Grammatical Categories

Grammatical Categories

1. Number

   • count nouns
     • demonstratives
       • 1st and 3rd person
   • Generic number
     • 1. definite article + singular noun 2. indefinite article + singular noun 3. no article + plural of count nouns/ singular of mass nouns

2. Gender

   • masculine / feminine / common gender / neuter genders
     • derivational suffixes / compounds / separate forms for masculine, feminine genders / separate forms for masculine, feminine, and common genders

3. Person

   • Three terms: 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person

4. Case

   • nominative case (function of subject) genetive case (function of possessor) objective case (function of the object)

5. Degree

   • relates to adjectives and adverbs
     • Three terms: positive, comparative, superlative degree

6. Definiteness

   • definite (the) and indefinite article (a/an)
     • Some words don't need an article like: unique reference, previously mentioned, generic referent, immediate socio-physical context or generally known, converting proper noun to common noun

7. Tense

   • time of the action
     • present (nonpast)
       • temporal or nontemporal situations (Ex: habits, states, generic, timeless, etc.)
     • past
       • past time divorced from, distinct fomr, the present moment
     • future
       • variety of periphrases, included inflected simple tense

8. Aspect

   • view taken of an event
     • complete and whole / perfective aspect
     • incomplete and ongoing/ imperfective aspect

9. Mood

   • inidicative - mood of fact (simple and compound tenses of verbs)
   • imperative - non-fact mood (direct commands)
   • subjunctive - non-fact mood (modal auxiliaries or phrasal equivalents)

10. Voice

    • active voice
      • subject performing the action
    • passive voice
      • subject is being affected by the action