Why Learn Parts of Speech?

You can’t use a tool if you can’t name it.

Consider this scenario:

• You are building a house. You ask your helper, “Give me that heavy thing, you know, the heavy thing for hitting nails in over there.”

• It’s a lot easier to ask for the hammer.

To Extend the Analogy. . .

• I wouldn’t ask for the “Redwing model b-9750-X-102 hammer.”

• Similarly, we won’t talk about “a modal auxiliary used to indicate the imperative mood.”

• That’s a mystifying way of describing the word “must.”

The Basic Parts of Speech and Sentence Structure

• The Subject, Verb, and the Object• But they need not appear SVO.• SVO: I washed the car. • OSV: Into the tree crashed the skier. • Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs,

Adjectives, Articles, Prepositions, Conjunctions. These are all you need to know.