Do you know what the parts of speech are? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on parts of speech, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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November 10, 2021
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Common Questions
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What are parts of speech?
According to Your Dictionary, there are nine different parts of speech in English grammar. First there are adjectives, which modify or describe a noun, attributing a quality or an attribute to the noun that is being modified. Next there are adverbs. These are kind of like adjectives, but instead of modifying a noun, they modify or describe a verb, adjective, or another adverb or word group. These usually provide information relating to time, place, manner, cause, degree, or circumstance. Next, conjunctions are used to coordinate and connect words, phrases, and clauses to make sense as a cohesive thought, sentence, or paragraph. Interjections or exclamations are abrupt words used to show feelings and emotional effect. Nouns are a person, place, thing, idea, or quality, and can be the subject, direct object, or indirect object of a sentence. Verbs express action or a state of being, and articles are used to modify a noun. Prepositions indicate spatial relationships between nouns and pronouns. Pronouns take the place of nouns, and include the below:
- yourselves
- wheresoever
- anybody
- one another
- he
- anything
- this
- ought
- whereunto
- mine
- nobody
- these
- suchlike
- yourself
- most
- itself
- one
- them
- anyone
- whereof
- myself
- wherein
- whose
- whatnot
- themselves
- they
- your
- whoso
- who
- she
- as
- hers
- some
- thou
- whereby
- everything
- what
- both
- its
- themself
- wherewith
- we
- theirself
- whosever
- you
- whatsoever
- whoever
- aught
- naught
- it
- another
- where
- several
- all
- whatever
- whom
- somewhat
- idem
- that
- each
- whether
- himself
- such
- yon
- somebody
- whereinto
- whomever
- whichever
- ourself
- whomso
- many
- ye
- whosoever
- our
- ourselves
- no one
- other
- each other
- any
- none
- whereto
- thy
- thyself
- wherefrom
- ours
- wherever
- those
- yonder
- neither
- us
- few
- whichsoever
- everybody
- enough
- their
- something
- him
- whomsoever
- nought
- someone
- thine
- which
- her
- thee
- others
- whosesoever
- nothing
- theirs
- his
- herself
- everyone
- whereon
- wherewithal
- I
- whence
- theirselves
- either
- me
- there
- my
- yours
Parts of speech can be specified, such as subordinating or subordinate conjunctions, reflexive pronouns, relative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, different types of nouns like a concrete noun or abstract noun, correlative conjunctions, indefinite pronoun, possessive nouns, helping verb, action verb, other types of conjunctions, a noun in the plural form, a type of article, possessive adjectives, new nouns, an indefinite article, open classes, closed classes, a verb phrase, and more parts of the sentence.
Many different languages also contain words that mean parts of speech. You may notice that some of these translations of parts of speech look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of parts of speech is provided by Word Sense.
- Slovene: besedna vrsta (fem.)
- Malay: golongan kata
- Esperanto: parolparto
- Armenian: խոսքի մաս
- Turkish: sözcük türü
- Tajik: ҳиссаҳои нутқ
- Latin: pars ōrātiōnis (fem.)
- Mandarin: 詞類, 词类 (cílèi), 詞性, 词性 (cíxìng)
- Indonesian: kelas kata
- Russian: часть ре́чи (fem.)
- Norwegian: ordklasse
- Ancient: μέρος τοῦ λόγου (neut.)
- French: classe lexicale (fem.), partie du discours (fem.), classe grammaticale (fem.)
- German: Redeteil (masc.), Sprachteil (masc.), Wortart (fem.)
- Albanian: pjesë e ligjëratës (fem.)
- Slovak: slovný druh (masc.)
- Bashkir: һүҙ төркөмө
- Modern: μέρος του λόγου (neut.)
- Thai: วจีวิภาค
- Finnish: sanaluokka
- Persian: ادات سخن (adât-e soxan), نوع کلمه (now’-e kalame)
- Japanese: 品詞 (ひんし, hinshi)
- Swedish: ordklass (common)
- Ukrainian: части́на мови (fem.)
