What part of speech is word like

In English texts and everyday communication, the word “like” serves a variety of purposes. It can act as an adjective, a preposition, an adverb, a conjunction, a noun, or a verb.

1. Adjective

This word is classified under adjectives if it is used to modify a noun or a pronoun by indicating similarities in qualities or characteristics. For example, in the sentence below:

You’re not talking about like things when you compare football and golf.

The word “like” is used as an adjective that describes the noun “things.”

Definition:

a. having the same or similar qualities

• Example:
• I responded in like manner.

1. Preposition

Another common function of the word “like” is as a preposition that also means “for example” or “similar to.” In the sample sentence below:

Their house is like a barn.

The word “like” is used as a preposition that indicates that the “house” is similar to a “barn.”

Definition:

a. having the same characteristics or qualities as

• Example:
• There were other suits like mine in the shop.

b. used to draw attention to the nature of an action or event

• Example:
• We apologize for coming over unannounced like this.

c. such as; for example

• Example:
• They discussed books like 1984 and Animal Farm.

1. Adverb

The word ”like” can also be categorized as an adverb if it is used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Take for example, the sentence below:

The distance is more like 750 miles.

In this sentence, the word modifies the adjective “750,” and is therefore considered as an adverb.

Definition:

a. nearly; approximately

• Example:
• It was like 8 feet deep.

b. used in speech as a meaningless filler or to signify the speaker’s uncertainty about an expression just used

• Example:
• There was this funny smell—sort of dusty like.

1. Conjunction

There are also some cases wherein the word “like” is used as a conjunction that connects two clauses to form one sentence. For instance, in the sample sentence below:

I hate girls who change boyfriends like they change clothes.

The word “like” serves as a conjunction that links together the clauses “I hate girls who change boyfriends” and “they change clothes.”

Definition:

a. in the same way that; as

• Example:
• They raven down scenery like children do sweetmeats.

b. as though; as if

• Example:
• I felt like I’d been kicked by a horse.

1. Noun

Other times, the word “like” is considered as a noun, which refers to something of the same kind. In the example:

Did you ever hear the like?

The word “like” is used as a noun that is used to indicate a thing of the same kind.

Definition:

a. a thing or things of the same kind

• Example:
• We will never see anyone of her like again.
  

1. Verb

The word “like” is also typically used as a verb that indicates a state of being. Take for example, the sentence:

He likes baseball more than anything.

In this sentence, the word suggests the state of being of the pronoun “he,” and is therefore considered as a verb.

Definition:

a. to enjoy (something); to get pleasure from (something)

• Example:
• I like all Dan Brown’s books.
  

b. wish for; want

• Example:
• Would you like a cup of tea?

Like can be an adverb, a conjunction, an interjection, a preposition, a particle, an adjective, a noun or a verb.

Is like a verb or adverb?

The word ”like” can also be categorized as an adverb if it is used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Take for example, the sentence below: The distance is more like 750 miles. In this sentence, the word modifies the adjective “750,” and is therefore considered as an adverb.

Is like an adverb or preposition?

Like can be used in the following ways: as a preposition (followed by a noun): He looks like his father. as a conjunction (connecting two clauses): She looked like she was about to cry. as an adverb: I said, like, you can’t do this to me.

What part of speech is like in a simile?

The preposition like means “comparable,” “similar,” or “typical”; that’s the part of speech that is essential in a simile such as “The grass, ruffled by the wind, looked like a rolling wave.” As a conjunction, like means “the same as” or appears in place of “as if” (“She looked like she was about to cry”).

What is the word like in grammar?

In formal writing, like is used as a preposition, telling where, when or how the noun in the sentence is doing whatever it may be doing. As is used as a conjunction, joining two clauses.

What kind of verb is to like?

regular verb
The verb “like” is a regular verb, this means that it doesn’t change as much when used in different tenses. Also, it’s important to remember that the verb “like” always requires an object.

What is the adjective form of like?

adjective. (prenominal) similar; resembling. preposition. similar to; similarly to; in the manner ofacting like a maniac; he’s so like his father.

What is the noun form of like?

As for like meaning similar, likeness would be the noun, meaning a similarity.

Should you use like as a conjunction?

In informal English, like is sometimes used as a conjunction instead of as. This is very common in American English. If you are like somebody you are similar to him or her. She is like her mother.

pronoun
The word ‘he’ can be a pronoun, adjective, or noun. It is used as a pronoun in this sentence: He gave me his lunch money when I lost mine.

Do you like dogs What part of speech is like?

Parts of Speech Table

part of speech	function or “job”	example sentences
Conjunction	joins clauses or sentences or words	I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don’t like cats.
Interjection	short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence	Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don’t know.

