Principles of classification of words into parts of speech
The words of a language, depending upon various 1) semantic 2) formal and 3) functional (on the level of the Sentence and word-combination) criteria are divided into grammatical classes (sets) traditionally called parts of speech.
Grammatical combinability of words in word-combinations is also considered.
1) The criterion of meaning (=semantic criterion) presupposes the evaluation of the general implicit lexico-grammatical meaning (i.e. the meaning of “thingness”, substance for nouns, that of “action, process” for verbs) which is characteristic of all the words constituting a given part of speech.
2)The criterion of form presupposes some specific inflexional and word-building (=derivational) features of the words constituting a given part of speech. E.g. we can identify the noun by its derivational suffixes (-hood, - dom).
3) The functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of this or that part of speech. E.g. the function of the noun is the function of a subject or object.
4) Grammatical combinability: E.g. the noun is characterised by its left-hand and right- hand combinability with verbs.
In accord with the above criteria the English words are classified into notional and functional ones (on the upper level of classification). On the lower level of classification words are classified into N, V, Prep., Conj., etc.
It is known that thedistribution of words between parts of speech may differ with different authors, depending upon what criterion they take as the main guide. Thus, Henry Sweet, the author of the first scientific grammar of English, suggested the classification based only on the formal criterion. He classified English words into the Declinables (words capable of receiving word-changing inflexion: the N., the V., the Adj., some Pron.) and the Indeclinables (the Prep., the Conj., the Adv., the Interject).
H. Sweet’s classification is imperfect: he united essentially different words into one class. Thus, the adverbs (included into the Indeclinables) may be used in the function of a part of a sentence, while the Conj. cannot.
The modern linguistics has worked out another principle of word-class identification based on the syntactic principle only. This characterization is more important and universal because it shows thedistribution of words between parts of speech (sets) in accord with their functional destination.
The principles of syntactic (syntactico-distributional) classification of English words were worked out by L. Bloomfield and his followers Z. Harris andespecially Ch. Friez who classified words on the study of their combinability by means of substitution testing. As a result, he singled out 4 main “positions” of notional words in English sentences: those of the N, the position of the V, Adj, Adv. Words standing outside the position in the Sentence are function words which are subdivided by him into 15 groups totalling 154 words.
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But Ch. Friez’s classification is very cumbersome and has some serious drawbacks.
There are also the classifications of G. Trager and H. Smith, O. Jespersen, H. Gleason, J. Sledd, W. Francis, Ch. Hockett (see Rayevska. MnE Grammar., 1976: 69-70).
Thus, only if we apply severalprinciples of classification at a time we may achieve more or less reliable results.
Steblin – Kamensky M . I . once aptly put it: «Распределяя слова по частям речи, мы примерно делаем то же самое, как если бы суммируя то, что мы знаем о окружающих нас людях, сказали, что среди них есть блондины, есть математики, есть профессора, а есть и умные люди» (Спорное в языкознании. – Л., 1974. – С.21.)
(“Distributing words in accordance with parts of speech, we do nearly the same, when summing up what we know about the people surrounding us, we would say “that among them there are blond (fair-haired) people, mathematicians, professors but there are also clever people”).
Not all words of a language may be squeezed into the Procrustean bed of classifications. E.g. response words yes, no, the word please are out of the present-dayclassification into parts of speech.
Seminar
1.Корнеева, Кобрина и др. Пособие по морфологии английского языка. – М., 1974. – С.5-25. + Список лит .
2.Харитонов И. Теоретична граматика. + Список лит .
Lecture 5.
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