Part of

speech

Function or "job"

Example words

Example sentences

1. Verb

action or state

(to) be, have, do, like, work,

sing, can, must

I am a student.
I like pizza.

2. Noun

thing or person

pen, dog, work, music, town,

London, teacher, John

This is my dog. He
lives in my house. We
live in Melbourne.

3. Adjective

describes a noun

a/an, the, 10, some, good,

big, red, well, interesting

My dog is big.
I like loud music.

4. Adverb

describes a verb,
adjective or adverb

quickly, silently, well, badly,

very, really

My dog eats quickly.

When he is
very hungry, he
eats really quickly.

5. Pronoun

replaces a noun

I, you, he, she, some

Tara is a model. She is

beautiful.

5.b Possessive
Pronoun

Show ownership

Mine, ours, yours, hers, his,

its

That is your car That

car is yours.

6. Preposition

links a noun to another

word

to, at, after, on, but

We went to school on
Monday.

7. Conjunction

joins clauses or

and, but, when, or, nor, for,

I like dogs and cats.

sentences or words,
make comparisons
-linking words

than, either or, although, if,

as, yet, that, when, since,
while, until, unless, because

I dont like cats or

dogs.
I like dogs but I don't
like cats.

8. Interjection

short exclamation,
sometimes inserted into
a sentence

oh!, ouch!, hi!, well

Ouch! That hurts!

Hi! How are you?
Well, I don't know.

Other
grammar

Characteristics /
functions

Example words

Example sentences

9. Articles

Shows if we are talking

about a certain thing or
one of many things
(definite or indefinite)

the, a, an

I saw the moon last

night.

10. Sentences

11.
Homophones

I saw a star last night.

Starts with capital letter,

includes subject and
verb, ends with
punctuation . ? or !
Words that sound the
same, but have different
meanings and are spelled
differently.

The world is round.

(cap) (subject) (verb)

Their/there/theyre,
to/too/two, your/youre,
its/its, I/eye,
weather/whether

Theyre parking their

car over there.
Youre taller than your
sister.

12. Root
words

Words and word stems

that can have suffixes &
prefixes added to it to
amend meaning.

View, train, act, fish, print,

do, decide

13. Prefixes

Groups of letters added

to the start of words to
build new words

Inter-, un-, dis-, de-, tele-,

inter-, trans-, re-,

Tidy untidy. My
room is untidy.

14. Suffixes

Groups of letters added

to the ends of words to
build new words

- ing, -ist, -ery, -ary, -est, hood, -able, -ist, -en

Fat fattest. That is

the fattest pig in the
pen.

Punctuation

Characteristics /
functions

Example words

Example sentences

15.
Contractions

A short way of writing

two words joined
together. Uses an
apostrophe to indicate
missing letter

Isnt, doesnt, wont hell,

Ill, youre, theyve, shes,
Id, cant

I cant understand why

hed do that.

16. Commas

1.separate items in a list

2.to separate two or
more adjectives

Shell be alright after

shes had a rest.
1.I like music, sport,
science and art.
2. He is funny, tall,
smart and handsome. /

describing a noun /
adverbs modifying a
verb.

He slowly, quietly and

cautiously opened the
door.

3.separate clauses in
compound sentences

3. Sally was going to

take the train, but Joe
was driving to the city.

4.subordinate less
important information

4.My cat, Whiskers, is

fat and lazy.
Your sister, Kelly, was
at the party.

17.
Apostrophes

1.in contractions (see

#15)
2.to show ownership or
belonging

s, s

1.Theyre mine.
2.We are at Kates
house.