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Word Classes. Otherwise known as “Parts of Speech”. nouns verbs adjectives adverbs determiners prepositions
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Word Classes • Otherwise known as “Parts of Speech”
nouns verbs • adjectives adverbs • determiners prepositions • conjunctions interjections • pronouns
Why does it matter? • Every competent speaker has an implicit knowledge of the way in which the various “pieces in the language game” can operate. • This knowledge is a bit like the hidden DNA code behind a language: it enables us to generate totally new utterances which can still be understood. • Most languages operate in a remarkably similar manner in regard to Word Classes. (Although Mandarin Chinese does not have a separate class for adjectives.) This tells us that there is something fundamentally important in their operation.
And there are practical reasons... • Please give me five minutes. I need to help my brother Jack off the big horse. • Please give me five minutes. I need to help my brother jack off the big horse. • “Your shit is shit!” (S.MOUSE!) • Your pronunciation is perfect! • Perfect your pronunciation!
As a student of linguistics, a solid knowledge of the word classes is essential. • An examiner will presume that you have such knowledge. For example: • “How does the use of adjectives and adjectival phrases support the purpose of this text in lines 1–27? Provide examples.” (2009 exam) - 3 marks
So how do we decide which Category a word Fits into? • T This decision tends to be made on the basis of which grammatical function the word performs (ie morphology and syntax) Although its meaning (ie semantics) also plays a role. Of course you can also check a good dictionary, where the Word Class will also be stated for you.
category |ˈkatəˌgôrē| • noun ( pl. categories ) • 1 a class or division of people or things regarded as having particular shared characteristics: five categories of intelligence. • 2 Philosophy one of a possibly exhaustive set of classes among which all things might be distributed. • • one of the a priori conceptions applied by the mind to sense impressions. • DERIVATIVES • categorial |ˌkatəˈgôrēəl|adjective • ORIGIN late Middle English ( sense 2): from French catégorie or late Latin categoria, from Greek katēgoria ‘statement, accusation,’ from katēgoros ‘accuser.’
Nouns • Nouns typically specify objects or entities (people, animals, objects, places, abstract ideas) • Grammatical characteristics: nouns can inflect for number (with some exceptions) and are usually preceded by determiners.
Adjectives • Indicate qualities of things, such as age, colour, size, speed and shape. • They normally precede the noun that they describe: a good boy. • They can be preceded by intensifiers like very or too: a very good boy. • They can often be negated by the preposition -un : unlikely
They can be used in making comparisons by adding the suffix -er or the word more: the likelier outcome, the more likely outcome. • They also take the superlative suffix -st: the likeliest outcome.
pronouns • Pronouns are words like he, me, I, we. • They are used instead of nouns to refer to persons and things, especially where they are already known or identifiable. • Pronouns in English make case distinctions: I spoke to him. He spoke to me. • Pronouns in English are a closed category. In other words, new pronouns are very rarely invented.
VERBS • Verbs generally designate events (actions, states, processes, happenings, mental and bodily activities). • Verbs inflect to indicate person, number, and tense. • Nouns can be derived from verbs by adding a number of affixes. For example, adding the suffix -er will normally create a noun: lover (one who loves)
ADVERBS • Adverbs indicate qualities and properties of events (eg quickly, happily). • They may also indicate the intensity of a quality (eg a very slow train) • Adverbs do not take inflections. • Many adverbs include the derivational prefix -ly
Auxiliary verbs • These verbs express grammatical rather than lexical information and work in combination with lexical verbs. • Auxiliary verbs in English include: do, be, have, I do love fish and chips! I am walking to the footy. • The following verbs (also called modal verbs) also fit into the category of auxiliaries: can, may, will, shall, and must.
Prepositions • Prepositions are words which accompany nouns to give us vital grammatical information about the location (in time and space) of a thing or an event, or how it was done. • Examples include: under, with, by, for, on, to next to. • Prepositions are a closed class. • Prepositions always precede the noun or noun phrase that they are linked to: prepositions.
In many languages it is also possible to have postpositions and even circumpositions (where the prepositions occur on both sides of the noun/ noun phrase). • Curiously, English does have some circumpositions: • From here onin
Determiners • These little words “determine” what type of noun follows. • In other words, is the noun definite or indefinite is the noun a count or mass noun, is the noun concrete or abstract? • The common determiners include: a/ an, the, some, these/ those/ this/ that
Conjuctions • Conjunctions are grammatical words like and, or, but, if, that join words, phrases or clauses together. • Conjunctions show no morphological modification at all. • They usually occur in front of the last item in a list of words joined together: salt and pepper; Tom, Dick and Harry. • It is important to distinguish between the coordinating conjuntions ( ) and the subordinating conjunctions ( )
Coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or ,nor, for, yet, so (FAN BOYS) • Subordinating conjunctions: after, although, as, because, before, how, if, once, since, than, that, though, till, until, when, where, whether, while • This information is vital to help you determine whether a sentence is simple, compound, or complex.
Simple sentence= one main clause. • Compound sentence= two or more simple sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction (or separated by a colon, semi-colon, or comma). • Complex sentence= a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.
Compound-complex=two or more coordinated clauses, and one or more subordinated clause. • I spoke to Mary and she was happy, although she would have preferred the earlier offer.
Interjections • These are words like: hey! yuk! shit! Oi you! • They express the speaker’s emotional attitude, or call for attention. • Interjections can stand alone as complete utterances. They do not take any form of morphological modification.