- Czech: slovní druh (masc.)
- Kazakh: сөз табы
- Estonian: sõnaliik
- Portuguese: classe gramatical (fem.)
- Tagalog: bahagi ng pananalita
- Romanian: parte de vorbire (fem.)
- Hebrew: חֵלֶק דיבור
- Cyrillic: врста речи (fem.)
- Italian: parte del discorso (fem.)
- Belarusian: часці́на мо́вы (fem.)
- Roman: vrsta riječi (fem.), vrsta reči (fem.)
- Danish: ordklasse (common)
- Hindi: शब्द भेद
- Spanish: parte de la oración (fem.), parte de oración (fem.), categoría gramatical (fem.), parte del habla (fem.)
- Korean: 품사
- Latvian: vārdšķira (fem.)
- Telugu: భాషాభాగము
- Bulgarian: част на ре́чта (fem.)
- Dutch: woordsoort (fem.)
- Burmese: ဝါစင်္ဂ
- Macedonian: зборовна група (fem.)
- Yiddish: ווערטערקלאַס (masc.)
- Vietnamese: từ loại
- Polish: część mowy (fem.)
- Lithuanian: kalbos dalis (fem.)
- Icelandic: orðflokkur (masc.)
- Mongolian: үгсийн аймаг
- Tatar: сүз төркеме
- Azeri: nitq hissəsi
- Yakut: саҥа чааһа
- Rusyn: часть ре́чі (fem.)
- Lao: ວະຈີວິພາກ, ໂສດ
- Arabic: جُزْء الْكَلَام (masc.)
- Hungarian: szófaj
- Middle High German: teil der red
- Georgian: მეტყველების ნაწილი
What are other literary techniques and devices?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- main clause
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- phrase (phr.)
- stem
- subject
- element
- clause
- unmarked genitive
- feminine
- finite
- second person
- dative
- subjunctive
- complement
- that-clause
- complementary
- masculine
- combination
- noun phrase
- direct object
- neuter
- modify | modifier
- abstract
- cognate object
- possessive adjective
- demonstrative
- pro-form
- attributive
- imperative (imper.)
- genitive
- progressive
- concrete
- apodosis and protasis
- prepositional object
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- indirect question
- intensifier
- parts of speech
- cataphoric
- bare infinitive
- to-infinitive
- prefix
- preposition (prep.)
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- gender
- indirect passive
- construction
- mood
- antecedent
- plural
- copular verb | copula
- optative
- instrumental
- conditional
- indirect speech
- count noun
- anticipatory
- article
- singular
- double object
- determiner
- reflexive
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- passive infinitive
- third-person
- perfect
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- objective
- impersonal (impers.)
- participle | past participle | present participle
- collective noun
- morpheme
- dual
- proper noun | proper name
- indirect object
- parasynthetic
- zero
- number
- positive
- apposition
- active
- object | direct object | indirect object
- past tense
- direct speech
- causative
- main verb
- anaphoric
- possessive pronoun
- relative
- postmodify | postmodifier
- interjection
- interrogative
- locative
- absolute (absol.)
- prepositional phrase
- gerund
- predicative
- similative
- case
- present tense
- accusative
- person
- pronoun (pron.)
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- agent noun
- comparative
- infinitive
- passive
- adverb (adv.)
- construed (const., constr.)
- combining form (comb. form)
- noun (n.)
- protasis
- personal pronoun
- simple
- premodify | premodifier
- nominative
- head
- adjective
- direct question
- part of speech
- vocative
- special use
- collocation | collocate
- indicative
- transitive
- compound | compounding
- past participle
- definite article
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- subjective
- ellipsis | elliptical
- subordinate clause
- quasi-
- prepositional passive
- filler
- participial adjective
- base form
- superlative
- mass noun
- non-referential
- tense
- present participle
- verbal noun
- adverbial | adverbially
- intransitive
- conjunction (conj.)
- possessive
- verb (v.)
- indefinite
- non-finite
- appositive
- agree | agreement
- common noun
- declarative
- phrasal verb
- first person
Overall, the parts of speech are
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