Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Nino Kirvalidze
25
4.
 
Inserts can be subdivided into the following parts of speech: interjections, 
modal words, greetings and farewells, attention getters, discourse fillers, etc. 
5.
Inserts generally carry emotional and discoursal meanings, expressing the 
speaker’s subjective attitude to the target situation
. Words such as 
oh
, 
ah
, 
wow 
(i.e. interjections), are used to express the speaker’s emotional response 
to a situation while 
perhaps, fortunately, evidently, etc.
(i.e. modal words) are 
used to express the speaker’s subjective attitude to the target situation; or 
yeah
, 
no
, 
O.K. 
and others signal a response to what has just been said (re-
sponse to discourse).
6.
Inserts are generally simple in form. Though they often have an atypical pro-
nunciation
. 
Study Questions: 
1.
What major families of words are there in modern English? 
2.
How are parts of speech defined in modern linguistics? Comment on the semantic, 
morphological and syntactic criteria of their discrimination. 
3.
Enumerate the seven characteristic features of lexical (i.e. content) words. 
4.
Enumerate the five characteristic features of function words. 
5.
Enumerate the six characteristic features of inserts. 

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof. 
Nino Kirvalidze
26
Lecture 6 
Survey of the nominal parts of speech 
Parts of speech are lexico-grammatical classes of words differentiated from each other by:
a) a generalized, categorical meaning, i.e. 
semantically
;
b) specific inflectional and derivational features, i.e. 
morphologically
;
c) syntactic function in a sentence, i.e. 
syntactically
.
Accordingly, grammarians discriminate between 
notional
and 
functional parts of speech
. 
To the notional parts of speech belong nouns, adjectives,
numerals
1
, 
pronouns,
verbs and 
adverbs, while functional parts of speech are represented by determiners (articles), prepositions, 
conjunctions and particles.
Notional parts of speech can be used independently in a sentence performing syntactic 
functions of a subject, object, predicate, attribute or adverbial modifier while function words 
can’t perform independently any syntactic function in a sentence. Notional parts of speech can 
act as heads in phrases and most of them constitute open classes of words (except pronouns and 
numerals), whereas function words represent closed classes of words, which have a very limited 
and fixed membership.
Below, we offer the survey of the nominal parts of speech according to the scheme: se-
mantics - morphological features – syntactic function (i.e. meaning – form – function).