Parts of Speech and Sentence Structure: A Beginner's Lesson

By the end of this lesson you will be able to name the part of speech of a word from its job in the sentence, find the subject and the verb, and use that to spot errors such as "She sings good".

Already confident? Skip to practice: Parts of Speech quiz

The eight parts of speech

Every word in a sentence does a job. The name of that job is its part of speech.

Preposition or conjunction? If a whole clause (a subject and a verb) follows the word, it is a conjunction, not a preposition: after dinner (preposition), after we had dinner (conjunction). See Example 2. And a word that changes for time (is, was, will be) is a verb, not a preposition: is in "Meena is a doctor" is a verb.

Articles and determiners

A, an and the are called articles. Together with words like some, many, each, this and my, they are called determiners. A determiner comes before a noun and tells which one or how many: some boys, this book, the shelf.

Older grammar books count articles and determiners as adjectives. Quiz questions may simply call them "article" or "determiner".

The kinds you need to know

Kinds of noun

• Proper noun: the name of one particular person, place or thing. It begins with a capital letter: Delhi, Ravi, the Ganga.
• Common noun: a name shared by every member of a class: city, river, teacher.
• Collective noun: a group taken as one unit: herd, crowd, team, fleet.
• Material noun: a substance things are made of: gold, iron, cotton, wood.
• Abstract noun: a quality, feeling or idea that you cannot touch: honesty, beauty, wisdom, fear.

Many abstract nouns are made from adjectives: wise → wisdom, honest → honesty, brave → bravery, kind → kindness.

Kinds of pronoun

• Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they and me, him, her, us, them.
• Possessive: shows ownership and stands alone: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. "This book is mine."
• Reflexive: the action turns back to the subject: myself, himself, herself, themselves. "He hurt himself."
• Demonstrative: points to something and stands alone: this, that, these, those. "This is my seat."
• Relative: joins a clause to the noun before it: who, whom, whose, which, that. "The man who came yesterday is my uncle."
• Interrogative: asks a question: "Who is at the door?"

Main verbs and helping verbs

A main verb carries the meaning. A helping (auxiliary) verb comes before it to show tense, mood or voice. Common helping verbs: be, have, do, will, shall, can, may, must, should.

"She has completed her homework." Here has is the helping verb and completed is the main verb.

Degrees of comparison (adjectives)

The last four are irregular: they have their own forms. Never write gooder, baddest, more better or most worst.

Many, much and little tell how many or how much, not what kind. They compare like adjectives, and they are also called determiners (see above).

Kinds of adverb

• Manner (how): quickly, beautifully, well
• Time (when): now, yesterday, soon
• Place (where): here, outside, everywhere
• Degree (how much): very, too, quite, almost. "She is a very intelligent girl." Very describes the adjective intelligent, so it is an adverb of degree.

The key idea: the job decides

A word does not carry its part of speech everywhere it goes. Its job in this sentence decides.

Look at fast:

• He is a fast runner. → adjective (describes the noun runner)
• He runs fast. → adverb (tells how he runs)
• Some people fast on Mondays. → verb (the action)
• He broke his fast in the evening. → noun (names a thing; his comes before it)

Look at round:

• We sat at a round table. → adjective
• Our team lost in the second round. → noun
• The children ran round the tree. → preposition (it relates the tree to ran, telling where they ran; around also works here)

Look at light:

• Please switch off the light. → noun
• This bag is very light. → adjective
• Light the lamp before sunset. → verb

So never answer from the word alone. Read the whole sentence and ask what the word is doing.

Sentence structure

Subject and predicate

Every complete sentence has two parts:

• The subject: who or what the sentence is about.
• The predicate: what is said about the subject. It always contains the verb.

"The tired students went home early." The subject is The tired students. The predicate is went home early.

To find the subject: find the main verb first, then ask "Who or what + verb?" Who went? The tired students.

In an order or request, the subject you is understood, not written: "(You) Shut the door."

Four common sentence patterns

S = subject, V = verb, O = object, C = complement.

Object or complement? A complement comes after a linking verb and renames or describes the subject: Meena = a doctor; the milk is sour. An object is the person or thing that receives the action of the verb: Ravi plays cricket; he hurt himself.

Adverbs do not change the pattern. "The baby slept peacefully" is still S–V, because peacefully only tells how the baby slept.

Phrase and clause

• A phrase is a group of words with no subject–verb pair of its own: in the morning, a very tall man.
• A clause has its own subject and verb. A main clause can stand alone. A subordinate clause cannot: because it was raining.

Conjunctions (and, but, or, because, although, when) are the part of speech whose job is to join clauses. A relative pronoun (who, which, that) also starts a clause, but it stands for a noun at the same time.

