part of speech word join

Definitions

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Words with friends
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Words of Wonders
Text to speech

Parts of speech

Numbers to words
Phonetic spelling
Terms of use

Modal title

What part of speech is join.

Join can be categorized as a noun and a verb .

1. join is a verb, present, 1st person singular of join (infinitive).
2. join is a verb (infinitive).
3. join is a noun, singular of joins .

Inflections

Infinitive Present Simple Past Past Participle Gerund
(to) join join / joins joined joined joining
Infinitive : (to) join
Present : join / joins
Simple Past : joined
Gerund : joining
Singular Plural
join joins
Singular: join
Plural: joins

What does join mean?

Examples of join, last searches.

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Knowledge Base
Parts of speech

The 8 Parts of Speech | Chart, Definition & Examples

A part of speech (also called a word class ) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence. Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyze how words function in a sentence and improve your writing.

The parts of speech are classified differently in different grammars, but most traditional grammars list eight parts of speech in English: nouns , pronouns , verbs , adjectives , adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , and interjections . Some modern grammars add others, such as determiners and articles .

Many words can function as different parts of speech depending on how they are used. For example, “laugh” can be a noun (e.g., “I like your laugh”) or a verb (e.g., “don’t laugh”).

Prepositions
Conjunctions
Interjections

Other parts of speech

Interesting language articles, frequently asked questions.

A noun is a word that refers to a person, concept, place, or thing. Nouns can act as the subject of a sentence (i.e., the person or thing performing the action) or as the object of a verb (i.e., the person or thing affected by the action).

There are numerous types of nouns, including common nouns (used to refer to nonspecific people, concepts, places, or things), proper nouns (used to refer to specific people, concepts, places, or things), and collective nouns (used to refer to a group of people or things).

Ella lives in France .

Other types of nouns include countable and uncountable nouns , concrete nouns , abstract nouns , and gerunds .

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A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Pronouns typically refer back to an antecedent (a previously mentioned noun) and must demonstrate correct pronoun-antecedent agreement . Like nouns, pronouns can refer to people, places, concepts, and things.

There are numerous types of pronouns, including personal pronouns (used in place of the proper name of a person), demonstrative pronouns (used to refer to specific things and indicate their relative position), and interrogative pronouns (used to introduce questions about things, people, and ownership).

That is a horrible painting!

A verb is a word that describes an action (e.g., “jump”), occurrence (e.g., “become”), or state of being (e.g., “exist”). Verbs indicate what the subject of a sentence is doing. Every complete sentence must contain at least one verb.

Verbs can change form depending on subject (e.g., first person singular), tense (e.g., simple past), mood (e.g., interrogative), and voice (e.g., passive voice ).

Regular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participle are formed by adding“-ed” to the end of the word (or “-d” if the word already ends in “e”). Irregular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participles are formed in some other way.

“I’ve already checked twice.”

“I heard that you used to sing .”

Other types of verbs include auxiliary verbs , linking verbs , modal verbs , and phrasal verbs .

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives can be attributive , appearing before a noun (e.g., “a red hat”), or predicative , appearing after a noun with the use of a linking verb like “to be” (e.g., “the hat is red ”).

Adjectives can also have a comparative function. Comparative adjectives compare two or more things. Superlative adjectives describe something as having the most or least of a specific characteristic.

Other types of adjectives include coordinate adjectives , participial adjectives , and denominal adjectives .

An adverb is a word that can modify a verb, adjective, adverb, or sentence. Adverbs are often formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective (e.g., “slow” becomes “slowly”), although not all adverbs have this ending, and not all words with this ending are adverbs.

There are numerous types of adverbs, including adverbs of manner (used to describe how something occurs), adverbs of degree (used to indicate extent or degree), and adverbs of place (used to describe the location of an action or event).

Talia writes quite quickly.

Other types of adverbs include adverbs of frequency , adverbs of purpose , focusing adverbs , and adverbial phrases .

A preposition is a word (e.g., “at”) or phrase (e.g., “on top of”) used to show the relationship between the different parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be used to indicate aspects such as time , place , and direction .

I left the cup on the kitchen counter.

A conjunction is a word used to connect different parts of a sentence (e.g., words, phrases, or clauses).

The main types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions (used to connect items that are grammatically equal), subordinating conjunctions (used to introduce a dependent clause), and correlative conjunctions (used in pairs to join grammatically equal parts of a sentence).

You can choose what movie we watch because I chose the last time.

An interjection is a word or phrase used to express a feeling, give a command, or greet someone. Interjections are a grammatically independent part of speech, so they can often be excluded from a sentence without affecting the meaning.

Types of interjections include volitive interjections (used to make a demand or request), emotive interjections (used to express a feeling or reaction), cognitive interjections (used to indicate thoughts), and greetings and parting words (used at the beginning and end of a conversation).

Ouch ! I hurt my arm.

I’m, um , not sure.

The traditional classification of English words into eight parts of speech is by no means the only one or the objective truth. Grammarians have often divided them into more or fewer classes. Other commonly mentioned parts of speech include determiners and articles.

Determiners

A determiner is a word that describes a noun by indicating quantity, possession, or relative position.

Common types of determiners include demonstrative determiners (used to indicate the relative position of a noun), possessive determiners (used to describe ownership), and quantifiers (used to indicate the quantity of a noun).

My brother is selling his old car.

Other types of determiners include distributive determiners , determiners of difference , and numbers .

An article is a word that modifies a noun by indicating whether it is specific or general.

The definite article the is used to refer to a specific version of a noun. The can be used with all countable and uncountable nouns (e.g., “the door,” “the energy,” “the mountains”).
The indefinite articles a and an refer to general or unspecific nouns. The indefinite articles can only be used with singular countable nouns (e.g., “a poster,” “an engine”).

There’s a concert this weekend.

If you want to know more about nouns , pronouns , verbs , and other parts of speech, make sure to check out some of our language articles with explanations and examples.

Nouns & pronouns

Common nouns
Proper nouns
Collective nouns
Personal pronouns
Uncountable and countable nouns
Verb tenses
Phrasal verbs
Types of verbs
Active vs passive voice
Subject-verb agreement

A is an indefinite article (along with an ). While articles can be classed as their own part of speech, they’re also considered a type of determiner .

The indefinite articles are used to introduce nonspecific countable nouns (e.g., “a dog,” “an island”).

In is primarily classed as a preposition, but it can be classed as various other parts of speech, depending on how it is used:

Preposition (e.g., “ in the field”)
Noun (e.g., “I have an in with that company”)
Adjective (e.g., “Tim is part of the in crowd”)
Adverb (e.g., “Will you be in this evening?”)

As a part of speech, and is classed as a conjunction . Specifically, it’s a coordinating conjunction .

And can be used to connect grammatically equal parts of a sentence, such as two nouns (e.g., “a cup and plate”), or two adjectives (e.g., “strong and smart”). And can also be used to connect phrases and clauses.

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The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples

Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences , such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes , these are the building blocks of grammar.

Parts of Speech

Word types can be divided into nine parts of speech:
prepositions
conjunctions
articles/determiners
interjections
Some words can be considered more than one part of speech, depending on context and usage.
Interjections can form complete sentences on their own.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won't make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won't even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure and the English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and closed classes (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). The idea is that open classes can be altered and added to as language develops and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics , the label part of speech has generally been discarded in favor of the term word class or syntactic category . These terms make words easier to qualify objectively based on word construction rather than context. Within word classes, there is the lexical or open class and the function or closed class.

The 9 Parts of Speech

Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they're the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples: I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject's state of being ( is , was ). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples: sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples: hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Examples: softly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly, sometimes.

Preposition

Prepositions show spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase , which contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the ; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners , which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples: ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections ( Hooray! ) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below, work functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
The verb work is the action he must perform.
The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit .

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate.

In the short sentence above, birds is the noun and fly is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a command to an understood "you".

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description.

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time ( before winter ) that answers the question of when the birds migrate . Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

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Understanding Parts of Speech (9 Types With Examples)

What are parts of speech? In the American English language, parts-of-speech is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. They exist under the verb , noun, pronoun, interjection , adjective , conjunction, adverb, and preposition forms.

Learn more about parts of the speech in this comprehensive worksheet…

What are parts of speech?

“Parts of speech” refers to the essential words used in sentence formation in the English language.

Every word used in a sentence structure plays an important role in defining the sentence’s meaning. These words use and placement give proper intentions in sentence structures.

Parts of speech are the basic grammar lessons taught during the primary phases of learning English.

Any word used in sentence formation falls into one of these categories for proper sentence structure.

Some of those words can be a part of one or more parts of speech. This topic further explores the essential parts of speech used in the English language.

Watch this as a video lesson

In total, there are nine categories of parts of speech

These nine parts of speech are namely: Verbs, Nouns , Adjectives, Determiners, Adverbs , Pronouns, Prepositions , Conjunctions, and Interjections.

Another additional classification is used as a part of speech, i.e. , Articles, a subprogram of determiners.

To comprehend the meaning and use of each word in the English language, it is essential to clearly understand the various parts of speech and select the right parts of speech form at the appropriate place in the sentence.

What are the 9 parts of speech with their functions?

Here are the nine parts of speech and how they impact the English language.

‘Verbs’ are the words used in a sentence to define the action/state of action being performed. Most of the sentences in sentence formation require the inclusion of verbs.

Some examples of verbs used in the English language are Love, Break, Fall , and Cry . These are the basic forms of verbs and are known as infinitives .

Most of the verbs used have two other major forms called participles . The use of these participles is for the formation of various verb-tense combinations.

These participles define the forms of verbs concerning the time of action/performance. These verb-tense combinations can be used in two types: Active voice and passive voice .

A ‘noun’ are words used in a sentence to give recognition or the name of an object, individual, or animal.

Nouns can be sub-classified into two major categories: Common nouns , which give generic descriptor names to things, and common items, such as a bat, a bicycle , etc. The other category of nouns is Proper nouns , which have specific descriptor names to refer to a specialized object, place, or individual, such as Charley, The Empire State Building, The Telegraph , etc.

Additionally, nouns can be classified as singular nouns and plural nouns based on the number of individuals/objects.

Singular Nouns

The definition of a Singular Noun is the same as that of a noun when used commonly. It carries the same definition as the noun: “A word referring towards an individual/object/event/material/place.”

Plural Nouns

The word plural relates to “more than one in certain languages or more than two in certain languages.”

Thus singular nouns can be converted to their plural noun format when there is an implication of more than one or two objects/individuals/places.

A general Singular/Common Noun can be turned into the appropriate form of a Plural Noun by adding a ‘s’/’es’/’ ies’/’ves.’ It is also initiated by changing ‘us’ to ‘i’, ‘is’ to ‘es’ , or ‘on’ to ‘a’ .

Some common nouns do not change when interchanged between their singular and plural noun forms. Some other common nouns do not fall under plural nouns and are called irregular nouns, which are made plural by changing the spelling or adding a suffix to the word.

‘Adjectives’ are words that give a description or modify the scope of nouns/pronouns by being specific. For example, adjectives used to define a noun can be red, small, hot, common, etc.

An adjective is usually placed before a noun or after the verb that it modifies. Three forms of adjectives are used to compare similar characteristics of different individuals/objects. These three degrees of comparison are:

Positive/Absolute form

This comparison of adjectives defines the original form of the adjective as stated in English. For example, “this candy is tasty .” This degree of comparison states that no relative subject is available for comparison.

Comparative form

This form of the adjective gives a relative comparison between two objects performing similar actions with identical characteristics. For example, “the candy we had today is tastier than the one we received yesterday.”

Superlative form

This form of the adjective gives the superiority declaration of one object over similar objects possessing similar characteristics. For example, “this candy is the tastiest I have ever had in the last two years .”

Adjectives can be sub-classified based on their function in sentence formation. This sub-classification is:

Possessive Adjectives

These adjectives show/represent the possessiveness of an object. For example, mine, my, his/her, their, its, etc.

Interrogative Adjectives

These adjectives modify the noun/pronoun by interrogation. Only a select few adjectives are available in this form. For example, whose, which, what, and where.

Demonstrative Adjectives

These adjectives describe the current state/position of the noun/pronoun concerning space/time. For example, this, these, those, that.

Compound Adjectives

These adjectives are a result of the combination of two or more adjectives. The resulting adjective modifies the subject in the sentence. For example, hand-dried, heavy-weighted, spike-haired, etc.

‘Determiners’ are the words placed before a noun/pronoun group terms to refer to a single/multiple things. Some commonly used determiners in English are ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘some’, ‘any’, and ‘this.’ Determiners are generally placed before descriptive adjectives . It tells the reader more about the description of the noun being referred to.

Determiners are classified into sub-categories, articles, and demonstratives.

An ‘Article’ can be either definite or indefinite. An article modifies a noun/pronoun without specifying any description of the object. In English, an example of a ‘definite article’ is the , whereas examples of two ‘indefinite articles’ are a and an .

Here, the refers to specific things or things that are identified beforehand. A or a refer to non-specific things that have not been identified beforehand.

Demonstratives

A ‘Demonstrative’ is defined as a demonstrative adjective/pronoun based on its usage in the sentence. Some examples of demonstratives are ‘this’, ‘that’, and ‘those’ .

A determiner has the same rules of use as in the case of adjectives in sentence formation. Thus, confusion takes place when carefully choosing the type of parts of speech to assign when given a choice of either a determiner or adjective.

An ‘Adverb’ defines essential information about the verb, similar to what an adjective is to a noun. It provides a descriptor for a verb used in a sentence and some cases, can also describe an adjective or another adverb.

Some adverbs used in sentences with verbs are ‘slowly’, ‘hastily’, ‘unfortunately’, and ‘angrily’.

Adverbs are further sub-classified into various types based on their application in a sentence.

Adverbs of Time (to inform about the occurrence of a verb), For example, ‘now’, ‘tomorrow’, and ‘soon’.
Adverbs of Manner (to describe the action of a verb), For example, ‘hastily’, ‘slowly’, and ‘minutely’.
Adverbs of Place (to indicate the place of action of the verb),
Adverbs of Frequency (to describe the frequency of a verb action),
Adverbs of Degree (to describe the intensity of an action),
Conjunctive Adverbs (are used to link/act as a conjunction to two sentences).

A ‘Pronoun’ is a word used in specifically providing an alternate name for a non/noun phrase. They are alternate words for referring to an object/individual when the requirement of a noun is unnecessary, as the noun has been mentioned previously in some parts of the sentence.

Some examples of pronouns are ‘it’, ‘he/she’, and ‘himself/herself’.

Pronouns are sub-classified into different categories based on their use in the sentence.

Some of these sub-categories are:

Relative Pronouns (to relate a part of a sentence with the other)
Possessive Pronouns (to show possessiveness)
Reflexive Pronouns (to refer back to the subject of discussion)
Demonstrative Pronouns (to refer to specific objects/individuals)
Interrogative Pronouns (to ask questions)
Indefinite Pronouns (to avoid reference to any specific object/individual/place)
Personal Pronouns (to use as substitutes for proper names)
Subject Pronouns (to assign acting on an object)
Object Pronouns (to assign receiving action towards an object)
Reciprocal Pronouns (to express two-way/mutual relationship)
Preposition

A ‘Preposition’ is a word used as a connective between a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun with another word.

