part of function or "job" example words example sentences

speech

Verb action or state (to) be, have, do, like, EnglishClub.com is a web site. I
work, sing, can, must like EnglishClub.com.

Noun thing or person pen, dog, work, music, This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live
town, London, teacher, in London.
John

Adjective describes a noun a/an, the, 69, some, good, My dog is big. I like big dogs.
big, red, well, interesting

Adverb describes a verb, adjective quickly, silently, well, My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry,
or adverb badly, very, really he eats really quickly.

Pronoun replaces a noun I, you, he, she, some Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.

Preposition links a noun to another word to, at, after, on, but We went to school on Monday.

Conjunction joins clauses or sentences or and, but, when I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs.
words I like dogs but I don't like cats.

Interjection short exclamation, oh!, ouch!, hi!, well Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I
sometimes inserted into a don't know.
sentence
* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com, we use the traditional
categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are:
Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech:
Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under Adjectives
Parts of Speech Quiz:

1 I bought a beautiful dress at the mall.

2 What did she ask you to do?

3 I left my shoes under the kitchen table.

4 If we finish our work quickly we can go to the movies.

5 On Saturdays I work from nine to five.

6 I want to go to a university in the United States.

7 I'm sure I have met your girlfriend before.

8 Well, I don't think I will be here to answer the phone.

9 Andy knocked on the door but nobody answered.

10 After lunch let's go out for a coffee.

Term Definition
active voice one of two voices in English; a direct form of expression where the subject
performs or "acts" the verb; see also passive voice. eg: "Many
people eat rice"

adjective part of speech that typically describes or "modifies" a noun. eg: "It was
a big dog."

adjective clause seldom-used term for relative clause

adjunct word or phrase that adds information to a sentence and that can be
removed from the sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical.
eg: I met John at school.

adverb word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb

eg: quickly, really, very

adverbial clause dependent clause that acts like an adverb and indicates such things as time,
place or reason. eg: Although we are getting older, we grow more beautiful
each day.

affirmative statement that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or "yes" meaning;
opposite of negative. eg: The sun is hot.

affix language unit (morpheme) that occurs before or after (or sometimes within)
the root or stem of a word. eg: un- in unhappy (prefix), -ness in happiness
(suffix)

agreement logical (in a grammatical sense) links between words based

(also known as on tense, case ornumber
"concord") eg: this phone, these phones

antecedent word, phrase or clause that is replaced by a pronoun (or other substitute)
when mentioned subsequently (in the same sentence or later)
eg: "Emily is nice because she brings me flowers."

appositive noun phrase that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun

eg: "Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple leaf flag."

article determiner that introduces a noun phrase as definite (the) or indefinite

(a/an)

aspect feature of some verb forms that relates to duration or completion of time;
verbs can have no aspect (simple), or can have continuous or progressive
aspect (expressing duration), or have perfect or perfective aspect
(expressing completion)

auxiliary verb verb used with the main verb to help indicate something such as tense or
(also called "helping voice
verb") eg: I do not like you. She has finished. He can swim.

bare infinitive unmarked form of the verb (no indication of tense, mood, person, or aspect)
without the particle "to"; typically used after modal auxiliary verbs; see
also infinitive
eg: "He should come", "I can swim"

base form basic form of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc. eg: be, speak
case form of a pronoun based on its relationship to other words in the sentence;
case can be subjective, objective or possessive
eg: "I love this dog", "This dog loves me", "This is my dog"

causative verb verb that causes things to happen such as "make", "get" and "have"; the
subject does not perform the action but is indirectly responsible for it
eg: "She made me go to school", "I had my nails painted"

clause group of words containing a subject and its verb. eg: "It was late when he
arrived"

comparative, form of an adjective or adverb made with "-er" or "more" that is used to
comparative adjective show differences or similarities between two things (not three or more
things)
eg: colder, more quickly

complement part of a sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate

eg: Mary did not say where she was going.

compound noun noun that is made up of more than one word; can be one word, or
hyphenated, or separated by a space. eg: toothbrush, mother-in-law,
Christmas Day

compound sentence sentence with at least two independent clauses; usually joined by a
conjunction
eg: "You can have something healthy but you can't have more junk food."

concord another term for agreement

conditional structure in English where one action depends on another ("if-then" or

"then-if" structure); most common are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd conditionals
eg: "If I win I will be happy", "I would be happy if I won"

conjugate to show the different forms of a verb according

to voice, mood, tense, number andperson; conjugation is quite simple in
English compared to many other languages
eg: I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks, we walk, they walk; I walked, you
walked, he/she/it walked, we walked, they walked

conjunction word that joins or connects two parts of a sentence

eg: Ram likes tea and coffee. Anthony went swimming although it was
raining.

