The 8 Parts of Speech in English (With a Quiz)

English has eight traditional parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. A word's class depends on the job it does in a sentence, so the same word can belong to different classes. Below you get a definition, examples and a test question for each class, then a tagged sentence and a quiz with answers.

The short answer

The eight parts of speech are noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. Each one names a job a word does in a sentence. Nouns name, pronouns replace nouns, verbs express action or state, adjectives and adverbs describe, prepositions show relationships, conjunctions join, and interjections express sudden feeling.

Many modern grammars add a ninth class, the determiner (a, the, this, my, some), which traditional school lists fold into adjectives. We cover it at the end so you can follow whichever list your teacher uses.

The most useful rule to remember is this: you cannot tell a word's part of speech from the word alone. You tell it from the job it does in the sentence. "Light" is a noun in "Turn on the light", an adjective in "a light jacket" and a verb in "Light the candle".

Quick reference table

1. Nouns

A noun names a person, place, thing, animal or idea. Most can be made plural and can follow the or a.

• Common nouns name general things: student, city, library.
• Proper nouns name particular ones and take capital letters: Maria, Manchester, the British Library.
• Concrete nouns can be seen or touched: desk, rain. Abstract nouns cannot: freedom, honesty.
• Countable nouns have a plural (books). Uncountable nouns do not (information, advice, furniture).
• Collective nouns name a group: team, committee, audience.

Example: The committee approved the budget on Tuesday.

Test question: In "Honesty matters", which word is the noun? Honesty, an abstract noun and the subject.

A frequent error is treating uncountable nouns as countable: say "some advice", not "an advice".

2. Pronouns

A pronoun replaces a noun so you do not repeat it. The noun it replaces is its antecedent.

• Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them
• Possessive: mine, yours, hers, ours, theirs (and the determiners my, your, her, our, their)
• Reflexive: myself, herself, themselves
• Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
• Relative: who, whom, which, that, whose
• Interrogative: who, what, which, whose
• Indefinite: someone, anything, everybody, none

Example: When Priya finished the report, she sent it to her manager.

Test question: What is the antecedent of "it" above? The report.

Every pronoun needs a clear antecedent: "Sam told Alex that he had won" leaves it unclear who won.

3. Verbs

A verb expresses an action (run, decide), an occurrence (happen) or a state (be, seem, belong). Almost every sentence needs one.

• Main (lexical) verbs carry the meaning: The team won.
• Auxiliary (helping) verbs are be, have, do and the modals can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must. They build tenses, questions and negatives: She has finished. Did you call?
• Linking verbs join the subject to a description: The soup smells delicious.
• Transitive verbs take an object (She wrote a letter); intransitive verbs do not (He slept).
• Verbs change form for tense and agreement: walk, walks, walked, walking; irregular ones change more: go, went, gone.

Example: The students have submitted their essays and are waiting for feedback.

Test question: In "They might arrive late", which words make up the verb phrase? might arrive.

4. Adjectives

An adjective describes or limits a noun or pronoun. It answers what kind, which one, how many.

• Before a noun: a tired driver. After a linking verb: The driver is tired.
• Comparison: tall, taller, tallest; beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful.
• Order: with several adjectives English usually follows opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material: a lovely old wooden table.
• Numbers and quantity words (three, many, few) are often counted as adjectives in school grammar.

Example: A small, independent bookshop opened on the high street.

Test question: In "She seems nervous", is "nervous" an adjective or an adverb? Adjective, because it describes the subject "she" after a linking verb.

5. Adverbs

An adverb describes a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a whole sentence. It usually answers how, when, where, how often or to what degree.

• Manner: carefully, well, fast
• Time: yesterday, soon, already
• Place: here, outside, upstairs
• Frequency: always, rarely, twice
• Degree: very, quite, almost, too
• Sentence adverbs: Fortunately, however, perhaps

Many adverbs end in -ly, but not all do (fast, often, very), and not every -ly word is an adverb: friendly and lovely are adjectives.

Example: She very carefully checked the figures twice.

Test question: In "He runs fast", what part of speech is "fast"? An adverb of manner (it describes how he runs). In "a fast train" it is an adjective.

6. Prepositions

A preposition shows how a noun or pronoun relates to another word in the sentence: place, time, direction, cause or possession. It is followed by a noun phrase (its object).

• Place: in, on, at, under, between, behind
• Time: at, on, in, before, after, during, since, until
• Direction: to, from, towards, through, across
• Other: of, for, with, about, by, without

Example: After the lecture, we walked through the park to the station.

