Part of Speech

Parts of Speech

English sentences are formed of words. Each word can have different functions in a
sentence. Knowledge and competence about parts of speech can help us understand and
produce English sentences or discourses more effectively.

Warm-Up

Before you study further about parts of speech, recall what you might have learned
in the past to complete the following tasks.

Task 1

Instruction: Think of the words you know which may belong to the following parts of
speech.

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

__________________ __________________ __________________

__________________ __________________ __________________

__________________ __________________ __________________

__________________ __________________ __________________

__________________ __________________ __________________

Task 2

Instruction: In the following sentences, what might be the part of speech of the underlined
words.

1. Krue Se mosque is a famous tourist spot in Pattani. _____________

2. They attended the concert last weekend. _____________

3. My friends and I walked home after school. _____________

4. We watched an awesome show at the exhibition. _____________

5. The first campus of PSU was founded in Pattani. _____________

6. I like peanut butter but she prefers apple jam on toasts. _____________

196-201 English for Political Science Study

Parts of Speech

Th or function a word plays in a sentence.
Like the parts of a house, parts of speech are the "building blocks" of a language. Eight most
common parts of speech are further explained below.

noun ( ) a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea (

)

Person: boy, girl, farmer , father, editor, Nadet, England
Place: school, home, office, ocean, Thailand
Thing: pencil, cat , boat, whiteboard, mountain
Idea: freedom, hope, love, happiness, courage

The father smiled to his boy with love.

pronoun( a word used in place of one or more nouns ( )
) I, you, he, me, us, we, they, someone

Nadet said that he wanted a boat.

adjective a word that describes or gives more information about a noun or a
() pronoun. It answers the questions, What kind? Which one(s)? How
many? How much? ( n. / pron.)

happy, brave, cold, sad, this, many, interesting, American

The brave boy protected his mom from many dogs.
mmmmmandogsgfghddddogs.
Note: The words a, an, and the are called articles. They can be
considered as special adjectives. An article is used before a noun.

A bird, an apple, the tree

A bird is sitting in the tree that we like.

verb ( ) a word that shows an action or state of being ( )
jump, talk, help, run, sit, shake, learn, understand
is, am, are, can, should

My cat is black and it can run fast.

adverb a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. It tells
() how, when, where, or to what extent. ( v. / adj. adv. )

quickly, happily, yesterday, outside, always, here, there

Yesterday, he walked to the school happily.

2

196-201 English for Political Science Study

preposition a word that shows the relationship between a noun or a pronoun
()
and another word/phrase in the sentence ( n. / pron. )

in, on, at, under, from, up, down, to

The deer from Europe can run up the hill quickly.

conjunction a word that connects words, group of words or sentences (
() )

and, but or, yet, so, for, because

I like bread with butter but Nadet and Anna prefers bread
with jam.

interjection a word that expresses strong feeling or emotion ( )
() Wow! Oh! Ouch! Bravo! Look out!

Wow! Your performance is wonderful.

Exercise 1

Instruction: Identify the part of speech of each underlined word.

1. John never puts sugar in his coffee.

a. verb b. noun c. adjective d. adverb

2. The thief ran away from the security guard.

a. pronoun b. verb c. adjective d. noun

3. She has been sick for three days.

a. verb b. adjective c. noun d. preposition

4. My aunt lives here in this beautiful house.

a. verb b. noun c. adverb d. adjective

5. Students should not be passive but should try to join in to group discussions.

a. adjective b. adverb c. verb d. preposition

6. Peter met the new director yesterday at the cafeteria.

a. preposition b. adjective c. conjunction d. interjection

7. Farah is very sharp, but she is sometimes lazy.

a. adjective b. noun c. preposition d. conjunction

3

196-201 English for Political Science Study

8. We will probably hinder the process if we want to help them.

a. noun, verb b. verb, pronoun

c. noun, pronoun d. adjective, pronoun

9. Although the world is getting warmer slowly, the increase in temperature varies from
country to country.

a. verb, verb b. noun, noun

c. verb, noun d. noun, verb

10. Expenditure on weapons such as guns and tanks consumes a lot of a

a. preposition, verb b. preposition, noun

c. noun, verb d. adjective, noun

Exercise 2

Instructions: Identify the parts of speech of the words in the sentences.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

4

196-201 English for Political Science Study

Word family

As you may now have a clearer idea of parts of speech and their functions, it is also
useful to realise that words can change their part of speech by adding some elements to the
end, i.e., suffixes. Words that share the same root but have different suffixes are considered
word family.

Noun Verb Adjective Adverb
taste taste tasty tastily

happiness - happy happily
help help helpful / helpless helpfully/helplessly

success succeed successful successfully

risk risk risky riskily
width widen wide widely

health - healthy healthily
excitement excite excited/ exciting excitedly/excitingly

strength strengthen strong strongly
beauty beautify beautiful beautifully

Exercise 3
Instructions: Read the sentences and decide what part of speech is missing. Then, complete

the sentences with the correct form of the words in parentheses.
1. The first album was sold five million copies worldwide. It was a great ________________

(success).
2. The food there was so _______________ (taste) that I want to eat there every day.

3. In order to _______________ (wide) your shoulders, you have to do many push-ups at
the gym.

4. The fans shouted ________________ (excite) when the team passed to the final.

5. David goes to the gym regularly and tries to eat ______________ (health) food.

6. The oil price today is ______________ (extreme) high.

5

196-201 English for Political Science Study
7. There are a lot of ________________ (beauty) places in Phuket.
8. The first period of the course was an _______________ (introduce).
9. The witnesses were asked to give a detailed _________________ (describe) of the

accident.
10. Yusuf instructs people in the gym on how to use the equipment ________________

(proper).

Exercise 4

Instructions: Write sentences using the parts of speech in the order specified.
1. pronoun / main verb / article / adjective / noun.
___________________________________________________________________________
2. noun / verb / pro / adverb / adverb.
___________________________________________________________________________
3. noun / conjunction / noun / helping verb / main verb / preposition / article / noun.
___________________________________________________________________________
4. helping verb /pronoun /main verb/ article/adjective / noun / preposition / article / noun?
___________________________________________________________________________

Reference
Parts of Speech. (2007). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [online] Available : http://media.wiley.com/

product_data/excerpt/75/07879938/0787993875.pdf

6