Classification part of speech

Lecture 5

The Parts of Speech

Problems to be discussed:

- brief history of grouping words to parts of speech

- contemporary criteria for classifying words to parts of speech

- structural approach to the classification of words (the doctrine of American descriptive School)

- notional and functional parts of speech

A thorough study of linguistic literature on the problem of English parts of speech enables us to

conclude that there were three tendencies in grouping English words into parts of speech or into form

classes:

1. Pre - structural tendency;

2. Structural tendency;

3. Post - structural tendency;

1. Pre - structural tendency is characterized by classifying words into word - groups according to

their meaning, function and form. To this group of scientists H. Sweet (42), O. Jespersen (33), (34), O.

Curme (26), B. Ilyish (15) and other grammarians can be included.

2. The second tendency is characterized by classification of words exclusively according to their

structural meaning, as per their distribution. The representatives of the tendency are: Ch. Fries (31), (32),

W. Francis (30), A. Hill (44) and others.

3. The third one combines the ideas of the two above-mentioned tendencies. They classify words

in accord with the meaning, function, form; stem-building means and distribution (or combinability). To

this group of scientists we can refer most Russian grammarians such as: Khaimovitch and Rogovskaya

(22), L. Barkhudarov and Shteling (4) and others. (25)

One of the central problems of a theoretical Grammar is the problem of parts of speech. There is

as yet no generally accepted system of English parts of speech. Now we shall consider conceptions of

some grammarians.

H. Sweet's (42) classification of parts of speech is based on the three principles (criteria), namely

meaning, form and function. All the words in English he divides into two groups: 1) noun-words: nouns,

noun-pronouns, noun-numerals, infinitive, gerund; 2) verbs: finite verbs, verbals (infinitive, gerund,

participle)

I. Declinable Adjective words: adjective, adjective pronouns, adjective-numeral, participles

II. Indeclinable: adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection

As you see, the results of his classification, however, reveal a considerable divergence between his

theory and practice. He seems to have kept to the form of words. Further, concluding the chapter he

wrote: "The distinction between the two classes which for convenience we distinguish as declinable and

indeclinable parts of speech is not entirely dependent on the presence or absence of inflection, but really

goes deeper, corresponding, to some extent, to the distinction between head - word and adjunct-word.

The great majority of the particles are used only as adjunct-words, many of them being only form-words,

while declinable words generally stand to the particles in the relation of headwords.

O. Jespersen. (34)

According to Jespersen the division of words into certain classes in the main goes back to the Greek and Latin

grammarians with a few additions and modifications.

He argues against those who while classifying words kept to either form or meaning of words, he

states that the whole complex of criteria, i.e. form, function and meaning should he kept in view. He

gives the following classification:

1. Substantives (including proper names)

2. Adjectives

In some respects (1) and (2) may be classed together as "Nouns ".

3. Pronouns (including numerals and pronominal adverbs)

4. Verbs (with doubts as to the inclusion of "Verbids")

5. Particles (comprising what are generally called adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions- coordinating and

subordinating - and interjections).

15

As it is seen from his classification in practice only one of those features is taken into

consideration, and that is primarily form. Classes (1-4) are declinable while particles not. It reminds

Sweet's grouping of words. The two conceptions are very similar.

Tanet R. Aiken kept to function only. She has conceived of a six-class system, recognizing the

following categories: absolute, verb, complement, modifiers and connectives.

Ch. Fries' (31), (32) classification of words is entirely different from those of traditional grammarians. The new

approach - the application of two of the methods of structural linguistics, distributional analysis and substitution - makes it

possible for Fries to dispense with the usual eight parts of speech. He classifies words into four form - classes, designated

by numbers, and fifteen groups of function words, designated by letters. The form-classes correspond roughly to what most

grammarians call noun and pronouns (1st clause), verb (2nd clause), adjective and adverbs, though Fries warns the reader

against the attempt to translate the statements which the latter finds in the book into the old grammatical terms.

The group of function words contains not only prepositions and conjunctions but certain specific words that more

traditional grammarians would class as a particular kind of pronouns, adverbs and verbs. In the following examples:

1. Woggles ugged diggles

2. Uggs woggled diggs

3. Diggles diggled diggles

The woggles, uggs, diggles are "thing", because they are treated as English treats "thing" words -

we know it by the "positions" they occupy in the utterances and the forms they have, in contrast with

other positions and forms. Those are all structural signals of English. So Fries comes to the conclusion

that a part of speech in English is a functioning pattern.1 All words that can occupy the same "set of

positions" in the patterns of English single free utterances (simple sentences) must belong to the same

part speech.

Fries' test-frame-sentences were the following:

Frame A

The concert was good (always)

Frame B

The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly)

Frame C

The team went there

Fries started with his first test frame and set out to find in his material all the words that could be

substituted for the word concert with no change of structural meaning (The materials were some fifty

hours of tape-recorded conversations by some three hundred different speakers in which the participants

were entirely unaware that their speech was being recorded):

The concert was good

food

coffee

taste.....

