C) compounding (free morphemes combined)

· nouns - homeland, icecream, software, homework, sunset,batman, coalmine

· adjectives - foolproof, red-hot, manmade, new-found, duty-free,

· verbs - babysit, blacklist, upgrade, download, fine-tune

not just roots- roots+derivational affixes: bus driver, tennis player

compounds versus phrases:

spelling may mislead – freezing point, ice-cream, bus stop, read-head

in compounds:

· no internal inflection/modification; * babie s sitter, * [ dark red] hot, * fin er tune,*[which baby] sitter

· one primary stress – breakdown versus to break down, blackmail versus black mail

d)some other processes of word+formation

+ blending

Smoke + fog → smog

Motor+hotel → motel

Transfer+resistor → transistor

+ clipping

Fan(atic)

Porn(ography)

Deli(catessen)

Ex-(husband,wife)

Pro(fessional),

Doc(tor)

+ acronyms

Aids – acquired immune deficiency syndrome

Radar –radio detecting and ranging

Laser –light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

+ root creations

to google

quark

III WORD CLASSES

Words divide into classes (“parts of speech” in traditional grammar).

Grammatical rules make reference not to individual words but to their classes,

e.g. “in a noun phrase determiner is placed before noun” or “adverbs can be derived by adding the suffix –ly to an adjective base”

Therefore the correct classification of words is a necessary element of a grammatical description.

A. Word classes (parts of speech) and some of their subclasses with examples

Nouns (N) - proper (John, Poland), common (book, idea)

mass (air, sugar, coffee), count (boy,book, idea)

pronouns - personal (I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them)

interrogative and relative (who,what, whom)

reflexive ( myself, yourself, himself, ourselves,yourselves,

themselves )

indefinite (one, someone, somebody everyone,everybody, anyone, anybody,no one, nobody, none)

Verbs (V) - lexical (go, see), auxiliary (perfective have, progressive be, passive be,

periphrastic(supportive) do)

linking or copulative (be, seem, look, become)

( e.g. John is/seems/looks/became happy)

action (go, hit), state (know, like)

transitive (hit, like, break, give, put), intransitive (sleep, come, walk)

Modals - may, might, can, could, shall, should, will, would

Adjectives (Adj) – tall, happy, free, afraid, interesting, blue

Adverbs (Adv) - manner (fast, slowly, strongly, wisely, well ), degree (so, too, very, hardly,

more, less, almost, nearly, rather ), time (now, later, yesterday, today,soon, then, afterwards, early, late), f requency (often, never, rarely, always, frequently), place (here, there, homewards, forward, back, far, ahead)

interrogative (where, when, how, why)

Prepositions (P) (to, from, of, off, on, at, through, over, under, above, inside, near, with,

before, after, in, since, during, until, between, by)

Determiners (Det) - articles (the, a), demonstratives (that, this,these, those)

quantifiers (all, both, many, any, few, some, little, several)

negative (no, neither), relative, interrogative (which, whose)

possessives (my, your, his, her,its, our, their)

Conjunctions (Conj) – and, or, but

Complementizers (Comp) -(that, whether, if, for)

Particles -infinitive to, negative not, in phrasal verbs up. off, down, about etc

(e.g. bring about, make up)

Numerals - ordinal (first, second)

cardinal (one, two)

Some traditional grammars contain different classifications in which, for example.:

- pronouns are considered an independent category, not a subclass of nouns,

- what we consider determiners - demonstrative, possessive, interrogative and relative, are classified as subtypes of pronouns (demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns etc.)

- what we take to be a separate class of complementizers are classified together with words like before, since (when followed by a clause) and callled “subordinating conjunctions”.

- modals like can, may, are considered a subclass of auxiliary verbs

B. Types of word classes

o lexical (content words)- N, V, Adj, Adv, P – have descriptive content, make reference to real world phenomena like objects, properties, actions etc.

o functional (function words) – Modal, Det, Conj, Comp – convey grammatical information

· open class – (N, V, Adj, Adv) numerous, new words created through derivation (birdish, frogwise, publicize,) and borrowing (e-book, softwarowy, spready, mainstreamowy, spamowac, reset, franczyza etc)

· closed class (Modal,Det,Conj,Comp,P)– small number, no new words added, words are short, usually without internal structure, weakly stressed