Is like an action word?

verbs with continuous tenses
‘To like’ is a state verb, not an action verb, and does not happen. It cannot be continuous. You like (or you don’t like) something. “I like this pizza” is correct.

What is the present participle of like?

Like verb forms

Infinitive	Present Participle	Past Participle
like	liking	liked

Is like transitive or intransitive?

‘Like’ is therefore a transitive verb, because it has an object. In the second sentence, the verb is ‘laugh’. It has no object and is therefore an intransitive verb.

Is like a noun or pronoun?

It isn’t a pronoun. But it does cover the other seven. If your children ask about the correct meaning of like, point out that it serves as a verb, all by itself. Your children can say, “I like waffles” or “I would like another serving.”

Is the word new an adjective?

New has several other senses as an adjective, adverb, and a noun. If something is new, it has only been around for a short time. This sense of new is the opposite of old.New also describes something that just now exists for the first time.

How do you use like correctly?

We use like to talk about things or people which we enjoy or feel positive about:

1. like + noun phrase. I like Sarah but I don’t like her brother much.
2. like + -ing. I like swimming before breakfast.
3. like + to-infinitive. She likes to go and see her parents at the weekend.
4. like + wh-clause. I don’t like what he did.

What type of conjunction is the word like?

Subordinating conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions
This type of conjunction includes words like because, if, although, since, until, and while. A subordinating conjunction is used to introduce a dependent clause.

How do you use verb like?

Use the verb “to like”, when you talk about things that you enjoy doing:

1. I like playing tennis.
2. You like going out to clubs.
3. He likes riding his bike.
4. We like going to the cinema.
5. They like watching TV.

Is the word always an adverb?

Always is an adverb.

Is the word in a preposition?

A preposition is a word or group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object. Some examples of prepositions are words like “in,” “at,” “on,” “of,” and “to.”

Like as a conjunction meaning “as, in the same way as” (Many shoppers study the food ads like brokers study market reports) or “as if” (It looks like it will rain) has been used for nearly 500 years and by many distinguished literary and intellectual figures. Since the mid-19th century there have been objections, often vehement, to these uses. Nevertheless, such uses are almost universal today in all but the most formal speech and writing. In extremely careful speech and in much formal writing, as, as if, and as though are more commonly used than like: The commanding general accepted full responsibility for the incident, as any professional soldier would. Many of the Greenwich Village bohemians lived as if (or as though) there were no tomorrow. Random House, p. 1114.

Other sources fervently disagree with this loose approach. Mr. Fowler himself minced no words:

Every illiterate person uses this construction daily . . . . New Fowler, p. 458.

It would appear that in many kinds of written and spoken English like as a conjunction is struggling towards acceptable standard or neutral ground. It is not there yet. But the distributional patterns suggest that the long-standing resistance to this omnipresent little word is beginning to crumble. New Fowler, p. 459.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In English, the word like has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, filler, quotative, semi-suffix.

Uses[edit]

Comparisons[edit]

Like is one of the words in the English language that can introduce a simile (a stylistic device comparing two dissimilar ideas). It can be used as a preposition, as in «He runs like a cheetah»; it can also be used as a suffix, as in «She acts very child-like«. It can also be used in non-simile comparisons such as, «She has a dog like ours».^[1]

As a conjunction[edit]

Like is often used in place of the subordinating conjunction as, or as if.^[2] Examples:

• They look like they have been having fun.
• They look as if they have been having fun.

Many people became aware of the two options in 1954, when a famous ad campaign for Winston cigarettes introduced the slogan «Winston tastes good—like a cigarette should.» The slogan was criticized for its usage by prescriptivists, the «as» construction being considered more proper. Winston countered with another ad, featuring a woman with greying hair in a bun who insists that ought to be «Winston tastes good as a cigarette should» and is shouted down by happy cigarette smokers asking «What do you want—good grammar or good taste?»

The appropriateness of its usage as a conjunction is still disputed, however. In some circles, it is considered a faux pas to use like instead of as or as if, whereas in other circles as sounds stilted.

As a noun[edit]

Like can be used as a noun meaning «preference» or «kind». Examples:

• She had many likes and dislikes.
• We’ll never see the like again.

When used specifically on social media, it can refer to interactions with content posted by a user, commonly referred to as «likes» on websites such as Twitter or Instagram.

• That picture you posted got a lot of likes!

As a verb[edit]

As a verb, like generally refers to a fondness for something or someone.^[1]

• I like riding my bicycle.

Like can be used to express a feeling of attraction between two people that is weaker than love. It does not necessarily imply a romantic attraction.^[3][4] Example:

• Marc likes Denise.
• I’ve taken a liking to our new neighbors.

Like can also be used to indicate a wish for something in a polite manner.^[1] Example:

• Would you like a cup of coffee?

