CATEGORIES AND SUBCATEGORIES OF WORDS

1. CATEGORIES AND SUBCATEGORIES OF WORDS

1.1 Problem of classification
1.2 General characteristics of notional words
1.3 General characteristics of functional words
2. THE NOUN
2.1. General Characteristics
2.2 The Category of Number
2.3 The Category of Case
2.4 The Problem of Gender in English
2.5 Article Determination
3. THE VERB
3.1. General Characteristics
3.2. Classifications of English Verbs
3.3. The Category of Voice
3.4. The Category of Tense
3.5. The Category of Aspect
4. THE ADJECTIVE
4.1 General Characteristics
4.2 The Category of Intensity and Comparison
5. THE ADVERB
6. THE PRONOUN
7. THE NUMERAL
8. THE CONJUNCTION
9. THE PARTICLE
10. THE INTERJECTION

1. CATEGORIES AND SUBCATEGORIES OF WORDS

The different types of words are variously called parts of speech, word classes, or lexical
categories.
Some of them recognize 7 word classes (see the table). You may find that other grammars
Verb be, drive, grow, sing, think recognise different word classes from the ones
listed here. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Noun brother, car, David, house, London Language, for wxample, gives this list of 8 for

Determiner a, an, my, some, the English: Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb,
Conjunction, Preposition, Interjection.. They may
Adjective big, foolish, happy, talented, tidy also define the boundaries between the classes in
Adverb happily, recently, soon, then, there different ways. In some grammars, for instance,
pronouns are treated as a separate word class. A
Preposition at, in, of, over, with difference like this should not cause confusion.
Conjunction and, because, but, if, or Instead, it highlights an important principle in
grammar, known as GRADIENCE. This refers to
the fact that the boundaries between the word classes are not absolutely fixed. Many word classes
share characteristics with others, and there is considerable overlap between some of the classes. In
other words, the boundaries are "fuzzy", so different grammars draw them in different places.
Speakers recognize word classes through three different, but complementary, processes - the use of
word endings, function words, and word order. For example, consider the two quotes below. Can
you tell which words are adjectives or adverbs, words that modify or describe?
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gymble in the wabe
- Lewis Carroll, "The Jabberwocky" in Through the Looking Glass
 The gloopy malchicks scattered razdrazily to the mesto.
- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Many people have the sense that the words brillig, slithy, gloopy, and razdrazily are the words that
modify. That sense is a combination of factors, including the suffixes -y (also spelt -i- when a
second ending is used on the same word, as in razdrazily) and -ly - two suffixes that mark
adjectives and adverbs. But word endings are not the only clues to help us find the modifiers. Each
sentence also gives us clues from function words and word order. In English, it is common to find
noun phrases with a predictable structure of Determiner + Adjective + Noun (the clever children),
so the combination of both determiners (the) marking the beginning of noun phrases and word order
in the sentences above help us interpret slithy and gloopy as adjectives. It is also common in English
to find adjectives after forms of the verb be when the verb functions as the 'copula' verb, the linking
verb, as in Elizabeth is clever. So in the first sentence, the verb was (part of the poetic fusion of it
was into 'twas) helps us to interpret brillig as an adjective. Finally, it is also common to find
adverbs after verbs in English, as in Emily learns quickly. That fact helps us to interpret razdrazily
as an adverb in the last example sentence.

