The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets,with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.
Preposition
Prepositions show
spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other
words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase, which
contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.
Conjunction
Conjunctions join
words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating,
subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.
Articles and
Determiners
Articles and
determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are
different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have
proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there
are indefinite and definite articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.
Some
traditional grammars have treated articles as
a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include
articles in the category of determiners, which
identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives,
articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a
sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a
sentence, while adjectives are optional.
Interjection
Interjections are
expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These
words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions.
Examples: ah, whoops,
ouch, yabba dabba do!
How to Determine the
Part of Speech
Only interjections (Hooray!) have a habit of standing alone; every other
part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required
in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties
and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.
To know
for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word
itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.
For
example, in the first sentence below, work functions
as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an
adjective:
Learning
the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand
how sentences are constructed.
Dissecting Basic
Sentences
To form
a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun
standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by
telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate.
In the
short sentence above, birds is
the noun and fly is
the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.
You can
have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation
rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a command to an
understood "you".
Here,
the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The
sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"
Constructing More
Complex Sentences
Use
more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a
sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for
example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.
Birds and fly remain
the noun and the verb, but now there is more description.
When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction,
preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a
preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an
adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that
answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two
clauses.
In
English grammar, a noun is
a part of speech (or word class) that names or identifies a person, place,
thing, quality, idea, or activity. Most nouns have both a singular and plural
form, can be preceded by an article and/or one or more adjectives, and can
serve as the head of a noun phrase.
A noun
or noun phrase can function as a subject, direct object, indirect object,
complement, appositive, or object of a preposition. In addition, nouns
sometimes modify other nouns to form compound nouns. To understand how to
recognize and use nouns, it's helpful to learn about the different types of
nouns in English.
Common Noun
A common noun names any person, place, thing, activity, or idea. It's a noun that is not the name
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Source
In English grammar, a pronoun is
a word that takes the place of a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause. The pronoun is one of the traditional parts of speech. A pronoun can function
as a subject, object, or complement in a sentence.
Unlike
nouns, pronouns rarely allow modification. Pronouns are a closed word class in English: new
members rarely enter the language. To understand how to recognize and correctly
use pronouns, it can be helpful to review the types of pronouns that exist in
English.
A demonstrative pronoun points to a particular noun or to the noun it replaces. "These pronouns
A verb is the part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or occurrence or
indicates a state of being. Verbs and verb
phrases usually function as predicates. Verbs can display differences in tense, mood, aspect, number, person,
and voice.
There
are two main classes of verbs: lexical verbs (also
known as main verbs), which aren't dependent
on other verbs, and auxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs). As with lexical versus
auxiliary verbs, many types of verbs come in opposites, as explained below.
Lexical vs. Auxiliary
Lexical verbs—also called full verbs—convey the semantic (or lexical) meaning
Distinguishing Between
Adverbs and Adjectives
Sometimes
the same word can be both an adjective and an adverb. To distinguish between
them, it is important to look at the context of the word and its function in a
sentence.
For instance, in the sentence, "The fast train from London to Cardiff leaves at 3 o'clock," the word fast modifies and comes before a noun, train, and is, therefore, an attributive adjective.
An adverb is a part of speech (or word class) that's primarily used to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverbs and can
additionally modify prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. Put another way, adverbs are content words that provide
information about how, when, or where something happens. Adverbs are also
called intensifiers because
they intensify the meaning of the word or words they are modifying, notes Your Dictionary.
An
adverb that modifies an adjective—as in quite sad—or
another adverb—as in very carelessly—appears
immediately in front of the word it modifies, but one that modifies a verb is
generally more flexible: It may appear before or after—as in softly sang or sang softly—or at
the beginning of the sentence—Softly she
sang to the baby—with the position of an adverb typically affecting the meaning
of the sentence. Adverbs can modify a verb or adjective in
several ways, by providing information about emphasis, manner, time, place, and
frequency.
Adverbs of emphasis are used to give added force or a greater degree of certainty to
An
adjective is a part of speech (or word class) that modifies a noun or a pronoun. In addition to their basic (or positive) forms (for example, big and beautiful), most
adjectives have two other forms: comparative (bigger and more beautiful) and superlative (biggest and most beautiful). Adjectives often—but
not always—serve as modifiers, providing additional information about
another word or word group, such as a noun or noun phrase. But adjectives can
also themselves act as nouns in a sentence.
Learning
a few basic grammatical rules and recognizing the various types of adjectives
will have you correctly using these important parts of speech in no time. Below
are the main types of adjectives you are likely to encounter in English,
together with accompanying explanations for each.
Absolute Adjectives
An absolute adjective—such as supreme or infinite—is an adjective with a meaning that cannot