Prepositions are used in sentence formations to convey these meanings:

To show the direction towards/of something/someone
To refer to the period of an action taking place
To specify the location/position of an object
To present the space and time relationship between objects

Based on their use and function, prepositions are classified into four subtypes:

Prepositions of Time (to indicate the happening of an action/event)
Preposition of Place (to indicate the location of an object)
Preposition of Direction (to indicate the direction/orientation of an object)
Prepositions of Spatial Relationship (to indicate an object moving away/towards a source)
Conjunction

A ‘Conjunction’ is a word that combines two/more objects and behaves as connectives in a sentence. These can appear in the beginning/middle/end of the sentence following the location of the objects.

There are three types of conjunctions used in sentence formation:

Coordinate conjunction (to combine two independent clauses )
Subordinate conjunction (to combine an independent with a dependent clause)
Correlation conjunction (to combine two phrases having equal weightage)

Interjection

An ‘Interjection’ is a word to convey the expression of a variety of emotions/feelings. As such, there is no specific rule for the use of interjection and where it is to be placed.

However, in most cases, it is placed at the beginning of the sentence. For example, some of the most commonly used interjections are ‘ouch’, ‘phew’, and ‘well’.

Parts of speech examples

Here are some examples of the parts of speech used in sentences. Note the placement and its relation with other parts of speech present in the sentence format.

John is cutting a pipe.
John intends to come to the office this Monday .
Jogging regularly is good for health.
Drinking and driving put other motorists in danger.
Would you want to wear a suit?
I love to sing in between classes.

See another example in the image below.

Juno ran towards the classroom.
The janitor requested the students to clear their lockers.
The monkey was caged after being sedated.
I gifted my brother a phone .
Why did you purchase the book ?
I misplaced the manuscript .
Do you want to eat some ice cream ?
Mum loved my new car .
Daniel gifted his brother a Porsche.

I purchased a blue suit for the reception.
Mary purchased two oranges from the fruit seller.
The curry is tasty .
Juno’s brother is arrogant .
The documentary that premiered on television was fascinating .
Giovanni Giorgio is a great music composer.

My house is currently under lease.
This novel is lengthy.
I purchased some fruits and vegetables.
She sent me an expensive watch.
Velma loved the dress gifted by her parents.
Joyce and Jill watched a movie together.
Grandma gave us materials to prepare the dessert.

Typically , we visit Mom on Mondays.
Don’t you taste the coffee to be too bitter?
Do not be nervous. You will eventually get the hang of it.
The movie I watched was very scientific.
It is scorching hot inside the workshop.
Can I visit the office today ?

His aunt will be staying at the apartment for a while .
He is the man I was referring to.
I found my missing luggage outside the airport.

I won’t be coming to the office in the afternoon.
He arranged the cutlery on the table.
Bhaskar made the dog hide under its bed.
I enjoy strolling by the lake in the mornings.

James and I trekked to the hilltop today.
I stayed back home because I felt uneasy.
He did not enjoy the yogurt , yet he finished it.

Interjection
Hurray! We got the funding.
Ouch! That wound looks severe.
Wow! You look great in the wedding gown.
Oh my God ! I hope he is safe.

See an example in the image below.

Words with more than one job

Many parts of speech can have more than one function/job in the sentence. This improves the versatility of the words being used and makes the use more situational in its placement and conveyance of meaning.

Myers can shift for herself (Preposition)
Give prayers to the Almighty; for He is the one above all (Conjunction)
We require more women to have the same vigor. (Adjective)
More of the women died in the operating room than in the cabin. (Pronoun)
Agatha needs to shut the gossiping and work more (Adverb)

To see how all the objects work together, see the table below.

Here is a chart showing the parts of speech:

How to identify parts of speech

In sentence formation, it often becomes difficult to ascertain the parts of speech represented by each word. To help out and to make the process of identification easier, follow these steps:

Identify any word which names an object/individual/place in a generalized form as a noun .
To identify a specific noun, use pronouns .
Any words which describe/identify actions/performance are verbs .
Any word that modifies or gives a greater definition to nouns is an adjective.
Any word that modifies or gives meaning to the actions of verbs, are adverbs.
It is easy to pick out prepositions as they describe relationships between a noun/pronoun with other nouns/pronouns.
Any joiner used to join two clauses is a conjunction .
Exclamations generally follow any interjections in the text.

Parts of speech

More parts of speech:

Conjunctions
Prepositions
Possessive nouns
Irregular plural nouns
Proper nouns
Concrete nouns
Collective nouns
Possessive and plural nouns
Verbs: The Definitive Guide
Nouns | Explore Definition, Examples & Types with Examples
What Are Pronouns? Definitions and Examples
What Are Adverbs? (with Examples)
Interjections – Explore Meaning, Definition, Usage and Examples
What Is A Conjunction? Types & Examples
The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples
What Is a Determiner?
The 8 Parts of Speech: Examples and Rules
Adverbs – What is It? Explore the Meaning, Definition, Types, Usage and Examples

Inside this article

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About the author

Dalia Y.: Dalia is an English Major and linguistics expert with an additional degree in Psychology. Dalia has featured articles on Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, Grammarly, and many more. She covers English, ESL, and all things grammar on GrammarBrain.

Core lessons

Abstract Noun
Accusative Case
Active Sentence
Alliteration
Adjective Clause
Adjective Phrase
Adverbial Clause
Appositive Phrase
Body Paragraph
Compound Adjective
Complex Sentence
Compound Words
Compound Predicate
Common Noun
Comparative Adjective
Comparative and Superlative
Compound Noun
Compound Subject
Compound Sentence
Copular Verb
Collective Noun
Colloquialism
Conciseness
Conditional
Concrete Noun
Conjugation
Conditional Sentence
Comma Splice
Correlative Conjunction
Coordinating Conjunction
Coordinate Adjective
Cumulative Adjective
Dative Case
Declarative Statement
Direct Object Pronoun
Direct Object
Dangling Modifier
Demonstrative Pronoun
Demonstrative Adjective
Direct Characterization
Definite Article
Doublespeak
Equivocation Fallacy
Future Perfect Progressive
Future Simple
Future Perfect Continuous
Future Perfect
First Conditional
Gerund Phrase
Genitive Case
Helping Verb
Irregular Adjective
Irregular Verb
Imperative Sentence
Indefinite Article
Intransitive Verb
Introductory Phrase
Indefinite Pronoun
Indirect Characterization
Interrogative Sentence
Intensive Pronoun
Inanimate Object
Indefinite Tense
Infinitive Phrase
Intensifier
Indicative Mood
Juxtaposition
Linking Verb
Misplaced Modifier
Nominative Case
Noun Adjective
Object Pronoun
Object Complement
Order of Adjectives
Parallelism
Prepositional Phrase
Past Simple Tense
Past Continuous Tense
Past Perfect Tense
Past Progressive Tense
Present Simple Tense
Present Perfect Tense
Personal Pronoun
Personification
Persuasive Writing
Parallel Structure
Phrasal Verb
Predicate Adjective
Predicate Nominative
Phonetic Language
Plural Noun
Punctuation
Punctuation Marks
Preposition of Place
Parts of Speech
Possessive Adjective
Possessive Determiner
Possessive Case
Possessive Noun
Proper Adjective
Proper Noun
Present Participle
Quotation Marks
Relative Pronoun
Reflexive Pronoun
Reciprocal Pronoun
Subordinating Conjunction
Simple Future Tense
Stative Verb
Subjunctive
Subject Complement
Subject of a Sentence
Sentence Variety
Second Conditional
Superlative Adjective
Slash Symbol
Topic Sentence
Types of Nouns
Types of Sentences
Uncountable Noun
Vowels and Consonants

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What are the parts of speech?

Today's the day for you to learn about this important grammatical concept! But first...let's see what the parts of speech have to do with your clothes.

Imagine that it's laundry day, and you've just finished washing and drying your clothes. You dump the contents of the laundry basket onto your bed, and you begin to organize everything. You fold matching socks together, you create a pile of perfectly folded shirts that you would be proud to show Marie Kondo, and you do the same thing with your pants, jackets, and everything else.

In the same way that we organize our clothes into groups based on each item's function and features, we organize our words into categories based on each word's function and features. We call these categories of words the parts of speech .

Some people categorize words into eight parts of speech, and some people categorize them into nine parts of speech. Neither one is wrong; they're just two ways of looking at things. We'll go over these categories below. Here at English Grammar Revolution, we categorize words into eight groups, but I'll tell you about the ninth one as well.

There's one important thing for you to know before we look at these categories: most words can function as more than one part of speech . They will only do one job at a time, but they can do different things in different sentences. Look at the word love in the following sentences.

My love of grammar inspired me to make this website.

Here, love is functioning as a noun. It's the subject of the sentence.

I love you.

Now, love is acting as a verb ! It's telling us an action.

The only way we can know how to categorize a word is to look at how it's acting within a sentence.

Okay, let's check out the parts of speech!

The 8 Parts of Speech

Nouns name people, places, things, or ideas. They're important parts of our sentences because they perform important jobs (subjects, direct objects, predicate nouns, etc.).

A peacock walked through our yard .

The dog howled during the night , and it woke up our whole family .

Sometimes people get bogged down with this part of speech because there are also many subcategories of nouns. This is similar to the way that we have subcategories for our clothes. You may have a whole drawer full of pants, but you may also have different types of pants that you use for different purposes (workout pants, lounge pants, work pants, etc.). This is similar to the way that we can further categorize nouns into smaller groups.

Here are a few of the subcategories of nouns: proper nouns, common nouns , collective nouns , possessive nouns , and compound nouns.

Tip : Other parts of speech also have subcategories. If you're studying this information for the first time, ignore the subcategories and focus on learning about each broader category.

2. Pronouns

Pronouns take the place of nouns. When most people hear the word pronoun , they think of words like I, we, me, he, she, and they . These are indeed all pronouns, but they're a part of a subcategory called personal pronouns. Know that there are other kinds of pronouns out there as well. Here are some examples: myself, his, someone , and who .

Here are a few of the subcategories of pronouns: reflexive pronouns , indefinite pronouns , possessive pronouns , and relative pronouns .

When we walked across the bridge, we saw someone who knows you .

I will fix the dishwasher myself .

Verbs show actions or states of being. They are integral elements of sentences .

The shuttle will fly into space.

The loving mother comforted and soothed the baby.

In the Montessori tradition of education, they use a large red circle or ball to symbolize a verb, and they often teach children to think of verbs as a sun providing the energy of a sentence. Isn't that a lovely way to think of verbs?

I know that you're getting tired of hearing about subcategories, but linking verbs, action verbs, and helping verbs are described on the verb page here .

Modal verbs are described on that link, and you can learn even more about action verbs and linking verbs from those links.

4. Adjectives

Adjectives describe, or modify , nouns and pronouns. I like to think of them as adding color to language. It would be hard to describe a beautiful sunset or the way a touching story makes us feel without using adjectives.

The wise, handsome owl had orange eyes.

The caring father rocked the baby.

One helpful strategy for learning about and identifying adjectives is to learn how they are diagrammed . Sentence diagrams are pictures of sentences that help us see how all of the words are grammatically related. Since adjectives modify nouns and pronouns, we diagram them on slanted lines under the nouns/pronouns that they are modifying.

My green and white book fell.

Book is a noun. It's the subject of this sentence. My, green , and white are all adjectives describing book , so we diagram them on slanted lines underneath book . Isn't that a great way to SEE what adjectives do?

Nine Parts of Speech

When people categorize words into eight parts of speech, they say that articles/determiners ( a, an, the, this, that, etc. ) are subcategories of adjectives.

When people categorize words into nine parts of speech, they say that articles/determiners make up their own category and are not a part of the adjective category.

Adverbs modify (describe) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Adverbs are similar to adjectives in that they both modify things.

The extremely cute koala hugged its mom very tightly .

The dog howled loudly .

Sentence diagrams also make it really easy to see what adverbs do. Take a look at this diagram. What do you notice about the way the adverbs are diagrammed?

James ran very quickly.

Did you notice that the adverbs are diagrammed on slanted lines under the words that they are modifying?

Ran is a verb. Quickly is an adverb telling us more about the verb ran . Very is an adverb telling us more about the adverb quickly .

Doesn't the diagram make it easier to SEE what adverbs do?

6. Prepositions

Prepositions are probably the most difficult part of speech to explain, but people generally have an easier time understanding them when they look at lots of examples. So...let's start with some examples of commonly used prepositions!

in, for, of, off, if, until

The frog sat in the flower.

The baby cried for a long time.

I'm so convinced that memorizing some of the prepositions will be helpful to you that I'll teach you a preposition song .

Okay, now that we've looked at some examples, let's look at the definition of a preposition.

Prepositions show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other word in the rest of the sentence.

Sentence diagrams will come to the rescue again to help us visualize what prepositions do. Think of prepositions as "noun hooks" or "noun bridges." In the diagram below, notice how the preposition down links the noun tree to the rest of the sentence.

The cat ran down the tree.

Since prepositions always function as "noun hooks," they'll always be accompanied by a noun. The preposition plus its noun is called a prepositional phrase .

If you find a word from the preposition list that's not a part of a prepositional phrase, it's not functioning as a preposition. (You remember that words can function as different parts of speech , right?)

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions join things together. They can join words or groups of words (phrases and clauses).

The hummingbird sat and waited .

The conjunction and is joining the words sat and waited .

Do you live near the park or near the hospital ?

The conjunction or is joining the phrases near the park and near the hospital.

The two conjunctions we just looked at ( and and or ) belong to a subcategory called coordinating conjunctions, but there are other subcategories of conjunctions as well. The other one that we use most often is subordinating conjunctions . Subordinating conjunctions are a little trickier to learn because they involve a more complicated concept ( dependent adverb clauses ).

For now, just know that all conjunctions, no matter what type they are, connect things together. In fact, let's LOOK at how they do this by looking at a sentence diagram.

Here is a sentence diagram showing how the coordinating conjunction and connects two clauses.

She cooked, and he cleaned.

8. Interjections

Interjections show excitement or emotion.

Wow ! That jump was amazing!

Phew , the baby finally fell asleep.

They are different from the other parts of speech in that they're not grammatically related to the rest of the sentence, and the way that we diagram them reflects that. Look at how we diagram interjections :

Yes ! We won the lottery!

The interjection yes sit sits there on its own line floating above the rest of the sentence. This helps show that it's not grammatically related to the other words in the sentence.

It's time to review what we covered on this page.

We can categorize the words that we use into groups based on their functions and features. We call these groups the parts of speech.
Many words can function as multiple parts of speech. You need to look at each word in the context of a sentence in order to say what part of speech it is.
The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
You just learned about all of the parts of speech. Give yourself a high five!

If you'd like to teach or learn grammar the easy way—with sentence diagrams—check out our Get Smart Grammar Program .

It starts from the very beginning and teaches you grammar and sentence diagramming in easy, bite-size lessons.

Hello! I'm Elizabeth O'Brien, and my goal is to get you jazzed about grammar.

This is original content from https://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/parts-of-speech.html

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Elizabeth O'Brien is the creator of Grammar Revolution.

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Parts of speech

The 8 Parts of Speech | Definition & Examples

A part of speech (also called a word class ) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence. Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyse how words function in a sentence and improve your writing.