1.1 PROBLEM OF CLASSIFICATION

The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain
characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes. The problem
of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in
modern linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their
classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English grammarians have been
vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:
1. Classical (logical-inflectional)
2. Functional
3. Distributional
4. Complex
The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar.
According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided dichotomically
into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. This system was reproduced in the earliest
English grammars. The first of these groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and
participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
The logical-inflectional classification is quite successful for Latin or other languages with
developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but it cannot be applied to the English language
because the principle of declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.
A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. He took
into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined as functional.
He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles. To
nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive,
gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite
verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while adverb, preposition, conjunction and
interjection belonged to the group of particles. However, though the criterion for classification was
functional, Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into those having
morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in other words, declinable and indeclinable.
A distributional approach to the parts to the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by
the classification introduced by Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and
establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to
combine with other words of different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was
not taken into account. According to Charles Fries, the words in such sentences as
1. Woggles ugged diggles;
2. Uggs woggled diggs; and
3. Woggs diggled uggles
are quite evident structural signals, their position and combinability are enough to classify them into
three word-classes. In this way, he introduced four major classes of words and 15 form-classes.
Let us see how it worked. Three test frames formed the basis for his analysis:
Frame A - The concert was good (always);
Frame B - The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly);
Frame C – The team went there.
The parenthesised positions are optional from the point of view of the structural completion of
sentences.
As a result of successive substitution tests on the cited "frames" the following lists of positional
words ("form-words", or "parts of speech") are established:
Class 1. (A) concert, coffee, taste, container, difference, etc. (B) clerk, husband, supervisor,
etc.; tax, food, coffee, etc. (C) team, husband, woman, etc.
Class 2. (A) was, seemed, became, etc. (B) remembered, wanted, saw, suggested, etc. (C) went,
came, ran,... lived, worked, etc.
Class 3. (A) good, large, necessary, foreign, new, empty, etc.
Class 4. (A) there, here, always, then, sometimes, etc. (B) clearly, sufficiently, especially,
repeatedly, soon, etc. (C) there, back, out, etc.; rapidly, eagerly, confidently, etc. All these words
can fill in the positions of the frames without affecting their general structural meaning (such as
"thing and its quality at a given time" — the first frame; "actor — action — thing acted upon —
characteristic of the action" — the second frame; "actor — action — direction of the action" — the
third frame). It turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same as traditional
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his
investigation of 15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first linguist to pay
attention to some of their peculiarities.
All the classifications mentioned above appear to be one-sided because parts of speech are
discriminated on the basis of only one aspect of the word: either its meaning or its form, or its
function.
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic,
formal and functional. This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion
presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning).
The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of
the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional criterion concerns the
syntactic function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when characterizing any
part of speech we are to describe: a) its semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic
peculiarities.
We use a combination of three criteria for determining the word class of a word:
1. The meaning of the word
2. The form or `shape' of the word
3. The position or `environment' of the word in a sentence.
1. Meaning
Using this criterion, we generalize about the kind of meanings that words convey. For example, we
could group together the words brother and car, as well as David, house, and London, on the basis
that they all refer to people, places, or things. In fact, this has traditionally been a popular approach
to determining members of the class of nouns. It has also been applied to verbs, by saying that they
denote some kind of "action", like cook, drive, eat, run, shout, walk. 
This approach has certain merits, since it allows us to determine word classes by replacing words in
a sentence with words of "similar" meaning. For instance, in the sentence My son cooks dinner
every Sunday, we can replace the verb cooks with other "action" words: 
My son cooks dinner every Sunday.
My son prepares dinner every Sunday.
My son eats dinner every Sunday.
My son misses dinner every Sunday.
On the basis of this replacement test, we can conclude that all of these words belong to the same
class, that of "action" words, or verbs. 
However, this approach also has some serious limitations. The definition of a noun as a word
denoting a person, place, or thing, is wholly inadequate, since it excludes abstract nouns such as
time, imagination, repetition, wisdom, and chance. Similarly, to say that verbs are "action" words
excludes a verb like be, as in I want to be happy. What "action" does be refer to here? So although
this criterion has a certain validity when applied to some words, we need other, more stringent
criteria as well. 
2. The form or `shape' of a word
As in many other languages, English employs a great number of word endings to signal
different word classes. Many words also take what are called INFLECTIONS, that is, regular
changes in their form under certain conditions. For example, nouns can take a plural inflection,
usually by adding an -s at the end: 
Some Examples of Word Endings in English

Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs

Suffixes
-ster gangster -ify beautify -ful useful -ly happily
-eer profiteer -ize symbolize -less speechless -ward onward
-er teenager -en ripen -ly manly -wise clockwise
-let booklet -y meaty -like childlike
-ette cigarette -ish foolish
-ess actress -able readable
-y daddy -ed tired
-hood childhood
-ship friendship
-dom kingdom
-ry rocketry
-ist stylist
-ism idealism
-ant inhabitant
-ment amazement
-age leverage
-ness meanness
-ity sanity

