Nouns

Nouns, in the most basic explanation, are people, places, or things. Think of nouns as the main substance of any sentence the same way ice cream is to a banana split—they are the stuff the rest of your sentence is piled upon. Example: Rachelle went to the store for ice cream, bananas, and sprinkles.

Pronouns

Like nouns, pronouns also name people, places, and things. In fact, pronouns can do all the same things nouns can do, and they replace the common noun in a sentence to help avoid repetition or add detail to general nouns. Example: Rachelle took her shoes to the cleaners. In this example, the word her replaces the word Rachelle, so that the sentence doesn’t feel repetitive.

Verbs

Verbs express the actions that happen in our sentences. Verbs describe an action, state of being, or occurrence in a sentence. Action: Rachelle dropped her banana split on her new shoes. Occurrence: Rachelle considered her shoes a total loss. State-of-Being: Rachelle was disappointed.

Adverbs

The same way verbs describe what action the noun is doing, the adverb adds detail about the action itself. Sure, someone can walk to the mailbox, but they can also quickly walk to the mailbox. Makes a difference, right? Example: She frantically rushed to the mall for more shoes.

Adjectives

The same way an adverb adds more description to a verb, an adjective gives more detail about a noun. Adjectives help the reader better visualize your nouns in parts of speech. Example: A handsome gentleman opened the door for her.

Conjunctions

Think of conjunctions as the ribbons that tie two ideas together in a sentence. Conjunctions provide flexibility in writing by allowing us to conjoin two completely independent ideas into one sentence. Conjunctions include the following: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Without Conjunction: Rachelle thought about asking the handsome gentlemen for his number. The mall didn’t feel like the right setting to ask a person out. With Conjunction: Rachelle thought about asking the handsome gentlemen for his number, but the mall didn’t feel like the right setting to ask a person out.

Articles

In parts of speech, articles are perhaps the most unnoticed element that serves a highly valuable purpose—to add context to a noun. Without the nearly invisible articles, our entire sentences would sit in disarray. There are only three articles in the English language. Example: After a long day of work, an hour nap lifted the man’s energy level.

Prepositions

In parts of speech, prepositions join the nouns, pronouns, and noun phrases together to make the sentence complete. Think of prepositions like relationships, designed to join things together. Just like relationships, prepositions can get a little tricky. Simple prepositions include at, for, in, off, on, over, and under. There are five kinds or prepositions that we’ll cover later on, but here is an example: Rachelle walked in the mall as if she hadn’t noticed him.

Interjections

In parts of speech, interjections stand as the most flamboyant and loud. Have you ever slammed your little toe against a piece of furniture and yelled, “Ouch!”? Right down to their bare Latin bones, the word interjection means between and to throw. So, it’s safe to think about an interjection as a word you throw into the middle of a sentence to express a sudden feeling. Example: Yippee! The handsome guy ran after Rachelle to ask for her number on his own.   Well, there you have it. These are the nine parts of speech in the English language. It’s hard to believe how much goes into a single sentence, isn’t it? If you’re interested in learning more about the parts of speech, check out our other grammar lessons or YouTube channel where we go into greater detail about the parts of speech and many other grammar topics.

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Understanding Coordinating Conjunctions

In the most general sense, you can think of a conjunction as a single word that joins other words or groups of words together. The same way a referee coordinates a game, conjunctions help coordinate the order or your words so they make sense.

Coordinating conjunctions join words or groups of words that have equal grammatical weight in a sentence.

Ever heard of the phrase fanboys? This is an acronym for all of the words that are considered coordinating conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

Example: Sally baked a cake for Sue.

Example: Sally wanted to bake a cake for Sue, but she didn’t have time.

Understanding Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions work in pairs to join words and groups of words of equal weight in a sentence.

Example: Both Raheem and Brandon graduated with a 4.0 GPA.

Example: Neither Colby nor Wendi were able to go to the movie that afternoon.

Although they are similar to coordinating conjunctions, correlative conjunctions can make the relationship between words or groups of words clearer than coordinating conjunctions can.

Understanding Subordinating Conjunctions

A subordinating conjunction connects an independent clause to the dependent clause. An independent clause is a portion of a sentence that can stand alone as it’s own sentence, while a dependent clause adds additional information to the sentence, but can’t stand alone (more on these later!).

Example: As soon as I get home, I’m taking a long nap.

Example: As long as Mira got her way, she wouldn’t throw a tantrum.

Understanding Conjunctive Verbs

On occasion, adverbs will help in connecting parts of your sentence to help with clarity. When this happens, we’ll call them conjunctive adverbs. Conjunctive adverbs help clarify the relationship between phrases, clauses, and words.

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What’s an Example of an Adverb?

Example: Very few people have ever written so successfully.

In this example, the bold words are considered adverbs because they modify their neighbor words few, written, and successfully.

Example: She claps very loudly.

Here, the word very modifies the word loudly.

Example: He jumped extremely high.

Here, the word extremely modifies the word high.

You can think of adverbs as something like a reporter because they tell us additional information about what’s going on such as how, when, where, how much, and how often something happens in your sentence.

Degrees of Comparison with Adverbs

Like adjectives, sometimes adverbs use different forms to express degrees of comparison:

Positive Degree (no comparison)
Comparative Degree (Comparison of two actions)
Superlative Degree (Comparison of one action with two or more other actions)

Now that you know what an adverb is, and what it can do in a sentence, let’s take a look at how it can modify different aspects of a sentence and its placement.

How Adverbs Modify Verbs

If an adverb is modifying a verb, it may be placed in different positions in relation to the verb.

Example: Apparently she lost.

Example: She apparently lost.

In both of these examples, the word apparently is the adverb, but because it’s modifying the word lost, it can be placed at the beginning of the sentence or in the middle.

How Adverbs Modify Adjectives

For an adverb to correctly modify an adjective, it must be placed immediately before the word it modifies.

Example: That dress is very slimming.

Here, the word very is modifying the word slimming.

How Adverbs Modify Other Adverbs

Adverbs can modify other adverbs. Just like the case with adjectives, an adverb that modifies another adverb must be placed immediately before the word it modifies.

Example: Only rarely do I go hiking.

Here, the word only modifies the word rarely.

Understanding Adverb Clauses

If all this about adverbs wasn’t enough for you, there’s more! The same way a single word is considered an adverb if it modifies verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, there are also groups of words you can consider adverbs, which are called adverb clauses. Adverb clauses are parts of a phrase or sentence that add more detailed information about the rest of the sentence.

What’s an Adverb Clause?

An adverb clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. It tells when, where, how, why, to what extent, or under what conditions.

What’s an Example of an Adverb Clause?

Modifying a verb: Whenever he reads directions, he bakes well.

Here, the bold part of the sentence adds extra clarity to why he bakes well.

Expressing conditions: He is happy as long as he gets his way.

Here, the bold part of the sentence describes what conditions must be true for him to feel happy.

Expressing extent: I can jump higher than a rabbit.

Here, the bold part of the sentence shows the extent of how high she can jump by comparing it to a rabbit, which, in hindsight, isn’t very high…

In Summary

Well, that’s everything you need to know about adverbs. Still have questions? Check out our YouTube channel and subscribe to our email list to get more lessons on grammar and writing!

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