C. Criteria for classification – semantic and formal

Semantic - meaning

In traditional grammar, the classification was based primarily on the meaning of words, e.g.:

N - “a noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, object or an abstract idea” or

“an expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, quantity, or idea,”

V - “denotes actions, states, processes”

Adj – “refers to qualities or properties of objects “

Adv – “ denotes properties of actions”

Problems:

nouns – action, state, idea, event, handshake, murder, race, kiss, death, beauty, noise, roundness

verbs – shine, “czerwienić sie”

adjectives – slow movement, rapid fire

Semantic definitions are inadequate – imprecise, circular (“what is an object? – anything that can be referred to by a noun”),provide only typical (not defining) denotations

2. f ormal - grammatical (morphological and syntactic) properties

In modern grammatical theory classification of words is based not on meaning of words but on their grammatical (morphological and syntactic) properties

Words are members of the same class/category if they share grammatical properties.

Examples:

A) morphology

· Inflection

N – can take plural affixes

V – can take affixes: past tense –ed, passive/past participle – en. present participle – ing

A, Adv - can take affixes: comparative - er,superlative - est

some problems:

– same endings (morphs) may attach to words of different classes

e.g.: ing – verbal, adjectival or nominal affix, s- verbal or nominal

(is working (Progressive) -V, very interesting story- Adj, smoking of marihuana -N )

- some word classes show no inflection - P, Conj

· Derivation

endings characteristic for lexical categories

N – ment, -ation, -ity, - ness, -hood, -dom, -ship

V – ize, -fy,-en

A - ish, -able, -less

Adv – ly, -wise, -wards

some problems:

– same endings (morphs) may attach to words of different classes

quick-ly (Adv), man-ly, like-ly (Adj)

- does not apply to words with no derivational affixes

Conclusion – it is difficult to find morphological property that is shared by all and only members of specific category because:

a) different morphemes characteristic for different word classes may be homophonous (have the same phonemic realization)

b) morphological properties involve affixes, which means that the morphological evidence for word classification is absent in case of the words which have no derivational affixes and in case of the words which a) are non-inflected (e.g. P, Comp, Conj) or b)where inflectional morphemes have zero morph realization (e.g. sheep)

B) syntax

The most important grammatical criteria for the classification of words are provided by their syntactic properties.

For example, in English, words which belong to the same class occupy certain characteristic word order positions e.g.

V - mayfollow directly modals in: He may _ …

e.g. He may die.

* He may death..

* He may dead.

* He may deadly.

N - may follow directly determinersin: I know the _ …

( does not apply to proper nouns *the John)

e.g. I know the criticisms.

*I know the criticize.

* I know the critical.

*I know the critically.

Adj - may follow directly degree adverbs in: is very _ …

( applies only togradable adjectives - * very present/absent)

e.g. He is very angry.

*He is very anger.

*He is very angrily.

*He is very got angry.

P - may follow directly adverbs straight and right: straight/right _ NP

straight/right to the point (to- a preposition)

*wants straight to do it (to – a complementizer)

* to answer straight

(but straight answer)

Again, there is no single syntactic property that is truly defining for any class (is shared by all and only words of this class) The classification has thus to be based on several different morphological properties both morphological and syntactic. The aim is to allow the simplest most general formulation of grammatical (morphological and syntactic) rules.

D. Some properties of major word categories:

NOUNS

a) typical modifiers: determiners, adjectives, relative clauses

e.g. theblue car which John bought

b) typical functions: subject of a clause, object of a transitive verb or preposition

e.g. Boys like girls

c) major subclasses: and their properties

- proper/common – proper nouns (John, Poland) typically do not inflect for number and do not take articles

- mass/count – mass nouns (happiness, physics, cheese, noise) do not take the indefinite “ a ” article, do not take plural ending

- pronouns –

- Reflexive / personal pronouns – John killed himself / him.

Reflexives have to be distinguished from emphatic “– self “ words (emphatics) as in:

John himself did it.

John did it himself.

They do not have a noun-type function and cannot be substituted by “non – self ” nouns

John washed himself

Bill

John himself solved the problem.

*Bill

Reflexive pronouns must have co-referential antecedents:

*Mary likes ourselves.

*Himself came.

Reflexives are usually in complementary distribution with personal pronouns

John thinks that he is happy.

*himself

John shaved himself.