As a colloquial adverb[edit]

In some regional dialects of English, like may be used as an adverbial colloquialism in the construction be + like + to infinitive, meaning «be likely to, be ready to, be on the verge of.» Examples:

• He was like to go back next time.
• He was like to go mad.

As the following attest, this construction has a long history in the English language.

• But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half-finished, and he was like to go out of his mind with fright. (Mark Twain, 1669, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
• He saw he was like to leave such an heir. (Cotton Mather, 1853, Magnalia Christi Americana)
• He was like to lose his life in the one [battle] and his liberty in the other [capture], but there was none of his money at stake in either. (Charles MacFarlane and Thomas Napier Thomson, 1792, Comprehensive History of England)
• He was in some fear that if he could not bring about the King’s desires, he was like to lose his favor. (Gilbert Burnet, 1679, History of the Reformation of the Church of England)

As a colloquial quotative[edit]

Like is sometimes used colloquially as a quotative to introduce a quotation or impersonation. This is also known as «quotation through simile». The word is often used to express that what follows is not an exact quotation but instead gives a general feel for what was said. In this usage, like functions in conjunction with a verb, generally be (but also say, think, etc.), as in the following examples:^[5]

• He was like, «I’ll be there in five minutes.»
• She was like, «You need to leave the room right now!»

Like can also be used to paraphrase an implicitly unspoken idea or sentiment:

• I was like, «Who do they think they are?»

The marking of past tense is often omitted (compare historical present):

• They told me all sorts of terrible things, and I’m like «Forget it then.»^[6]

It is also sometimes used to introduce non-verbal mimetic performances, e.g., facial expressions, hand gestures, body movement, as well as sounds and noises:^[7]

• I was like [speaker rolls eyes].
• The car was like, «vroom!»

The use of like as a quotative is known to have been around since at least the 1980s.^[8]

As a discourse particle, filler or hedge[edit]

History[edit]

The word like has developed several non-traditional uses in informal speech. Especially since the late 20th century onward, it has appeared, in addition to its traditional uses, as a colloquialism across all dialects of spoken English, serving as a discourse particle, filler, hedge, speech disfluency, or other metalinguistic unit.^[9] Although these particular colloquial uses of like appear to have become widespread rather recently, its use as a filler is a fairly old regional practice in Welsh English and in Scotland, it was used similarly at least as early as the 19th century. It is traditionally, though not quite every time, used to finish a sentence in the Northern English dialect Geordie.^[10] It may also be used in a systemic format to allow individuals to introduce what they say, how they say and think.^[11]

Despite such prevalence in modern-day spoken English, these colloquial usages of like rarely appear in writing (unless the writer is deliberately trying to replicate colloquial dialogue) and they have long been stigmatized in formal speech or in high cultural or high social settings. Furthermore, this use of like seems to appear most commonly, in particular, among natively English-speaking children and adolescents, while less so, or not at all, among middle-aged or elderly adults. One suggested explanation for this phenomenon is the argument that younger English speakers are still developing their linguistic competence, and, metalinguistically wishing to express ideas without sounding too confident, certain, or assertive, use like to fulfill this purpose.^[9]

In pop culture, such colloquial applications of like (especially in verbal excess) are commonly and often comedically associated with Valley girls, as made famous through the song «Valley Girl» by Frank Zappa, released in 1982, and the film of the same name, released in the following year. The stereotyped «valley girl» language is an exaggeration of the variants of California English spoken by younger generations.

This non-traditional usage of the word has been around at least since the 1950s, introduced through beat (or beatnik) and jazz culture. The beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs (Bob Denver) in the popular Dobie Gillis TV series of 1959-1963 brought the expression to prominence; this was reinforced in later decades by the character of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo (who was based on Krebs).

Very early use of this locution^{[citation needed]} can be seen in a New Yorker cartoon of 15 September 1928, in which two young ladies are discussing a man’s workplace: «What’s he got – an awfice?» «No, he’s got like a loft.»

It is also used in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by the narrator as part of his teenage slang and in the Top Cat cartoon series from 1961 to 1962 by the jazz beatnik type characters.

A common eye dialect spelling is lyk.

Examples[edit]

Like can be used in much the same way as «um…» or «er…» as a discourse particle. It has become common especially among North American teenagers to use the word «like» in this way, as in Valspeak. For example:

• I, like, don’t know what to do.

It is also becoming more often used (East Coast Scottish English, Northern England English, Hiberno-English and Welsh English in particular) at the end of a sentence, as an alternative to you know. This usage is sometimes considered to be a colloquial interjection and it implies a desire to remain calm and defuse tension:

• I didn’t say anything, like.
• Just be cool, like.

Use of like as a filler has a long history in Scots English, as in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel Kidnapped:

«What’ll like be your business, mannie?»
«What’s like wrong with him?» said she at last.

