Parts of English Speech

Author: Indigo Curnick

Date: 2026-07-11

In linguistics, we love to classify and sort. A favourite kind of classification is the "parts of speech". In this classification, we are trying to sort each word into a group to better understand speech.

However, we instantaneously hit a little hitch here: what is a word? Unfortunately for us, that's one of the open questions in linguistics, and it would require its own book to begin to answer. For now, we'll proceed with a putative understanding of a word. A word is what you reasonably think it is, which will more than suffice for our purposes here.

When we classify words into parts of speech all classifications are arbitrary. That is, there is no objective, absolute system we can use. It depends on the purposes of our analysis and how detailed we wish to go. As Lindley Murray states in his English Grammar:

The number of different sorts of words, or of the parts of speech, has been variously reckoned by different grammarians. Some have enumerated ten, making the participle a distinct part, some eight, excluding the participle, and ranking the adjective under the noun; some four, and others only two, (the noun and the verb,) suppose the rest to be contained in the parts of their division.

Notwithstanding, I'll present two systems here: one to demonstrate the arbitrary nature, and another for pedagogy. My purpose here is not to give you all the grammar rules and details for each class of words. Instead, it is to give a few pointers about each class; but more importantly I aim to demonstrate the concept of word classification.

Open and Closed

In the first system, we shall classify all words into two classes: an open class and a closed class.

The open class of words is easily able to take in new words. For example, it might be names of things e.g. paper, table, chair, microwave oven. It contains some kinds of actions e.g. talk, look, play. It also contains description words e.g. young, cheerful, carefully. You've almost certainly at one time invented a word like this; by adding -ly or -ness onto the end of an existing word. For example thisness, which isn't technically an English word but I have invented it on the fly in conversation. This is how a lot of new words come about such as blog (from web log) or podcast.

The closed class are sets of words which are not easily expanded. These include pronouns e.g. she, somebody, that. It includes some kinds of action words: can, may, do. It also includes some kinds of "grammar" words: and, but, of, at.

The open and closed word class system only has two categories but it also tells us a lot. I like to think of the closed class like the frame of a skyscraper - these words don't really change and they define the overall structure. The open class is like the cladding which can be swapped out to make all sorts of different looking skyscrapers. We could remove a sculpture here, add a window there and convert an art deco building into a brutalist one while keeping the same fundamentals.

Pedagogical Classifications

A more pedagogical understanding of the parts of speech usually includes the following classes:

1. Articles
2. Nouns
3. Adjectives
4. Pronouns
5. Verbs
6. Adverbs
7. Prepositions
8. Conjunctions
9. Interjections

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Articles

An article is a word which prefixes a noun. It points out the noun, and indicates whether it is vague or specific. There are two articles in English. Meanwhile, many languages, for example Latin or Russian, do not have any articles at all.

The article a is the indefinite article, meaning it is used in a vague sense. It points out a single, but not particular, thing of a kind. The indefinite article can also change form: in front of a vowel or silent h it becomes an.

The article the is the definite article, meaning it is used in a concrete sense. It points out a specific instance of a kind of thing. The definite article always takes the form the, and does not change like the indefinite article.

An example to show the contrast:

• Give me an apple. (i.e. "give me any apple but I don't care which")
• Give me the apple. (i.e. "give me that specific apple there")

Nouns

A noun is a word for a concrete or abstract thing or idea. Some examples are names of people or entities, for instance David, Europe, Microsoft; these nouns are known as proper nouns. Proper nouns appear with capital letters, even when they do not start a sentence. Common nouns are nouns for concepts or things, and do not start with a capital letter. Some examples of common nouns are: cat, society, farmer, rock, justice, water.

Nouns can be made plural. The most common way is to add -s to the end of nouns, for example cats, rocks, tables, chairs. Some nouns end in -y and usually these need to be made plural by substituting -ies, for example, society becomes societies, industry becomes industries.

Some nouns are collective nouns. A collective noun refers to a group of entities, though the noun itself is grammatically singular. For instance crowd, family, troop, team. The point about these nouns being grammatically singular despite referring to a plurality can be seen here:

• The crowd is large ✅
• The crowd are large ❌

One way to classify nouns in more depth is to use the two axis of concrete-abstract and count-non-count. This sets up a little table like this:

Concrete nouns refer to things which literally physically exist, for example: book, water, rock. While abstract nouns refer to qualities, conditions, or things which don't exactly exist as such, for example: mistake, hope, concept. The concrete-abstract axis is more of a semantic category and doesn't have any impact on grammar.

Count nouns are those which refer to indivisible entities; count nouns can be enumerated like so: one stone, two stones, three stones and so on. Non-count nouns refer to divisible quantities (and so, there can not be a concept of a "whole" unit); non-count nouns can not be enumerated: one hope, two hopes ❌.

