In this example, 'walk' is a noun, which is part of a prepositional phrase describing where the mail carrier stood. In this sentence, 'walk' is a verb, and its subject is the pronoun 'we.' The mail carrier stood on the walk. Here 'books' is a verb, and its subject is 'Bridget.' We walk down the street. Deborah waits patiently while Bridget books the tickets. In this sentence, 'books' is a noun, the subject of the sentence. The next few examples show how a word's part of speech can change from one sentence to the next, and following them is a series of sections on the individual parts of speech, followed by an exercise. In fact, the same word can be a noun in one sentence and a verb or adjective in the next. Traditional grammar classifies words based on eight parts of speech: the verb, the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection.Įach part of speech explains not what the word is, but how the word is used.