Like can be used as hedge to indicate that the following phrase will be an approximation or exaggeration, or that the following words may not be quite right, but are close enough. It may indicate that the phrase in which it appears is to be taken metaphorically or as a hyperbole. This use of like is sometimes regarded as adverbial, as like is often synonymous here with adverbial phrases of approximation, such as «almost» or «more or less». Examples:

• I have, like, no money left.
• The restaurant is only, like, five miles from here.
• I, like, almost died!

Conversely, like may also be used to indicate a counterexpectation to the speaker, or to indicate certainty regarding the following phrase.^[5] Examples:

• There was, like, a living kitten in the box!
• This is, like, the only way to solve the problem.
• I, like, know what I’m doing, okay?

In the UK reality television series Love Island the word ‘like’ has been used an average of 300 times per episode, much to the annoyance of viewers.^[12]

See also[edit]

• Like button

Bibliography[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• See Fleischman (1998) (JSTOR 30249153) for a parallel discussion of like and the similar discourse particle genre in French.

• What do you like?
• What do you dislike? 

“We can help you, if you like.”

• She looks like my mother.
• It looks like Sasha is late again.

• I feel like he’s here.
• I feel like singing a song.

So we can use like in these cases:

to like = to enjoy, to think something is nice	I like fresh coffee, what do you like?
would like – to ask what someone wants	What would you like to eat?
if you like – to suggest or offer something	I’ll help you, if you like.
to do something like someone – to do something in the same way	She dresses like a princess!
to look like someone, sound like, feel like, taste like = similar to something	You look like me!
it looks like… = it seems that	It looks like he is late again.
to feel like doing something = to want to do this right now	I feel like going to sleep.
like = for example, such as	Big cities like London are very expensive.
What… like? – to ask someone for their opinion	What is she like? Is she nice?

• Childlike (like a child)
• Ladylike (like a lady)
• Catlike (like a cat)
• Lifelike (the same as in life)

And now check your understanding with the help of these exercises:

• Match the question and the answer: http://absolutenglish-972.pagesperso-orange.fr/notes/grammar/like/like.htm
• You have the answer, write the question: http://absolutenglish-972.pagesperso-orange.fr/notes/grammar/like/like2.htm
• What part of speech is “like” in this sentence?: http://absolutenglish-972.pagesperso-orange.fr/notes/grammar/like/likeprep.htm
• Fill in the gaps in the conversation: http://absolutenglish-972.pagesperso-orange.fr/notes/grammar/like/like3.htm

Good luck!  Hope you like this blog =)
 

Ми розглянули правила та приклади використання слова like в англійській мові. Щоб дізнатися більше про англійську граматику, читайте інші публікації в розділі Grammar!

For those interested in a little info about this site: it’s a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for — just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn’t be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary — which is now in the public domain. However, after a day’s work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary — which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it’s not properly structured for parsing. That’s when I stumbled across the UBY project — an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I’m happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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Words are different from each other in meaning—car and unwelcome mean different things, after all.

But they can also differ from each other in more than meaning: they can also differ in the way they are used in sentences.

Thus sentences can be about a word like car more easily than they can be about a word like unwelcome:

• Cars are on the road
• *Unwelcomes are on the road¹

With a word like car, we also can talk about one or more examples: a car is here, cars are here. We can describe its qualities using other words like red, fast, or good: “red cars are here”, “fast cars are here”, “good cars are here”. And a word like car can be said to possess things: the car’s tires, cars’ steering wheels

None of this is true of a word like unwelcome. But unwelcome can be used in ways a word like car cannot: it can be used to describe qualities of other words (The unwelcome news, This news was unwelcome, vs. *The car news or [*This news was car); it can be made more intense using words like very or really (it was very unwelcome, vs. *It was very car).

The real test, of course, is that the two words can’t be switched in a sentence. We couldn’t replace car with unwelcome in the example above, and it is impossible² to replace unwelcome with car in this following sentence:

• That was really unwelcome news.
• That was really *car news.

It is possible, on the other hand, to replace car and unwelcome with other words, even if the meaning of the new words is nothing like that of the words they replace:

• Bartenders are on the road.
• That was really good news.

So why can car be replaced by bartender and not unwelcome or good? And why can unwelcome be replaced by good but not bartender or car?

The answer is that car and bartender, on the one hand, and unwelcome and good, on the other, are different types of words. As we will learn, car and bartender show in normal use most of the properties we associate with nouns while unwelcome and good show in normal use most of the properties we associate with adjectives. The fact that you can replace car with bartender and unwelcome with good shows that you can replace nouns with nouns and adjectives with adjectives more easily than you can replace words of one type with words of a different type.