As alluded to, an easy way to differentiate count and non-count nouns is to try and enumerate them, and see if it makes sense. If it does, then it is a count noun. To be sure you can also use no, some, much to identify non-count nouns:

• One tree, two trees, three trees, many trees ✅ count noun tree.
• One love, two loves, three loves, many loves ❌ love is not a count noun.
• No love, some love, much love ✅ non-count noun love.

Some nouns can be both count and non-count depending on context:

• No cheese, some cheese, much cheese ✅ non-count; cheese being used to refer to a mass of cheese.

• One cheese, two cheeses, three cheeses ✅ count; cheese being used to refer to kinds of cheese (you could imaging a cheese monger pointing at cheddar, then parmesan, then mozzarella and son on).

Some non-count nouns can be converted into count nouns by the use of a measure word. Consider:

• No water, some water, much water.
• One bottle of water, two bottles of water, many bottles of water.

Here bottle is the measure word, and notice how it is the word which becomes plural rather than the noun itself. To add to the confusion, measure words can be optional in many cases, if the context allows:

• Please can I have two coffees? ("two cups of coffee", in a cafe)
• A water please. ("a glass of water", in a restaurant)

It is best to use less with non-count nouns and fewer with count nouns, like so:

• I have less cheese than you!

• I have fewer books than you!

Adjectives

An adjective is a word which quantifies, limits or describes a noun. Some examples of adjectives (followed by a noun to demonstrate the use are): good book, beautiful moon, magical girl. Historically, sometimes adjectives have been classified in with nouns. As we discussed, that is a valid way to perform the classifications. However, usually these days adjectives are placed into their own class. Also, historically, some words used to be considered adjectives such as this, my; these are now usually moved into their own class called determiners.

Adjectives have three levels of comparison: the positive, the comparative and the superlative. The positive expresses the quality of an object e.g. good, bad, wise. The comparative increases the positive compared to others e.g. better, worse, wiser. The superlative indicates the highest or lowest in comparison e.g. best, worst, wisest,

Unfortunately, the degrees of comparison are rather irregular, and so no general rules can be given. -er tends to be of the comparative and -est or -st tends to be of the superlative. Some words change completely e.g. good, better, best. Some words do not change and more and most are attached instead. Here's a table of some common comparisons:

Pronouns

A pronoun is a word used to replace a word or another pronoun. There are a few different kinds of pronouns. Everyone is already familiar with the personal pronouns e.g. he, she, I. The noun or pronoun for which the pronoun is standing in for is called the antecedent. In the sentence "Mary goes to Church because she is religious"; Mary is the antecedent of she.

Personal pronouns can be singular or plural. Singular pronouns are used when the pronoun refers to one person; plural when referring to more than one person.

Personal pronouns also have three cases: nominative, genitive and objective. The nominative case is the case you'll find in a dictionary and the case used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence. The genitive case shows possession. The objective case is used when the pronoun is the object of a verb. While these grammar definitions are complex, these three examples will enlighten you:

• I went to the shops. (I in the nominative case)
• He threw a ball at me. (me in the objective case)
• That's my pen. (my in the genitive case)

Here's a table for all of the personal pronouns with cases:

There are also relative pronouns, which introduce relative clauses. We won't go into relative clauses, but he's some examples:

• The teacher who taught me chemistry is retiring.
• The house which we bought needs some repair work.
• This is the bank that accepted my application.

A table of the relative pronouns:

A final kind of pronoun we will look at it the reflexive pronoun. The primary use of the reflexive pronoun is to refer to the same entity as the subject of the sentence:

• They behave themselves for a change.
• You'll hurt yourself.

There is also a secondary use to give emphasis:

• She herself spoke to me.
• He wrote to me himself.

You could also just write:

• She spoke to me.
• He wrote to me.

The reflexive pronouns are:

Verbs

Verbs are often known as "doing words". They tell us about actions or states of being. Verbs come in many forms, but I want to highlight the "base" form, called the infinitive, which is usually introduced with the word to. So, some examples of verbs in the infinitive: to laugh, to play, to think, to seem, to exist.

Some examples of these verbs in action:

• She laughed at the performance.
• He thinks quietly in the corner.
• They read their books from cover to cover.

Verbs have a tense, which tells us when relative to speech the action, event or state of being occurred. Tense is a very complex subject. Naively you might think about tense in terms of past, present and future. However, English only has two tenses (in a future blog I plan to go into much more detail about grammarian quibbles over this), the past and the present:

• He thinks quietly in the corner. (thinks is present tense)
• He thought quietly in the corner. (thought is past tense)

In general, the past tense uses a -ed ending, but there are many irregular verbs in English:

• I laughed so hard at the play. (laughed is regular)
• She flipped through the magazine. (flipped is regular)
• He ran all the way here. (ran is irregular)

Verbs agree with nouns in number and person. For instance:

• The noise distracts them.
• The noises distract them.
• I go to work.
• She goes to work.

