Parts of Speech Table

part of function or "job" example words example sentences

speech

Verb action or state (to) be, have, do, Charlie works hard in Miss Kinnian’s
like, work, sing, class because he wants to be smart.
can, must

Noun thing or person pen, dog, work, Charlie is the main character in the
music, town, story.
London, teacher,
John

Adjective describes a noun a/an, the, 69, some, Charlie is an interesting character
good, big, red, because he wants to have a surgery that
well, interesting will make him ten times smarter.

Adverb describes a verb, quickly, silently, When Charlie is made fun of by his co-
adjective or adverb well, badly, very, workers, he feels very sad.
really

Pronoun replaces a noun I, you, he, she, Miss Kinnian is Charlie’s teacher. She
some is beautiful.

Preposition links a noun to to, at, after, on, but When Charlie’s IQ is at 68, he doesn’t
another word know his friends are making fun of
him, but after the surgery he
understands this and it makes him sad.

Conjunction joins clauses or and, but, when Charlie likes Miss Kinnian and likes
sentences or words working with Algernon.

Interjection short exclamation, oh!, ouch!, hi!, Help! Charlie is missing and I
sometimes inserted well can’tfind him!
into a sentence
* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com, we use the
traditional categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are:
• Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech:
○ Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
○ Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
• Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under
Adjectives
•
Adapted from EnglishClub.com