English Grammar Concepts

Types of Word

The Big Four

Noun
a person, place, thing, or idea
examples: Jackie, Oregon, computer, kami, spirituality
Nouns are usually the subject or the object of a sentence.
“The girl uses the computer.”
Red is my favorite color.”
subtypes include proper noun (names such as Fred or Australia), pronoun (she, he, it, that, etc.)
It's also worth noting that in Old English, nouns decline. That is to say, they take different forms based on their relationship to other words in the sentence. Declension of nouns is very similar to conjugation of verbs. Old English nouns will also have more different kinds of grammatical case, such as gender.

Adjective
a word that describes or modifies a noun
examples: cute, small, red, awesome, funny, good
Adjectives usually come either before the noun they describe or near the end of the sentence.
“This is a red word.”
That word is red.”
“But in this sentence, red is a false adjective.”
subtypes include demonstrative adjective (this, that), possessive adjective (his, her, their)

Verb
a word that expresses some kind of action a noun is doing
examples: love, fight, is, see, take
Verbs usually come after a noun. The most basic form of an English sentence is Noun + Verb.
“We hang out on Discord a lot.”
“Everybody went on an adventure together.”
To be, or not to be? That is the question.”
“The answers were determined long ago.”
“The party was determined to find the answer.
verbs change form a lot based on who's doing them, when they take place, and other factors. these form changes are called conjugations. each kind of conjugation has its own name (gerund, imperative, past perfect, passive, etc.)

Adverb
a word that describes how or in what way a verb is done
examples: fast, extremely, very, politically, sadly
Adverbs can come in a lot of different positions, but they're usually close to the verb or before an adjective. Sometimes, you start a sentence with an adverb to emphasize it. Most adverbs end in -ly, and you can usually add that ending to an adjective to make an adverb. Also, many adjectives double as adverbs.
“Time passes fast when you're having fun.”
“Some people really care about video games.”
“I'm dating an extremely cute girl.”
Fortunately, everything worked out better than expected.”

Other Type Words

Articles
the words “a”, “an”, and “the”
Literally, these words are the only articles. A and an are indefinite articles, and the is the definite article. Old English probably has more variance in the articles it uses based on a noun's number and case or gender.

Conjunctions
Conjunctions tie words, clauses, and sentences together. The main ones are “and”, “but”, and “or”.
“I wrote this text, and I marked it up in HTML.”
“I thought about what to say and wrote it down.”
“Jackie is sexy, kind, and interesting.”
“Can you make this essay more complex, but also funnier?”
“Do you want the red one or the blue one?”
“We tried so hard, yet our efforts were in vain.”

Prepositions
Prepositions (literally pre-positions) usually come before a noun phrase and give it a special role in relation to the rest of a sentence. Sometimes they come at the end of a sentence.
examples: to, for, of, in, into, across, where, when, through, beneath, how
Prepositions are kind of an “everything else” category in some ways. They're highly irregular and there are a lot of them, but they can usually be identified by the role they play in the sentence.
“I'm going to the store.”
“That's exactly what I'm concerned about.”
“All that work down the drain.”
Where there's a will, there's a way.”
“How do we get into the enemy base?”