Many words can function as different parts of speech depending on how they are used. For example, ‘laugh’ can be a noun (e.g., ‘I like your laugh’) or a verb (e.g., ‘don’t laugh’).

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Prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, other parts of speech, frequently asked questions.

Ella lives in France .

Other types of nouns include countable and uncountable nouns , concrete nouns , abstract nouns , and gerunds .

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That is a horrible painting!

A verb is a word that describes an action (e.g., ‘jump’), occurrence (e.g., ‘become’), or state of being (e.g., ‘exist’). Verbs indicate what the subject of a sentence is doing. Every complete sentence must contain at least one verb.

Verbs can change form depending on subject (e.g., first person singular), tense (e.g., past simple ), mood (e.g., interrogative), and voice (e.g., passive voice ).

Regular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participle are formed by adding’-ed’ to the end of the word (or ‘-d’ if the word already ends in ‘e’). Irregular verbs are verbs whose simple past and past participles are formed in some other way.

‘I’ve already checked twice’.

‘I heard that you used to sing ‘.

Other types of verbs include auxiliary verbs , linking verbs , modal verbs , and phrasal verbs .

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives can be attributive , appearing before a noun (e.g., ‘a red hat’), or predicative , appearing after a noun with the use of a linking verb like ‘to be’ (e.g., ‘the hat is red ‘).

Adjectives can also have a comparative function. Comparative adjectives compare two or more things. Superlative adjectives describe something as having the most or least of a specific characteristic.

Other types of adjectives include coordinate adjectives , participial adjectives , and denominal adjectives .

An adverb is a word that can modify a verb, adjective, adverb, or sentence. Adverbs are often formed by adding ‘-ly’ to the end of an adjective (e.g., ‘slow’ becomes ‘slowly’), although not all adverbs have this ending, and not all words with this ending are adverbs.

Talia writes quite quickly.

Other types of adverbs include adverbs of frequency , adverbs of purpose , focusing adverbs , and adverbial phrases .

A preposition is a word (e.g., ‘at’) or phrase (e.g., ‘on top of’) used to show the relationship between the different parts of a sentence. Prepositions can be used to indicate aspects such as time , place , and direction .

I left the cup on the kitchen counter.

A conjunction is a word used to connect different parts of a sentence (e.g., words, phrases, or clauses).

You can choose what movie we watch because I chose the last time.

Ouch ! I hurt my arm.

I’m, um , not sure.

Determiners

A determiner is a word that describes a noun by indicating quantity, possession, or relative position.

My brother is selling his old car.

Other types of determiners include distributive determiners , determiners of difference , and numbers .

An article is a word that modifies a noun by indicating whether it is specific or general.

The definite article the is used to refer to a specific version of a noun. The can be used with all countable and uncountable nouns (e.g., ‘the door’, ‘the energy’, ‘the mountains’).
The indefinite articles a and an refer to general or unspecific nouns. The indefinite articles can only be used with singular countable nouns (e.g., ‘a poster’, ‘an engine’).

There’s a concert this weekend.

A is an indefinite article (along with an ). While articles can be classed as their own part of speech, they’re also considered a type of determiner .

The indefinite articles are used to introduce nonspecific countable nouns (e.g., ‘a dog’, ‘an island’).

In is primarily classed as a preposition, but it can be classed as various other parts of speech, depending on how it is used:

Preposition (e.g., ‘ in the field’)
Noun (e.g., ‘I have an in with that company’)
Adjective (e.g., ‘Tim is part of the in crowd’)
Adverb (e.g., ‘Will you be in this evening?’)

As a part of speech, and is classed as a conjunction . Specifically, it’s a coordinating conjunction .

And can be used to connect grammatically equal parts of a sentence, such as two nouns (e.g., ‘a cup and plate’), or two adjectives (e.g., ‘strong and smart’). And can also be used to connect phrases and clauses.

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What Is an Adjective? | Definition, Types & Examples

What is a Part of Speech?

A part of speech is one of the nine types of English words : VERB, NOUN, ADJECTIVE, ADVERB, PRONOUN, PREPOSITION, DETERMINER, CONJUNCTION, INTERJECTION

There are thousands of words but they don't all have the same job. For example:

some words express action
other words express things
other words join one word to another word

parts of speech are like the parts of a house

And when we want to build a sentence, we use the different types of word .

Each type of word has its own job.

There are 9 basic types of word , and they are called " parts of speech ".

The most important parts of speech are the BIG FOUR, and the verb is the king of these. Here they are, each with an example and its basic "job":

verb ( deliver - expresses action)
noun ( computer - expresses a thing)
adjective ( yellow - tells us more about a noun)
adverb ( quickly - tells us more about a verb)

The other parts of speech are mostly small words:

pronoun ( it - replaces a noun)
preposition ( on - links a noun to another word)
determiner ( the - limits a noun)
conjunction ( and - joins words)
interjection ( ouch ! - expresses feeling)

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Parts of Speech

What are the parts of speech, a formal definition.

Table of Contents

The Part of Speech Is Determined by the Word's Function

Are there 8 or 9 parts of speech, the nine parts of speech, (1) adjective, (3) conjunction, (4) determiner, (5) interjection, (7) preposition, (8) pronoun, why the parts of speech are important, video lesson.

You need to dig a well . (noun)
You look well . (adjective)
You dance well . (adverb)
Well , I agree. (interjection)
My eyes will well up. (verb)
red, happy, enormous
Ask the boy in the red jumper.
I live in a happy place.
I caught a fish this morning! I mean an enormous one.
happily, loosely, often
They skipped happily to the counter.
Tie the knot loosely so they can escape.
I often walk to work.
It is an intriguingly magic setting.
He plays the piano extremely well.
and, or, but
it is a large and important city.
Shall we run to the hills or hide in the bushes?
I know you are lying, but I cannot prove it.
my, those, two, many
My dog is fine with those cats.
There are two dogs but many cats.
ouch, oops, eek
Ouch , that hurt.
Oops , it's broken.
Eek! A mouse just ran past my foot!
leader, town, apple
Take me to your leader .
I will see you in town later.
An apple fell on his head .
in, near, on, with
Sarah is hiding in the box.
I live near the train station.
Put your hands on your head.
She yelled with enthusiasm.
she, we, they, that
Joanne is smart. She is also funny.
Our team has studied the evidence. We know the truth.
Jack and Jill went up the hill, but they never returned.
That is clever!
work, be, write, exist
Tony works down the pit now. He was unemployed.
I will write a song for you.
I think aliens exist .

Are you a visual learner? Do you prefer video to text? Here is a list of all our grammar videos .

Video for Each Part of Speech

The Most Important Writing Issues

The top issue related to adjectives, the top issue related to adverbs.

Extremely annoyed, she stared menacingly at her rival.
Infuriated, she glared at her rival.

The Top Issue Related to Conjunctions

Burger, Fries, and a shake
Fish, chips and peas

The Top Issue Related to Determiners

The Top Issue Related to Interjections

The top issue related to nouns, the top issue related to prepositions, the top issue related to pronouns, the top issue related to verbs.

Crack the parts of speech to help with learning a foreign language or to take your writing to the next level.

This page was written by Craig Shrives .

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Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, coordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions are words that are used to join two sentences together.

Example: I’m reading, and I’m writing.

Key Concepts: Flow, Coherence, Unity; Grammar ; Organization ; Organizational Schema & Logical Reasoning; Parts of Speech ; Sentences; Writer-Based vs. Reader-Based Prose

Commas are used when two independent clauses are connected by coordinating conjunctions :

Ex: She was tired, so she went home. She was tired is an independent clause (a complete sentence). She went home is also an independent clause. You need a comma before the coordinating conjunction so .

Subordinating conjunctions and coordinating conjunctions are micro signposts : they tell the reader how ideas relate to one another. While subordinating conjunctions grammatically subordinate one idea to another, coordinating conjunctions suggest a more equal relationship. Writers, speakers, knowledge makers . . . use coordinating conjunctions in Standard Written English when the subsequent sentence is conceptually related.

Inexperienced writers sometimes believe it is a smart strategy to have long sentences. Sometimes they believe linking two sentences with a comma somehow makes the overall passage more impressive, more academic. In fact, clarity remains the #1 goal. With that in mind, remember you’re asking your readers to hold that first sentence in their short-term memory while reading the second sentence. That’s a cognitive load. Thus, you want to use this construction sparsely in formal academic and workplace writing.

Sample Subordinating Conjunctions

FANBOYS is mnemonic device you can use to remember the seven coordinating conjunctions:

F = For (cause/ reason)
A = And (addition)
N = Nor (negative choice)
B = But (contrast)
O = Or (choice)
Y = Yet (contrast)
S = So (as a result/effect)
Subordinating Conjunctions

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, understanding the 8 parts of speech: definitions and examples.

General Education

If you’re trying to learn the grammatical rules of English, you’ve probably been asked to learn the parts of speech. But what are parts of speech and how many are there? How do you know which words are classified in each part of speech?

The answers to these questions can be a bit complicated—English is a difficult language to learn and understand. Don’t fret, though! We’re going to answer each of these questions for you with a full guide to the parts of speech that explains the following:

What the parts of speech are, including a comprehensive parts of speech list
Parts of speech definitions for the individual parts of speech. (If you’re looking for information on a specific part of speech, you can search for it by pressing Command + F, then typing in the part of speech you’re interested in.)
Parts of speech examples
A ten question quiz covering parts of speech definitions and parts of speech examples

We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s begin!

Feature Image: (Gavina S / Wikimedia Commons)

What Are Parts of Speech?

The parts of speech definitions in English can vary, but here’s a widely accepted one: a part of speech is a category of words that serve a similar grammatical purpose in sentences.

To make that definition even simpler, a part of speech is just a category for similar types of words . All of the types of words included under a single part of speech function in similar ways when they’re used properly in sentences.

In the English language, it’s commonly accepted that there are 8 parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, interjections, and prepositions. Each of these categories plays a different role in communicating meaning in the English language. Each of the eight parts of speech—which we might also call the “main classes” of speech—also have subclasses. In other words, we can think of each of the eight parts of speech as being general categories for different types within their part of speech . There are different types of nouns, different types of verbs, different types of adjectives, adverbs, pronouns...you get the idea.

And that’s an overview of what a part of speech is! Next, we’ll explain each of the 8 parts of speech—definitions and examples included for each category.

There are tons of nouns in this picture. Can you find them all?

Nouns are a class of words that refer, generally, to people and living creatures, objects, events, ideas, states of being, places, and actions. You’ve probably heard English nouns referred to as “persons, places, or things.” That definition is a little simplistic, though—while nouns do include people, places, and things, “things” is kind of a vague term. I t’s important to recognize that “things” can include physical things—like objects or belongings—and nonphysical, abstract things—like ideas, states of existence, and actions.

Since there are many different types of nouns, we’ll include several examples of nouns used in a sentence while we break down the subclasses of nouns next!

Subclasses of Nouns, Including Examples

As an open class of words, the category of “nouns” has a lot of subclasses. The most common and important subclasses of nouns are common nouns, proper nouns, concrete nouns, abstract nouns, collective nouns, and count and mass nouns. Let’s break down each of these subclasses!

Common Nouns and Proper Nouns

Common nouns are generic nouns—they don’t name specific items. They refer to people (the man, the woman), living creatures (cat, bird), objects (pen, computer, car), events (party, work), ideas (culture, freedom), states of being (beauty, integrity), and places (home, neighborhood, country) in a general way.

Proper nouns are sort of the counterpart to common nouns. Proper nouns refer to specific people, places, events, or ideas. Names are the most obvious example of proper nouns, like in these two examples:

Common noun: What state are you from?

Proper noun: I’m from Arizona .

Whereas “state” is a common noun, Arizona is a proper noun since it refers to a specific state. Whereas “the election” is a common noun, “Election Day” is a proper noun. Another way to pick out proper nouns: the first letter is often capitalized. If you’d capitalize the word in a sentence, it’s almost always a proper noun.

Concrete Nouns and Abstract Nouns

Concrete nouns are nouns that can be identified through the five senses. Concrete nouns include people, living creatures, objects, and places, since these things can be sensed in the physical world. In contrast to concrete nouns, abstract nouns are nouns that identify ideas, qualities, concepts, experiences, or states of being. Abstract nouns cannot be detected by the five senses. Here’s an example of concrete and abstract nouns used in a sentence:

Concrete noun: Could you please fix the weedeater and mow the lawn ?

Abstract noun: Aliyah was delighted to have the freedom to enjoy the art show in peace .

See the difference? A weedeater and the lawn are physical objects or things, and freedom and peace are not physical objects, though they’re “things” people experience! Despite those differences, they all count as nouns.

Collective Nouns, Count Nouns, and Mass Nouns

Nouns are often categorized based on number and amount. Collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of something—often groups of people or a type of animal. Team , crowd , and herd are all examples of collective nouns.

Count nouns are nouns that can appear in the singular or plural form, can be modified by numbers, and can be described by quantifying determiners (e.g. many, most, more, several). For example, “bug” is a count noun. It can occur in singular form if you say, “There is a bug in the kitchen,” but it can also occur in the plural form if you say, “There are many bugs in the kitchen.” (In the case of the latter, you’d call an exterminator...which is an example of a common noun!) Any noun that can accurately occur in one of these singular or plural forms is a count noun.

Mass nouns are another type of noun that involve numbers and amount. Mass nouns are nouns that usually can’t be pluralized, counted, or quantified and still make sense grammatically. “Charisma” is an example of a mass noun (and an abstract noun!). For example, you could say, “They’ve got charisma, ” which doesn’t imply a specific amount. You couldn’t say, “They’ve got six charismas, ” or, “They’ve got several charismas .” It just doesn’t make sense!

Verbs are all about action...just like these runners.

A verb is a part of speech that, when used in a sentence, communicates an action, an occurrence, or a state of being . In sentences, verbs are the most important part of the predicate, which explains or describes what the subject of the sentence is doing or how they are being. And, guess what? All sentences contain verbs!

There are many words in the English language that are classified as verbs. A few common verbs include the words run, sing, cook, talk, and clean. These words are all verbs because they communicate an action performed by a living being. We’ll look at more specific examples of verbs as we discuss the subclasses of verbs next!

Subclasses of Verbs, Including Examples

Like nouns, verbs have several subclasses. The subclasses of verbs include copular or linking verbs, intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, and ditransitive or double transitive verbs. Let’s dive into these subclasses of verbs!

Copular or Linking Verbs

Copular verbs, or linking verbs, are verbs that link a subject with its complement in a sentence. The most familiar linking verb is probably be. Here’s a list of other common copular verbs in English: act, be, become, feel, grow, seem, smell, and taste.

So how do copular verbs work? Well, in a sentence, if we said, “Michi is ,” and left it at that, it wouldn’t make any sense. “Michi,” the subject, needs to be connected to a complement by the copular verb “is.” Instead, we could say, “Michi is leaving.” In that instance, is links the subject of the sentence to its complement.

Transitive Verbs, Intransitive Verbs, and Ditransitive Verbs

Transitive verbs are verbs that affect or act upon an object. When unattached to an object in a sentence, a transitive verb does not make sense. Here’s an example of a transitive verb attached to (and appearing before) an object in a sentence:

Please take the clothes to the dry cleaners.

