Pronouns such as “my,” “your,” and “their” are commonly called possessive pronouns.

Tara and Manuel baked the cake themselves.

Pronouns can take the place of nouns in a sentence or refer to someone who was named earlier in a sentence. It’s a gray area of grammar.įor longer explanations about the differences between prepositions and adverbs, see our article opens in a new windowPreposition or Adverb? Pronouns It’s the difference between what something is and what something does: It’s a preposition doing a job that is typically associated with adverbs. Some people call such words adverbs and other people call them prepositions. When a word such as “over” or “up” is modifying a verb, it’s acting like an adverb. Sometimes, words you might think of as prepositions act like adverbs.

Thankfully, Hugh couldn’t find the anchovies.

opens in a new windowAdverbs often end with “-ly,” but not always. AdverbsĪdverbs can modify verbs (or verb phrases), adjectives (or adjective phrases), other adverbs (or adverb phrases), and whole sentences. Opens in a new windowSometimes you need commas between adjectives, and sometimes you don’t.

Nouns can also function as adjectives, and when they do, they are called opens in a new windowattributive nouns: Some systems call words such as “a” and “the” and “my” and “his” adjectives. This piece about “different” and “differently” explains more about linking verbs. Aardvark was the best fishing buddy today.Linking verbs connect a subject to a descriptor. They can convey a sense of time, possibility, ability, and so on:

Helping verbs (aka auxiliary verbs) add meaning to the main verb. Verbs can describe actions, help other verbs, and link a subject to descriptors. Nouns can also be categories as concrete, abstract, collective, and compound. The first letter of a proper noun is capitalized.Ĭommon nouns are the generic names of people, places, things, and concepts. Proper nouns are the given names of people, places, and things. Nouns are names of people, places, things, and concepts. Opens in a new windowSome nouns need an article before them, and some don’t. Some other grammar classification systems group articles with adjectives or call them determiners.

What part of speech is the word this