Test question: Which word is the preposition in "The keys are under the cushion"? Under.

Prepositions are hard because usage is idiomatic: on a bus but in a car, at 5 p.m. but in the evening. See in, on, at. Ending a sentence with a preposition is fine in standard modern English: "Who did you speak to?" is natural.

7. Conjunctions

A conjunction joins words, phrases or clauses.

• Coordinating conjunctions join equal parts: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (remembered as FANBOYS). See coordinating conjunctions.
• Subordinating conjunctions begin a dependent clause: because, although, if, when, while, unless, since.
• Correlative conjunctions work in pairs: either...or, neither...nor, both...and, not only...but also.

Example: I wanted to go out, but it was raining, so we stayed in because the roads were icy.

Test question: Which word in "Although he was tired, he finished" is the conjunction? Although, a subordinating conjunction.

8. Interjections

An interjection expresses a sudden feeling or reaction and is not grammatically linked to the rest of the sentence: Wow! Ouch! Oops! Hey! Ugh! Hooray! Written, it is followed by an exclamation mark or a comma.

Example: Oh, I forgot my keys.

Test question: What is the interjection in "Well, that was unexpected"? Well.

Interjections are rare in academic or formal writing.

The ninth class: determiners

Words such as a, an, the, this, that, my, your, some, any, each, every, no come before a noun and specify it. Traditional lists of eight call them adjectives (or articles). Linguistic grammars treat them as a separate class, determiners. Either way, they work as described: the report, my office, every student. See articles for the rules on a, an and the.

Words that change class

Many English words belong to several classes. The sentence decides.

This change of class without any change of form is called conversion. It is why dictionaries list several senses per word, and why a spell checker cannot tell you the class: the Spell Checker catches misspellings but does not tag classes.

Tagging a sentence word by word

Take the sentence: "The new manager quickly answered our questions, but she did not know the budget."

How to find a word's part of speech: a four-step method

1. Find the verb first. Ask what is happening or what state is described. The verb anchors the sentence.
2. Find who or what does it. That is the subject, usually a noun or pronoun.
3. Test the word. Can you put the before it (noun)? Can you change its tense (verb)? Can it go before a noun (adjective)? Does it say how, when or where (adverb)?
4. Check the role. If a word could be two classes, read what it does in this sentence and ignore its form.

Running a draft through the Grammar Checker flags grammar, spelling and punctuation problems with each change highlighted. It is an editing aid, so check each suggestion against what you meant.

Common mistakes with parts of speech

• Adjective instead of adverb: "He drives careful." Use carefully. But "He looks careful" is correct, because looks is a linking verb.
• Good vs well: good is an adjective (a good result), well is usually an adverb (she writes well). Well is also an adjective meaning healthy: "I feel well."
• Pronoun without antecedent: "They say it will rain." Who says?

Quiz: identify the part of speech

Name the part of speech of each underlined word, shown here in capitals. Answers follow.

1. The TEACHER praised the class.
2. SHE left early.
3. Birds SING at dawn.
4. The test was DIFFICULT.
5. He answered the question QUICKLY.
6. The cat slept ON the sofa.
7. I like tea, BUT my sister prefers coffee.
8. WOW, that was fast!
9. Please turn off the LIGHT. (noun or verb?)
10. I have not seen her SINCE Monday. (preposition or conjunction?)
11. She runs FAST. (adjective or adverb?)
12. THIS is my desk. (pronoun or determiner?)

Answers

1. Noun (common, the subject).
2. Pronoun (personal, replaces a named person).
3. Verb (intransitive, present tense).
4. Adjective (after the linking verb was).
5. Adverb (manner).
6. Preposition (place, with the object the sofa).
7. Conjunction (coordinating).
8. Interjection.
9. Noun (it follows the and is the object of turn off).
10. Preposition, because it is followed by a noun phrase (Monday), not a clause.
11. Adverb, because it tells how she runs.
12. Pronoun, because it stands alone and replaces a noun. In "This desk is mine", this is a determiner.

If you scored 10 or more, you have the system. Review the "words that change class" table for any you missed.

Why parts of speech matter in your writing

Knowing the classes helps you fix real problems: subject-verb agreement depends on finding the subject noun and the verb; punctuation depends on joining clauses with conjunctions; and clear writing often depends on replacing weak adjective-and-adverb pairs with a precise verb or noun ("walked slowly" becomes "trudged").

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