Lecture 3 parts of speech

1. Criteria for parts of speech discrimination

• FUNCTIONAL
• A) Typical combinability. Left-hand and right-hand connections. (Combinability is the power of a class of words to form combinations of definite patterns with words of certain classes irrespective of their lexical or grammatical meanings)
• Art+Noun (a/the book); Prep +Noun (to/from/at school);
• B) Syntactical functions in the sentence.
• Examples:
• Noun – Subject, Predicative, Object…
• Verb - Predicate

1. The notion of parts of speech

1. The notion of parts of speech

• FEATURES of the functional parts of speech
• They have very general and comparatively weak lexical meanings.
• They obtain obligatory unilateral (articles, particles) or bilateral combinability (prepositions, conjunctions).
• They have the functions of linking (prepositions, conjunctions) or specifying (articles, particles) words.

2. The main notional parts of speech and their characteristics.

• The features of the noun : 1) the categorial meaning of substance ("thingness"); 2) the changeable forms of number and case; the specific suffixal forms of derivation (prefixes in English do not discriminate parts of speech as such); 3) the substantive functions in the sentence (subject, object, substantival predicative); prepositional connections; modification by an adjective.

2. The main notional parts of speech and their characteristics.

• The features of the adjective: 1) the categorial meaning of property (qualitative and relative); 2) the forms of the degrees of comparison (for qualitative adjectives); the specific suffixal forms of derivation; 3) adjectival functions in the sentence (attribute to a noun, adjectival predicative).

2. The main notional parts of speech and their characteristics.

• The features of the numeral: 1) the categorial meaning of number (cardinal and ordinal); 2) the narrow set of simple numerals; the specific forms of composition for compound numerals; the specific suffixal forms of derivation for ordinal numerals; 3) the functions of numerical attribute and numerical substantive.