This tutorial explores this property in greater depth. Traditionally, word classes have been distinguished on semantic grounds (e.g. “Nouns are the names of person places or things”; “verbs are action words”). As this tutorial will demosntrate, these traditional definitions, while not usually wrong, are often quite ambiguous. This is because the class a word belongs to is largely a question of syntax rather than meaning, especially given the ease with which English can move words from one class to another without any change in morphological form.

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to distinguish among word classes confidently.

Previous: Inflections (inflectional morphology) | Next: Grammatical relations

Words and Phrases

If we continue testing like this, we will also soon discover not only that some words are more easily exchanged with one other than with others, but also that individual words can be used to replace entire groups of closely connected words (and vice versa). For example, the word bartenders can replace more than cars in the following sentences; it also can replace entire groups of closely connected words involving cars—groups like the cars, the blue cars, and even the blue cars that sold so well last year:

• Cars are on the road
• The cars are on the road
• The blue cars are on the road
• The blue cars that sold so well last year are on the road
• Bartenders are on the road.

On the other hand, we still can’t use unwelcome to replace cars:

• Cars are on the road.
• *Unwelcomes are on the road.

If we experiment, we will see that we can’t replace just any group of words using bartender: the words need to be somehow more closely related to each other than any other part of the sentence and involve a word like car. In the following sentence, for example, we can use bartenders to replace the blue cars, but not blue cars are on:

• The blue cars are on the road
• Bartenders are on the road

• The blue cars are on the road
• *The bartenders road³.

Clearly there is something about the words the blue cars that makes us think of them as being more closely connected to each other than to anything else in the sentence. And just as the fact that we can replace car with bartender but not unwelcome in the sentences above suggests that there must be something similar about car and bartender, so to the fact that we can use bartenders to replace cars and groups of closely related words like the cars or the blue cars suggests that there must be something similar about the single word cars and these particular combinations of words.

As we shall discover, combinations of closely connected words that behave in much the same way as individual words are known as Phrases. As we define the different types of words below, we will see that each type of word has an associated type of phrase to which many of the same rules apply. This principle will become very important when we come to talk about how sentences are made.

Open and Closed Word Classes

Another difference that separates words is the question of how easy or difficult it is to make up new examples. If I want to replace car or cars in the above sentences with a new word that I will make up myself—say slipshlup—I can do so very easily:

• Cars are on the road
• Slipshlups are on the road

• The cars are on the road
• The slipshlups are on the road

• The blue cars are on the road
• The blue slipshlups are on the road

• The blue cars that sold so well last year are on the road
• The blue slipshlups that sold so well last year are on the road

• Bartenders are on the road.

Likewise, it is not hard to make up a word like unwelcome. How about griopy?

• That was really unwelcome news.
• That was really griopy news.

But if it easy to make up new words parallel to cars and unwelcome, it is much harder—impossible, in fact—to make up replacements for words like the, and, but or he, she, and it. For example, try repeating the following sentence with the following made-up words: hin for the, roop for and, and fries for she.

• The cars and the boats were on the road, but they were not for sale, she said.

Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

The Parts of Speech/Word Classes

If we compare English words in the way discussed above³, we will discover that it is possible to divide words and closely associated groups of words like them into eight main types, known as the parts of speech or word classes (a minor ninth category contains interjections. like “oh dear!” and “damn!” and is not discussed further in this tutorial). We will also discover that these Word Classes themselves fall into two larger groups based on whether or not we can easily add new examples: the Open Class contains word classes that we easily can add to—nouns, adjectives, most types of verbs, and adverbs; the Closed or Structure Class contains words, like prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, most determiners, and some adverbs, to which we can not add easily:

Class	Word Class	Examples
Open Class	Nouns	car, bartender, experience
Adjectives	unwelcome, good, big, blue
Verbs	run, glide, listen, jog
Adverbs	quickly, well, sometimes, badly
Closed Class	Determiners	the, this, mine, Susan’s
Prepositions	up, underneath, on, with
Pronouns	I, they, mine, each, these
Conjunctions	and, but, if, because

Open Classes

Nouns and Noun Phrases

Nouns are naming words. Traditionally they are defined as the names of persons, places, and things, but their actual range is much broader: they can name ideas, moods, and feelings (e.g. neoconservatism, anger, and affection); actions (the hiking), or pretty much anything else known or unknown (e.g. Slipshlup, above).

