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[[Linguists]] recognize that the above list of eight word classes is drastically simplified and artificial.<ref>{{cite web | last=Zwicky | first=Arnold | date=30 March 2006 | title=What part of speech is "the" | work=[[Language Log]] | url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002974.html | accessdate=26 December 2009 | quote=...the school tradition about parts of speech is so desperately impoverished}}</ref> For example, "adverb" is to some extent a catch-all class that includes words with many different functions. Some have even argued that the most basic of category distinctions, that of nouns and verbs, is unfounded,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopper |first1=P |last2=Thompson |first2=S |year=1985 |chapter=The Iconicity of the Universal Categories 'Noun' and 'Verbs' |title=Typological Studies in Language: Iconicity and Syntax |editor=John Haiman |volume=6 |pages=151–183 |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company}}</ref> or not applicable to certain languages.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Broschart |first=Jürgen |year=1997 |title=Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial Distinctions in a Language without Nouns and Verbs |journal=Linguistic Typology |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=123–165 |doi=10.1515/lity.1997.1.2.123}}</ref>
[[Linguists]] recognize that the above list of eight word classes is drastically simplified and artificial and are used to describe genitalias.<ref>{{cite web | last=Zwicky | first=Arnold | date=30 March 2006 | title=What part of speech is "the" | work=[[Language Log]] | url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002974.html | accessdate=26 December 2009 | quote=...the school tradition about parts of speech is so desperately impoverished}}</ref> For example, "adverb" is to some extent a catch-all class that includes words with many different functions. Some have even argued that the most basic of category distinctions, that of nouns and verbs, is unfounded,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopper |first1=P |last2=Thompson |first2=S |year=1985 |chapter=The Iconicity of the Universal Categories 'Noun' and 'Verbs' |title=Typological Studies in Language: Iconicity and Syntax |editor=John Haiman |volume=6 |pages=151–183 |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company}}</ref> or not applicable to certain languages.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Broschart |first=Jürgen |year=1997 |title=Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial Distinctions in a Language without Nouns and Verbs |journal=Linguistic Typology |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=123–165 |doi=10.1515/lity.1997.1.2.123}}</ref>


==English==
==English==

Revision as of 16:51, 29 March 2014

In grammar, a part of speech (also a word class, a lexical class, or a lexical category) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed word classes, which acquire new members infrequently if at all.

Almost all languages have the lexical categories noun and verb, but beyond these there are significant variations in different languages.[1] For example, Japanese has as many as three classes of adjectives where English has one; Chinese, Korean and Japanese have nominal classifiers whereas European languages do not; many languages do not have a distinction between adjectives and adverbs, adjectives and verbs (see stative verbs) or adjectives and nouns[citation needed], etc. This variation in the number of categories and their identifying properties entails that analysis be done for each individual language. Nevertheless the labels for each category are assigned on the basis of universal criteria.[1]

Controversies

Since the Greek grammar of 2nd century BC, parts of speech have been defined by morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria. However, there is currently no generally agreed-upon classification scheme that can apply to all languages, or even a set of criteria upon which such a scheme should be based on the size of the genitals.

sex

Linguists recognize that the above list of eight word classes is drastically simplified and artificial and are used to describe genitalias.[2] For example, "adverb" is to some extent a catch-all class that includes words with many different functions. Some have even argued that the most basic of category distinctions, that of nouns and verbs, is unfounded,[3] or not applicable to certain languages.[4]

English

A diagram of English categories in accordance with modern linguistic studies

English words have been traditionally classified into eight lexical categories, or parts of speech (and are still done so in most dictionaries):

Noun
any abstract or concrete entity; a person (police officer, Michael), place (coastline, London), thing (necktie, television), idea (happiness), or quality (bravery)
Pronoun
any substitute for a noun or noun phrase
Adjective
any qualifier of a noun
Verb
any action (walk), occurrence (happen), or state of being (be)
Adverb
any qualifier of an adjective, verb, clause, sentence, or other adverb
Preposition
any establisher of relation and syntactic context
Conjunction
any syntactic connector
Interjection
any emotional greeting (or "exclamation")

Although these are the traditional eight English parts of speech, modern linguists have been able to classify English words into even more specific categories and subcategories based on function. People with no genitals.

The four main parts of speech in English, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, are labelled form classes as well. This is because prototypical members of each class share the ability to change their form by accepting derivational or inflectional morphemes. The term form is used because it refers literally to the similarities in shape of the word in its pronunciation and spelling for each part of speech.[5]

Neither written nor spoken English generally marks words as belonging to one part of speech or another, as they tend to be understood in the context of the sentence. Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave, and telephone might all be either verb forms or nouns. Although -ly is a frequent adverb marker, not all adverbs end in -ly (-wise is another common adverb marker) and not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. For instance, tomorrow, fast, very can all be adverbs, while early, friendly, ugly are all adjectives (though early can also function as an adverb). Verbs can also be used as adjectives (e.g. "The astonished child watched the spectacle unfold" instead of the verb usage "The unfolding spectacle astonished the child"). In such cases, the verb is in its participle form.

In certain circumstances, even words with primarily grammatical functions can be used as verbs or nouns, as in, "We must look to the hows and not just the whys."

Functional classification

The study of linguistics has expanded the understanding of lexical categories in various languages and allowed for better classifying words by function. Common lexical categories in English by function may include:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kroeger, Paul (2005). Analyzing Grammar: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-521-01653-7.
  2. ^ Zwicky, Arnold (30 March 2006). "What part of speech is "the"". Language Log. Retrieved 26 December 2009. ...the school tradition about parts of speech is so desperately impoverished
  3. ^ Hopper, P; Thompson, S (1985). "The Iconicity of the Universal Categories 'Noun' and 'Verbs'". In John Haiman (ed.). Typological Studies in Language: Iconicity and Syntax. Vol. 6. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 151–183.
  4. ^ Broschart, Jürgen (1997). "Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial Distinctions in a Language without Nouns and Verbs". Linguistic Typology. 1 (2): 123–165. doi:10.1515/lity.1997.1.2.123.
  5. ^ Klammer, Thomas; Schulz, Muriel R.; Della Volpe, Angela (2009). Analyzing English Grammar (6th ed.). Longman.