The verb is the action of the sentence. It is almost always in the second half of the sentence, in the predicate. Examples of verbs include words such as "drinks," "ran" or "thinks." Verbs can also be "to be" words, such as "am" or "is." Sometimes, there are two or more words in the verb phrase, such as "am walking" or "would be running."
Nouns are people, places, things, ideas or emotions. The subject noun is in the first half of the sentence, before the verb. There can be many nouns in the sentence, but the subject noun is the one acting out the verb. It may also be a proper noun. For example, in the sentence, "The cat chased the ball," "chased" is the verb, and the "cat" is the noun who is is "chasing" is the subject noun.
Once the verb and subject noun have been found, divide the sentence between the subject and predicate. The subject is the first half of the sentence and always includes the subject noun. It also includes any modifiers that describe the subject noun. The predicate is the second half of the sentence and begins with the verb. Any words that come after the verb are part of the predicate. Usually, the line can be drawn right between the subject noun and verb. Dividing the sentence into two parts will help define the rest of the parts of speech.
Label adjectives, adverbs and modifiers. Adjectives modify nouns and include words such as "small," "tall" or "five." Adverbs modify verbs and explain how, when or where. Examples include "quickly," "tomorrow" or "away." Articles are the words "the," "a" and "an."
In the sentence, "The cat quickly chased the red ball," "the" is an article, "quickly" is the adverb, and "red" is the adjective.
Prepositions are modifiers and are in a string of words called prepositional phrases. The phrase begins with a preposition and may include modifiers, but ends with a noun called the object of the preposition. Examples of prepositional phrases include "on the wall" or "behind the wooden desk." Prepositional phrases can be in the subject or predicate.
The direct object is a noun and will be in the predicate, often after the verb. To see if a sentence has a direct object, identify who or what is receiving the action of the verb. For example, in the sentence, "The cat chased the ball," the verb is "chased," and the subject is "cat." Ask the question, "chased" what or who? The cat "chased" the ball, and therefore, "ball" is the direct object.
Indirect objects only exist if there are direct objects. Indirect objects are also nouns and answer the question "to whom or for whom" in connection with the direct object. For example, in the sentence, "The cat gave Fido the ball," "gave" is the verb, "cat" is the subject noun, and "ball" is the direct object. To whom or for whom received the "ball?" "Fido" did and is, therefore, the indirect object.
In longer sentences or sentences with lists, there might be conjunctions. Examples of conjunctions include "and," "but," "however" "although" or "or."
Occasionally, sentences will have a word that just illustrates emotion, such as "Oh no!" or "Wow!" These are interjections and are the last additional category.