Fortunately, given how hard it can be to define them by what they describe, nouns and noun phrases can be defined relatively easily by their form and the contexts in which they appear. In particular they show one or more of the following unique features:

1. Nouns are the only words that use “apostrophe s” (i.e. ‘s or s’) to show possession. In the following sentence, we know that Dave, Neoconservatism, and anger are all nouns because they indicate possession by adding -‘s: Dave’s book, Neoconservatism’s origins, anger’s solution.
2. Nouns are the only words that can be modified by adjectives: blue cars, unwelcome news, clever Sally.
3. Nouns are the only words that can be made plural by adding -s: DVD : DVDs, cup : cups, theology : theologies.
4. Nouns are the only words that can be pointed to by determiners. Determiners, as we will see below, are words such as the and a, that and this, and possessives such as his or Brigette’s that point out specific instances of a noun, e.g. the boat, a slipshlup, that hiking, Brigette’s DVD, his anger.
5. Nouns and Noun Phrases are the only words that can be replaced by a pronoun: The deer grazed quietly at the side of the road : It grazed quietly at the side of the road

Other tests are not entirely exclusive, for example:

1. Nouns and pronouns are the only words that can function as the subject of a sentence: The car ran through the red light : It ran through the red light.

It is important to realise in applying these tests that not all words will fit all categories. Some nouns do not form their plural with -s, for example: e.g. child : children; sheep : sheep. What is important is that one or more of these tests be true.

Verbs

Verbs are traditionally defined as “action words.” Even more than with nouns, however, this definition fails to cover more than a narrow range of possible examples or rule out obvious counter-examples. While some verbs do express action (e.g. she hit the wall with a hammer), others do not (e.g. I am the king, he knows his baseball). Moreover, actions can also be named by nouns: This hiking is very hard; I don’t like all this hitting).

Like nouns, verbs can be defined more accurately on grammatical criteria. Particularly useful ones include:

1. Verbs are the only words that show tense (i.e. past or present): he loves cheesecake : he loved cheesecake; I drive fast : I drove fast.
2. Verbs are the only words that indicate third person singular, present by adding -s at the end: I drive, he drives
3. Verbs are the only words that can be made into participles (i.e. adjective forms) using the endings -ed, -en, or -ing: I love : loving : loved; They drive : driving : driven

Verb Phrases include the verb plus all objects and modifiers. These can get quite large. One test for some verb phrases is replacement by do in questions designed to be answered with “yes” or “no”.

1. Bobbi loves getting presents in the morning, does she?

In asking the question “does she”, the speaker is summing up the whole idea “loves getting presents in the morning” by a single form of do. This shows that “loves getting presents in the morning” is a Verb Phrase.

Adjectives

Adjectives describe qualities to nouns. One easy test, though it is also true of adverbs, is placing very or really in front:

1. Adjectives and adverbs are the only words that can be made more intense by adding very or really in front: the really fast car was very red

Here are some tests that are only true of adjectives:

1. Adjectives are the only words that can have endings to indicate that something is more or most in relation to some quality: the fast car was red : the faster car was green : the fastest car was blue. Of course some adjectives don’t use -er and/or -est: more unwelcome not *unwelcomer; best nor goodest.
2. Adjectives and adjective phrases are the only words that can appear between determiners (like the, a, or possessives) and nouns: the fast car, Dave’s really nice cake, a very sad clown.

Adverbs

Adverbs are traditionally described as words that modify verbs. In fact there are three different kinds of adverbs, each of which can be distinguished by context.

Intensifying adverbs

Intensifying adverbs are words like very that are used to qualify adjectives and other adverbs. They do not qualify verbs directly: his very angry cousin vs. *he very jumps. Some intensifying adverbs can be used with slightly different meaning to modify verbs: he skates really fast, he really skates.

Sentence adverbs

Sentence adverbs qualify sentences and clauses: Unfortunately, the boat sank; I don’t want to, however; then he knew for sure.

Verbal adverbs

Verbal adverbs qualify verbs: He jumped quickly, he wrote well. Like adjectives, they can be intensified by words like very: she drove very quickly, Beatrice cooks really well.

Closed class words

Determiners

Determiners are words that are used to point out specific instances of a noun. They include the articles (a, the), demonstratives (this/these, that/those), and all possessive nouns and pronouns (this means that a form like Dave’s in Dave’s book is both a noun and a determiner).

The test for determiners is very straightforward:

• Determiners precede nouns and any qualifying adjectives. The first word in each of the following phrases is a determiner: the book, the large book, Dave’s really ugly book, my car, my sister’s car (in this last example, both my and my sister’s are determiners: my points to sister and my sister’s points to car).

Prepositions

Prepositions serve to connect nouns or noun phrases (e.g. cars or the car) to a clause or sentence. Examples include up a mountain, down the street, with friends, beside him, without a wooden paddle.

In English, there are a relatively small number of simple prepositions, such as up, down, with. There are also a number of phrasal or compound prepositions, especially in spoken English: outside of the English, apart from Dave’s cat, round and round the mountain.

Many of the prepositions can be memorised. Otherwise, prepositions can be recognised by their syntactic context:

• Prepositions are always followed by noun phrases (i.e. nouns with any associated determiners and adjectives, or pronouns) that serve as their objects⁵.

