Word classes

The idea

Every word in a sentence belongs to a word class, and the class depends on the job the word is doing in that sentence. Nouns name people, places or things; verbs show actions or states; adjectives describe nouns; and adverbs usually describe verbs, telling how, when or where something happens.

Pronouns stand in for nouns, like 'she' or 'them'. Determiners come before nouns and point them out, like 'the', 'a', 'this' or 'some'. Prepositions show position or direction, like 'under', 'behind' or 'through'.

Conjunctions join words or clauses, like 'and', 'but' or 'because'. To decide a word's class, never just guess from the word alone — ask what job it is doing in this particular sentence. Many test questions ask about one named word only, so underline the exact word in the question before you decide its class.

Worked example

In the sentence 'The hungry fox crept silently under the wooden fence', what word class is 'silently', and what word class is 'under'?

1. 'Silently' describes how the fox crept — it adds information to the verb 'crept', so it is an adverb.
2. 'Under' shows the position of the fox in relation to the fence, so it is a preposition.
3. Check the others if unsure: 'hungry' and 'wooden' are adjectives, 'fox' and 'fence' are nouns, 'crept' is a verb.

Answer: 'Silently' is an adverb and 'under' is a preposition.

Watch out

• Calling every describing word an adjective — if it describes a verb, it is an adverb.
• Guessing a word's class from the word alone instead of its job in the sentence.