In this example, “take” is a transitive verb because it requires an object—”the clothes”—to make sense. “The clothes” are the objects being taken. “Please take” wouldn’t make sense by itself, would it? That’s because the transitive verb “take,” like all transitive verbs, transfers its action onto another being or object.

Conversely, intransitive verbs don’t require an object to act upon in order to make sense in a sentence. These verbs make sense all on their own! For instance, “They ran ,” “We arrived ,” and, “The car stopped ” are all examples of sentences that contain intransitive verbs.

Finally, ditransitive verbs, or double transitive verbs, are a bit more complicated. Ditransitive verbs are verbs that are followed by two objects in a sentence . One of the objects has the action of the ditransitive verb done to it, and the other object has the action of the ditransitive verb directed towards it. Here’s an example of what that means in a sentence:

I cooked Nathan a meal.

In this example, “cooked” is a ditransitive verb because it modifies two objects: Nathan and meal . The meal has the action of “cooked” done to it, and “Nathan” has the action of the verb directed towards him.

Adjectives are descriptors that help us better understand a sentence. A common adjective type is color.

#3: Adjectives

Here’s the simplest definition of adjectives: adjectives are words that describe other words . Specifically, adjectives modify nouns and noun phrases. In sentences, adjectives appear before nouns and pronouns (they have to appear before the words they describe!).

Adjectives give more detail to nouns and pronouns by describing how a noun looks, smells, tastes, sounds, or feels, or its state of being or existence. . For example, you could say, “The girl rode her bike.” That sentence doesn’t have any adjectives in it, but you could add an adjective before both of the nouns in the sentence—”girl” and “bike”—to give more detail to the sentence. It might read like this: “The young girl rode her red bike.” You can pick out adjectives in a sentence by asking the following questions:

Which one?
What kind?
How many?
Whose’s?

We’ll look at more examples of adjectives as we explore the subclasses of adjectives next!

Subclasses of Adjectives, Including Examples

Subclasses of adjectives include adjective phrases, comparative adjectives, superlative adjectives, and determiners (which include articles, possessive adjectives, and demonstratives).

Adjective Phrases

An adjective phrase is a group of words that describe a noun or noun phrase in a sentence. Adjective phrases can appear before the noun or noun phrase in a sentence, like in this example:

The extremely fragile vase somehow did not break during the move.

In this case, extremely fragile describes the vase. On the other hand, adjective phrases can appear after the noun or noun phrase in a sentence as well:

The museum was somewhat boring.

Again, the phrase somewhat boring describes the museum. The takeaway is this: adjective phrases describe the subject of a sentence with greater detail than an individual adjective.

Comparative Adjectives and Superlative Adjectives

Comparative adjectives are used in sentences where two nouns are compared. They function to compare the differences between the two nouns that they modify. In sentences, comparative adjectives often appear in this pattern and typically end with -er. If we were to describe how comparative adjectives function as a formula, it might look something like this:

Noun (subject) + verb + comparative adjective + than + noun (object).

Here’s an example of how a comparative adjective would work in that type of sentence:

The horse was faster than the dog.

The adjective faster compares the speed of the horse to the speed of the dog. Other common comparative adjectives include words that compare distance ( higher, lower, farther ), age ( younger, older ), size and dimensions ( bigger, smaller, wider, taller, shorter ), and quality or feeling ( better, cleaner, happier, angrier ).

Superlative adjectives are adjectives that describe the extremes of a quality that applies to a subject being compared to a group of objects . Put more simply, superlative adjectives help show how extreme something is. In sentences, superlative adjectives usually appear in this structure and end in -est :

Noun (subject) + verb + the + superlative adjective + noun (object).

Here’s an example of a superlative adjective that appears in that type of sentence:

Their story was the funniest story.

In this example, the subject— story —is being compared to a group of objects—other stories. The superlative adjective “funniest” implies that this particular story is the funniest out of all the stories ever, period. Other common superlative adjectives are best, worst, craziest, and happiest... though there are many more than that!

It’s also important to know that you can often omit the object from the end of the sentence when using superlative adjectives, like this: “Their story was the funniest.” We still know that “their story” is being compared to other stories without the object at the end of the sentence.

Determiners

The last subclass of adjectives we want to look at are determiners. Determiners are words that determine what kind of reference a noun or noun phrase makes. These words are placed in front of nouns to make it clear what the noun is referring to. Determiners are an example of a part of speech subclass that contains a lot of subclasses of its own. Here is a list of the different types of determiners:

Definite article: the
Indefinite articles : a, an
Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
Pronouns and possessive determiners: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
Quantifiers : a little, a few, many, much, most, some, any, enough
Numbers: one, twenty, fifty
Distributives: all, both, half, either, neither, each, every
Difference words : other, another
Pre-determiners: such, what, rather, quite

Here are some examples of how determiners can be used in sentences:

Definite article: Get in the car.

Demonstrative: Could you hand me that magazine?

Possessive determiner: Please put away your clothes.

Distributive: He ate all of the pie.

Though some of the words above might not seem descriptive, they actually do describe the specificity and definiteness, relationship, and quantity or amount of a noun or noun phrase. For example, the definite article “the” (a type of determiner) indicates that a noun refers to a specific thing or entity. The indefinite article “an,” on the other hand, indicates that a noun refers to a nonspecific entity.

One quick note, since English is always more complicated than it seems: while articles are most commonly classified as adjectives, they can also function as adverbs in specific situations, too. Not only that, some people are taught that determiners are their own part of speech...which means that some people are taught there are 9 parts of speech instead of 8!

It can be a little confusing, which is why we have a whole article explaining how articles function as a part of speech to help clear things up .

Adverbs can be used to answer questions like "when?" and "how long?"

Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives (including determiners), clauses, prepositions, and sentences. Adverbs typically answer the questions how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent? In answering these questions, adverbs function to express frequency, degree, manner, time, place, and level of certainty . Adverbs can answer these questions in the form of single words, or in the form of adverbial phrases or adverbial clauses.

Adverbs are commonly known for being words that end in -ly, but there’s actually a bit more to adverbs than that, which we’ll dive into while we look at the subclasses of adverbs!

Subclasses Of Adverbs, Including Examples

There are many types of adverbs, but the main subclasses we’ll look at are conjunctive adverbs, and adverbs of place, time, manner, degree, and frequency.

Conjunctive Adverbs

Conjunctive adverbs look like coordinating conjunctions (which we’ll talk about later!), but they are actually their own category: conjunctive adverbs are words that connect independent clauses into a single sentence . These adverbs appear after a semicolon and before a comma in sentences, like in these two examples:

She was exhausted; nevertheless , she went for a five mile run.

They didn’t call; instead , they texted.

Though conjunctive adverbs are frequently used to create shorter sentences using a semicolon and comma, they can also appear at the beginning of sentences, like this:

He chopped the vegetables. Meanwhile, I boiled the pasta.

One thing to keep in mind is that conjunctive adverbs come with a comma. When you use them, be sure to include a comma afterward!

There are a lot of conjunctive adverbs, but some common ones include also, anyway, besides, finally, further, however, indeed, instead, meanwhile, nevertheless, next, nonetheless, now, otherwise, similarly, then, therefore, and thus.

Adverbs of Place, Time, Manner, Degree, and Frequency

There are also adverbs of place, time, manner, degree, and frequency. Each of these types of adverbs express a different kind of meaning.

Adverbs of place express where an action is done or where an event occurs. These are used after the verb, direct object, or at the end of a sentence. A sentence like “She walked outside to watch the sunset” uses outside as an adverb of place.

Adverbs of time explain when something happens. These adverbs are used at the beginning or at the end of sentences. In a sentence like “The game should be over soon,” soon functions as an adverb of time.

Adverbs of manner describe the way in which something is done or how something happens. These are the adverbs that usually end in the familiar -ly. If we were to write “She quickly finished her homework,” quickly is an adverb of manner.

Adverbs of degree tell us the extent to which something happens or occurs. If we were to say “The play was quite interesting,” quite tells us the extent of how interesting the play was. Thus, quite is an adverb of degree.

Finally, adverbs of frequency express how often something happens . In a sentence like “They never know what to do with themselves,” never is an adverb of frequency.

Five subclasses of adverbs is a lot, so we’ve organized the words that fall under each category in a nifty table for you here:

It’s important to know about these subclasses of adverbs because many of them don’t follow the old adage that adverbs end in -ly.

Here's a helpful list of pronouns. (Attanata / Flickr )

#5: Pronouns

Pronouns are words that can be substituted for a noun or noun phrase in a sentence . Pronouns function to make sentences less clunky by allowing people to avoid repeating nouns over and over. For example, if you were telling someone a story about your friend Destiny, you wouldn’t keep repeating their name over and over again every time you referred to them. Instead, you’d use a pronoun—like they or them—to refer to Destiny throughout the story.

Pronouns are typically short words, often only two or three letters long. The most familiar pronouns in the English language are they, she, and he. But these aren’t the only pronouns. There are many more pronouns in English that fall under different subclasses!

Subclasses of Pronouns, Including Examples

There are many subclasses of pronouns, but the most commonly used subclasses are personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, and interrogative pronouns.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are probably the most familiar type of pronoun. Personal pronouns include I, me, you, she, her, him, he, we, us, they, and them. These are called personal pronouns because they refer to a person! Personal pronouns can replace specific nouns in sentences, like a person’s name, or refer to specific groups of people, like in these examples:

Did you see Gia pole vault at the track meet? Her form was incredible!

The Cycling Club is meeting up at six. They said they would be at the park.

In both of the examples above, a pronoun stands in for a proper noun to avoid repetitiveness. Her replaces Gia in the first example, and they replaces the Cycling Club in the second example.

(It’s also worth noting that personal pronouns are one of the easiest ways to determine what point of view a writer is using.)

Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns are used to indicate that something belongs to or is the possession of someone. The possessive pronouns fall into two categories: limiting and absolute. In a sentence, absolute possessive pronouns can be substituted for the thing that belongs to a person, and limiting pronouns cannot.

The limiting pronouns are my, your, its, his, her, our, their, and whose, and the absolute pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs . Here are examples of a limiting possessive pronoun and absolute possessive pronoun used in a sentence:

Limiting possessive pronoun: Juan is fixing his car.

In the example above, the car belongs to Juan, and his is the limiting possessive pronoun that shows the car belongs to Juan. Now, here’s an example of an absolute pronoun in a sentence:

Absolute possessive pronoun: Did you buy your tickets ? We already bought ours .

In this example, the tickets belong to whoever we is, and in the second sentence, ours is the absolute possessive pronoun standing in for the thing that “we” possess—the tickets.

Demonstrative Pronouns, Interrogative Pronouns, and Indefinite Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns include the words that, this, these, and those. These pronouns stand in for a noun or noun phrase that has already been mentioned in a sentence or conversation. This and these are typically used to refer to objects or entities that are nearby distance-wise, and that and those usually refer to objects or entities that are farther away. Here’s an example of a demonstrative pronoun used in a sentence:

The books are stacked up in the garage. Can you put those away?

The books have already been mentioned, and those is the demonstrative pronoun that stands in to refer to them in the second sentence above. The use of those indicates that the books aren’t nearby—they’re out in the garage. Here’s another example:

Do you need shoes? Here...you can borrow these.

In this sentence, these refers to the noun shoes. Using the word these tells readers that the shoes are nearby...maybe even on the speaker’s feet!

Indefinite pronouns are used when it isn’t necessary to identify a specific person or thing . The indefinite pronouns are one, other, none, some, anybody, everybody, and no one. Here’s one example of an indefinite pronoun used in a sentence:

Promise you can keep a secret?

Of course. I won’t tell anyone.

In this example, the person speaking in the second two sentences isn’t referring to any particular people who they won’t tell the secret to. They’re saying that, in general, they won’t tell anyone . That doesn’t specify a specific number, type, or category of people who they won’t tell the secret to, which is what makes the pronoun indefinite.

Finally, interrogative pronouns are used in questions, and these pronouns include who, what, which, and whose. These pronouns are simply used to gather information about specific nouns—persons, places, and ideas. Let’s look at two examples of interrogative pronouns used in sentences:

Do you remember which glass was mine?

What time are they arriving?

In the first glass, the speaker wants to know more about which glass belongs to whom. In the second sentence, the speaker is asking for more clarity about a specific time.

Conjunctions hook phrases and clauses together so they fit like pieces of a puzzle.

#6: Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words that are used to connect words, phrases, clauses, and sentences in the English language. This function allows conjunctions to connect actions, ideas, and thoughts as well. Conjunctions are also used to make lists within sentences. (Conjunctions are also probably the most famous part of speech, since they were immortalized in the famous “Conjunction Junction” song from Schoolhouse Rock .)

You’re probably familiar with and, but, and or as conjunctions, but let’s look into some subclasses of conjunctions so you can learn about the array of conjunctions that are out there!

Subclasses of Conjunctions, Including Examples

Coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions are three subclasses of conjunctions. Each of these types of conjunctions functions in a different way in sentences!

Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions are probably the most familiar type of conjunction. These conjunctions include the words for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (people often recommend using the acronym FANBOYS to remember the seven coordinating conjunctions!).

Coordinating conjunctions are responsible for connecting two independent clauses in sentences, but can also be used to connect two words in a sentence. Here are two examples of coordinating conjunctions that connect two independent clauses in a sentence:

He wanted to go to the movies, but he couldn’t find his car keys.

They put on sunscreen, and they went to the beach.

Next, here are two examples of coordinating conjunctions that connect two words:

Would you like to cook or order in for dinner?

The storm was loud yet refreshing.

The two examples above show that coordinating conjunctions can connect different types of words as well. In the first example, the coordinating conjunction “or” connects two verbs; in the second example, the coordinating conjunction “yet” connects two adjectives.

But wait! Why does the first set of sentences have commas while the second set of sentences doesn’t? When using a coordinating conjunction, put a comma before the conjunction when it’s connecting two complete sentences . Otherwise, there’s no comma necessary.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions are used to link an independent clause to a dependent clause in a sentence. This type of conjunction always appears at the beginning of a dependent clause, which means that subordinating conjunctions can appear at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle of a sentence following an independent clause. (If you’re unsure about what independent and dependent clauses are, be sure to check out our guide to compound sentences.)

Here is an example of a subordinating conjunction that appears at the beginning of a sentence:

Because we were hungry, we ordered way too much food.

Now, here’s an example of a subordinating conjunction that appears in the middle of a sentence, following an independent clause and a comma:

Rakim was scared after the power went out.

See? In the example above, the subordinating conjunction after connects the independent clause Rakim was scared to the dependent clause after the power went out. Subordinating conjunctions include (but are not limited to!) the following words: after, as, because, before, even though, one, since, unless, until, whenever, and while.

Correlative Conjunctions

Finally, correlative conjunctions are conjunctions that come in pairs, like both/and, either/or, and neither/nor. The two correlative conjunctions that come in a pair must appear in different parts of a sentence to make sense— they correlate the meaning in one part of the sentence with the meaning in another part of the sentence . Makes sense, right?

Here are two examples of correlative conjunctions used in a sentence:

We’re either going to the Farmer’s Market or the Natural Grocer’s for our shopping today.

They’re going to have to get dog treats for both Piper and Fudge.

Other pairs of correlative conjunctions include as many/as, not/but, not only/but also, rather/than, such/that, and whether/or.

