You perhaps may be a bit confused when I am going to tell you that there are six Parts of Speech in English grammar. You know actually there is the reference of eight Parts of Speech in English grammar, may be I am a little off my head. But it is actually so what I am telling you. There are six common Parts of Speech with their special characteristics. These six are Noun/Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction and finally Preposition/Interjection. Now let us have a glimpse of the features of these six.
Noun/Pronoun
We generally know that Noun is such a word that is used to give a name to a person or a thing. Watch this example minutely.
Brett saw a dog on the road.
In this sentence Brett is the name of a man. It is the dog that is the name of an animal. Road is the name of a place. Hence we can easily say that Brett, dog and road are nouns.
Again Noun is classified into five different kinds. They are -
1) Proper noun
2) Common Noun
3) Collective Noun
4) Material Noun
5) Abstract Noun
A Proper Noun denotes an individual in particular or a thing that has a special distinction from others. Brett is the name of a person, The Bible is a religious book, London is a city and America is a country.
A Common Noun describes no single individual or thing. It refers to all common things or persons of the same kind. ‘Man’, ‘country’, ‘ pen’ etc.
A Collective Noun always hints at the group. Take for example- We see many sheep grazing in the field. In this sentence ‘sheep’ is a common noun as it refers every sheep. But when we refer ‘ flock ‘ it refers to al the sheep grazing in the field.
A Material Noun denotes a matter or a thing. Ion is a useful metal. In this sentence ‘iron’ is a name of a metal.
An Abstract Noun is a noun that refers ‘quality’, ‘action’ and ‘state’.
Quality- Braveness, cleverness.
Action-Movement, laughter
State- Pleasure, youth
Pronoun- A Pronoun refers to a word that is used instead of a Noun.
I told my father that the dog that he saw in the garden was mine.
The italicized words are all Pronouns.
Adjective- an Adjective is a word that qualifies the meaning of a Noun or a Pronoun.
The strong man killed a dangerous insect.
In this sentence it is ‘ strong’ that highlights the quality of the man. ‘Dangerous’ hints at the quality of the insect.
Verb is the word that is used to say something about thing or a person.
I swim in the river. In this sentence ‘swim’ is says something about me.
Adverb- an Adverb always modifies a verb, an adjective, or an adverb.
An almost tired man crawls slowly through the hole.
Here ‘almost’ and ‘slowly’ are adverbs.
A conjunction is a word hat joins one word to another one.
Brett and his brother go to school. Here ‘and’ joins both Brett, brother.
Preposition too connects Noun and pronouns with parts of the sentence. ‘At’, ‘for’, ‘ on’ are prepositions.
Interjection expresses emotion marked with a note of exclamation. Alas! I am undone.