content word word that has meaning in a sentence, such as a verb or noun (as opposed to
astructure word, such as pronoun or auxiliary verb); content words are
stressed in speech
eg: "Could you BRING my GLASSES because I've LEFT them at HOME"

continuous verb form (specifically an aspect) indicating actions that are in progress or
(also called continuing over a given time period (can be past, present or future); formed
"progressive") with "BE" + "VERB-ing"
eg: "They are watching TV."

contraction shortening of two (or more) words into one. eg: isn't (is not), we'd've (we
would have)
countable noun thing that you can count, such as apple, pen, tree (see uncountable noun)
eg: one apple, three pens, ten trees

dangling participle illogical structure that occurs in a sentence when a writer intends to modify
one thing but the reader attaches it to another
eg: "Running to the bus, the flowers were blooming." (In the example
sentence it seems that the flowers were running.)

declarative sentence sentence type typically used to make a statement (as opposed to a question
or command)
eg: "Tara works hard", "It wasn't funny"

defining relative clause relative clause that contains information required for the understanding of
(also called "restrictive the sentence; not set off with commas; see also non-defining clause
relative clause") eg: "The boy who was wearing a blue shirt was the winner"

demonstrative pronoun pronoun or determiner that indicates closeness to (this/these) or distance

demonstrative adjective from (that/those) the speaker. eg: "This is a nice car", "Can you
see those cars?"

dependent clause part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb but does not form a
complete thought and cannot stand on its own; see also independent clause
eg: "When the water came out of the tap..."

determiner word such as an article or a possessive adjective or other adjective that

typically comes at the beginning of noun phrases
eg: "It was an excellent film", "Do you like my new shirt?", "Let's
buy some eggs"

direct speech saying what someone said by using their exact words; see also indirect
speech
eg: "Lucy said: 'I am tired.'"

direct object noun phrase in a sentence that directly receives the action of the verb; see
alsoindirect object. eg: "Joey bought the car", "I like it", "Can you see the
man wearing a pink shirt and waving a gun in the air?"

embedded question question that is not in normal question form with a question mark; it occurs
within another statement or question and generally follows statement
structure
eg: "I don't know where he went," "Can you tell me where it is before you
go?", "They haven't decided whether they should come"

finite verb verb form that has a specific tense, number and person
eg: I work, he works, we learned, they ran

first conditional "if-then" conditional structure used for future actions or events that are seen
as realistic possibilities. eg: "If we win the lottery we will buy a car"

fragment incomplete piece of a sentence used alone as a complete sentence; a

fragment does not contain a complete thought; fragments are common in
normal speech but unusual (inappropriate) in formal writing
eg: "When's her birthday? - In December", "Will they come? - Probably not"

function purpose or "job" of a word form or element in a sentence

eg: The function of a subject is to perform the action. One function of an
 adjective is to describe a noun. The function of a noun is to name things.

future continuous (also tense* used to describe things that will happen in the future at a particular
called "future time; formed with WILL + BE + VERB-ing. eg: "I will be graduating in
progressive") September."

future perfect tense* used to express the past in the future; formed with WILL HAVE +
VERB-ed
eg: "I will have graduated by then"

future perfect tense* used to show that something will be ongoing until a certain time in
continuous the future; formed with WILL HAVE BEEN + VERB-ing. eg: "We will have
been living there for three months by the time the baby is born"

future simple tense* used to describe something that hasn't happened yet such as a
prediction or a sudden decision; formed with WILL + BASE VERB. eg: "He will
be late", "I will answer the phone"

gerund noun form of a verb, formed with VERB-ing. eg: "Walking is great exercise"

gradable adjective adjective that can vary in intensity or grade when paired with a grading
adverb ; see also non-gradable adjective. eg: quite hot, very tall

grading adverb adverb that can modify the intensity or grade of a gradable adjective
eg: quite hot, very tall

hanging participle another term for dangling participle

helping verb another term for auxiliary verb

imperative form of verb used when giving a command; formed with BASE VERB only.
eg: "Brush your teeth!"

indefinite pronoun pronoun does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is vague
and "not definite". eg: anything, each, many, somebody

independent clause group of words that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a
(also called "main sentence; see also dependent clause. eg: "Tara is eating curry.", "Tara likes
clause") oranges and Joe likes apples."

