Grammar Basics. Part I. The Parts of Speech

Introduction

All language is composed of basic building blocks, called parts of speech. Each word used has a specific purpose within speech and writing, and should only be used in certain ways to be correct and easily understood by the listener or reader. In English, there are eight distinct parts of speech, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs.

Essay writers must gain a mastery over the various parts of speech to convey the meaning of the written text with the utmost accuracy to the intended audience. Since visual and aural cues are absent from written works, the writer is solely dependent on the proper meaning and usage of the various parts of speech. This lesson examines each part of speech, providing definitions and usage notes for each. The following sections present the eight parts of speech in alphabetical order.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words used to specify and describe nouns and pronouns. Almost any term that defines or further describes a noun is an adjective, such as "big," "short," "tasty," "predictable," "homegrown," "relevant," "speedy," "voluminous," and on and on. There are literally thousands upon thousands of adjectives in the English language and many more that have been borrowed from other languages.

There are six types of adjectives in English numeric (1, 2, 3, and so on.), quantitative (all, some, none, half, and so forth), qualitative (descriptors that pertain to taste, smell, color, and more), possessive (mine, yours, ours, theirs, his, hers, and so on), interrogative (which, whose, what, where, and others), and demonstrative (this, that, those, and others). (Wikipedia, 2008)

Adverbs

Adverbs can modify any other part of speech (except nouns) including other adverbs, as well as clauses, phrases, and even complete sentences. Adverbs generally provide informative details regarding how, when, why, where, and to what extent. Many adverbs are easily recognized because they typically end in "-ly", like the words "easily" and "typically" in this sentence. Other examples of adverbs include "quickly," "randomly," "very," "appropriately," "semi-annually," "intentionally," "sporadically," and so forth.