*him

VERBS

a) typical modifiers: adverbs, nouns as objects, adverbial clauses

e.g. kill fliesquicklybefore they bite you

b) typical function: predicate of the clause

c) major subclasses and their properties

- lexical / auxiliary

auxiliary verbs: perfective “ have ” (he has worked), progressive “ be ” (he is working), passive “ be ”, periphrastic and emphatic “ do ”

They have done this.

They are doing it

Characteristic properties of auxiliaries distinguishing them from lexical verbs:

- invert in questions e.g. Has John come? *Wants John to come?

- can be followed by not e.g. John was not invited * They invited not John

- the verb which follows them takes characteristic ending; - ing (after progressive be)

–en (after perfective have), -en (after passive be), infinitive without to (after periphrastic do)

John did not give it.

John has giv en it

John is givi ng it

It was giv en to John.

Auxiliary do, be and have to be distinguished from their lexical verb homophones as in:

John did his homework. (Did he do his homework?, He did not do his homework.).

John is a boy.

John has a car. (Does he have a car?, He does not have a car.)

Major subclasses of lexical verbs:

- transitive/intransitive - transitive may be followed by objects: hit, break, build

intransitive – cannot be followed by objects: smile, sleep, come

- linking verbs (copulative verbs/copulas) - be, look, fall, become – followed by subject complements

e.g. Mary is tall

John fell ill

She became a hero.

- phrasal verbs (or two-word verbs)- verb+ particle combinations

call up, bring about, turn off, make up, give away, draw up, catch on,

Constructions with phrasal verbs have to be distinguished from those in which verb is followed by a prepositional phrase: e.g. look at NP, talk about NP, search for NP, listen to NP

MODALS

Modals are different from lexical verbs like want, try, agree, etc. by sharing certain properties with auxiliary verbs - can be inverted in questions and are followed by the negative word not.

Can John do it?

John may not do it.

However, there are properties which distinguish Modals from auxiliary verbs.

- modals do not appear in infinitives John seems to do it

be doing it

have done this

* can do it

- modals do not take the agreement –s ending He works

is working

has worked

* cans work

ADJECTIVES

a) typical modifiers: adverbs of degree e.g. very happy, extremely tall, nearly extinct

b) typical functions:

attributive function - modifiers of nouns in a noun phrase - the red flower

Attributive adjectives usually precede nouns but sometimes follow them (the person responsible, someone important)

predicative function - subject complements (with linking verbs)

e. g. John looks sad.

Mary fell ill.

object complements (with verbs like make, paint, consider)

e.g. I consider him fortunate..

He painted the fence green.

Most adjectives can appear in both attributive and predicative positions

the intelligent student - the student is/seems intelligent

but some are restricted to:

- only attributive position

an utter fool - *the fool is utter

the former president - *the president is former

- only predicative position:

the boy is asleep - *the asleep boy

the people are afraid – *the afraid people

In a few cases the change from the predicative to attributive position brings about a change in meaning:

the king is present - the present king

the president is late - the late president

DETERMINERS

Demonstratives and quantifiers sometimes appear without the following noun.

The poor_ are hungry

I do not like that _.

All _ of them came

Those_ who cheat will be punished

These structures have been analysed in different ways by different grammarians:

- determiner became a noun through conversion

- determiner precedes an “understood”, non-phonological noun (meaning “ one/s ”)

PREPOSITIONS

Usually prepositions are followed (modified) by nouns (noun phrases)

as in: about this boy

The noun/noun phrase following the preposition is like a direct object which follows a transitive verb. We can thus speak of a transitive preposition and its object.

In some cases prepositions occur without any noun modifiers:

He went away / out

She came in.

Some traditional grammars considers such words adverbs. Others treat them as “intransitive” prepositions.

Just like some verbs, nouns and adjectives, some prepositions can be modified by clauses and prepositional phrases:

7.ADVERBS

a) modified by degree adverbs: fairly well, almost always

b) modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs and whole clauses:

speak quietly, very happy, extremely slowly, Naturally, Bill won.

Many adverbs are formed from adjectives

by the addition of the affix –ly

slowly, fortunately, interestingly. wisely, happily, surely, truly,

(but lonely, friendly, manly, likely, which are adjectives )

or by conversion: fast, early,

Non derived adverbs: then, here, now, today, tomorrow, almost, very, late, soon, rather