There are eight parts of speech that learners of the English language have to know and they also have to be able to use those parts in their lesson or practice. Those eight parts of speech are Noun, Verb, Adverb, Adjective, Pronoun, Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection.
These are made up of how to combine those into sentences, simple sentences as well as complex ones.
A. Noun
Noun is used to describe a thing as used in a person, people, animal, place, as a concrete ones and even an abstract idea. A noun can be used as subject, a direct object or simply object, an indirect object, a subject complement, and object complement. Let us have a look these examples below:
Our friend just bought a new motorcycle. Subject + predicate + object /direct object
Possessive Nouns
A possessive noun is to show the possessiveness of someone or things. It changes the form to show that it owns or closely related to something else. It becomes possessive by adding a combination of an apostrophe and the letter is “s”.
It can be formed in the case of singular noun that does not end in “s” by adding an apostrophe and “s” as in the example below:
These are Mayang’s books; she left them in her locker.
Those books in the locker are Mayang’s.
Types of Noun
Nouns are identified by their types as to indicate their usage. There are proper noun, common noun, concrete noun, abstract noun, countable noun, uncountable noun, and collective noun. Let us discuss these types as follows:
a. Proper Nouns
We can start to write proper noun by using capital letter as these nouns can represent the name of specific person, people, place or things.
Names of person, days of the week, cities, regions, months, institutions, events or religious events, religions are proper nouns.
Let us have a look at the example below:
UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim is the name of the state university in Malang, East Java.
b. Common Nouns
These nouns are referred to a person, place, or thing in general sense. These are used without using capital letters as in proper nouns.
Let us pay attention to these examples below:
My brother and his friends are planning to ride motorcycle to the beach.
Some of our workers choose to take their overtime job during the holiday.
c. Concrete
Nouns These nouns are names of anything or anyone that can be sensed through our physical senses: sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell.
Let us take these examples as follows:
Look at this sign on the fence, “beware of dogs”.
The former head of language center handed over his mandate to his successor.
d. Abstract Nouns
These nouns are the opposite of concrete nouns. Names of things we cannot see, touch, smell, hear, or taste. Nonetheless, we can feel or understand them. We can take these examples as follows:
We need a leader with high integrity.
This university has got four pillars that can be the advantages among other universities.
e. Countable Nouns
These forms of nouns consist of both singular and plural. It mentions everything or anything (anyone) that can be counted. These are the examples:
Every class is provided with a whiteboard, a desk, and thirty arm chairs.
There are forty passengers, a ticket inspector, two bus assistants, and a bus driver in every autobus.
f. Uncountable Nouns
This noun does not have plural forms. It can refer to something in the form of mass noun such as: rice, sugar, water, etc. however these words sugar, rice, sand can be said to have countable if they are combined with collective noun such as a kilo of rice, a bundle of sand, two kilograms of sugar. Let us pay attention these examples below:
Mickey Mouse likes to eat cheese.
We have managed to harvest rice in the end of this year.
g. Collective Nouns
The collective noun is used to identify a group of things, persons or people, and animals. We can use this to state individual group members in order to be counted as one unit. There are group of people, for instance, to name the collective nouns such as: family, crew, team, club, community, committee, choir, company, crowd, band, gang, orchestra, government, audience, army, and etc. while for animal, there are also name of collective nouns such as: herd of cattle, flock of birds, drove of sheep, gaggle of geese, pack of wolves, pride of lions, pod of dolphins, school of fish, litter of puppies, troop of monkeys, brood of chickens, swarm of bees, and etc. Let us take a look into these examples as follows:
The flock of birds flew to the west as the sun goes down.
The band brings along its crew members in every show.
B. Verbs
Verbs are one of the important things to form sentences. Sentences, especially, for English sentences formed by the subject and predicate in order to make sentences are used to describe the action, events or state that can complete the sentence. Let us take the example below:
• We have the English class every Tuesday morning.
• I went to Surabaya; when some of my friends were waiting in our lodging house. • Professor Wahyudi teaches test of English as a foreign language in the university.
C. Adverbs
Adverb functions to modify or explain verbs, adjectives, another adverb, phrase or clauses. This is used to indicate manner, place, time, cause, and degree as to answer based on the “how”, “when”, “how many/ much”, “where”. Other adverbs can also be identified the use of suffix “ly” as this is used to describe how things are done or undergone, or even to describe the manners as well as the situation. The examples are as follows:
• Mrs. Tia can speak English fluently as she just finished her study in England. (manner)
• She ran quickly to catch the last bus heading to her hometown. (manner) • He plays the guitar beautifully. (manner)
D. Adjectives
Adjectives are used to modify nouns or pronoun, and to make more specific, by describing or calculating the words. Adjectives can be categorized into two categories: descriptive and limiting. These can be identified to describe colors, size, or quality of a person or thing.
