Grammatical categories and word classes

Grammatical categories and word classes

1. Grammatical categories

   • Is a class of units (such as noun and verb) or features (such as number and case) that share a common set of characteristics. They are the building blocks of language, allowing us to communicate with one another.
     • are expressed primarily by word order (the position of a word in a sentence) and by function words, as well as by a few inflections
   • The nominal categories
     • Person
       • The category PERSON used to classify pronouns according to whether they indicate the speaker (first person), the addressee (second person), or a third party (third person).
         • The category of person has three terms:
           • 1st person: the speaker, person speaking
           • 2nd person: the addressee/hearer, person spoken to
           • 3rd person: the person or thing spoken about
     • Gender
       • English distinguishes masculine, feminine, common gender (m or f), and neuter (sexless) genders.
         • Is expressed by inflection only in personal pronouns, and only in the 3rd person, singular he, she, it; the 1st and 2nd person forms I, we, and you are common gender, while the 3rd person plural form they is either common gender or neuter (the people … they, the boats … they).
           • Is expressed overtly on the English noun in a number of limited ways:
             • By derivational suffixes, such as the feminine suffixes -ine (hero/heroine), -ess (god/goddess)
             • By compounds, such as lady-, woman-, girl-, female-, -woman (lady friend, woman doctor, girl friend, female fire fighter, chairwoman) or boy-, male-, gentleman-, -man (boy friend, male nurse, gentleman caller, chairman)
     • Number
       • Two terms of this category in English: singular (the concept of ‘one’) and plural (the concept of ‘more than one’)
         • Is expressed by inflection in:
           • count nouns, generally by -s (dog/dogs)
           • demonstratives (this/these, that/those)
           • the 1st and 3rd p (but not in the 2nd p) of pronouns personal pronouns (I/we) possessive determiners (my/our) possessive pronouns (mine/ours) reflexive pronouns (myself/ourselves)
         • Generic number
           • Incorporates both singular and plural and is used when one doesn’t want to specify number.
     • Case
       • The category CASE expresses the functional role of a noun or noun phrase.
         • This grammatical category conveys how different noun phrases in a sentence relate to the verb in different ways (subject, direct object or indirect object).
     • Degree
       • Degree is a property of gradable adjectives and adverbs, and indicates amount.
         • Degree has three values:
           • Positive: indicates a basic quality. Comparative: indicates a greater quality. Superlative: indicates the maximum quality
     • Definiteness
       • The category DEFINITENESS distinguishes definite and indefinite nouns.
         • Is associated to nouns through the use of determiners. A determiner is a word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun phrase has, for example a, an, the, every, some. It distinguishes between referents/entities that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases).

2. Determining word classes

   • Words fall into one of two quite different categories: content words (lexical morphemes) or function words (grammatical morphemes).
     • Content words
       • Are words that have meaning. They can be compared to grammatical words, which are structural. Nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs are usually content words. Auxiliary verbs, pronouns, articles, and prepositions are usually grammatical words.
     • Function words
       • Function words include determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, modals, qualifiers, and question words.
         • A function word is a word that expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with other words in a sentence.
           • In contrast to a content word, a function word has little or no meaningful content.
             • the (determiner) over (preposition) and (conjunction)

3. Grammatical category is a linguistic, not a real-world category, and that there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between the two, though they are usually closely related

   • For example
     • “tense” is a linguistic category, while “time” is a category of the world
       • The verbal categories.
         • Aspect
           • The category ASPECT expresses the way in which time is denoted by a verb.
             • Aspect markers on verbs tell us whether an action is completed or is still continuing.
         • Mood
           • The category MOOD relates to sentence types (statements, questions and commands).
             • Mood is employed to refer to different forms of finite verbs (indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional or subjunctive).
         • Voice
           • The voice of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.).
             • When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, the verb is said to be in the passive voice.
             • (1) The cat ate the mouse. (2) The mouse was eaten by the cat.
         • Tense
           • The category TENSE refers to the time at which the actions or events took place.
             • Tense is a grammatical feature for any of the forms of a verb which show the time at which an action happened.

4. The classification of words into what are known variously as word classes, lexical categories, or parts of speech.

   • Traditionally, eight word classes are recognized:
     • The reason for eight word classes is that the first Greek grammarian recognized that number of word classes in Classical Greek.
       • Verbs
         • A verb describes what a person or thing does or what happens.
           • an action – jump, stop, explore
       • Nouns
         • A noun is a word that identifies:
           • A person (man, girl, engineer, friend)
             • a thing (horse, wall, flower, country)
       • Adjetives
         • An adjective is a word that describes a noun, giving extra information about it.
           • For example
             • an exciting adventure a green apple.
       • Adverbs
         • An adverb is a word that’s used to give information about a verb, adjective, or other adverb. They can make the meaning of a verb, adjective, or other adverb stronger or weaker, and often appear between the subject and its verb
           • For example
             • She nearly lost everything.
       • Prepositions
         • A preposition is a word such as after, in, to, on, and with.
           • Prepositions are usually used in front of nouns or pronouns and they show the relationship between the noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. They describe, for example, the position of something, the time when something happens, or the way in which something is done.
       • Pronouns
         • Pronouns are used in place of a noun that is already known or has already been mentioned. This is often done in order to avoid repeating the noun.
           • Anthony brought the avocados with him.
             • EXAMPLE
       • Interjecions
         • An interjection is a word or phrase that is grammatically independent from the words around it, and mainly expresses feeling rather than meaning.

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