Interjections are single words that express emotions that end in an exclamation point. Cool!

#7: Interjections

Interjections are words that often appear at the beginning of sentences or between sentences to express emotions or sentiments such as excitement, surprise, joy, disgust, anger, or even pain. Commonly used interjections include wow!, yikes!, ouch!, or ugh! One clue that an interjection is being used is when an exclamation point appears after a single word (but interjections don’t have to be followed by an exclamation point). And, since interjections usually express emotion or feeling, they’re often referred to as being exclamatory. Wow!

Interjections don’t come together with other parts of speech to form bigger grammatical units, like phrases or clauses. There also aren’t strict rules about where interjections should appear in relation to other sentences . While it’s common for interjections to appear before sentences that describe an action or event that the interjection helps explain, interjections can appear after sentences that contain the action they’re describing as well.

Subclasses of Interjections, Including Examples

There are two main subclasses of interjections: primary interjections and secondary interjections. Let’s take a look at these two types of interjections!

Primary Interjections

Primary interjections are single words, like oh!, wow!, or ouch! that don’t enter into the actual structure of a sentence but add to the meaning of a sentence. Here’s an example of how a primary interjection can be used before a sentence to add to the meaning of the sentence that follows it:

Ouch ! I just burned myself on that pan!

While someone who hears, I just burned myself on that pan might assume that the person who said that is now in pain, the interjection Ouch! makes it clear that burning oneself on the pan definitely was painful.

Secondary Interjections

Secondary interjections are words that have other meanings but have evolved to be used like interjections in the English language and are often exclamatory. Secondary interjections can be mixed with greetings, oaths, or swear words. In many cases, the use of secondary interjections negates the original meaning of the word that is being used as an interjection. Let’s look at a couple of examples of secondary interjections here:

Well , look what the cat dragged in!

Heck, I’d help if I could, but I’ve got to get to work.

You probably know that the words well and heck weren’t originally used as interjections in the English language. Well originally meant that something was done in a good or satisfactory way, or that a person was in good health. Over time and through repeated usage, it’s come to be used as a way to express emotion, such as surprise, anger, relief, or resignation, like in the example above.

This is a handy list of common prepositional phrases. (attanatta / Flickr)

#8: Prepositions

The last part of speech we’re going to define is the preposition. Prepositions are words that are used to connect other words in a sentence—typically nouns and verbs—and show the relationship between those words. Prepositions convey concepts such as comparison, position, place, direction, movement, time, possession, and how an action is completed.

Subclasses of Prepositions, Including Examples

The subclasses of prepositions are simple prepositions, double prepositions, participle prepositions, and prepositional phrases.

Simple Prepositions

Simple prepositions appear before and between nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in sentences to convey relationships between people, living creatures, things, or places . Here are a couple of examples of simple prepositions used in sentences:

I’ll order more ink before we run out.

Your phone was beside your wallet.

In the first example, the preposition before appears between the noun ink and the personal pronoun we to convey a relationship. In the second example, the preposition beside appears between the verb was and the possessive pronoun your.

In both examples, though, the prepositions help us understand how elements in the sentence are related to one another. In the first sentence, we know that the speaker currently has ink but needs more before it’s gone. In the second sentence, the preposition beside helps us understand how the wallet and the phone are positioned relative to one another!

Double Prepositions

Double prepositions are exactly what they sound like: two prepositions joined together into one unit to connect phrases, nouns, and pronouns with other words in a sentence. Common examples of double prepositions include outside of, because of, according to, next to, across from, and on top of. Here is an example of a double preposition in a sentence:

I thought you were sitting across from me.

You see? Across and from both function as prepositions individually. When combined together in a sentence, they create a double preposition. (Also note that the prepositions help us understand how two people— you and I— are positioned with one another through spacial relationship.)

Prepositional Phrases

Finally, prepositional phrases are groups of words that include a preposition and a noun or pronoun. Typically, the noun or pronoun that appears after the preposition in a prepositional phrase is called the object of the preposition. The object always appears at the end of the prepositional phrase. Additionally, prepositional phrases never include a verb or a subject. Here are two examples of prepositional phrases:

The cat sat under the chair .

In the example above, “under” is the preposition, and “the chair” is the noun, which functions as the object of the preposition. Here’s one more example:

We walked through the overgrown field .

Now, this example demonstrates one more thing you need to know about prepositional phrases: they can include an adjective before the object. In this example, “through” is the preposition, and “field” is the object. “Overgrown” is an adjective that modifies “the field,” and it’s quite common for adjectives to appear in prepositional phrases like the one above.

While that might sound confusing, don’t worry: the key is identifying the preposition in the first place! Once you can find the preposition, you can start looking at the words around it to see if it forms a compound preposition, a double preposition of a prepositional phrase.

10 Question Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Parts of Speech Definitions and Examples

Since we’ve covered a lot of material about the 8 parts of speech with examples ( a lot of them!), we want to give you an opportunity to review and see what you’ve learned! While it might seem easier to just use a parts of speech finder instead of learning all this stuff, our parts of speech quiz can help you continue building your knowledge of the 8 parts of speech and master each one.

Are you ready? Here we go:

1) What are the 8 parts of speech?

a) Noun, article, adverb, antecedent, verb, adjective, conjunction, interjection b) Noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, determiner, clause, adjective, preposition c) Noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, conjunction, interjection, preposition

2) Which parts of speech have subclasses?

a) Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs b) Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions c) All of them! There are many types of words within each part of speech.

3) What is the difference between common nouns and proper nouns?

a) Common nouns don’t refer to specific people, places, or entities, but proper nouns do refer to specific people, places, or entities. b) Common nouns refer to regular, everyday people, places, or entities, but proper nouns refer to famous people, places, or entities. c) Common nouns refer to physical entities, like people, places, and objects, but proper nouns refer to nonphysical entities, like feelings, ideas, and experiences.

4) In which of the following sentences is the emboldened word a verb?

a) He was frightened by the horror film . b) He adjusted his expectations after the first plan fell through. c) She walked briskly to get there on time.

5) Which of the following is a correct definition of adjectives, and what other part of speech do adjectives modify?

a) Adjectives are describing words, and they modify nouns and noun phrases. b) Adjectives are describing words, and they modify verbs and adverbs. c) Adjectives are describing words, and they modify nouns, verbs, and adverbs.

6) Which of the following describes the function of adverbs in sentences?

a) Adverbs express frequency, degree, manner, time, place, and level of certainty. b) Adverbs express an action performed by a subject. c) Adverbs describe nouns and noun phrases.

7) Which of the following answers contains a list of personal pronouns?

a) This, that, these, those b) I, you, me, we, he, she, him, her, they, them c) Who, what, which, whose

8) Where do interjections typically appear in a sentence?

a) Interjections can appear at the beginning of or in between sentences. b) Interjections appear at the end of sentences. c) Interjections appear in prepositional phrases.

9) Which of the following sentences contains a prepositional phrase?

a) The dog happily wagged his tail. b) The cow jumped over the moon. c) She glared, angry that he forgot the flowers.

10) Which of the following is an accurate definition of a “part of speech”?

a) A category of words that serve a similar grammatical purpose in sentences. b) A category of words that are of similar length and spelling. c) A category of words that mean the same thing.

So, how did you do? If you got 1C, 2C, 3A, 4B, 5A, 6A, 7B, 8A, 9B, and 10A, you came out on top! There’s a lot to remember where the parts of speech are concerned, and if you’re looking for more practice like our quiz, try looking around for parts of speech games or parts of speech worksheets online!

What’s Next?

You might be brushing up on your grammar so you can ace the verbal portions of the SAT or ACT. Be sure you check out our guides to the grammar you need to know before you tackle those tests! Here’s our expert guide to the grammar rules you need to know for the SAT , and this article teaches you the 14 grammar rules you’ll definitely see on the ACT.

When you have a good handle on parts of speech, it can make writing essays tons easier. Learn how knowing parts of speech can help you get a perfect 12 on the ACT Essay (or an 8/8/8 on the SAT Essay ).

While we’re on the topic of grammar: keep in mind that knowing grammar rules is only part of the battle when it comes to the verbal and written portions of the SAT and ACT. Having a good vocabulary is also important to making the perfect score ! Here are 262 vocabulary words you need to know before you tackle your standardized tests.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Conjunctions
Punctuation
Prepositions
Interjections
Parts of a Sentence
Sentence Variety
Problems with Sentences

What are Conjunctions?

The word conjunction means “joined together.” Conjunctions are words that join parts of sentences together. A conjunction can join words, phrases, or clauses.

The three most common types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions , subordinating conjunctions , and correlative conjunctions .

Coordinating conjunctions

The word coordinate means “same rank.” Coordinating conjunctions are used to join together two grammatical units of equal importance. Use coordinating conjunctions to connect two adjectives, adverbs, nouns, phrases, or independent clauses. When connecting two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction, a comma must be placed before the coordinating conjunction.

Here is a list of coordinating conjunctions. These can be remembered with the acronym FANBOYS .

Connecting words:

Example: Jack was fast but clumsy. (Connecting adjectives)
Example: Billy and Mandy went to school. (Connecting nouns)

Connecting phrases:

Example: We traveled over the hills and under the shadows of mountains. (Connecting adverbial phrases)
Example: Right before sunrise and right after sunset are my favorite times to run. (Connecting nominal phrases)

Connecting clauses:

Example: Julie went to the store, but Jack went to music practice. (Connecting independent clauses)

Subordinating conjunctions

The word subordinate means “lower rank.” Subordinating conjunctions are used to join together clauses when one of the clauses is lower rank than the other. Use subordinating conjunctions to connect a dependent clause to an independent clause.

Here is an incomplete list of subordinating conjunctions:

An independent clause is a clause that can function as a complete sentence. A dependent clause is a clause that cannot function as a complete sentence. The subordinating conjunction connects these two clauses.

Example: Jamie kept falling asleep during class. (Independent clause)
Example: because he stayed up too late (Dependent clause)
Example: Jamie kept falling asleep during class because he stayed up too late. (Clauses connected by subordinating conjunction)

When the independent clause comes first in a sentence with a subordinating conjunction, a comma is not required to separate the two clauses.

Example: Gandalf gave the Ring to Frodo since he knew he could trust the goodness of hobbits.

When the dependent clause comes first in a sentence with a subordinating conjunction, a comma is required to separate the two clauses.

Example: Since he knew he could trust the goodness of hobbits, Gandalf gave the Ring to Frodo.

Subordinating conjunctions can be a single word, like because, or a group of words, like as long as.

Example: We had spaghetti for dinner because he loved Italian food.
Example: As long as we have Italian food for dinner, he will be happy.

Correlative conjunctions

The word correlative means “related together.” Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that relate information together in a sentence.

Here is an incomplete list of correlative conjunctions:

Neither/nor
Not only/but also

Order matters for correlative conjunctions. The first item listed in each pair shown above must come first in a sentence.

Example: Julie will take either strawberry or vanilla ice cream.
Example: Neither Julie nor Nathan enjoys banana ice cream.
Example: Batman is not only a genius detective but also a master of martial arts.
Example: Batman is both a genius detective and a master of martial arts.
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5.10: Other Parts of Speech

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Learning Objectives

Identify functions of conjunctions, and potential usage issues with them
Identify functions of prepositions, and potential usage issues with them
Identify functions of articles, and potential usage issues with them

We’ve covered the majority of parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. So, what’s left?

A person struggling to hold three boxes, one labelled with a conjunction, one with a preposition, and one with an article. He's saying "Uh, what should I do with these?"

Figure $\PageIndex{1}$

What remains are the little connecting word categories: conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. These small words may not seem as important as verbs, nouns, and adjectives, but they are the backbone of English: these are the words that give our language structure.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are the words that join sentences, phrases, and other words together. Conjunctions are divided into several categories, all of which follow different rules. We will discuss coordinating conjunctions, adverbial conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions.

Coordinating Conjunctions

The most common conjunctions are and , or , and but . These are all coordinating conjunctions . Coordinating conjunctions are conjunctions that join, or coordinate, two or more equivalent items (such as words, phrases, or sentences). The mnemonic acronym FANBOYS can be used to remember the most common coordinating conjunctions: for , and , nor , but , or , yet , and so .

For: presents a reason (“They do not gamble or smoke, for they are ascetics.”)
And: presents non-contrasting items or ideas (“They gamble, and they smoke.”)
Nor: presents a non-contrasting negative idea (“They do not gamble, nor do they smoke.”)
But: presents a contrast or exception (“They gamble, but they don’t smoke.”)
Or: presents an alternative item or idea (“Every day they gamble, or they smoke.”)
Yet: presents a contrast or exception (“They gamble, yet they don’t smoke.”)
So: presents a consequence (“He gambled well last night, so he smoked a cigar to celebrate.”)

Here are some examples of these used in sentences:

Nuclear-powered artificial hearts proved to be complicated, bulky, and expensive.
In the 1960s, artificial heart devices did not fit well and tended to obstruct the flow of venous blood into the right atrium.
The blood vessels leading to the device tended to kink, obstructing the filling of the chambers and resulting in inadequate output.
Any external injury or internal injury put patients at risk of uncontrolled bleeding because the small clots that formed throughout the circulatory system used up so much of the clotting factor.

The current from the storage batteries can power lights, but the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.

As you can see from the examples above, a comma only appears before these conjunctions sometimes. So how can you tell if you need a comma or not? There are three general rules to help you decide.

Rule 1: Joining Two Complete Ideas

Let’s look back at one of our example sentences:

There are two complete ideas in this sentence. A complete idea has both a subject (a noun or pronoun) and a verb. The subjects have been italicized, and the verbs bolded:

the current from the storage batteries can power lights
the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.

Because each of these ideas could stand alone as a sentence, the coordinating conjunction that joins them must be preceded by a comma. Otherwise you’ll have a run-on sentence.

Run-on sentences are one of the most common errors in college-level writing. Mastering the partnership between commas and coordinating conjunctions will go a long way towards resolving many run-on sentence issues in your writing.

Rule 2: Joining Two Similar Items

So what if there’s only one complete idea, but two subjects or two verbs?

The first sentence has two subjects: external injury and internal injury . The second sentence has two verbs: did not fit well and tended to obstruct . In each sentence, the two similar items are separated from each other by a conjunction, but no comma is required.

Rule 3: Joining Three or More Similar Items

So what do you do if there are three or more items?

Anna loves to run, David loves to hike, and Luz loves to dance.
Fishing, hunting, and gathering were once the only ways for people do get food.
Emanuel has a very careful schedule planned for tomorrow. He needs to work, study, exercise, eat, and clean.

As you can see in the examples above, there is a comma after each item, including the item just prior to the conjunction. There is a little bit of contention about this, but overall, most styles prefer to keep the additional comma (also called the serial comma). We discuss the serial comma in more depth in Text: Commas .

STARTING A SENTENCE

Many students are taught—and some style guides maintain—that English sentences should not start with coordinating conjunctions.

This video shows that this idea is not actually a rule. And it provides some background for why so many people may have adopted this writing convention:

Exercise $\PageIndex{1}$

Are the following sentences correctly punctuated?

