The Very Basics: The Parts Of Speech and The Parts Of A Sentence

The parts of speech are the words we use to construct sentences.  There are many parts of speech, but here we’ll cover only the most basic.

NOUNS – a noun is a person, place, or thing.  Summer is a noun (a thing).  So is president (a person).  So is Albania (a place).

PRONOUNS – a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun or nouns.  There are many kinds of pronouns, but probably the most familiar are personal pronouns:  I, me, you, he, him, she, her, we, us, they, them, it.

VERBS – a verb is an action word.  Verbs can be sneaky, because they have many forms.  The form that’s most easy to spot is a verb in the active tenses:

I eat (present)

I ate (past)

I will eat (future)

Verbs also have an infinitive form, to —-:  to eat, to dress, to write, to dance, to practice law.

Remember that “to be” (I am, you are, it is…) is a verb.

ARTICLES – articles are words that often precede nouns.  The most common are:  the, a/an, this, that.

A word that clarifies the meaning of a verb or noun is called a modifier.  Modifiers come in two types…

ADJECTIVES – an adjective modifies a noun: The red coat, The ugly car, The clever boy.  If it answers the question, “What is this thing like?”, you’ve got an adjective.

ADVERBS – an adverb modifies a verb.  The great thing about adverbs is that they almost always end in –ly: He ran quickly, The bug crawled threateningly, He said jokingly.  If it answers the question, “How was this done?”, you’ve got an adverb.

A few adverbs don’t end in –ly.  The most common of these is “well.”

PREPOSITIONS – a preposition is a word expresses a relation to another word or element.  They usually come before nouns:  The man on the platform, The dog in the window, The girl at the bus stop.  There are many prepositions, but the most common are: in, of, on, to, and with.

CONJUNCTIONS – a conjunction links up words and phrases.  The most common are and, but, or, for.

REMEMBER THAT “HOWEVER” IS NOT A CONJUNCTION.

CONJUNCTIVE ADVERBS – a conjunctive adverb is a word that connects two clauses.  It expresses cause and effect, sequence, contrast, comparison, or a similar connection.

“However” is the best-known conjunctive adverb.

As the name suggests, conjunctive adverbs act like conjunctions, in that they link up clauses.  But they are not conjunctions; later this will be very important.

The Parts of a Sentence

The parts of a sentence are what the parts of speech become when they are placed in a sentence.  In order to be a sentence, a phrase needs a subject and a verb that can stand alone. If it doesn’t have that, it isn’t a sentence.

THE VERBS – Verbs are always called “verbs.”  They will be the action words in a sentence.

THE SUBJECT – The Subject is the noun or pronoun that does the verb.  In the sentence, The boy ran, “boy” is the subject.  If you want to find the subject, look for the person, place, or thing that is doing something.

THE OBJECT – The Object is the noun that is having something done to it.  In the sentence, The boy ran into the wall, “the wall” is the object.  In the sentence, The boy ate cake, “cake” is the object.

Objects come in two kinds, Direct Objects and Indirect Objects.  We will explain this later, but for now it may help to know that direct objects usually come immediately after the verb, with no words in between, but indirect objects, although they also generally come immediately after the verb (or the direct object), usually have a preposition in front of them.

So a sentence could look like this:

John subject                 ran. verb

I   subject                    called verb               my mother. direct object

I subject                     went  verb                 to the store.  indirect object

I   subject                    drove  verb               home  direct object                       for some money. indirect object

CLAUSES

Independent Clauses – An independent clause is a phrase (clause) that can stand on its own; it has its own subject and independent verb:

Claudio drove home.

Dependent Clauses –  A dependent clause is a phrase (clause) that cannot stand on its own; if it is to make sense, it needs another phrase to help it.  In this way, it depends on another clause.

Claudio drove home while he was still sober.

“while he was still sober” makes no sense on its own; it depends on “Claudio drove home” for its meaning.  Thus, it is the dependent clause.

Clauses are also called “phrases.”  Independent clauses are also called “main clauses”; dependent clauses are also called “subordinate clauses.”