1. Parts of The Speech &
Referents and Expletives
By N. Valdelomar

2. Parts of Speech
Traditional grammar usually
classifies words based on eight
parts of speech: nouns,
adjectives, adverbs, verbs,
pronouns, prepositions,
conjunctions, and interjections.

3. Building
blocks of a
language
• Luisa read.
• Luisa read a book.
• Luisa read a book
yesterday.
• Luisa read a book to him
yesterday.
• Wow! Luisa wrote and
read a book to him
yesterday.

4. Why should we know the parts of speech?
To understand grammar explanations.
To use the right word form in the right place.
To find the correct word in the dictionary.

5. Knowing the
different parts
of speech can
be very
helpful in
improving
your
understandin
g of a text.
It can help you to…
- infer a word’s meaning
based on the context
- determine the word’s
importance within the
sentence.
- have clues to see how words
relate to each other and make
sense of what you are reading.

6. NOUNS
• A noun is a naming
word. It names a
person, place, thing,
idea, living creature,
quality, or action.
Examples: cowboy,
theatre, box, thought,
tree, kindness, arrival

7. VERBS
• A verb is a word
which describes an
action (doing
something) or a state
(being something).
Examples: walk, talk,
think, believe, live,
like, want, am, was

8. ADJECTIVES
• An adjective is a word that
describes a noun. It tells you
something about the noun.
Examples: big, yellow, thin,
amazing, beautiful, quick,
important

9. ADVERBS
An adverb is a word which usually
describes a verb, an adjective, or another
adverb. It tells you how something is
done. It may also tell you when, how, or
where something happened.
Examples: slowly, intelligently, well,
yesterday, tomorrow, here, everywhere

10. Pronoun
A pronoun is used instead of a noun, to avoid repeating the noun.
Examples: I, you, he, she, it, we, they
Conjunction
A conjunction joins two words, phrases or sentences together.
Examples: but, so, and, because, or
Preposition
A preposition usually comes before a noun, pronoun or noun
phrase. It joins the noun to some other part of the sentence.
Examples: on, in, by, with, under, through, at
Interjection
An interjection is an unusual kind of word, because it often
stands alone. Interjections are words which express emotion or
surprise, and they are usually followed by exclamation marks.
Examples: Ouch!, Hello!, Hurray!, Oh no!, Ha!

11. Pronouns
What is a Pronoun?
A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or noun
phrase.
Pronouns usually refer to something that was already
mentioned in a previous sentence or understood by
the listener or reader. They are very useful words
because when you use them, you do not need to
repeat nouns all the time.
Without pronouns:
Alex is my neighbor. Alex says that Alex likes to
sleep. The wife of Alex gave Alex a new bed.
With pronouns:
Alex is my neighbor. He says that he likes to sleep.
His wife gave him a new bed.

12. Subject
Pronouns
Object
Pronouns
Possessive
Adjectives
Possessive
Pronouns
Reflexive
Pronouns
1st person I me my mine myself
2nd person you you your yours yourself
3rd person (m) he him his his himself
3rd person (f) she her her hers herself
3rd person (n) it it its (not used) itself
1st person (pl.) we us our ours ourselves
2nd person (pl.) you you your yours yourselves
3rd person (pl) they them their theirs themselves
Pronoun test : ___ will go. Max saw ___. That's ___ name. The car is ___.
(subj) saw (reflx)
in the mirror.

13. Referents
• When a pronoun replaces a word (or a
group of words), the word being replaced is
called an antecedent or referent.
Example: I wrote a letter to the president, who
responded quickly.
In that sentence, president is antecedent
of the pronoun who.
• A pronoun must agree with its
antecedent in person, number, and gender.

14. Expletives
The word expletive comes from the
Latin verb explere which means “to fill.”
Expletives are words that perform a
syntactic role but contribute nothing to
meaning. That means that an expletive
has a grammatical function but does not
have semantic content.
• IT
• THERE

15. IT as a referent
• “IT” is a referent when it refers to a noun
that was already mentioned
Example: I saw a shooting star. I saw it
crossing the night sky.
IT as an expletive
• “IT” is used in impersonal sentences that
require, for grammatical reasons, a subject
at the beginning. It does not refer to
previous subjects.
Example: It is raining.

16. THERE as a referent
“THERE” is a referent when it designates a place.
Example: I saw my cat sleeping by the window. She was there.
THERE as an expletive
When “THERE” is part of the formula THERE + aux. + S, which designates the existence of a subject, it
is an expletive.
Example: There is a cat sleeping by the window.