.

 

Verbs tell of something being done:

You read, count, sing, laugh, 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!

Return back to Grammar Rules page.