Question

I can only figure about half of this one out:

Your assignment is to go back and label the parts of speech of each word in this paragraph. The only ones which you do not know are articles (a/the) and determiners (these/those/this/that).

There are: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, and conjunctions.

The Sentences:
She strode to a door in the far corner of the office, opened it, and called a name. A boy appeared in the doorway. He sat down at one end off the table. He was brown like us, a plump kid with shiny black hair combed straight back, neat, cool, and faintly obnoxious.

I only know what nouns, verbs, and adjectives are, and have a vague idea on pronouns, adverbs, and conjunctions. No clue what prepositions are.

Could someone explain them to me? I tried Google but it doesn't make much sense.... Thanks in advance....

Answer 1

The first site gives good descriptions of all of the parts of speech.

http://eslus.com/LESSONS/GRAMMAR/POS/pos.htm

The definition of preposition is difficult to understand. I suggest you keep a list of the common prepositions handy. Then learn to recognize prepositional phrases; they start with a preposition and end with a noun or pronoun.
Examples:
to me
by the back door
from Harry and Peggy
under the rose bush
toward a strange woman

Here's a list of prepositions:

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions-list.htm

Answer 2

The best way to understand what prepositions are is simply to memorize the words. Fortunately that's pretty easy!
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm
Notice all the words in blue in the quoted paragraph.

Here's another article that explains them well: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm
Mainly pay attention to the words in the first paragraph.

http://members.cox.net/lenco1/grammarpractice/
This should help with various types of words that you've been assigned to identify.

And another: http://www.leasttern.com/Grammar/humbuggrammar.html

And yet another: http://www.chompchomp.com/terms.htm

Answer 3

Thank you so much!

Answer 4

A quick suggestion about prepositions.

I used to tell my student, "Any word that shows the relationship between a rabbit and a hill." Examples:

the rabbit "on" the hill, "by" the hill, "near" the hill, "below" the hill, "under" the hill. etc.

This is just a little "trick" that helps remember.