The words of this list he called class I words.

The word “was” and all the words that can be used in this position he called class 2 words.

In such a way he revealed 4 classes of notional words and 15 classes of functional words.

These four classes of notional words contain approximately 67 per cent of the total instances of

the vocabulary items. In other words our utterances consist primarily of arrangements of these four parts

of speech.

Functional words are identified by letters

Class A Words

the concert was good

the a/an every

no my our

one all both

that some John’s

All the words appearing in this position (Group A) serve as markers of Class 1 words. Sometimes

they are called "determiners".

The author enumerates fourteen more groups of function words among which we find, according

to the traditional terminology

1 Compare: ≪the difference between nouns and verbs lies not in what kinds of things they stand for, but in what kinds of

frames they stand in: I saw Robert kill Mary. I witnessed the killing of Mary by Robert”

“Language processes” Vivien Tartter. N.Y., 1986, p.89

16

Group B - modal verbs Group I - interrogative pr-ns and adverbs

Group C - n.p.not Group J - subordinating conj-s

Group D - adverbs of degree Group K- interjections

Group E - coordinating conj-s. Group L- the words yes and no

Group F - prepositions Group M - attention giving signals look, say, listen

Group G - the aux-v. do Group N - the word please

Group H - introductory there Group O - let us, let in request sentences.

The difference between the four classes of words and function words are as follows:

1. The four classes are large in number while the total number of function words amounts to 154.

2. In the four classes the lexical meanings of the separate words are rather clearly separable from

the structural meanings of the arrangements in which these words appear. In the fifteen groups it is

usually difficult if not impossible to indicate a lexical meaning apart from the structural meanings which

these words signal.

3. Function words must be treated as items since they signal different structural meanings:

The boys were given the money.

The boys have given the money. (32)

Russian grammarians in classifying words into parts of speech keep to different concepts;

A.I. Smirnitsky identifies three criteria. The most important of them is the syntactic function next

comes meaning and then morphological forms of words. In his opinion stem-building elements are of no

use. His word-groups are:

Notional words Function words

1. Nouns link - verbs

2. Adjectives prepositions

conjunctions

3. Numerals modifying function words

4. Pronouns (article, particle)

5. Adverbs only, even, not

6. Verbs

R. Khaimovich and Rogovskaya identify five criteria

1. Lexico - grammatical meaning of words

2. Lexico - grammatical morphemes (stem - building elements)

3. Grammatical categories of words.

4. Their combinability (unilateral, bilateral)

5. Their function in a sentence.

Their Classification

1. Nouns

2. Adjectives

3. Pronouns

4. Numerals

5. Verbs

6. Adverbs

7. Adlinks (the cat. of state)

8. Modal words

9. Prepositions

10. Conjunctions

11. Particles (just, yet, else, alone)

12. Interjections

13. Articles

14. Response words (yes, no)

asleep, alive

As authors state the parts of speech lack some of those five criteria. The most general properties of parts of

speech are features 1, 4 and 5. B. A. Ilyish (15) distinguishes three criteria:

1. meaning; 2. form, 3. function. The third criteria is subdivided into two:

a) the method of combining the word with other ones

b) the function in the sentence.

a) has to deal with phrases; b) with sentence structure. B. A. Ilyish considers the theory of parts of

speech as essentially a part of morphology, involving, however, some syntactical points.

1. Nouns 7. Adverbs

2. Adjective 8. Prepositions

3. Pronoun 9. Conjunctions

4. Numerals 10. Particles

17

5. Statives (asleep, afraid) 11. Modal words

6. Verbs 12. Interjections

L. Barkhudarov, D. Steling (4). Their classification of words are based on four principles. But the

important and characteristic feature of their classification is that they do not make use of syntactic function of words

in sentences: meaning, grammatical forms, combinability with other words and the types of word - building (which

are studied not by grammar, but by lexicology).

1. Nouns

2. Articles

3. Pronouns

4. Adjectives

5. Adverbs

6. Numerals

7. Verbs

8. Prepositions

9. Conjunctions

10. Particles

11. Modal words

12. Interjections

We find another approach of those authors to the words of English.

All the words are divided into two main classes:

notional words and function - words: connectives, determinatives

Function words are those which do not have full lexical meaning and cannot be used as an

independent part of sentences. According to their function these words, as has been mentioned, are

subdivided into connectives and determinatives:

1. connectives form phrases as to believe in something or as in the hall. To connectives

authors refer: prepositions, conjunctions, modal and link verbs;

2. determinatives are words which define the lexical meaning of notional words (they

either limit them, or make them more concrete). These words include articles and particles.

The consideration of conceptions of different grammarians shows that the problem of parts

of speech is not yet solved. There's one point which is generally accepted: in  M-n English there are two classes of words-notional and functional - which are rather distinct.