The Parts of Speech 103
We’ll wrap up our whirlwind tour of the eight parts of speech in this post.
So far we’ve covered nouns, pronoun, and verbs in the first post and adjectives and adverbs in the second.
Let’s get to the last three: conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
Conjunctions
A conjunction is a word that connects words or parts of a sentence.
There are three kinds of conjunctions, but we’ll begin by looking only at the most common – the coordinating conjunction.
The most common conjunctions are and, but, or, and nor.
Coordinating conjunctions combine or join words or word groups:
- Stan fired up the grill, and Henrietta prepared the goat for grilling.
- Vinnie wanted to spend the weekend ice fishing, but Gertrude insisted on a trip to Cleveland.
- You can set up the hammock, or you can sleep in the linen closet.
- Bill, Linda, and Jerome scored the highest on the scuba exam.
- I couldn’t decide to invite Edna, or Wanda.
Prepositions
A preposition is a word that shows relationship between words.
A preposition can show where something is located (in, on, near, over), the direction it is moving (to, around, through), or when it occurs (after, until, during).
A preposition always begins a group of words called a prepositional phrase. The prepositional phrase is made up of the preposition and the object of the preposition (a noun or pronoun) and any modifying words in between. The following sentences include prepositional phrases (indicated in green).
- My daughter is dancing in the living room.
- Around the corner came a flamingo on a tricycle.
- Under the staircase lived a friendly troll.
Some of the most common prepositions include the following:
above
across
after
against
around
at
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
besides
between
by down
during
except
for
from
in
inside
into
like
near
of
off
on
outside
over
through
throughout
till
to
toward
under
until
up
upon
with
without
Interjections
Interjections are easy to spot, but difficult to explain. They don’t have a real definition, and they don’t relate to any other words in a sentence grammatically. They often show strong emotion, like Yikes! Wow! and Yipee! Sometimes they indicate just a mild exclamation, like well, no, and oh. Interjections are often set apart from sentences with exclamation points:
- Ouch! That pan is hot!
- Rats! I lost my wallet.
Milder exclamations are set off by commas:
- Well, if that isn’t the silliest thing I’ve ever seen.
- Oh, that’s my favorite kind of chocolate.
Interjections can be fun, but be cautious about using them in formal writing. They are normally reserved for informal writing and dialogue.
And that wraps up our first look at the parts of speech. We’ll come back to them in later lessons, because we only covered the simplest examples of each. If you can identify these, however, you are well on y0ur way to conquering the challenge of English grammar.
Test your understanding with the quizzes below: (COMING SOON)
Identifying conjunctions 103
Identifying prepositions 103
identifying interjections 103
Identifying conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections, 103
Identifying the parts of speech 103
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