English theoretical grammar

GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS

The term “parts of speech”  is accepted by modern linguistics as a conventional, or “non-explanatory”  term (“name-term”) to denote the lexico-grammatical classes of words correlating with each other in the general system of language on the basis of their grammatically relevant properties.

There are three types of grammatically relevant properties of words that differentiate classes of words called “parts of speech”: semantic, formal and functional properties. They traditionally make the criteria for the classification of parts of speech. The semantic criterion refers to the generalized semantic properties common to the whole class of words, e.g.: the generalized (or, categorial) meaning of nouns is “thingness”, of verbs process, of adjectives substantive property, of adverbs non-substantive property. The formal criterion embraces the formal features (word-building and word-changing) that are characteristic for a particular part of speech, e.g.: the noun is characterized by a specific set of word-building affixes, cf.: property, bitterness, worker, etc., and is changed according to the categories of number, case and article determination: boy-boys, boy – boy’s, boy – the boy – a boy, etc. Combinability is also a relevant formal feature for each particular part of speech; for example, verbs can be modified by adverbs, while nouns cannot (except in specific contexts). The functional criterion is based on the functions that the words of a particular class fulfill in the sentence, e.g.: the most characteristic functions of the noun are those of a subject and an object; the only function of the finite form of the verb is that of a predicate; the adjective functions in most contexts as an attribute; the adverb as an adverbial modifier.

Traditionally, all parts of speech are subdivided on the upper level of classification into notional words and functional words. Notional words, which traditionally include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and numerals, have complete nominative meanings, are in most cases changeable and fulfill self-dependent syntactic functions in the sentence. The noun, for example, as a part of speech, is traditionally characterized by 1) the categorial meaning of substance (“thingness”), 2) a specific set of word-building affixes, the grammatical categories of number, case and article determination, prepositional connections and modification by an adjective, and 3) the substantive functions of subject, object or predicative in the sentence. In the same way, all the other notional parts of speech are described. Functional words, which include conjunctions, prepositions, articles, interjections, particles, and modal words, have incomplete nominative value, are unchangeable and fulfill mediatory, constructional syntactic functions.

There are certain limitations and controversial points in the traditional classification of parts of speech, which make some linguists doubt its scientific credibility. First of all, the three criteria turn out to be relevant only for the subdivision of notional words. As for functional words – prepositions, conjunctions, particles, interjections, etc. – these classes of words do not distinguish either common semantic, or formal, or functional properties, they are rather characterized by the absence of all three criteria in any generalized form. Second, the status of pronouns and the numerals, which in the traditional classification are listed as notional, is also questionable, since they do not have any syntactic functions of their own, but rather different groups inside these two classes resemble in their formal and functional properties different notional parts of speech: e.g., cardinal numerals function as substantives, while ordinal numerals function as adjectives; the same can be said about personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. Third, it is very difficult to draw rigorous borderlines between different classes of words, because there are always phenomena that are indistinguishable in their status. E.g., non-finite forms of verbs, such as the infinitive, the gerund, participles I and II are actually verbal forms, but lack some of the characteristics of the verb: they have no person or number forms, no tense or mood forms, and what is even more important, they never perform the characteristic verbal function, that of a predicate. Equally dubious is the part-of-speech characterization of auxiliary verbs, intensifying adverbs, conjunctive adverbs and pronouns, and of many other groups of words which have the morphological characteristics of notional words, but play mediatory constructional functions in a sentence, like functional words. There are even words that defy any classification at all; for example, many linguists doubt whether the words of agreement and disagreement, yes and no, can occupy any position in the classification of parts of speech.

The syntactico-distributional classification of words distinguished on a consistently syntactic basis testifies to the objective nature of the classification of parts of speech. More than that, in some respects the results of this approach turn out to be even more confusing than the allegedly “non-scientific” traditional classification: for example, Group A, embracing words that can substitute for the article “the” in the above given frames, includes words as diverse as “the, no, your, their, both, few, much, John’s, twenty”, or one word might be found in different distributional classes. Thus, the syntactico-distributional classification cannot replace the traditional classification of parts of speech, but the major features of different classes of words revealed in syntactico-distributional classification can be used as an important supplement to traditional classification.

The combination of syntactico-distributional and traditional classifications strongly suggests the unconditional subdivision of the lexicon into two big supra-classes: notional and functional words. The major formal grammatical feature of this subdivision is their open or closed character. The notional parts of speech are open classes of words, with established basic semantic, formal and functional characteristics. There are only four notional classes of words, which correlate with the four main syntactic positions in the sentence: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They are interconnected by the four stages of the lexical paradigmatic series of derivation, e.g.: to decide – decision – decisive – decisively. The functional words are closed classes of words: they cannot be further enlarged and are given by lists. The closed character of the functional words is determined by their role in the structure of the sentence: the functional words expose various constructional functions of syntactic units, and this makes them closer to grammatical rather than to lexical means of the language.

As for pronouns and the numerals, according to the functional approach they form a separate supra-class of substitutional parts of speech, since they have no function of their own in the sentence, but substitute for notional parts of speech and perform their characteristic functions. The difference between the four notional parts of speech and substitutional parts of speech is also supported by the fact that the latter are closed groups of words like functional parts of speech.

The three supra-classes are further subdivided into classes (the parts of speech proper) and sub-classes (groups inside the parts of speech). For example, nouns are divided into personal and common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, etc.; pronouns are subdivided into personal, possessive (conjoint and absolute), objective pronouns, demonstrative, reflexive, relative, etc.; numerals are subdivided into cardinal and ordinal, etc.