indirect object noun phrase representing the person or thing indirectly affected by the
action of the verb; see also direct object. eg: "She showed me her book
collection", "Joey bought his wife a new car"

indirect question another term for embedded question

indirect speech saying what someone said without using their exact words; see direct
(also called "reported speech
speech") eg: "Lucy said that she was tired"

infinitive base form of a verb preceded by "to"**; see also bare infinitive
eg: "You need to study harder", "To be, or not to be: that is the question"

inflection change in word form to indicate grammatical meaning

eg: dog, dogs (two inflections); take, takes, took, taking, taken (five
inflections)
interjection common word that expresses emotion but has no grammatical value; can
often be used alone and is often followed by an exclamation mark. eg: "Hi!",
"er", "Ouch!", "Dammit!"

interrogative (formal) sentence type (typically inverted) normally used when asking a
question
eg: "Are you eating?", "What are you eating?"

interrogative pronoun pronoun that asks a question. eg: who, whom, which

intransitive verb verb that does not take a direct object; see also transitive verb
e.g. "He is working hard", "Where do you live?"

inversion any reversal of the normal word order, especially placing the auxiliary verb
before the subject; used in a variety of ways, as in question formation,
conditional clauses and agreement or disagreement. eg: "Where are your
keys?","Had we watched the weather report, we wouldn't have gone to the
beach", "So did he", "Neither did she"

irregular verb verb that has a different ending for past tense and past participle forms
see irregular verbs list than the regular "-ed"; see also regular verb. eg: buy, bought, bought;
do, did, done

lexicon, lexis all of the words and word forms in a language with meaning or function

lexical verb another term for main verb

linking verb verbs that connect the subject to more information (but do not indicate
action), such as "be" or "seem"

main clause another term for independent clause

main verb any verb in a sentence that is not an auxiliary verb; a main verb has
(also called "lexical meaning on its own
verb") eg: "Does John like Mary?", "I will have arrived by 4pm"

modal verb auxiliary verb such as can, could, must, should etc; paired with the bare
(also called "modal") infinitive of a verb. eg: "I should go for a jog"

modifier word or phrase that modifies and limits the meaning of another word
eg: the house => the white house, the house over there, the house we sold
last year

mood sentence type that indicates the speaker's view towards the degree of
reality of what is being said, for example subjunctive, indicative, imperative

morpheme unit of language with meaning; differs from "word" because some cannot
stand alone
e.g. un-, predict and -able in unpredictable

multi-word verb verb that consists of a basic verb + another word or words (preposition
and/or adverb)
eg: get up (phrasal verb), believe in (prepositional verb), get on
with (phrasal-prepositional verb)

negative form which changes a "yes" meaning to a "no" meaning; opposite

 of affirmative
eg: "She will not come", "I have never seen her"

nominative case another term for subjective case

non-defining relative relative clause that adds information but is not completely necessary; set off
clause (also called from the sentence with a comma or commas; see defining relative clause
"non-restrictive relative eg: "The boy, who had a chocolate bar in his hand, was still hungry"
clause")

non-gradable adjective adjective that has a fixed quality or intensity and cannot be paired with
a grading adverb; see also gradable adjective. eg: freezing, boiling, dead

non-restrictive relative another term for non-defining relative clause

clause

noun part of speech that names a person, place, thing, quality, quantity or
concept; see also proper noun and compound noun
eg: "The man is waiting", "I was born in London", "Is that your car?", "Do you
like music?"

noun clause clause that takes the place of a noun and cannot stand on its own; often
introduced with words such as "that, who or whoever". eg: "What the
president said was surprising"

noun phrase (NP) any word or group of words based on a noun or pronoun that can function in
a sentence as a subject, object or prepositional object; can be one word or
many words; can be very simple or very complex. eg: "She is nice", "When
is the meeting?", "The car over there beside the lamppost is mine"

number change of word form indicating one person or thing (singular) or more than
one person or thing (plural). eg: one dog/three dogs, she/they

object thing or person affected by the verb; see also direct object and indirect
object
eg: "The boy kicked the ball", "We chose the house with the red door"

objective case case form of a pronoun indicating an object. eg: "John married her", "I gave
it to him"

part of speech one of the classes into which words are divided according to their function in
a sentence
eg: verb, noun, adjective

participle verb form that can be used as an adjective or a noun; see past
participle, present participle

passive voice one of two voices in English; an indirect form of expression in which the
subject receives the action; see also active voice. eg: "Rice is eaten by
many people"

past tense tense used to talk about an action, event or situation that occurred and was
(also called "simple completed in the past. eg: "I lived in Paris for 10 years", "Yesterday
past") we saw a snake"

