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INTRODUCTION
155
This chapter (155–166) explores the types and functions of words and how they
form phrases. The chapter introduces terminology and definitions and lays a basis
for more detailed treatment in a number of subsequent chapters. The main word
classes dealt with in this chapter are: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition
and conjunction. Word classes are traditionally called parts of speech.
A further word class, determiner, is dealt with in
176–196 Nouns and
determiners
. There are also minor word classes such as interjections (ouch, oi,
oh
, ah). However, these minor types operate outside of the clause and sentence
structure.
Û
113 Interjections
Word classes can be either open or closed. Open classes admit new words,
whereas closed classes are a more limited set and only rarely admit new words.
For example, nouns are an open class and new nouns are created all the time;
pronouns, however, are a closed class and it is not easy to create new pronouns.
Thus, the growth of the internet has resulted in many new nouns such as blog
(from ‘web-log’), smiley, spam, hypertext, but the new written pronoun s/he has
failed to become universally established.
Many languages use word endings to distinguish between nouns and verbs and
other word classes. In English different word classes can be formed by the process of
derivation using suffixes. For example, the suffix -ment, when added to the verb
amaze
, changes the word class to the noun amazement. However, although English
uses such word endings, they are not a reliable guide to word class; for example,
augment
is a verb, and comment can be a verb or a noun, depending on context.
Word endings can also be inflections, which indicate categories such as tense,
person and number. The inflection -ed can change a verb from present to past
tense (walk/walked), and the inflection -s can indicate third person singular
concord with a subject. But inflections do not change the word class. Walk and
walked
are both verbs.
Û
258–268 Word structure and word formation
A word may have more than one grammatical form. For example, sing belongs to
the word class of verb and yet has several different forms such as: sings, singing,
sung
, sang. We refer to the word sang as the past form of the word sing. It is
common for a single form to have different grammatical functions. For example,
in the case of the verb cut the present and past form of the verb are the same.
There is, however, only one underlying form in each case: sing and cut.
Items within a particular class may consist of more than one word. For
example, the phrasal verb take off (as in take off your coat/take your coat off)
consists of two words but operates syntactically and semantically as a unified item.
Underlying forms are called lexemes. For example, the word water has a similar
meaning when used as a noun (I drank the water) and when used as a verb (I must
water the plants
) but it is a different lexeme in each case. A lexeme can only
belong to one word class. So I watered the plants involves the same lexeme as I
must
water the plants, but a different lexeme from I drank the water. Forms such
as water, waters, watering and watered are grammatically distinct forms of the
same lexeme, the verb water.
Sometimes differences in pronunciation distinguish words with identical forms.
For example, refuse (/r
fjuz/ verb, meaning to decline) and refuse (/
refjuz/
noun, meaning household rubbish) or row (/rəυ/ noun, meaning a line of seats)
and row (/raυ/ verb, meaning to quarrel).
Words can be converted from one class to another and new words are often
formed in this way. For example, the noun fax has been converted into a verb to
fax
. The adjective hopeful has been converted into a noun and is used in contexts
such as There were three hopefuls being interviewed for the job.
Words combine to form phrases. Each word class has a corresponding phrase
class. This book has chapters dealing with noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective
phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases. Because of the complexity of
determiner phrases, a special chapter is devoted to them.
Sections 156–166 contain basic definitions of six major word classes: nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions.
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