I heard some news on the radio about a fire and my family saw it on the television.
The fire chief called in all his men, but ordered them to stay back.
The building became engulfed in flames, so they stood by.
They needed to examine everything for they did not think it was an accident.
The police could not find the source of the fire, nor could the fire chief.
Incorrect: a comma is required before and .
I heard some news on the radio about a fire , and my family saw it on the television.
Incorrect: there is no comma required before but .
The fire chief called in all his men but ordered them to stay back.
Incorrect: a comma is required before for .
They needed to examine everything , for they did not think it was an accident.

Adverbial Conjunctions

Adverbial conjunctions link two separate thoughts or sentences. When used to separate thoughts, as in the example below, a comma is required on either side of the conjunction.

The first artificial hearts were made of smooth silicone rubber, which apparently caused excessive clotting and, therefore , uncontrolled bleeding.

When used to separate sentences, as in the examples below, a semicolon is required before the conjunction and a comma after.

The Kedeco produces 1200 watts in 17 mph winds using a 16-foot rotor; on the other hand , the Dunlite produces 2000 watts in 25 mph winds.
For short periods, the fibers were beneficial; however , the eventual buildup of fibrin on the inner surface of the device would impair its function.
The atria of the heart contribute a negligible amount of energy; in fact , the total power output of the heart is only about 2.5 watts.

Adverbial conjunctions include the following words; however, it is important to note that this is by no means a complete list.

Exercise $\PageIndex{2}$

Fill in the missing punctuation marks for the sentences below:

Alícia works behind the counter in the family bakery after school __ however __ Benjamin doesn’t.
On the one hand __ Benjamin loves goes to soccer games __ on the other hand __ he doesn’t like to play soccer.
Alícia works behind the counter in the family bakery after school; however, Benjamin doesn’t.
On the one hand, Benjamin loves goes to soccer games; on the other hand, he doesn’t like to play soccer.

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are word pairs that work together to join words and groups of words of equal weight in a sentence. This video will define this types of conjunction before it goes through five of the most common correlative conjunctions:

The table below shows some examples of correlative conjunctions being used in a sentence:

Exercise $\PageIndex{3}$

Select the correct conjunction for each sentence:

(Both / Not only) you but also Paul forgot to do the annual report last week.
You will need to finish it by (either / neither) today or tomorrow. Just get it done by Friday.
(Both / Not only) you and Paul have been wasting too much time.
Not only (she yells / does she yell / is she yell) at me, but also she screams at me.
Either (she stops / does she stop) yelling at me or I quit.
She both (annoys / does she annoy) and angers me.
Not only you but also Paul forgot to do the annual report last week.
You will need to finish it by either today or tomorrow. Just get it done by Friday.
Both you and Paul have been wasting too much time.
Not only does she yell at me, but also she screams at me.
Either she stops yelling at me or I quit.
She both annoys and angers me.

Prepositions

Icon of open box with two arrows going inside it

Figure $\PageIndex{2}$

Prepositions are relation words; they can indicate location, time, or other more abstract relationships. Prepositions are noted in bold in these examples:

The woods behind my house are super creepy at night.
She sang until three in the morning.
He was happy for them.

A preposition combines with another word (usually a noun or pronoun) called the complement. Prepositions are still in bold, and their complements are in italics:

The woods behind my house are super creepy at night .
She sang until three in the morning .
He was happy for them .

Prepositions generally come before their complements (e.g., in England, under the table, of Jane). However, there are a small handful of exceptions, including notwithstanding and ago :

Financial limitations notwithstanding , Phil paid back his debts.
He was released three days ago .

Prepositions of location are pretty easily defined ( near , far , over , under , etc.), and prepositions about time are as well ( before , after , at , during , etc.). Prepositions of “more abstract relationships,” however, are a little more nebulous in their definition. The video below gives a good overview of this category of prepositions:

The video said that prepositions are a closed group, but it never actually explained what a closed group is. Perhaps the easiest way to define a closed group is to define its opposite: an open group. An open group is a part of speech allows new words to be added. For example, nouns are an open group; new nouns, like selfie and blog , enter the language all the time (verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are open groups as well).

Thus a closed group simply refers to a part of speech that doesn’t allow in new words. All of the word types in this section–prepositions, articles, and conjunctions–are closed groups.

Exercise $\PageIndex{4}$

Identify the prepositions in the following sentences:

The cow jumped over the moon.
My favorite painting is The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
Beatriz wanted to know if she would see Alexandre before lunch.
All he does is talk about his band.

The prepositions have been bolded in the sentences below:

My favorite painting is The Girl with the Pearl Earring

So far, all of the prepositions we’ve looked at have been one word (and most of them have been one syllable). The most common prepositions are one-syllable words. According to one ranking, the most common English prepositions are on , in , to , by , for , with , at , of , from , as.

There are also some prepositions that have more than one word:

in spite of (She made it to work in spite of the terrible traffic.)
by means of (He traveled by means of boat.)
except for (Joan invited everyone to her party except for Ben.)
next to (Go ahead and sit down next to Jean-Claude.)

Prepositions in Sentences

You’ll often hear about prepositional phrases . A prepositional phrase includes a preposition and its complement (e.g., “ behind the house ” or “ a long time ago “).

ENDING A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION

As we just learned, it is totally okay to end a sentence with a preposition. And, as we saw, it can often make your writing smoother and more concise to do so.

However, it’s still best to avoid doing it unnecessarily. If your sentence ends with a preposition and would still mean the same thing without the preposition, take it out. For example:

Where are you at?

That’s not what it’s used for.

If you remove at , the sentence becomes “Where are you?” This means the same thing, so removing at is a good idea. However, if you remove for , the sentence becomes “That’s not what it’s used,” which doesn’t make sense.

There are three articles in the English language: the , a , and an . These are divided into two types of articles: definite ( the ) and indefinite ( a , an ). The definite article indicates a level of specificity that the indefinite does not. “An apple” could refer to any apple; however “the apple” is referring back to a specific apple.

Thus, when using the definite article, the speaker assumes the listener knows the identity of the noun’s referent (because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence). Use of an indefinite article implies that the speaker assumes the listener does not have to be told the identity of the referent.

There are also cases where no article is required:

with generic nouns (plural or uncountable): cars have accelerators , happiness is contagious , referring to cars in general and happiness in general (compare the happiness I felt yesterday , specifying particular happiness);
with many proper names: Sabrina , France , London , etc.

Watch this quick introduction to indefinite and definite articles and the difference between the two:

Indefinite Article

The indefinite article of English takes the two forms a and an . These can be regarded as meaning “one,” usually without emphasis.

Distinction between a and an

Figure $\PageIndex{3}$

You’ve probably learned the rule that an comes before a vowel, and that a comes before a consonant. While this is generally true, it’s more accurate to say that an comes before a vowel sound , and a comes before a consonant sound . Let’s look at a couple of examples with a :

a HEPA filter (HEPA is pronounced as a word rather than as letters)
a one-armed bandit (pronounced “won. . . “)
a unicorn (pronounced “yoo. . . “)

Figure $\PageIndex{4}$

Let’s try it again with an :

an EPA policy (the letter E read as a letter still starts with a vowel sound)
an SSO (pronounced “es-es-oh”)
an hour (the h is silent)
an heir (pronounced “air”)

Some speakers and writers use an before a word beginning with the sound h in an unstressed syllable: an historical novel , an hotel . However, where the h is clearly pronounced, this usage is now less common, and a is preferred.

Exercise $\PageIndex{5}$

Look at the following words. When they require an indefinite article, should it be a or an ?

SEO specialist
a ewe: pronounced “you”
an SEO specialist: pronounced “es-ee-oh” an apple:
a is a vowel sound
a URL: pronounced “yoo-ar-el”
an herb: the h is silent

Definite Article

Figure $\PageIndex{5}$

The definite article the is used when the referent of the noun phrase is assumed to be unique or known from the context. For example, in the sentence “The boy with glasses was looking at the moon,” it is assumed that in the context the reference can only be to one boy and one moon.

The can be used with both singular and plural nouns, with nouns of any gender, and with nouns that start with any letter. This is different from many other languages which have different articles for different genders or numbers. The is the most commonly used word in the English language.

Exercise $\PageIndex{6}$

Choose the article that should go in each sentence:

Every day, I eat (a / an / the) egg salad sandwich.
I love looking at (a / an / the) stars with you.
Dani was planning to buy (a / an / the) book she had been eyeing as soon as she got paid.
(A / An / The) brain like that will get you far in life.
an; Every day, I eat an egg salad sandwich.
the; I love looking at the stars with you.
the; Dani was planning to buy the book she had been eyeing as soon as she got paid.
a; A brain like that will get you far in life.

In most cases, the article is the first word of its noun phrase, preceding all other adjectives and modifiers.

The little old red bag held a very big surprise.

There are a few exceptions, however:

Certain determiners, such as all , both , half , double , precede the definite article when used in combination ( all the team , both the girls , half the time , double the amount ).
Such and what precede the indefinite article ( such an idiot , what a day! ).
Adjectives qualified by too , so , as and how generally precede the indefinite article: too great a loss , so hard a problem , as delicious an apple as I have ever tasted , I know how pretty a girl she is .
When adjectives are qualified by quite (particularly when it means “fairly”), the word quite (but not the adjective itself) often precedes the indefinite article: quite a long letter .

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part of speech

noun phrase

Definition of part of speech, examples of part of speech in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'part of speech.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

1517, in the meaning defined above

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'POS' means "part of speech," obviously

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part of the package

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“Part of speech.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/part%20of%20speech. Accessed 11 Apr. 2024.

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What part of speech joins words phrases or clause?

The part of speech is called a conjunction.

(words) He has red and blue shirts.

(phrases) They cleaned the inside of the cabinets but not the closet shelves.

(clauses) Although his wipers were broken, he was still driving the car.

(sentences) The plane was destroyed completely. However, all of the crew survived.

Love Shayla !

The connectors are called "conjunctions"; common examples include "and", "but" and "or".

conjunctions

Conjuntions

Anonymous ∙

Add your answer:

What part of speech is the word but?

The word "but" is a conjunction, a word that joins groups of words around it together.

What part of speech is because of?

"Because" is a subordinating conjunction. Subordinating conjunctions are words that connect an independent clause and a dependent (subordinate) clause.

What is the definition of conjusive?

Some part of speech that joins a sentence. Such as and, but etc.

The repetition of words or phrases at the end of successive phrases or sentences is known as what?

What should you highlight in the title and first sentences of paragraphs while reading.

Key words and phrases

What part of speech joins words phrases and clauses?

Conjunction

What is the difference between a clause and phrase?

Phrases and clauses are both groups of two or more words that convey ideas. However, there is an easy way to tell if you're using a phrase or a clause. The main difference is that clauses have both a subject and a predicate; phrases do not. Phrases are part of clauses.

What part of speech joins words and phrase?

This part of speech consists of words that link words phrases or clauses.

a conjunction.

What part of speech connects words phrases and clauses?

Conjunction?

What parts of speech links words phrases or clauses?

Conjunctions.

What is the part of speech of but?

What part of speech is a word that joins words or groups of words that have equal grammatical weight in a sentence.

A coordinating conjunction or just a coordinator.

What is a explanation for diction?

it is a style of speech or writing so far as it concerns the choice of words and phrases

What is meaning of phrase?

A brief expression, sometimes a single word, but usually two or more words forming an expression by themselves, or being a portion of a sentence; as, an adverbial phrase., A short, pithy expression; especially, one which is often employed; a peculiar or idiomatic turn of speech; as, to err is human., A mode or form of speech; the manner or style in which any one expreses himself; diction; expression., A short clause or portion of a period., To express in words, or in peculiar words; to call; to style., To use proper or fine phrases., To group notes into phrases; as, he phrases well. See Phrase, n., 4.

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How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall

Elon musk’s factory in china saved his company and made him ultrarich. now, it may backfire..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, the story of how China gave Tesla a lifeline that saved the company — and how that lifeline has now given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game. My colleague, Mara Hvistendahl, explains.

It’s Tuesday, April 9.

So, Mara, you’ve spent the past four months investigating Elon Musk and his ties to China through his company, Tesla. Tell us why.

Well, a lot of American companies are heavily invested in China, but Tesla’s kind of special. As my colleagues and I started talking to sources, we realized that many people felt that China played a crucial role in rescuing the company at a critical moment when it was on the brink of failure and that China helps account for Tesla’s success, for making it the most valuable car company in the world today, and for making Elon Musk ultra rich.

That’s super intriguing. So maybe take us back to the beginning. When does the story start?

So the story starts in the mid 2010s. Tesla had been this company that had all this hype around it. But —

A lot of people were shocked by Tesla’s earnings report. Not only did they make a lot less money than expected, they’re also making a lot less cars.

Tesla was struggling.

The delivery of the Model 3 has been delayed yet again.

Tesla engineers are saying 40 percent of the parts made at the Fremont factory need reworking.

At the time, they made their cars in Fremont, California, and they were facing production delays.

Tesla is confirming that Cal/OSHA is investigating the company over concerns over workplace safety.

Elon Musk has instituted a kind of famously grueling work culture at the factory, and that did not go over well with California labor law.

The federal government now has four active investigations involving Tesla.

They were clashing with regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate a second crash involving Tesla’s autopilot system.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk — friends are really concerned about him. That’s what Musk told “The New York Times.”

And by 2018, he was having all of these crises.

According to “The Times,” Musk choked up multiple times and struggled to maintain his composure during an hour-long interview about turmoil at his electric car company, Tesla.

So all of this kind of converged to put immense pressure on him to do something.

And where does China come in?

Well, setting up a factory in China, in a way, would solve some of these problems for Musk. Labor costs were lower. Workers couldn’t unionize there. China provided access to this steady supply of cheaper parts. So Elon Musk was set on going to China. But first, Tesla and Musk wanted to change a key policy in China.

Hmm, what kind of policy?

So they wanted China to adopt a policy that was aimed at lowering car emissions. And the idea was that it would be modeled after a similar policy in California that had benefited Tesla there.

OK, so explain what that policy actually did. And how did it benefit Tesla?

So California had this system called the Zero-Emission Vehicle program. And that was designed to encourage companies to make cleaner cars, including electric vehicles. And they did that by setting pollution targets. So companies that made a lot of clean cars got credits. And then companies that failed to meet those targets, that produced too many gas-guzzling cars, would have to buy credits from the cleaner companies.

So California is trying to incentivize companies to make cleaner cars by forcing the traditional carmakers to pay cleaner car makers, which basically means dirtier car makers are effectively subsidizing cleaner cars.

Yes, that’s right. And Tesla, as a company that came along just making EVs, profited immensely from this system. And in its early years, when Tesla was really struggling to stay afloat, the money that it earned from selling credits in California to polluting car companies were absolutely crucial, so much so that the company structured a lot of its lobbying efforts around this system, around preserving these credits. And we talked to a former regulator who said as much.

How much money are we talking about here?

So from 2008, when Tesla unveiled its first car, up until the end of last year, Tesla made almost $4 billion by selling credits in California.

Wow. So Musk basically wants China to recreate this California-style program, which was incredibly lucrative for Tesla, there. And they’re basically holding that up as a condition to their building a factory in China.

Right. And at this point in the story, an interesting alliance emerges. Because it wasn’t just Tesla that wanted this emissions program in China. It was also environmentalists from California who had seen the success of the program up close in their own state.