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that can substitute for nouns or noun phrases. Examples include personal pronouns like she/her, I/me/my, they/them/their; demonstratives like this/these, that/those; and other forms, such as each, none, and one:

1. My sister is here. She wants to talk to you.
2. The green carrots are probably rotten. I wouldn’t eat them.
3. My books are here. These over here are yours.
4. The members of the committee were awstruck. None had expected this.

Because pronouns replace nouns, they can be identified using some of the same tests. In particular,

• Pronouns (with nouns) are the only words that can serve as the subject of a sentence: he ran the country; she scored five goals; it was hit by a train.
• Pronouns (with nouns) are the only words that can serve as the object of a verb or preposition: outside this, with him, she cut it.
• Pronouns (with nouns) are the only words that can take a possessive inflection—though unlike nouns, the possessive is never ‘s or s’ and rarely s: my books, your garage, her cannon, his snow shovel⁶.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are used to join grammatical units. Unlike prepositions, which join nouns or noun phrases to sentences, conjunctions always join elements of a similar kind: nouns and noun phrases to other nouns and noun phrases, verbs to verbs, adjectives to adjectives: it is raining cats and dogs (noun to noun); I neither pushed nor pulled (verb to verb); I went out because he didn’t come in (clause to clause).

Exercises

(Click here for Answers)

The following exercises test you on your ability to apply the above material. The real test of your knowledge of grammar is not whether you are able to memorise terms and definitions, but whether you can supply examples and describe real-life sentences.

1. Place each word in the following sentence in its Word Class using the above tests. Which Word Class(es) is or are missing?:

Over the mountain lived a former mechanic. Suzy forgets his name.

2. When Hamlet says that bad acting “out-herods Herod” (Hamlet, III.ii), meaning to rage and rant, he is using a proper name for a verb. What tests can we use to show that out-herods is a verb?

3. Although it is impossible for individuals to create new Closed or Structure Class words, the English language has acquired new pronouns over the course of its history: the entire plural pronoun system they, them, their comes from Old Norse (the original English version was hie, hira and him); she is of unknown origin (the original was heo).

Can you suggest some reasons why it is possible for languages to add or change such words but not for individuals?

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Notes

¹ An asterisk (i.e. *) in front of a word or group of words means “This word or group of words is not something people would say”. An explanation mark (i.e. !) in front of a word or a group of words means “It is doubtful that this is something people would say” or “People might say this, but only in special circumstances”

² “Impossible” may seem too definite at first. In fact it is almost always possible to think of a situation in which a grammatical rule might be shown to be wrong: for example, let’s say we were talking about a band called “The Unwelcome“—then they probably could replace car in our example sentences.

As a rule, however, you should always be suspicious of counter-examples that require you to create a “back-story” to explain the conditions under which an exception might work. The fact that you need a story to explain the context is evidence that the counter-example is very unusual in normal speech.

³ You could say “The bartenders’ road” or “The bartender’s road”, but that would not really count, since cars in the original sentence did not have an “apostrophe s.” In the starting sentence, cars was plural, not possessive or plural possessive.

⁴ Traditionally, students learned to categorise the parts of speech on the basis of meaning. For example, nouns were said to be “the name of a person, place, or thing,” while verbs were described as “action words.” While there is some truth to these definitions in many cases, the distinctions break down very easily in others. The fighting is a noun, even though it describes an action; is, on the other hand, is a verb, even though it describes a state.

Since words are a feature of grammar, the method used here attempts to identify them on the basis of their grammatical properties: the roles they can play in the sentence, the inflections they can take, how they can be converted from one part of speech to another.

⁵ “Always”, except in poetry, where they can sometimes follow the words they connect to the sentence.

⁶ This rule—pronouns never end in apostrophe -s—might be useful in helping you avoid the common stylistic/prescriptive grammar error of using it’s (actually the abbreviation for it is) in your writing instead of the possessive form, its. In speaking, of course, you can’t hear any difference.

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A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won’t make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won’t even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure and the English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and closed classes (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). The idea is that open classes can be altered and added to as language develops and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics, the label part of speech has generally been discarded in favor of the term word class or syntactic category. These terms make words easier to qualify objectively based on word construction rather than context. Within word classes, there is the lexical or open class and the function or closed class.

Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.

Noun

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they’re the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronoun

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​ I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verb

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject’s state of being (is, was). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples: sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became

Adjective

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples: hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverb

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Examples: softly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly, sometimes.

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:

• Bosco showed up for work two hours late.
  • The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to work until midnight.
  • The verb work is the action he must perform.
• His work permit expires next month.
  • The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit.

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. 

• Birds fly.

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».

• Go!

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 fly when migrating before winter.

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.

