The Parts of Speech

I found an old English book from a shelf of books, something interest inside this book ……..

The Parts of Speech

The term part of speech refers to the job that a word does in a sentence – to its function or use.  Since there are eight separate jobs, words are divided into eight classes or eight parts of speech:  noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.

	Job, Function, Use	Part of Speech	Examples
1.	To name a person, place, thing, quality, state or action.	Noun	Adam, London, pen, wit, joy, laughter.
2.	To substitute for a noun.	Pronoun	He, she, it
3.	To express action – or non-action (state of being).	Verb	Run, talk, think Is, was, will be
4.	To modify (describe or limit) the noun and pronoun.	Adjective	Strong man, ugly city, limited quantity, few hours.
5.	To modify any verb, adjective, or adverb	Adverb	Think quickly, unusually ugly, very quickly.
6.	To show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and some other word.	Preposition	Cart before horse, dog in manager, bombs over Berlin.
7.	To join two words or two groups of words.	Conjunction	Jack and Jill; candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.
8.	To display emotion	Interjection	Good God! Heigh-ho! Hurrah!

A word is a noun, verb, adjective, or other part of speech, depending on its use – and on its use only.  That is to say, a word is a noun if it is used like a noun, if it names; it is a preposition if it is used like a preposition, if it shows the relationship between nouns; and so on.  In the following passage note that the round is used in five different ways:

As I round the corner of the building, I reflect that our round world spins round and round on its axis, at the same time making a circle round the sun that results in the round of the seasons.

a)                I round – verb, expresses action.

b)                Round world – adjective, because it modifies the noun world

c)                 Spins round and round – adverb, modifies verb spins.

d)                Circle round the sun – preposition, shows relationship between two nouns, circle and sun.

e)                Round of the seasons – noun, names something.