If you go back to that period, to the early 2010s, I was living in China at the time in Beijing and Shanghai. And it was incredibly polluted. We called it airpocalypse at times. I had my first child in China at that point. And as soon as it was safe to put a baby mask on her, we put a little baby mask on her. There were days where people just would try to avoid going outside because it was so polluted. And some of the pollution was actually wafting across the Pacific Ocean to California.

Wow, so California is experiencing that Chinese air pollution firsthand and, in a way, has a direct stake in lowering it.

That’s right. So Governor Jerry Brown, for example — this became kind of his signature issue, was working with China to clean up the environment, in part by exporting this emission scheme. It was also an era of a lot more US-China cooperation. China was seen as absolutely crucial to combating climate change.

So you had all these groups working to get this California emissions scheme exported to China — and the governor’s office and environmental groups and Tesla. And it worked. In 2017, China did adopt a system that was modeled after California’s.

It’s pretty incredible. So California basically exports its emissions-trading system to China, which I imagine at the time was a big win for Californian environmentalists. But it was also a big win for Tesla.

It was definitely a big win for Tesla. And we know that in just a few years Tesla, made almost $1 billion from the emissions-trading program he helped lobby for in China.

So Elon Musk goes on, builds a factory in China. And he does so in Shanghai, where he builds a close relationship with the top official in the city, who actually is now the number-two official in all of China, Li Qiang.

So according to Chinese state media, Elon Musk actually proposed building the factory in two years, which would be fast. And Li came back and proposed that they do it in one year, which — things go up really quickly in China. But even for China, this is incredibly fast. And they broke ground on the factory in January 2019. And by the end of the year, cars were rolling off the line. So then in January 2020, Musk was able to get up on stage in Shanghai and unveil the first Chinese-made Teslas.

Really want to thank the Tesla team and the government officials that have been really helpful in making this happen.

Next to him on stage is Tesla’s top lobbyist who helped push through some of these changes.

Thank you. Yeah, everybody can tell Elon’s super, super happy today.

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

And she says —

Music, please.

Cue the music. [UPBEAT MUSIC]

And he actually broke into dance. He was so happy, a kind of awkward dance.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

And what is the factory like?

The Shanghai factory is huge. 20,000 people work there. Tesla’s factories around the world tend to be pretty large, but the Shanghai workers work more shifts. And when Tesla set up in China, Chinese banks ended up offering Tesla $1.5 billion in low-interest loans. They got a preferential tax rate in Shanghai.

This deal was so generous that one auto industry official we talked to said that a government minister had actually lamented that they were giving Tesla too much. And it is an incredibly productive factory. It’s now the flagship export factory for Tesla.

So it opens in late 2019. And that’s, of course, the time when the pandemic hits.

Yes. I mean, you might think that this is really poor timing for Elon Musk. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. In fact, Tesla’s factory in Shanghai was closed for only around two weeks, whereas the factory in Fremont was closed for around two months.

That’s a big difference.

Yes, and it really, really mattered to Elon Musk. If you can think back to 2020, you might recall that he was railing against California politicians for closing his factory. In China, the factory stayed open. Workers were working around the clock. And Elon Musk said on a podcast —

China rocks, in my opinion.

— China rocks.

There’s a lot of smart, hardworking people. And they’re not entitled. They’re not complacent, whereas I see —

We’ve seen a lot of momentum and enthusiasm for electric vehicles, stocks, and Tesla certainly leading the charge.

Tesla’s stock price kept going up.

Tesla has become just the fifth company to reach a trillion-dollar valuation. The massive valuation happened after Tesla’s stock price hit an all-time high of more than $1,000.

So this company that had just a few years earlier been on the brink of failure, looking to China for a lifeline, was suddenly riding high. And —

Tesla is now the most valuable car company in the world. It’s worth more than General Motors, Ford, Fiat, Chrysler.

By the summer, it had become the most valuable car company in the world.

Guess what? Elon Musk is now the world’s richest man.

“Forbes” says he’s worth more than $255 billion.

And Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock. And in the following year, he became the wealthiest man in the world.

So you have this emission trading system, which we discussed and which, in part, thanks to Tesla, is now established in China. It’s bringing in money to Tesla. And now this Shanghai factory is continuing to produce cars for Tesla in the middle of the pandemic. So China really paid off for Tesla. But what was in it for China?

Well, China wasn’t doing this for charity.

What Chinese leaders really wanted was to turn their fledgling electric vehicle industry into a global powerhouse. And they figured that Tesla was the ticket to get there. And that’s precisely what happened.

We’ll be right back.

So, Mara, you’ve just told us the story of how Elon Musk used China to turn Tesla into the biggest car maker in the world and himself — at one point — into the richest man in the world. Now I want to understand the other side of this story. How did China use Tesla?

Well, Tesla basically became a catfish for China’s EV industry.

A catfish, what do you mean by that?

It’s a term from the business world. And, essentially, it means a super aggressive fish that makes the other fish in the pond swim faster. And by bringing in this super competitive, aggressive foreign company into China, which at that point had these fledgling EV companies, Chinese leaders hoped to spur the upstart Chinese EV makers to up their game.

So you’re saying that at this point, China actually already had a number of smaller EV companies, which many people in the West may not even be aware of, these smaller fish in the pond that you were referring to.

Yes, there were a lot of them. They were often locally based. Like, one would be strong in one city, and one would be strong in another city. And Chinese leaders saw that they needed to become more competitive in order to thrive.

And China had tried for decades to build up this traditional car industry by bringing in foreign companies to set up joint ventures. They had really had their sights set on building a strong car industry, and it didn’t really work. I mean, how many traditional Chinese car company brands can you name?

Exactly none.

Yeah, right. So going back to the aughts and the 2010s, they had this advantage that many Chinese hadn’t yet been hooked on gas-guzzling cars. There were still many people who were buying their first car ever. So officials had all these levers they could pull to try to encourage or try to push people’s behavior in a certain direction.

And their idea was to try to ensure that when people went to buy their first car, it would be an EV — and not just an EV but, hopefully, a Chinese EV. So they did things like — at the time, just a license plate for your car could cost an exorbitant amount of money and be difficult to get. And so they made license plates for electric vehicles free. So there were all these preferential policies that were unveiled to nudge people toward buying EVs.

So that’s fascinating. So China is incentivizing consumers to buy EV cars and incentivizing also the whole industry to get its act together by chucking this big American company in the mix and hoping that it will increase competitiveness. What I’m particularly struck by, Mara, in what you said is the concept of leapfrogging over the conventional combustion engine phase, which took us decades to live through. We’re still living in it, in many ways, in the West.

But listening to you, it sounds a little bit like China wasn’t really thinking about this transition to EVs as an environmental policy. It sounds like they were doing this more from an industrial-policy perspective.

Right. The environment and the horrible era at the time was a factor, but it was a pretty minor factor, according to people who were privy to the policy discussions. The more significant factor was industrial policy and an interest in building up a competitive sphere.

So China now wants to become a leader in the global EV sector, and it wants to use Tesla to get there. What does that actually look like?

Well, you need sophisticated suppliers to make the component parts of electric vehicles. And just by being in China, Tesla helped spur the development of several suppliers. Like, for example, the battery is a crucial piece of any EV.

And Tesla, with a fair amount of encouragement — and also various levers from the Chinese government — became a customer of a battery maker called CATL, a homegrown Chinese battery maker. And they have become very close to Tesla and have even set up a factory near Teslas in Shanghai. And today, with Tesla’s business — and, of course, with the business of some other companies — CATL is the biggest battery maker in the world.

But beyond just stimulating the growth of suppliers, Tesla also made these other fish in the pond swim faster. And the biggest Chinese EV company to come out of that period is one called BYD. It’s short for Build Your Dreams.

We are BYD. You’ve probably never heard of us.

From battery maker to the biggest electric vehicle or EV manufacturer in China.

They’ve got a lot of models. They’ve got a lot of discounts. They’ve got a lot of market growth.

China’s biggest EV maker just overtook Tesla in terms of worldwide sales.

BYD 10, Chinese automobile redefined.

I’ve actually started seeing that brand on the streets here in Europe recently, especially in Germany, where my brother actually used to lease a Tesla and now leases a BYD.

Does he like it?

He does. Although he did, to be fair, say that he misses the luxury of the Tesla, but it just became too expensive, really.

The price point is a huge reason that BYD is increasingly giving Tesla a run for its money. Years ago, back in 2011 —

Although there’s competitors now ramping up. And, as you’re familiar with, BYD, which is also —

— Elon Musk actually mocked their cars.

— electric vehicles, here he is trying to compete. Why do you laugh?

He asked an interviewer —

Have you seen their car?

I have seen their car, yes.

— have you seen their cars? Sort of suggesting, like, they’re no competition for us.

You don’t see them at all as a competitor?

Why is that? I mean, they offer a lower price point.

I don’t think they have a great product. I think their focus is — and rightly should be — on making sure they don’t die in China.

But they have been steadily improving. They’ve been in the EV space for a while, but they really started improving a few years ago, once Tesla came on the scene. That was due to a number of factors, not entirely because of Tesla. But Tesla played a role in helping train up talent in China. One former Tesla employee who worked at the company as they were getting set up in China told me that most of the employees who were at the company at the time now work for Chinese competitors.

So they have really played this important role in the EV ecosystem.

And you mentioned the price advantage. So just for comparison, what does an average BYD sell for compared to a more affordable Tesla car?

So BYD has an ultra-cheap model called the Seagull that sells for around $10,000 now in China, whereas Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys in China sell for more than twice that.

Wow. How’s BYD able to sell EVs at these much lower prices?

Well, the Seagull is really just a simpler car. It has less range than a Tesla. It lacks some safety measures. But BYD has this other crucial advantage, which is that they’re vertically integrated. Like, they control many aspects of the supply chain, up and down the supply chain. When you look at the battery level, they make batteries. But they even own the mines where lithium is mined for the batteries.

And they recently launched a fleet of ships. So they actually operate the boats that are sending their cars to Europe or other parts of the world.

So BYD is basically cutting out the middleman on all these aspects of the supply chain, and that’s how they can undercut other car makers on price.

Yeah. They’ve cut out the middleman, and they’ve cut out the shipping company and almost everything else.

So how is BYD doing now as a company compared to Tesla?

In terms of market cap, they’re still much smaller than Tesla. But, crucially, they overtook Tesla in sales in the last quarter of last year.

Yeah, that was a huge milestone. Tesla still dominates in the European market, which is a very important market for EVs. But BYD is starting to export there. And Europe traditionally is kind of automotive powerhouse, and the companies and government officials there are very, very concerned. I interviewed the French finance minister, and he told me that China has a five - to seven-year head start on Europe when it comes to EVs.

Wow. And what has Elon Musk said about this incredible rise of BYD in recent years? Do you think he anticipated that Tesla’s entry into the Chinese market could end up building up its own competition?

Well, I can’t get inside his head, and he did not respond to our questions. But —

The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world.

— he has certainly changed his tune. So, remember, he was joking about BYD some years ago.

Yeah, he’s not joking anymore.

I think they will have significant success.

He had dismissed Chinese EV makers. He now appears increasingly concerned about these new competitors —

Frankly, I think if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.

— to the point that on an earnings call in January, he all but endorsed the use of trade barriers against them.

They’re extremely good.

I think it’s so interesting, in a way — of course, with perfect hindsight — the kind of maybe complacency or naivete with which he may not have anticipated this turn of events. And in some ways, he’s not alone, right? It speaks to something larger. Like, China, for a long time, was seen as kind of the sweatshop or the manufacturer of the world — or perhaps as an export market for a lot of these Western companies. It certainly wasn’t putting out its own big brand names. It was making stuff for the brand names.

But recently, they have quite a lot of their own brand names. Everybody talks about TikTok. There’s Huawei. There’s WeChat, Lenovo. And now there is BYD. So China is becoming a leader in technology in certain areas. And I think that shift in some ways has happened. And a lot of Western companies — perhaps like Tesla — were kind of late to waking up to that.

Right. Tesla is looking fragile now. Their stock price dropped 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. And to a large degree, that is because of the threat of companies like BYD from China and the perception that Tesla’s position as number one in the market is no longer guaranteed.

So, Mara, all this raises a much bigger question for me, which is, who is going to own the future of EVs? And based on everything you’ve said so far, it seems like China owns the future of EVs. Is that right?

Well, possibly, but the jury is still out. Tesla is still far bigger for now. But there is this increasing fear that China owns the future of EVs. If you look at the US, there are already 25 percent tariffs on EVs from China. There’s talk of increasing them. The Commerce Department recently launched an investigation into data collection by electric vehicles from China.

So all of these factors are creating uncertainty around what could happen. And the European Union may also add new tariffs against Chinese-made cars. And China is an economic rival and a security rival and, in many ways, our main adversary. So this whole issue is intertwined with national security. And Tesla is really in the middle of it.

Right. So the sort of new Cold War that people are talking about between the US and China is, in a sense, the backdrop to this story. But on one level, what we’ve been talking about, it’s really a corporate story, an economic story that has this geopolitical backdrop. But it’s also very much an environmental story. So, regardless of how Elon Musk and Tesla fare in the end, is BYD’s rise and its ability to create high-quality and — perhaps more importantly — affordable EVs ultimately a good thing for the world?

If I think back on those years I spent living in Shanghai and Beijing when it was extremely polluted and there were days when you couldn’t go outside — I don’t think anyone wants to go back to that.

So it’s clear that EVs are the future and that they’re crucial to the green energy transition that we have to make. How exactly we get there is still unclear. But what is true is that China did just make that transition easier.

Mara, thank you so much.

Thank you, Katrin.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

[CROWD CHEERING]

Millions of people across North America were waiting for their turn to experience a rare event on Monday. From Mexico —

Cuatro, tres, dos, uno.

— to Texas.

Awesome, just awesome.

We can see the corona really well. Oh, you can see —

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

Oh, and we are falling into darkness right now. What an incredible sensation. And you are hearing and seeing the crowd of 15,000 gathered here in south Illinois.

Including “Daily” producers in New York.

It’s like the sky is almost —

— like a deep blue under the clouds.

Wait, look. It’s just —

Oh my god. The sun is disappearing. And it’s gone. Oh. Whoa.

All the way up to Canada.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m talking about.

The moon glided in front of the sun and obscured it entirely in a total solar eclipse, momentarily plunging the day into darkness.

It’s super exciting. It’s so amazing to see science in action like this.

Today’s episode was produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie with help from Rachelle Bonja. It was edited by Lisa Chow with help from Alexandra Leigh Young, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Diane Wong, Elisheba Ittoop, and Sophia Lanman and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m catching Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow.

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April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
April 5, 2024 • 29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
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April 3, 2024 • 27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief
April 2, 2024 • 29:32 Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate
April 1, 2024 • 36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
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Hosted by Katrin Bennhold

Featuring Mara Hvistendahl

Produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie

With Rachelle Bonja

Edited by Lisa Chow and Alexandra Leigh Young

Original music by Marion Lozano , Diane Wong , Elisheba Ittoop and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Chris Wood

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When Elon Musk set up Tesla’s factory in China, he made a bet that brought him cheap parts and capable workers — a bet that made him ultrarich and saved his company.

Mara Hvistendahl, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains why, now, that lifeline may have given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game.