The difference only exists in the present tense:

• The noise distracted them.
• The noises distracted them.
• I went to work.
• She went to work.

The one exception is the verb to be, which has the following forms:

For instance:

• I was happy.

• You were happy.

Most of the verbs we've seen so far are called main verbs. However, there's another class called auxiliary verbs. These are also known as "helper" verbs. The most important English auxiliary verb is to be, which we have already seen. The two other primary auxiliary verbs are to have and to do. The rest of the auxiliaries are known as the modal auxiliaries. These include: can, may, will, shall, must. There are many, many uses for auxiliary verbs best saved for another blog on that subject, but here's some examples of them in action:

• I have eaten lunch.

• She can swim very well.

• I don't like spicy food.

• Do you want tea?

Since English has no future tense, the auxiliary will does the duty of helping us speak of the future:

• I will sleep soon.

• She will eat her food.

• He will run all the way there.

Adverbs

Adverbs are used to modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Adverbs can be thought of as expressing manner, place, time, frequency, degree or level of certainty by answering questions like how, in what way, when, where, to what extent. Here's some examples of adverbs in use:

• She ran swiftly.
• I dropped it here, I think.
• I worked yesterday.
• He usually makes mistakes.

Adverbs often have a -ly ending, which is added to adjectives to make an adverb e.g. calmly, quietly. Unless the adjective ends in -ic in which case the suffix is -ically e.g. economically, geographically. Other adverbs have a -wise ending, which comes from applying the suffix to nouns e.g. clockwise, lengthwise.

Prepositions

Prepositions are parts of speech which show the relationships between words in a sentence. These relationships are generally of the type of showing position, time, direction or manner. Some examples:

• There are biscuits in the cupboard.
• I like to go for a walk after dinner.
• Rivers flow into the sea.
• You're not playing by the rules.

The prepositions are varied, and here's a list of the most common prepositions:

• about
• above
• as
• at
• after
• before
• behind
• beside
• but
• by
• despite
• during
• for
• from
• in
• inside
• off
• on
• out
• over
• past
• since
• than
• through
• till
• to
• toward(s)
• up
• with
• without

However, there are more prepositions than in this list.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words which connect different ideas together. There are three kinds of conjunctions: coordinators, subordinators and correlatives.

Coordinators join together similar words or phrases, such that they have equal status. Some of the common coordinators are: and, or, but, nor, for, yet, so. Some examples in action:

• I like bread and butter
• She is smart but sometimes makes simple mistakes.
• You can have tea or coffee.

Subordinators join a main clause with a subordinate clause. As the name implies, a subordinate clause is dependent on the main clause. Some of the most common subordinators are: because, although, if, when, since, until, after. Some examples of subordinators in practice:

• I stayed home because it is raining.
• We decided to go out although the weather was poor.

Correlatives work in pairs to show comparison and contrast in similar ideas. Some common correlatives are: either... or, neither... nor, both... and, whether... or, such... that, rather... than, as... as. Some examples of correlatives in sentences:

• You can either have tea or coffee.
• He's as good as gold.

Interjections

Interjections are words which express strong feelings. They usually aren't grammatically related to other words in the sentence. Some common interjections are: oh!, aha!, alas!, ew!, whoa!, ouch!, erm. For example:

• Ew! That's gross.
• Erm, what do you mean?
• Alas! We missed the train!

Conclusion

I'd first like to point out that in the pedagogical system I presented, there's some words which don't really fit into any of the categories. For instance the numbers (one, two, first). There's also the word not and the infinitive marker itself, to.

This also shows why defining the word is tricky. Take the infinitive marker to, as in to run, to be. Sure, this is the same two letters as the preposition to, as in rivers flow to the sea. However, these are expressing different concepts. Should these count as one word or two? There isn't a clear, obvious answer to that question. What I'd suggest is that considering them as the same word and different words are two levels of analysis which is necessary to get a full picture of grammar.

Now we've seen two of many systems of classifying parts of speech. It's worth pausing to think about how they relate to one another. If we were to sort the classes seen in the pedagogical system into either open or closed, we'd do something like

Those additional words I mentioned do not necessarily fit into the pedagogical system can fit nicely into the closed classes, too.

The use of learning about parts of speech is you can now take these and start to label each word in a sentence to the category it belongs to. I highly encourage you to make use of this exercise frequently!

References

Murray, L. (1859 (1795)) English Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. With an Appendix, Containing Rules and Observations, for Assisting the More Advanced Students to Write with Perspicuity and Accuracy. John Murphy & Co.

Greenbaum, S., Nelson, G. (2002) An Introduction to English Grammar. Pearson Education Limited

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartik, J. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman.