3
Sacramento City is a great commercial center its wholesale and jobbing business extends hundreds of miles to the north, south, west, and east it is fast becoming a substantial manufacturing center large six and eight story buildings are rapidly taking the place of the old two story structures a new city hall has just been completed which cost $150,000 and a new court house $1,000,000 the city has recently issued bonds amounting to $800,000 for new schools scarcely a week passes without recording some new enterprise all the main highways are macadamized so that automobile travel is possible every day of the year and the farmer can haul his produce to market at a minimum cost market conditions are good and any class of produce finds ready sale at remunerative prices.—(From an advertisement.)
Classify the sentences that you have formed in the foregoing exercise:
| 1. According to meaning. |
| 2. According to form. |
Exercise 63—Parts of Speech
There are eight different kinds of words called parts of speech, which are used to make sentences. They are as follows:
| Noun: The horse is brown. |
| Pronoun: He is the best horse of all. |
| Verb: He galloped to town. |
| Adjective: The brown horse is my favorite. |
| Adverb: He runs swiftly. |
| Preposition: We shall ride to town. |
| Conjunction: The night is clear and cold. |
| Interjection: Oh! My horse stumbled. |
Thus a noun names something. A word that stands for a noun is a pronoun. Sometimes a different part of speech is used like a noun, and for the time being it becomes a noun. The verb is a very important part of speech, since without it there can be no sentence. The verb makes an assertion, asks a question, or gives a command. Adjectives are words that belong to or describe nouns or pronouns. Adverbs go with or modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Prepositions and conjunctions connect. Prepositions join their objects to other words in the sentence; conjunctions join words, phrases, or clauses. An interjection, such as the exclamation oh, is used without having grammatical relation to any other word in the sentence. A preposition always takes an object, the preposition and its object making a phrase. Grouping this information, we have:
| Parts of Speech |  | Nouns are names of persons and things. |
| Pronouns are substitutes for nouns. | ||
| Verbs make assertions, ask questions, or give commands. | ||
| Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. | ||
| Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They usually answer the questions how? when? where? why? to what degree? | ||
| Prepositions join object nouns or pronouns to other words in the sentence. | ||
| Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses. | ||
| Interjections are independent words used as exclamations. |
A word is not always the same part of speech. We may say, "Did you starch the clothes?" in which case starch is a verb. A grocer may say, "The starch in these packages is always clean." In this sentence starch is a noun. The part of speech depends entirely on the way the word is used.