On today’s episode

Mara Hvistendahl , an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

A car is illuminated in purple light on a stage. To the side, Elon Musk is standing behind a lectern.

Background reading

A pivot to China saved Elon Musk. It also bound him to Beijing .

Mr. Musk helped create the Chinese electric vehicle industry. But he is now facing challenges there as well as scrutiny in the West over his reliance on China.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Katrin Bennhold is the Berlin bureau chief. A former Nieman fellow at Harvard University, she previously reported from London and Paris, covering a range of topics from the rise of populism to gender. More about Katrin Bennhold

Mara Hvistendahl is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on Asia. More about Mara Hvistendahl

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Russia-Ukraine war: Nordic and Baltic countries push for more support for Ukraine – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

1d ago Summary of the day
1d ago Russian airstrikes kill at least three people
1d ago Switzerland to host peace summit in June
1d ago 'We support increased role for Nato in providing security related assistance to Ukraine,' says Swedish foreign minister
1d ago Ukraine and Britain sign defence and arms agreement
1d ago China says it will not accept 'criticism or pressure' over ties with Russia after US warning

Shattered balconies on an apartment building in Kharkiv

'We support increased role for Nato in providing security related assistance to Ukraine,' says Swedish foreign minister

We’ve got a bit more from Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billstrom on the Nordic and Baltic nations pushing for more support for Ukraine . He said:

We support an increased role for Nato in providing security related assistance to Ukraine and coordinating military support and equipment.

He added that the eight Nordic and Baltic nations had agreed to assemble a group of experts that will help support Ukraine’s efforts to join the European Union.

This offers an opportunity to facilitate Ukraine’s path towards membership in the European family.

Summary of the day

Here are all the key developments in the Russia-Ukraine war today:

Russian air strikes on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on Wednesday afternoon hit a clinic and a pharmacy, killing at least three people , a local official said.

The Swiss government will host a two-day high-level conference in June aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine , although Russia has made clear it will not take part in the initiative.

Eight Nordic and Baltic nations are pushing for more support for Ukraine . Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billstrom on He said the country supported “an increased role for Nato in providing security related assistance to Ukraine”.

Ukraine and Britain signed a framework agreement to cooperate in the defence and arms production sector , officials said in Kyiv, part of a wartime effort to build up Ukraine’s domestic weapons industry by working with allies.

An EU court removed war-related sanctions against prominent billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman , in a surprise victory for the Russian oligarchs in their fight against western sanctions.

China vowed not to accept “criticism or pressure ” over its ties with Russia, after Washington warned that it will hold Beijing responsible if Moscow makes gains in Ukraine .

Ukraine’s air force reported that Ukraine downed 14 of 17 attack drones launched by Russia and two of several guided missiles targeting Odesa and the Mykolaiv region.

Thanks for following, we’ll be back again tomorrow morning.

The top US general in Europe told Congress on Wednesday that Ukraine will run out of artillery shells and air defence interceptors “in fairly short order” without US support , leaving them vulnerable to a partial or total defeat.

General Christopher Cavoli, the commander of European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee:

If one side can shoot and the other side can’t shoot back, the side that can’t shoot back loses. So the stakes are very high.

Here are the latest images coming out of Ukraine:

Maksym, 33, and his wife Natasha, 39, visit their apartment that was heavily damaged during a recent Russian attack on the city, in Kharkiv.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has said Ukraine “simply cannot wait” for more air defences as Kyiv pleads with Western allies to step up deliveries to stave off Russia’s attacks.

Stoltenberg said:

Delays in delivery of air defences will allow Russian missiles to hit more targets and delays in delivery of ammunition will allow Russia to press along the front line. Ukraine simply cannot wait. It needs air defences, ammunition and aid now.

Nato countries last week promised they would look into their inventories after Kyiv begged for more Patriot air defence systems capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles.

Russian airstrikes kill at least three people

Kharkiv and the surrounding region have long been targeted by Russian attacks but the strikes have become more intense over recent weeks, hitting civilian and energy infrastructure.

A 14-year-old girl, and two women were killed in the village of Lyptsi, where a pharmacy came under attack, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on Telegram.

Two more people were injured, and rescuers continued searching through the rubble for victims.

Two guided bombs destroyed a clinic in Vovchansk, injuring one person, Synehubov said. Separately, Russian troops dropped an explosive on a bus, wounding a man, according to the interior ministry.

Switzerland to host peace summit in June

Switzerland said in January it would host a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and has since held talks with the EU, G7 member states and countries such as China and India to garner their support.

The Federal Council said in a statement:

There is currently sufficient international support for a high-level conference to launch the peace process.

The conference will be held June 15-16 at the Bürgenstock resort in the canton of Nidwalden outside the city of Lucerne. It will aim to create a framework favourable to a comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine as well as “a concrete roadmap for Russia’s participation in the peace process.”

While Moscow has said it is not against negotiations to end the war, Russian officials have said they will not take part in talks in Switzerland, a country they consider to have relinquished its neutrality with regard to the conflict.

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has said the Swiss initiative is pointless without Moscow’s participation.

Swiss authorities have yet to disclose a full list of participants.

Ukrainian convicts could serve in the military after lawmakers approved a first reading of a bill designed to replenish and rotate troops.

The bill envisages prisoners who join the army becoming eligible for parole.

Those convicted of crimes against humanity, sexual violence, murder or crimes against national security would not be allowed to serve, lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on Telegram.

A separate bill setting out large fines for citizens who fail to abide by mobilisation rules was also passed at the first reading.

It is not clear how many extra personnel would be eligible to join the military if the steps become law.

The convicts bill is likely to see changes before the final reading, in order to eliminate the risk of corruption, another lawmaker, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, said. No date has been set for the final reading after it is further discussed by a committee of lawmakers.

Ukraine’s parliament has also started reviewing the final reading of a complex bill amending the army mobilisation process after months of criticism and discussions, with a vote on that expected on Thursday.

It is expected to widen Kyiv’s capability to call up new servicemen amid significantly fewer volunteer fighters and numerous cases of draft evasion.

Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine:

Russian troops with a drone in Zaporizhzhia region.

The Nordic and Baltic countries support an increased role for Nato in providing assistance to Ukraine , Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billstrom told a press conference on Wednesday.

China says it will not accept 'criticism or pressure' over ties with Russia after US warning

China has vowed not to accept “criticism or pressure” over its ties with Russia, after Washington warned that it will hold Beijing responsible if Moscow makes gains in Ukraine .

AFP reports:

Deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday that Washington would “not sit by and say everything is fine” after Beijing renewed pledges of cooperation with Moscow during a visit by Russia’s top diplomat.

In response, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning insisted:

China and Russia have the right to engage in normal economic and trade cooperation. This kind of cooperation should not be interfered with or limited, and China also does not accept criticism or pressure.

The two countries have in recent years ramped up contacts, and their strategic partnership has only grown closer since Moscow’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.

Analysts say China holds the upper hand in the relationship with Russia, with its sway growing as Moscow’s international isolation deepens as its war drags on.

On Tuesday, the two said they would strengthen strategic cooperation as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks with President Xi Jinping and top diplomat Wang Yi.

Beijing said on Wednesday that it has “always played a constructive role” in seeking a resolution to the war in Ukraine.

If any country is truly concerned about peace in Ukraine, and hopes for an early end to the crisis, they should first reflect on the root causes of the crisis.

A drone has attacked the city of Taganrog in the Rostov region of southern Russia , the head of the city administration Andrei Fateyev has said via his channel on the Telegram messaging app.

Good morning and welcome to the Ukraine blog.

We kick off with the news that Ukraine’s air force has reported that Ukraine downed 14 of 17 attack drones launched by Russia and two of several guided missiles targeting Odesa and the Mykolaiv region.

Ukraine Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app early on Wednesday morning that Russia also launched two Iskander-K cruise missiles and one Iskander-M ballistic missile, but he did not say what happened to those weapons.

Two Kh-59 guided air missiles that Russia launched towards the Black Sea port of Odesa were destroyed, Oleshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app.

The south command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Telegram that 12 drones were downed over the Mykolaiv region and two over Odesa.

Energy infrastructure in Mykolaiv was damaged as a result of the attack, disrupting power supply for several hours. There were no casualties in the attacks, the military said.

Here are the key developments from yesterday:

David Cameron’s attempt to persuade Donald Trump to permit the US Congress to push through $60bn in military aid for Ukraine appears to have failed .

Russia claimed that Ukraine attacked the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for a third day with a drone but Ukrainian officials denied that Kyiv had anything to do with the attacks.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday in a sign of mutual support and shared opposition to Western democracies amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier Lavrov met China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, underlining the ever-friendly relationship between Moscow and Beijing.

A woman and a child have been killed in the Russian village of Klimovov by shelling, the region’s governor has said.

Three people were killed in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region by Ukrainian shelling on Monday , the Russian-installed regional head Vladimir Saldo said on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s military spy agency GUR struck a main production facility of a Russian aviation factory in Voronezh region , a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters.

Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed all 20 attack drones that Russia launched targeting Ukraine, Ukrainian air force commander, Mykola Oleshchuk, said on Tuesday.

A Ukraine-launched, anti-ship Neptune missile was destroyed over the Black Sea, and four drones were downed over the Belgorod and Voronezh regions, the Russian Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday.

An extraordinary meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors called by Russia to discuss attacks on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine is due to be held on Thursday, three diplomats said.

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What part of speech is join?
join - cause to become joined or linked; "join these two parts so that they fit together". join - make contact or come together; "The two roads join here". join - become part of; become a member of a group or organization; "He joined the Communist Party as a young man". join - come into the company of; "She joined him for a drink".
The 8 Parts of Speech
A part of speech (also called a word class) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence.Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyze how words function in a sentence and improve your writing. The parts of speech are classified differently in different grammars, but most traditional grammars list eight parts of speech in English: nouns, pronouns, verbs ...
The 9 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples
When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context.In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that answers the question of when the birds migrate.
Parts of Speech: Complete Guide (With Examples and More)
The parts of speech refer to categories to which a word belongs. In English, there are eight of them : verbs , nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Many English words fall into more than one part of speech category. Take the word light as an example.
Understanding Parts of Speech (9 Types With Examples)
Part of Speech: Definition: Words: Noun: Used to name a place, person, thing, or idea. California, man, park: Pronoun: ... Words that join words or groups of words together. And, but, because, where, also: Verb 'Verbs' are the words used in a sentence to define the action/state of action being performed. Most of the sentences in sentence ...
English Parts of Speech
Many words can function as multiple parts of speech. You need to look at each word in the context of a sentence in order to say what part of speech it is. The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. You just learned about all of the parts of speech. Give yourself a ...
The 8 Parts of Speech
A part of speech (also called a word class) is a category that describes the role a word plays in a sentence. Understanding the different parts of speech can help you analyse how words function in a sentence and improve your writing. ... and correlative conjunctions (used in pairs to join grammatically equal parts of a sentence). Examples ...
What is a Part of Speech?
other words express things; other words join one word to another word; These are the "building blocks" of the language. Think of them like the parts of a house. ... There are 9 basic types of word, and they are called "parts of speech". The most important parts of speech are the BIG FOUR, and the verb is the king of these.
join
Definition of join. English dictionary and integrated thesaurus for learners, writers, teachers, and students with advanced, intermediate, and beginner levels. Log In | Register : ... joIn parts of speech: transitive verb, intransitive verb, noun phrases: join in features: Word Combinations (verb, noun) part of speech: transitive verb: inflections:
Parts of Speech: Explanation and Examples
The 9 parts of speech are adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, determiners, interjections, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs. (These are also known as "word classes.") A Formal Definition. A "part of speech" is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. In English, the main parts of speech are noun ...
Coordinating Conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions are words that are used to join two sentences together. Example: I'm reading, and I'm writing. Key Concepts: Flow, Coherence, Unity; Grammar; Organization; Organizational Schema & Logical Reasoning; Parts of Speech; Sentences; Writer-Based vs. Reader-Based Prose Commas are used when two independent clauses are connected by coordinating conjunctions: Ex: She was tired, so
Understanding the 8 Parts of Speech: Definitions and Examples
In the English language, it's commonly accepted that there are 8 parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, interjections, and prepositions. Each of these categories plays a different role in communicating meaning in the English language. Each of the eight parts of speech—which we might also call the "main ...
Parts of Speech and Sentences
EX: tomorrow, next, quietly, honorably, very. CONJUNCTION: These join words, phrases and clauses. There are three kinds of conjuctions: Coordinating Conjunctions: these are single words that join words, phrases, and clauses of equal grammatical importance in the sentence. EX: and, but, or, so. Coorelative Conjunctions: these are pairs of words ...
Conjunctions
The word conjunction means "joined together.". Conjunctions are words that join parts of sentences together. A conjunction can join words, phrases, or clauses. The three most common types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions.
What part of speech is the word join?
A suffix changes a word's part of speech. For example, the word 'happy' is an adjective. But when you add a suffix, which is an ending, it can change the part of speech.
Conjunctions & Conjunction Rules
CCSS Alligned CCSS.L.4.1, CCSS.L.4.2c, CCSS.L.5.1a, CCSS.L.5.1e, and CCSS.L.6.1. Author: Sarah Perowne. Conjunctions are a part of speech that help link sentences, and without them, our sentences would be very bland and short. Conjunction rules for words such as " and, because, and therefore ," are easy to understand but can be confusing to ...
5.10: Other Parts of Speech
Conjunctions are the words that join sentences, phrases, and other words together. Conjunctions are divided into several categories, all of which follow different rules. ... Perhaps the easiest way to define a closed group is to define its opposite: an open group. An open group is a part of speech allows new words to be added. For example ...
The 9 Types of Parts of Speech: Definitions, Rules and Examples
There are two main types of parts of speech, or word classes: open and closed. Open word classes, also known as content words, include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. ... Conjunctions are one of the parts of speech. They are words that join other words, phrases, or clauses together. There are three main types of conjunctions ...
Parts of Speech
Pronouns replace nouns, prepositions show relationships between words, conjunctions join words or groups of words, and interjections express emotion or surprise. Understanding the different parts of speech is essential for effective communication and proper sentence construction. Use PartsOfSpeech.com to find the parts of speech for any word.
Parts of speech Definition & Meaning
The meaning of PART OF SPEECH is a traditional class of words (such as adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs) distinguished according to the kind of idea denoted and the function performed in a sentence. How to use part of speech in a sentence.
Other Parts of Speech
Conjunctions are the words that join sentences, phrases, and other words together. Conjunctions are divided into several categories, all of which follow different rules. ... Perhaps the easiest way to define a closed group is to define its opposite: an open group. An open group is a part of speech allows new words to be added.
What part of speech joins words phrases or clause?
The word "but" is a conjunction, a word that joins groups of words around it together. What part of speech is because of? "Because" is a subordinating conjunction.
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What are parts of speech?

In total, there are nine categories of parts of speech

What are the 9 parts of speech with their functions?

Singular Nouns

Plural Nouns

Demonstratives

Some of these sub-categories are:

Prepositions are used in sentence formations to convey these meanings:

Based on their use and function, prepositions are classified into four subtypes:

There are three types of conjunctions used in sentence formation:

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Words with more than one job

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What are the parts of speech?

The 8 Parts of Speech

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Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

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Interjection