past continuous tense often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed with
 WAS/WERE + VERB-ing. eg: "I was reading when you called"

past perfect tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed.eg:
"We had stopped thecar"

past perfect continuous tense that refers to action that happened in the past and continued to a
certain point in the past; formed with HAD BEEN + VERB-ing. eg: "I had
been waiting for three hours when he arrived"

past participle verb form (V3) - usually made by adding "-ed" to the base verb - typically
used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an adjective
eg: "I have finished", "It was seen by many people", "boiled eggs"

perfect verb form (specifically an aspect); formed with HAVE/HAS + VERB-ed

(present perfect) or HAD + VERB-ed (past perfect)

person grammatical category that identifies people in a conversation; there are

three persons: 1st person (pronouns I/me, we/us) is the speaker(s), 2nd
person (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him,
she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else

personal pronoun pronoun that indicates person. eg: "He likes my dogs", "They like him"

phrasal verb multi-word verb formed with a verb + adverb. eg: break up, turn
off (see phrasal verbs list)
NB: many people and books call all multi-word verbs "phrasal verbs"
(see multi-word verbs)

phrase two or more words that have a single function and form part of a sentence;
phrases can be noun, adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional

plural of a noun or form indicating more than one person or thing; plural nouns are
usually formed by adding "-s"; see also singular, number.
eg: bananas, spoons, trees

position grammatically correct placement of a word form in a phrase or sentence in

relation to other word forms. eg: "The correct position for an article is at the
beginning of the noun phrase that it describes"

positive basic state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but

not comparative orsuperlative. eg: nice, kind, quickly

possessive adjective adjective (also called "determiner") based on a pronoun: my, your, his, her,
its, our, their
eg: "I lost my keys", "She likes your car"

possessive case case form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession. eg: "Mine are
blue", "This car is hers"

possessive pronoun pronoun that indicates ownership or possession. eg: "Where is mine?",
"These are yours"

predicate one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the
predicate is the part that is not the subject. eg: "My brother is a doctor",
"Who did you call?", "The woman wearing a blue dress helped me"
prefix affix that occurs before the root or stem of a word. eg: impossible, reload

preposition part of speech that typically comes before a noun phrase and shows some
type of relationship between that noun phrase and another element
(including relationships of time, location, purpose etc). eg: "We
sleep at night", "I live in London", "This is for digging"

prepositional verb multi-word verb that is formed with verb + preposition. eg: believe in, look
after

present participle -ing form of a verb (except when it is a gerund or verbal noun)
eg: "We were eating", "The man shouting at the back is rude", "I saw
Tara playingtennis"

present simple(also tense usually used to describe states and actions that are general, habitual
called "simple present") or (with the verb "to be") true right now; formed with the basic verb (+ s for
3rd person singular)
eg: "Canada sounds beautiful", "She walks to school", "I am very happy"

present continuous(also tense used to describe action that is in process now, or a plan for the future;
called "present formed with BE + VERB-ing. eg: "We are watching TV", "I am moving to
progressive") Canada next month"

present perfect tense that connects the past and the present, typically used to express
experience, change or a continuing situation; formed with HAVE + VERB-ed
eg: "I have worked there", "John has broken his leg", "How
long have you beenin Canada?"

present perfect tense used to describe an action that has recently stopped or an action
continuous continuing up to now; formed with HAVE + BEEN + VERB-ing
eg: "I'm tired because I've been running", "He has been living in Canada for
two years"

progressive another term for continuous

pronoun word that replaces a noun or noun phrase; there are several types
including personal pronouns, relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns
eg: you, he, him; who, which; somebody, anything

proper noun noun that is capitalized at all times and is the name of a person, place or
thing
eg: Shakespeare, Tokyo, EnglishClub.com

punctuation standard marks such as commas, periods and question marks within a
sentence. eg: , . ? ! - ; :

quantifier determiner or pronoun that indicates quantity. eg: some, many, all

question tag final part of a tag question; mini-question at end of a tag question. eg:
"Snow isn't black, is it?"

