Parts of Speech

PRONOUNS

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun and there are eight types: personal, relative, interrogative, demonstrative, reflexive, intensive, reciprocal and indefinite.

Personal

pronouns refer to people or things. Examples are I, she, he, their and ours.

They

are going to the opera.

Her

hair color is horrible.

A

relative

pronoun is usually associated with adjective clauses and sometimes noun clauses. A few examples would be who, which and what. The man,

who

clutched the book to his chest, yelled at the child.

Interrogative

pronouns introduce questions and examples are Who?, What? and Where?

Which

house does Brad Pitt live in?

When

are we going to fuck?

A

demonstrative

pronoun introduces the antecedent. The antecedent is a word that takes the place of a pronoun and some examples are those and these.

This

is my sister.

Those

are my shoes.

A

Reflexive

pronoun refers back to the subject of the sentence while an

intensive

pronoun intensifies a noun or pronoun. Some examples are myself, itself and themselves. Used in a reflexive manner, an example would be, He asked

himself

a stupid question. Used in an intensive manner, an example is, We

ourselves

enjoyed watching the fight.

Reciprocal

pronouns refer back to single parts of a plural antecedent. Examples are each other and one another. The girls slathered

each other

with whipped cream.

Finally, an

indefinite

pronoun represents a person, place or thing that is not specified and can be singular or plural. Some examples of singular pronouns are neither, somebody and either and plural examples are few and several. There are a few that rely on the other parts of the sentence to determine if they are singular or plural and examples of these are none, some, any, all and most.

Someone

needs to talk to him, is an example of a singular indefinite pronoun. An example of a plural indefinite pronoun would be,

Both

of the women were beautiful. Two examples of indefinite pronouns that require other sentence parts to determine if singular or plural: Some of the breads are edible; some of the bread is edible.

ADJECTIVES

An adjective is a word that provides description to a noun and can be possessive, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. A simple example is, The

blue

balloon floated over the wall. In some circles, articles such as

a

,

an

and

the

are considered to be adjectives.

Possessive, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite adjectives are often similar to pronouns.

My

head is an example of a possessive adjective;

This

man is an example of a demonstrative adjective;

Which

temple is an example of an interrogative adjective and

Any

meat is an example of an indefinite adjective.

ADVERBS

An adverb is a word that is used to modify or lends description to adjectives, verbs and sometimes, other adverbs. Most adverbs end in -ly and will answer how, when or where. Some examples are

quickly

,

always

and

never

. Adverbs can also be used in a conjunctive fashion and are used to join clauses together.

However

and

therefore

are some well-used conjunctive adverbs.

PREPOSITIONS

A preposition is a word that links words to other words in a sentence, most usually pronouns, nouns and phrases. There are quite a few words that are classified as prepositions and just a few examples are

on

,

above

,

in

,

behind

,

below

,

into

and

with

. Words that follow the preposition are generally known as being part of a prepositional phrase, such as

within

the bedroom and

since

the fall.

CONJUNCTIONS

I don't think anyone will ever forget Schoolhouse Rock's famous "Conjunction Junction" song. The producers of the show used men working in a train yard to illustrate the function of a conjunction. A conjunction is a word that connects words, phrases and/clauses and there are two types: coordinating and subordinating.

The most commonly used

coordinating

conjunctions are

and

,

but

and

or

. The combinations of

either/or

,

both/and

and

not only/but also

are also examples of coordinating conjunctions. A

subordinating

conjunction is a conjunction that forms a subordinate clause and connects it with the main sentence. Some examples of subordinating conjunctions are

who

,

which

,

although

,

because

and

though

.

An example of coordinating conjunction usage would be, I like corn

and

potatoes. An example of subordinating conjunction usage would be,

Since

you've been gone, I've been a bad girl.

INTERJECTIONS

An interjection is a word or group of words that are usually followed by an exclamation mark.

Stop!

is a good example of an interjection.