Every word is a part of speech, each playing a specific role in a sentence. There are 8 different parts of speech including noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Each word in a sentence plays a vital role in conveying the meaning and intent of the sentence.

What is Part of Speech?

The English language has thousands of words and every word has some function to perform. Some words are there to show action, some to join, and some to name something. And together, all the functions performed by words in the English language fall under Parts of speech.           
 

Parts of Speech Definition

The parts of speech are the “traditional grammatical categories to which words are assigned in accordance with their syntactic functions, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and so on.” In other words, they refer to the different roles that words can play in a sentence and how they relate to one another based on grammar and syntax.

Parts of Speech Table

Types	Function	Examples	Sentences
Noun	Refers Things or person	Pen, Chair, Ram, Honesty	Cars are expensive. This chair is of wood. Ram is a topper. Honesty is the best policy.
Pronoun	Replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, it, they	They are expensive. It is of wood. He is a topper. It is the best policy
Adjective	Describes a noun	Super, Red, Our, Big, Great class	Super cars are expensive Red chair is for kids Ram is a class topper. Great things take time.
Verb	Describes action or state	Play, be, work, love, like	I play football I will be a doctor I like to work I love writing poem.
Adverb	Describes a verb, adjective or adverb	Silently, too, very	I love reading silently. It is too tough to handle. He can speak very fast.
Preposition	Links a noun to another word	at, in, of, after, under,	The ball is under the table. I am at a restaurant. she is in trouble. I am going after her. It is so nice of him
Conjunction	Joins clauses and sentences	and, but, though, after	First, I will go to college and then I may go to fest. I don’t have a car but I know how to drive. She failed the exam though she worked hard. He will come after he finish his match.
Interjection	Shows exclamation	oh!, wow!, alas! Hurray!	Oh! I got fail again. Wow! I got the job. Alas! She is no more. Hurray! we are going to party.

Parts of Speech Examples with Sentences

Noun

Examples: Luggage, Cattle.

Sentence:  Never leave your luggage unattended.

In some places, cattle are fed barely.

Pronoun

Examples: who, either, themselves

Sentence: I know a man who plays the guitar very well.

Either of the two cars is for sale.

They enjoyed themselves at the party.

Adjective

Examples: kind, moving, wounder.

Sentence: 

She is a kind person.

Boarding a moving bus can be dangerous.

Never poke a wounded animal.

Verb

Examples: Praise, Hate, Punish

Sentence: She always praises her friends.

I don’t hate anybody.

The boy has been punished by his teacher

Adverb

Examples: Always, enough, immediately

Sentence: we should always help each other.

We should be wise enough to understand what is good for us.

We should leave bad habits immediately.

Preposition

Examples: Off, Below, From. to

Sentence: 

He plunged off the cliff

I live below the 9th floor.

I travel daily from Delhi to Noida.

Conjunction

Examples: whereas, as well as, so, 

Sentence: The new software is fairly simple whereas the old one was a bit complicated.

The finance company is not performing well as well as some of its competitors.

He was ready so he may come. 

Interjection

Examples: oops! whoa! phew! 

Sentence: Oops! I forgot to mention her name.

Whoa! you drive fast. 

Phew! That was close call, we had a narrow escape.

Parts of Speech Quiz

Choose the correct Parts of Speech of the BOLD word from the following questions.

1. Let us play, Shall We?

       a. Conjunction

       b. Pronoun

       c. Verb

2.  It is a good practice to arrange books on shelves.

      a. Verb

      b. Noun

      c. Adjective

3. Whose books are these?

      a. Pronoun

     b. Preposition

     c. verb

4.  Father, please get me that toy. 

     a. Pronoun

     b. Adverb

     c. Adjective

5.  His mentality is rather obnoxious.

     a. Adverb

     b. Adjective

     c. Noun

6.  He is the guy whose money got stolen.

      a. Pronoun

      b. Conjunction

      c. Adjective

7. I will have finished my semester by the end of this year.

      a. Interjection

      b. Conjunction

      c. Preposition

8. Bingo! That’s the one I have been looking for

    a. Interjection

     b. Conjunction

     c. Preposition

Quiz Answers

1. c,  2. b,  3. a,  4. c,  5. a,  6. b,  7. c,  8. a

FAQs on Parts of Speech

Q1. What are Parts of Speech?

Ans. A word is assigned to a category as per its function, and those categories are together known as Parts of Speech.

Q2. What are the 8 Parts of Speech?

Ans. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection.

Q3. How many Parts of Speech are there?

Ans. There are a total of 8 parts of Speech.

Q4. What Part of Speech is “our”?

Ans. Adjective. Eg. Our car.

Q5. What Part of Speech is “Quickly”?

Ans. Adverb. let us understand it with this example – Milk sours quickly in warm weather.