Last reviewed 30 Sept 2026 · 10 min read
Why parts of speech matter
Every word in a sentence does a job. The job decides the word's part of speech. Almost every grammar question in a competitive exam — error spotting, fill in the blanks, sentence improvement — is really a question about which part of speech should sit in which place. If you can name the job of each word, most errors become visible.
The same word can do different jobs:
- Light is a noun in "the light is on", an adjective in "a light bag", and a verb in "light the lamp".
- Round is a preposition in "round the corner", an adverb in "he turned round", and an adjective in "a round table".
So always decide by how the word is used in the sentence, not by how it looks.
The eight parts of speech
| Part | Job | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | Names a person, place, thing or idea | Ravi, Delhi, bridge, honesty |
| Pronoun | Stands in place of a noun | he, they, which, myself |
| Adjective | Describes a noun or pronoun | tall building, three engineers |
| Verb | Shows action, state or happening | build, is, seems |
| Adverb | Describes a verb, adjective or another adverb | works carefully, very strong |
| Preposition | Shows the relation of a noun to another word | on the table, by road |
| Conjunction | Joins words, phrases or clauses | and, but, because |
| Interjection | Expresses sudden feeling | Alas!, Wow! |
Noun
Kinds of noun
- Proper noun — the name of a particular person or place, written with a capital: Ganga, Satish.
- Common noun — a name shared by a class: river, engineer.
- Collective noun — a group treated as one: committee, team, jury, fleet.
- Material noun — a substance: steel, cement, water.
- Abstract noun — a quality, state or action: courage, poverty, departure.
Countable and uncountable
Countable nouns have a plural and take a/an, many, few: a bridge, many bridges. Uncountable nouns have no plural and take much, little: information, advice, furniture, luggage, equipment, knowledge, news, scenery, work, progress, evidence. So we say "a piece of advice", never "an advice" or "advices".
✗ The informations are useful. → ✓ The information is useful. ✗ He gave me many advices. → ✓ He gave me much advice / many pieces of advice.
Number and gender
- Regular plural: add -s/-es (box → boxes); -y after a consonant becomes -ies (city → cities); some -f/-fe words become -ves (knife → knives, leaf → leaves).
- Irregular: man → men, child → children, tooth → teeth, mouse → mice, foot → feet.
- Same in singular and plural: sheep, deer, fish, series, species.
- Always plural in form: scissors, trousers, spectacles, clothes, thanks, riches.
- Singular in form but meaning a subject: mathematics, physics, economics, news, measles — take singular verbs.
- Compound nouns pluralise the main word: brother-in-law → brothers-in-law, passer-by → passers-by.
- Gender: masculine, feminine, neuter and common (student, teacher, doctor).
Possessive
Add 's to singular nouns (the engineer's plan) and to plural nouns not ending in -s (men's, children's). Plural nouns ending in -s take only the apostrophe (the engineers' union). For things, prefer of: the door of the room, not "the room's door".
Pronoun
| Kind | Words |
|---|---|
| Personal (subject) | I, we, you, he, she, it, they |
| Personal (object) | me, us, you, him, her, it, them |
| Possessive | mine, ours, yours, his, hers, theirs (used without a noun) |
| Possessive adjective | my, our, your, his, her, its, their (used with a noun) |
| Reflexive / emphatic | myself, ourselves, yourself, himself, themselves, itself |
| Demonstrative | this, that, these, those |
| Interrogative | who, whom, whose, which, what |
| Relative | who, whom, whose, which, that |
| Indefinite | some, any, one, none, each, either, neither, everyone, somebody |
| Reciprocal | each other (two), one another (more than two) |
Rules that are tested
- Case: subject form for the doer (She and I went), object form after a verb or preposition (between you and me, not "between you and I"; let him go).
- Agreement: the pronoun agrees with its noun in number, person and gender: Each of the boys did his work. Everyone must bring his or her (or their) pass.
- Order of persons: in a good sentence the order is 2nd, 3rd, 1st (You, he and I) for happy statements; for a fault or blame it is 1st, 2nd, 3rd (I, you and he are to blame).
- Who / whom: who is the subject, whom the object: The man whom we met is an engineer.
- That vs which: that introduces a restricting clause and is used after all, only, superlatives, and both persons and things (This is the best that I can do); which is used for a non-restricting clause with a comma.
- Reflexive pronoun is never used as a subject: ✗ Myself will go. → ✓ I myself will go.
- Each other for two, one another for more than two.