Four kinds of sentence

• Assertive (states something): The sun rises in the east.
• Interrogative (asks): Where do you live?
• Imperative (orders or requests): Shut the door at once.
• Exclamatory (shows strong feeling): What a beautiful view!

Worked examples

Example 1: Name the part of speech from its job

Question: In "She spoke softly to the child", what part of speech is softly?

1. Find the verb: spoke.
2. Ask what softly describes. It tells how she spoke.
3. A word that tells how an action is done describes a verb.
4. So softly is an adverb.

The principle: ask what the word describes. A word that describes a verb is an adverb. The -ly ending is only a hint: friendly and lovely are adjectives (a friendly dog).

Example 2: The same word in two jobs

Question: What part of speech is after in each sentence?

• (a) After dinner, we went for a walk.
• (b) We went for a walk after we had dinner.

1. Look at what comes right after the word.
2. In (a) it is dinner, a noun with no verb of its own. After relates that noun to the rest of the sentence, so it is a preposition.
3. In (b) it is we had dinner, which has a subject (we) and a verb (had). That is a clause.
4. After joins that clause to the main clause, so in (b) it is a conjunction.

The principle: if after is followed by a noun or pronoun with no verb of its own, it is a preposition; if it is followed by a whole clause, it is a conjunction. Before, since and until work the same way. (Other conjunctions, such as and and but, also join single words: Ravi and I.)

Example 3: Find the subject and the verb in a long sentence

Question: Find the subject and the main verb: "The list of selected candidates, along with their roll numbers, is on the notice board."

1. Find the main verb: is. (Selected only describes candidates, so here it works as an adjective.)
2. Set aside the phrases that begin with a preposition: of selected candidates and along with their roll numbers.
3. Ask "What is on the notice board?" → The list.

The main word of the subject is list, and the verb is is. Both are singular, so they agree.

The principle: the main word of the subject is not inside a phrase that begins with a preposition. Remove those phrases first. (Subjects such as some of and most of are a special case, covered under subject–verb agreement.)

Example 4: Spot the error

Question: Which part has an error? (A) She sings good / (B) and her sister / (C) plays the sitar beautifully. / (D) No error

1. Find the describing words: good in (A) and beautifully in (C).
2. Beautifully tells how her sister plays, so it describes a verb and is an adverb. (C) is correct.
3. What does good describe? How she sings, which is a verb.
4. Your turn: which part of speech describes a verb, and what word should replace good?

Check: an adverb describes a verb. Good is an adjective; its adverb is well.

Answer: (A). Correct sentence: "She sings well and her sister plays the sitar beautifully."

The principle: ask what the word describes. If it describes the action (the verb), use an adverb: "She plays well." If it describes a noun, use an adjective, even after a verb: "She plays good music." After a linking verb (is, looks, feels, smells), a word that describes the subject is an adjective: "The food smells good."

Example 5: Name the sentence pattern

Question: What is the pattern of "The teacher gave the students a short test"?

1. Verb: gave.
2. Subject (who gave?): the teacher.
3. Gave what? a short test. Gave to whom? the students.
4. Your turn: does either answer have to or for in front of it? Then name the pattern.

Check: neither does, so both are objects: the students is the indirect object (to whom) and a short test is the direct object (what). The pattern is S–V–O–O.

Compare "The teacher gave a short test to the students." Here to the students begins with the preposition to, so it is a phrase, not a second object.

Now try two more on your own:

• "The students became nervous." → S–V–C (became is a linking verb; nervous describes the students)
• "The students waited outside." → S–V (outside is an adverb of place, not an object)

The principle: ask "what?" and "to whom?" after the verb. Two answers with no to or for in front mean two objects. A word after a linking verb that describes or renames the subject is a complement.

Example 6: Your turn

Question: Name the part of speech of every word: "Wow! She quickly climbed the tall tree and sat on a branch."

Cover the table below, write your answers, then check.

The principle: one sentence can hold all eight parts of speech. Each word gets its name from its job.

Common traps

• Not every -ly word is an adverb. Friendly, lovely and costly are adjectives: a costly mistake.
• No double comparison. "More better" is wrong; write better.
• Possessive forms take no apostrophe: yours, hers, ours, theirs, its. (It's means it is or it has.)
• This, that, these, those are pronouns only when they stand alone. "This is mine" (pronoun); "This book is mine" (determiner, because the noun book follows).
• A reflexive pronoun is not a plain subject. "Ravi and myself will attend" is wrong; write "Ravi and I will attend."

Practise and go next

Practise now: Parts of Speech quiz

Next: the Articles cheat sheet and the Subject–Verb Agreement cheat sheet, then test yourself with the Articles quiz.

How this was made: Drafted with AI assistance; spot-checked by the editor on 23 October 2026.