The Parts of Speech: Nouns and Verbs

Here is a short description of the two most important and basic parts of speech of the English language, Nouns and Verbs:

NOUNS

A NOUN is a word that names something; it tells us what a  thing, or person, or place, or idea is. 

 In the following example, 
-the word "boy" tells us the person is a "young, male, human child".  
-the word "love" tells us we are talking about "a strong feeling of affection".  
-the word "house" tells us "the place where people live".  
and the word "Mary" tells us "the name of a person, or what a person is called".  

"The boy went with Mary into the house filled with love." 

Nouns are proper, or common: 

-Proper nouns name a particular person or place, and the first letter is always a capital, or uppercase letter: "Mary" "Louisiana" 

-Common nouns are all other nouns, and the first letter is a small, or lowercase letter: "girl" "fish" "water" "state" "hope" 

Please Note:  the word "noun" tells us how the word is being used in the language. "Love" in the above example is being used as a noun when it means "a strong feeling of affection".  "Love" can also be used as a verb!   

Also, nouns are used as the subject, the thing doing the action, in a sentence. Nouns are also used as the object in a sentence where the action is being done to them: 

"John (the subject) hit the ball (the object)."  

TIP:  If you can use the articles "a", "an",  or "the" in front of the word, it is a noun, or it is being used as a noun.  "a house" "an apple"  "the fear"  "the thought".  

Go here  http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-what.htm  for a more detailed explanation of nouns.

VERBS

A VERB is a word that shows or indicates action,  or describes the state of something, or a relation between things.

In the following example, 

The word "run" tells us an action of "something moving fast".  

The word "feels" tells us "the state of experiencing sensation". 

The word "is" tells us there is a connection between what comes before and what comes after the word "is".

"After I run, I feel tired, but running is good for me!"

As you can see, action verbs (run) don't connect things, and they usually take a subject, like in the above example    

"After I (subject) run (verb) …"   

Acton verbs can also take an object, as in:   

"The dog (subject)  ate (verb) his food (object) very fast."  where food is the object of ate;  the action of the verb ate was done to the food (the object). 

However, verbs of state (stative verbs) and relation have only subjects which they connect to other subjects, or to adjectives, or descriptions of the subject:

 "John is a man."  

Here there is no action.  "John" and "man" are simply being connected to each other as equals.  You can test this by reversing the nouns:  

"The man is John."  

In this example: 

 "Mary seems sad." 

There is also no action.  Mary's condition is being described as (seems to be) sad. 

Of course, this is a very simple description of how we use verbs in English.  Verbs take many forms depending on what you want to say with them and how you want to say it.  They form tenses such as present, past, and future, and there are other details to learn about verbs, like where to place a verb in a sentence. 

You can find out more about verbs in the following places:

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-what_classification-main.htm

http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/verb.htm

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/verbs.htm

Please Note:   The above example sentences are very short with mostly nouns and verbs.  A sentence in English only requires a subject and a verb to make sense.  "I run."  Sometimes a verb is used alone in a sentence: "Run!"  And sometimes a verb and an object are all:  "Eat fruit!"   

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