Nouns are words used to name people, places, things, animals and ideas. A noun typically serves as the subject in a sentence. Many common nouns can refer to both men and women, although there are also gender specific nouns (such as actor/actress, waiter/waitress). Nouns can also be changed to a plural form by adding "s" or "es" to the end of the word.
A pronoun is a noun that can replace nouns or other pronouns in order to make a sentence less repetitive. There are several types of commonly used pronouns. A personal pronoun refers to a specific person or thing. Subjective pronouns act as the subject in a sentence. An objective personal pronoun usually follows a verb and acts as its direct (or indirect) object. Possessive pronouns are nouns that define ownership over a particular object or person.
A verb asserts something concerning the subject (usually a noun) in a sentence. The verb will usually express actions, events or states of being. A verb is almost always a part of the predicate of a sentence. The subject is what (or whom) a sentence is about, while the predicate tells something about the subject.
An adverb is a word used to modify other verbs, adjectives, phrases or clauses. The adverb answers questions such as who, what, where, where, how and why. An adverb can be found in virtually any part of the sentence, and often use the "ly" suffix. "Quickly," "patiently," "courageously" and "spontaneously" are examples of commonly used adverbs.
An adjective is used to describe, identify or quantify nouns or pronouns. The adjective usually comes before the noun or pronoun that is modifies. Possessive adjectives are similar to possessive pronouns. The different comes from the possessive adjective's ability to modify a noun or a noun phrase. "Which" and "what" are interrogative adjectives that modify a noun or noun phrase instead of standing on its own.
A conjunction is used to link words, phrases and clauses together. The words "and," "but," "or," "nor," "for," "so" and "yet" are common coordinating conjunctions used to join words and phrases together. A subordinating conjunction is used to join an independent and dependent clause together in order to explain the relationship between the two. Correlative conjunctions are two words used in pairs, and are used to link equivalent sentence elements. "either/or," "so/as" and "whether/or" are common correlative conjunctions.
A preposition is a word that links nouns, pronouns and phases to any other words in a sentence. The preposition is used to indicate the location (such as "on," "in" and "beside") between the sentence and the word to which it is linked to. An interjection is a word that is used to add emotion to a sentence. Interjections are usually followed by an exclamation sign when written.