If you ask students what they understand by parts of speech, there will be some students who’ll confuse it with figures of speech.
This is a common mistake that students make, irrespective of their age. So to ensure that students understand what parts of speech are, this article will talk all about parts of speech. Let’s go through it.
What are Parts of Speech?
If you are looking for the definition of parts of speech, then it simply refers to the category to which a word has been assigned in accordance with its function. The parts of speech are divided into many important grammatical concepts like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
No doubt, students go through these important grammar chapters, but all these chapters together are known as parts of speech.
Types of Parts of Speech with Examples
We have seen the various important grammar topics that come under parts of speech. Now, we’ll discuss them in detail so that students can easily develop an understanding of these concepts.
- Noun – As we all know, nouns are naming words. That means words that tell us the name of a place, person, animal or thing is a noun. A noun can be classified into many different categories depending on number (singular or plural), type (countable or uncountable) and what they are talking about (common noun, proper noun, collective noun, abstract noun, material noun). BYJU’S has come up with articles where you can learn all about the types of nouns, its definition, examples and even exercises related to them.
- Verbs – Words that refer to an action done by subjects are known as action verbs. Verbs are a very important category of parts of speech as it helps students to find out the work done by the subject or noun. For example, “Tina plays baseball.” Here, ‘plays’ is a verb.
- Pronouns – Words that are used instead of nouns are known as pronouns. There are many pronouns exercises that students can practise on BYJU’S website.
- Adverbs – Words that describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs in any sentence are known as adverbs. Adverbs can be classified into different categories depending on what they describe. You can learn all about adverbs from BYJU’S articles.
- Adjectives – Words that describe nouns are known as adjectives. These adjectives can be divided into different categories depending on the type of word they describe. For example, “The yellow dress looks pretty on you.” Here, ‘yellow’ is the qualitative adjective
- Conjunctions – Words that are used to join or connect two phrases or clauses are known as conjunctions. For example, “He is poor but honest.” Here, ‘but’ is the conjunction.
- Interjections – If you want to express strong feelings or emotions in a sentence, then use interjections. Words like ‘wow’, ‘hurray’, ‘alas’, ‘ouch’, ‘yipee’, ‘oh’, etc., are interjections.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. What are parts of speech?
Ans. Parts of speech simply refer to the category to which a word has been assigned in accordance with its function.
Q2. What are the different parts of speech?
Ans. There are eight different categories of parts of speech, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, pronouns and prepositions.
