Classification of words into parts of speech

All the words of a language fall into lexico-grammatical classes or parts of speech which must be identified proceeding from lexical meaning, morphological characteristics and syntactical functions. So parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of the three criteria:

- semantic criterion based on the evaluation of the generalized categorical meaning characterizing all sets of words constituting a given part of speech and having complete or incomplete nominative meaning;

- formal criterion provides for the specific word-building features as well as formal properties of grammatical forms being possibly included into certain grammatical categories;

- functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of a given part of speech in the sentence production, serving either self-dependent functions (of subject, predicate, object, attribute, adverbial modifier) or non-self-dependent functions (i.e. mediatory).

The paradigm of parts of speech in English includes the following: noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, article, particle, interjection; all parts of speech are equally subdivided into notional and structural words.

Notional words (noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb) have a full lexical nominative meaning of their own denoting things, qualities, actions, states, property of property and can function as independent parts of the sentence, i.e. as subject, predicate, object, attribute and adverbial modifier. For example, a part of speech is defined as an adjective due to(a) the categorical meaning of property with a complete nominative meaning, (b) specific suffixal forms of derivation, (c) the capacity of qualitative adjectives to build up the category of degree, synthetically or analytically, (d) finally, playing the roles of an attribute or adjectival predicative.

Structural words have no lexical nominative meaning of their own and cannot be used as independent parts of the sentence. They are either connectors or determiners. Connectors are used to connect words grammatically or shape the grammatical forms of a certain part of a sentence. Here belong prepositions (at, in, from, on), conjunctions (that, which, what, till), auxiliaries (will, do, be, more, less), and linking verbs (seem, be, become, get, look). Determiners are used to specify the meaning of the notional words they refer to. These are articles and pronouns (a/the, his, this, that). The use of the article is of obligatory nature for English nouns and testifies to the existence of a special category of determination expressed by the article paradigm of three grammatical forms: the definite, the indefinite, the zero.

It should be noted that the distinction between structural and notional words is not quite definite in some ways: one and the same can be used in both functions in different contexts: e.g. be/have/do as notional words in the meaning of ‘exist/possess/fulfill’ and as connectors, as link-verbs to form Passive Voice (is/are painted), Present Continuous (is/are working), Perfect tenses (have/has written) and others.

Moreover, the border-line is often hardly recognizable in distinguishing notional parts of speech. The fact of the matter is that English notionals can change their nature depending on the contextual environment: American/an American, human/a human, a book/to book, flat/a flat, fat (n)/fat (adj), clean/to clean. Due to the historical development, their true lexico-grammatical nature cannot be discriminated when taken out of a word phrase or sentence.

Hence, the striking feature of English parts of speech is variability of some notionals, which can often shift from one part of speech to another without any morphological changes in their form.

Key words:

lexical meaning лексическое значение

morphological characteristics морфологические характеристики

syntactical functions синтаксические функции

semantic criterion семантический критерий

complete nominative meaning полнозначное номинативное значение

incomplete nominative meaning неполнозначное номинативное значение

formal criterion формальный критерий

word-building features словообразовательные свойства

functional criterion функциональный критерий

self-dependent function независимая функция

subject подлежащее

predicate сказуемое

object дополнение

attribute определение

adverbial modifier обстоятельство

non-self-dependent function зависимая функция.

noun существительное

аdjective прилагательное

pronoun местоимение

numeral числительное

verb глагол

adverb наречие

preposition предлог

conjunction союз

article артикль

particle частица

interjection междометие

notional word знаменательное слово

structural word структурное\служебное слово

full lexical nominative meaning полное лексическое номинативное значение

things предметы

qualities качества

actions действия

states состояния

property of property качество качества

independent parts of the sentence независимая часть предложения

categorical meaning of property категориальное значение качества

derivation деривация

qualitative adjectives качественные прилагательные

attribute определение

adjectival predicative прилагательное-предикатив

connectors коннекторы

determiners детерминативы

category of determination категория определенности

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