question word another term for WH-word

reciprocal pronoun pronoun that indicates that two or more subjects are acting mutually; there
are two in English - each other, one another. eg: "John and Mary were
shouting at each other", "The students accused one another of cheating"
reduced relative clause construction similar to a relative clause, but containing a participle instead
(also called "participial of a finite verb; this construction is possible only under certain
relative clause") circumstances
eg: "The woman sitting on the bench is my sister", "The people arrested by
the police have been released"

reflexive pronoun pronoun ending in -self or -selves, used when the subject and object are the
same, or when the subject needs emphasis. eg: "She drove herself", "I'll
phone her myself"

regular verb verb that has "-ed" as the ending for past tense and past participle forms;
see regular verbs list see alsoirregular verb. eg: work, worked, worked

relative adverb adverb that introduces a relative clause; there are four in
English: where, when,wherever, whenever; see also relative pronoun

relative clause dependent clause that usually starts with a relative pronoun such as who or
which, or relative adverb such as where. eg: "The person who finishes
first can leave early" (defining), "Texas, where my brother lives, is big" (non-
defining)

relative pronoun pronoun that starts a relative clause; there are five in
English: who, whom, whose,which, that; see also relative adverb

reported speech another term for indirect speech

restrictive relative another term for defining relative clause

clause

second conditional "if-then" conditional structure used to talk about an unlikely possibility in the
future
eg: "If we won the lottery we would buy a car"

sentence largest grammatical unit; a sentence must always include a subject (except
forimperatives) and predicate; a written sentence starts with a capital letter
and ends with a full stop/period (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark
(!); a sentence contains a complete thought such as a statement, question,
request or command. eg: "Stop!", "Do you like coffee?", "I work."

series list of items in a sentence. eg: "The children ate popsicles, popcorn and
chips"

singular of a noun or form indicating exactly one person or thing; singular nouns are
usually the simplest form of the noun (as found in a dictionary); see
also plural, number. eg: banana, spoon, tree

split infinitive situation where a word or phrase comes between the particle "to" and the
verb in an infinitive; considered poor construction by some. eg: "He
promised to never lie again"

Standard English (S.E.) "normal" spelling, pronunciation and grammar that is used by educated
native speakers of English

structure word word that has no real meaning in a sentence, such as a pronoun or auxiliary
verb (as opposed to a content word, such as verb or noun); structure words
are not normally stressed in speech
 eg: "Could you BRING my GLASSES because I've LEFT them at HOME"

subject one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the subject
is the part that is not the predicate; typically, the subject is the first noun
phrase in asentence and is what the rest of the sentence "is about". eg:
"The rain water was dirty", "Mary is beautiful", "Who saw you?"

subjective case case form of a pronoun indicating a subject. eg: Did she tell you about her?
also called "nominative"

subjunctive fairly rare verb form typically used to talk about events that are not certain
to happen, usually something that someone wants, hopes or imagines will
happen; formed with BARE INFINITIVE (except past of "be"). eg: "The
President requests that John attend the meeting"

subordinate clause another term for dependent clause

suffix affix that occurs after the root or stem of a word. eg: happiness, quickly

superlative,superlative adjective or adverb that describes the extreme degree of something.

adjective eg: happiest, most quickly

SVO subject-verb-object; a common word order where the subject is followed by

the verb and then the object. eg: "The man crossed the street"

syntax sentence structure; the rules about sentence structure

tag question special construction with statement that ends in a mini-question; the whole
sentence is a tag question; the mini-question is a question tag; usually used
to obtain confirmation
eg: "The Earth is round, isn't it?", "You don't eat meat, do you?"

tense form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past,
present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to
when the action happens. The "present continuous tense", for example, can
be used to talk about the present or the future.

third conditional "if-then" conditional structure used to talk about a possible event in the past
that did not happen (and is therefore now impossible). eg: "If we had won
the lottery we would have bought a car"

transitive verb action verb that has a direct object (receiver of the action); see
also intransitive verb
eg: "The kids always eat a snack while they watch TV"

uncountable nouns thing that you cannot count, such as substances or concepts; see
(also called "mass also countable nouns
nouns" or "non-count") eg: water, furniture, music

usage way in which words and constructions are normally used in any particular
language

V1, V2, V3 referring to Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3 - being the base, past and past participle
that students typically learn for irregular verbs. eg: speak, spoke, spoken

verb word that describes the subject's action or state and that we can change
 orconjugate based on tense and person. eg: (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin

voice form of a verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there are
two voices in English: active, passive

WH-question question using a WH-word and expecting an answer that is not "yes" or
"no"; WH-questions are "open" questions; see also yes-no question. eg:
Where are you going?

WH-word word that asks a WH-question; there are 7 WH-words: who, what, where,
(also called "question when, which, why, how
word")

word order order or sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word order
for English is subject-verb-object or SVO

yes-no question question to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are "closed"
questions; see also WH-question. eg: "Do you like coffee?"

zero conditional "if-then" conditional structure used when the result of the condition is
always true (based on fact). eg: "If you dial O, the operator comes on"