List of English Parts of Speech or Word Classes

Every language consists of words, and words can be categorised as what are called ‘parts of speech’, otherwise known as ‘word classes’ for how they are classified. Different word classes have different functions and are placed in different orders in a sentence accordingly. Words need to be classified so that grammarians, linguists and teachers can break down sentences and describe them. This helps them to teach grammar to school children and foreign students, to explain such things as grammatical structures, to show how to order words in different types of sentences, and to help explain why word orders are different in different languages, and indeed what those differences are.

random words on a notice board

Parts of speech are the basic categories into which words can be classified based on their grammatical function, role, and meaning within a sentence. The study of parts of speech is crucial for understanding the structure and organisation of language. Not all words belong exclusively to one single word class, they can represent different parts of speech in different sentence contexts. While parts of speech can be broken down into further sub-categories, we shall focus largely on the main classifications and sub-classifications here:

Noun

A noun is also known as a ‘naming word’. That is because a noun is a word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea.

Broadly speaking, a noun can be a ‘proper noun’ or a ‘common noun’.

A proper noun is a name such as ‘Sarah’ or ‘London’, or the name of a month or weekday such as ‘June’ or ‘Monday’. Unlike with many languages, ALL proper nouns are written with a capitalised first letter in English.

Examples of common nouns include countable nouns such as ‘dog’, table’ and ‘book’, and uncountable nouns like ‘water’, ‘knowledge’, ‘sugar’ and concepts such as ‘love’ and ‘beauty’.

Nouns tend to change form in the plural in English. Regular nouns simply add an -s on the end to become plural:

Dog = Dogs
Cat = Cats
Boy = Boys
Girl = Girls

However there are also over a hundred irregular nouns in English. This means nouns that form their plural in a different way. For example,

Man = Men
Mouse = Mice
Foot = Feet
Child = Children

This is due to the evolution of English and the many different languages that is has borrowed from over the centuries.

A good test to see if a word is a noun is to see if a determiner can be placed before it.

Determiner

A determiner goes before a noun, as described above:

That cat
Your sister
Many books
A dog

A determiner can be one of the four following types,

Demonstrative: this, that, these, those

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, etc

Quantifiers: few, some, many, no, several, each, every, six, seven, eight, etc

Article: a, an, the (see the next section for further clarification)

A determiner is a word or a group of words that introduces a noun and provides information about its quantity or specificity. They typically come at the beginning of a noun phrase.

Determiners can also include interrogative words such as ‘which’, ‘what’ or ‘whose’, and exclamatory words like ‘such’ or ‘what’. Additionally, certain pronouns and adjectives such as ‘another’, ‘both’, ‘either’ or ‘neither’ can function as determiners in specific contexts.

Determiners are called such because they determine the meaning and specificity of a noun in a sentence. They clarify whether the noun is referring to something in particular or something more general, and they provide additional information about its quantity or ownership.

Article

Articles are a type of determiner, as described above. Articles are used to indicate whether a noun is general or specific and whether it refers to something already known or something new. An article can be definite or indefinite.

Definite: the

Indefinite: a, an

The definite article ‘the’ makes clear that a noun is something very specific and already known:

The dog is in the garden
The cat is on the mat
The definite article (there is only one definite article so you know which article I am referring to)

In both the above situations the hearer of the statement is expected to know exactly which animal is in question. We will have spoken about them before and be familiar with them.

A cat is on the mat
A dog is in the garden
An indefinite article (there are two indefinite articles so if I were to write ‘the indefinite article’ you would not be clear which one I was referring to!)

In these indefinite examples, we don’t know which dog or cat is being referred to.

The indefinite article ‘An’ goes before words beginning with a vowel: a, e, i, o, u. This is because when read or spoken something like ‘a apple’ or ‘a article’ is uncomfortable to say, whereas ‘an apple’ flows comfortably.

The more commonly used article ‘A’ is used with consonants: b,c,d,f,g,h etc. All words that do not begin with a vowel can be written with the indefinite article ‘A’.

In times gone by, ‘an’ was also used before words beginning with ‘h’ such as ‘an hotel’. This is due to the French origin of many English words and the fact that the ‘h’ is not pronounced in French. In modern English it is no longer customary or necessary to do this. ‘H’ is considered to be a consonant and is sounded as such, thus I would say:

I am having a hair cut
I have a headache

Verb

Verbs are also called ‘doing words’ or ‘action words’. This is because a verb is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being. Verbs can show what someone or something does, experiences, or is.

I run
You eat
They are
We go

Verbs change according to tense and person in English. For more details please see the relevant article.

Pronoun

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun, especially to avoid repeating a the name of a person, place or thing already person or thing previously mentioned or understood in the context. However pronouns change depending on whether they are replacing the noun in the subjective or objective part of a sentence.

Subjective personal pronouns are as follows,

I go
You go
He/ She/ It goes
We go
They go

In the above examples the subject noun of the sentence has been replaced by a pronoun.

But not all pronouns are placed in the subjective part of the sentence. The following are examples of personal pronouns in the objective form,

Peter loves me
Peter loves you
Peter loves him
Peter loves her
Peter loves it
Peter loves us
Peter loves them

In the above examples the noun in the object part of the sentence has been replaced by a pronoun.

There are many other categories of pronoun, such as relative pronouns, reflexive pronouns, indefinite pronouns. Please see the linked article for a more in depth look at pronouns.

Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun, providing more information about its attributes or qualities. Examples include ‘interesting’, ‘happy’, ‘delicious’ and ‘tall’.

An interesting book
A happy dog
A delicious cake
A tall lady

For more details on adjectives and their placement in sentences, please see the relevant article.

Adverb

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb, providing more information about manner, place, time, degree, or frequency. Examples include ‘quickly’, ‘greedily’, ‘slowly’, and ‘often’.

I run quickly
I talk often
I eat greedily
I walk slowly

You may notice that many adverbs end with -ly, but beware, there are words that end in -ly that are not adverbs, such as the ‘friendly’ dog, and there are many adverbs such as ‘often’ and ‘always’ that do not end in -ly.

Conjunction

A conjunction is a word that connects words, phrases, or clauses within a sentence. It shows the relationship between the connected elements. Examples include ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’, ‘yet’, ‘so’ and ‘because’.

A conjunction enables two shorter sentences to become one longer sentence:

Sarah sat next to Bob. She helped him with his homework.
Sarah sat next to Bob and helped him with his homework.

Preposition

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and other words in a sentence. It indicates location, direction, time, manner, or purpose. Examples include ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘at’, ‘to’, ‘from’ and ‘with’.

I am going to school
I am with my friend

For more details on prepositions please see the relevant article.

Interjection

Finally, an interjection is a word or phrase used to express strong emotion, surprise, or a sudden reaction. These words cannot be classed with the other parts of speech and usually appear alone rather than as part of a sentence with a subject and a verb. Interjections are often punctuated with an exclamation mark. Examples include,

Wow!
Ouch!
Whoops!
Oh no!

Conclusion

These parts of speech work together to form sentences and convey meaning. Some words can function as different parts of speech depending on the context in which they are used.

If you have any questions or comments, please do enter them below.

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