Possessive Adjective
Possessive adjectives are: my, your, his, its, our, their, similar to a possessive pronoun; nonetheless, it is used as an adjective and modifies a noun or a noun phrase, as in the following examples:
• He should complete his thesis by the end of this month.
• May I know your phone number? In case I have something to let you know so I can contact you immediately.
Demonstrative Adjectives
The demonstrative adjectives are “this” and “that” used for singular; while “these” as well as “those” are used for plural.
These demonstrative adjectives are identical to demonstrative pronoun in order to modify nouns or noun phrase. Let us take a look the examples below:
• Those were the days of our lives, nothing compares as we are all grateful for these achievements we have gone so far.
• Where did you put all of those plates for our dinner last night? – I still remember to put all of them into that cupboard.
Interrogative Adjectives
Interrogative adjectives are: “which” and “what” can be the same as interrogative pronoun, except it can modify a noun or noun phrase rather than standing alone. These can be seen in the following examples:
• Which books I should read for relevant references for my research?
• What kind of wood we can use for making the furniture?
Indefinite Adjectives
This is similar to an indefinite pronoun, except it can modify a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase as in the following example:
• Many Indonesians are convinced that the economic inflation will not affect the micro-economy sector.
• I did not find any notification from my bank account this morning.
E.Preposition
A preposition can connect nouns, pronouns, as well as phrases to words within the sentence (Subandi et al, 2017: 25-27).
The words or phrase of the preposition introduces is named object of the preposition. It identifies the temporal, spatial or logical order or relation between object and the rest of the sentences. Let us see the examples as follows:
▪ The clock is on the wall
▪ The teacher’s books are under the table.
▪ Most students lean on their chairs during the class.
F. Conjunction
Conjunction is also used to connect words, phrases as well as clauses. It is divided into three: coordinating conjunction, subordinating conjunction, and correlative conjunction. Let us take a look into these following examples:
▪ We had a talk and dinner last night
▪ We ate fries and had a cup of tea.
▪ We’ll leave when everybody is ready.
▪ He not only serves as a barista but he is also the owner of the coffee shop.
1. Coordinating Conjunctions
These coordinating conjunctions are: and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet can be joined with individual words, phrases, and independent clause. In addition, we can also use the words “but” and “for” as prepositions. Here are some examples as follows:
▪ Tom and Jerry are known for cartoon characters. ▪ “How are you?" "Fine, and all the better for seeing you! ▪ She doesn’t eat meat for various reasons.
▪ I received replies from everybody but Zulvy. (this can be meant that everybody replies to the speaker, while Zulvy alone does not reply to the speaker) ▪ He had an opportunity to get higher education and yet he is still working as a garbage collector. (This “yet” here can be meant that even though he got higher education, he is still working as a garbage collector) ▪ Leave the keys out so I can easily remember to take them home.
2. Subordinating Conjunctions
These subordinating conjunctions are used to state a dependent clause and show the nature of the relationship among the independent clause and dependent clause. These are the common subordinating conjunctions: after, although, as, because, before, how, if, once, since, than, that, though, until, when, where, whether, and while. Let us see the examples below: ▪ Three weeks after we moved out, the house was still empty. ▪ Shortly after he joined the English conversation club, he feels more confident to try to speak English. ▪ If they can pass the administration procedure, they will soon contact us for further test. ▪ Iqbal has to complete his thesis by the end of this month when he finishes with the entire requirement. ▪ Once she has found somewhere to live she will send you her new address.
3. Correlative
Conjunctions These correlative conjunctions frequently appear in pairs as they are used to connect equivalent sentence elements. These are the common correlative conjunctions: “both..and”, “either…or”, “neither..nor.”, “not only…but also”, and “whether..or”. These are the examples of correlative conjunctions:
▪ Both Hasna and Shinta used to be my classmate in the class of 2016.
▪ Neither Mayang nor Kiky can speak Arabic fluently so both of them retake the Arabic intensive course this semester.
G. Interjection
Interjection functions to exclaim, protest, or command. It sometimes stands alone; however, it is often contained with structure. Interjection is sometimes to express emotion as it is also not grammatically related to any other part of the sentence. Let us have a look at these examples below:
▪ Oh my God! It was you who hiding on that wall!
▪ Please leave the class!
▪ Please go away! I’ve had enough!
▪ I don’t know what is going on!
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