Inflections
-s caps -s helps -er shorter -er sooner
-en oxen -ed located -est quickest -est soonest
-'s Mike's -ing writing
-en taken
3. The position or `environment' of a word in a sentence
This criterion refers to where words typically occur in a sentence, and the kinds of words which
typically occur near to them. We can illustrate the use of this criterion using a simple example.
Compare the following:
[1] I cook dinner every Sunday
[2] The cook is on holiday
In [1], cook is a verb, but in [2], it is a noun. We can see that it is a verb in [1] because it takes the
inflections which are typical of verbs:
I cook dinner every Sunday
I cooked dinner last Sunday
I am cooking dinner today
My son cooks dinner every Sunday
And we can see that cook is a noun in [2] because it takes the plural -s inflection
The cooks are on holiday
If we really need to, we can also apply a replacement test, based on our first criterion, replacing
cook in each sentence with "similar" words:
I cook dinner every Sunday The cook is on holiday
I eat dinner every Sunday The chef is on holiday
I prepare dinner every Sunday The gardener is on holiday
I miss dinner every Sunday The doctor is on holiday
Notice that we can replace verbs with verbs, and nouns with nouns, but we cannot replace verbs
with nouns or nouns with verbs:
*I chef dinner every Sunday
*The eat is on holiday
It should be clear from this discussion that there is no one-to-one relation between words and their
classes. Cook can be a verb or a noun -- it all depends on how the word is used. In fact, many words
can belong to more than one word class. Here are some more examples: 
She looks very pale (verb)
She's very proud of her looks (noun)
He drives a fast car (adjective)
He drives very fast on the motorway (adverb)
Turn on the light (noun)
I'm trying to light the fire (verb)
I usually have a light lunch (adjective)
You will see here that each italicised word can belong to more than one word class. However,
they only belong to one word class at a time, depending on how they are used. So it is quite wrong
to say, for example, "cook is a verb". Instead, we have to say something like "cook is a verb in the
sentence I cook dinner every Sunday, but it is a noun in The cook is on holiday".
The linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study makes it possible to divide all the
words of the language into:
a) those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding references
in the objective reality – notional words;
b) those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only as
grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – function words, or grammatical words.
So, the word classes of traditional grammar are a combination of the bases (notional) and the
function (grammatical) words. The bases are called the open classes, so named because it is
relatively easy to create new words in each of those categories, while the function words are called
the closed classes, since it is less common (though not impossible) for speakers of a language to
create new vocabulary in those categories. Slang illustrates the creativity of speakers to invent new
vocabulary in the open classes, such as the noun homeboy (a friend), or the verb to ralph (to vomit),
or the adjective rad (good). But when was the last time someone invented new vocabulary in one of
the closed classes? The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually
being expanded as new scientific discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas
are explored. In the late twentieth century, for example, developments in computer technology have
given rise to many new nouns:
Internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem, multimedia
New verbs have also been introduced:
download, upload, reboot, right-click, double-click
The adjective and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though less
prolifically. 
On the other hand, we never invent new prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions. These classes
include words like of, the, and but. The subclass of pronouns, within the open noun class, is also
closed. 
It is commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numerals,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts of speech are articles, particles, prepositions,
conjunctions and modal words.
The division of language units into notion and function words reveals the interrelation of lexical
and grammatical types of meaning. In notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In
function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in actual speech
the border line between notional and function words is not always clear cut. Some notional words
develop the meanings peculiar to function words - e.g. seminotional words – to turn, to get, etc.
Notional words constitute the bulk of the existing word stock while function words constitute a
smaller group of words. Although the number of function words is limited (there are only about 50
of them in Modern English), they are the most frequently used units.
Generally speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech is far from being
solved. Some words cannot find their proper place. The most striking example here is the class of
adverbs. Some language analysts call it a ragbag, a dustbin (Frank Palmer), Russian academician
V.V. Vinogradov defined the class of adverbs in the Russian language as мусорная куча. It can be
explained by the fact that to the class of adverbs belong those words that cannot find their place
anywhere else. At the same time, there are no grounds for grouping them together either. Compare:
perfectly (She speaks English perfectly) and again (He is here again). Examples are numerous (all
temporals). There are some words that do not belong anywhere - e.g. after all. Speaking about after
all it should be mentioned that this unit is quite often used by native speakers, and practically never
by our students. Some more striking examples: anyway, actually, in fact. The problem is that if
these words belong nowhere, there is no place for them in the system of words, then how can we
use them correctly? What makes things worse is the fact that these words are devoid of nominative
power, and they have no direct equivalents in the Ukrainian or Russian languages. Meanwhile,
native speakers use these words subconsciously, without realizing how they work.

1.2 General Characterization of Notional Words

There should be 2 main criteria which are essential for distinguishing lexico-grammatical
classes of notional words and their corresponding characterization: semantic and grammatical.
The semantic characterization of notional words requires the consideration of their semantics.
The semantic basis for distinguishing lexico-grammatical word-classes is grounded on the
categorical significative meaning inherent in the semantics of all the units of the class. The
nomination of concrete objects, phenomena, qualities or actions is made on the basis and in accord
with the invariant significative semantic features of the class. In other words, every denotator
possesses, at a time, 2 distinguishing semantic features: the categorical significative meaning and
the individual denotative meaning.
The semantic bases of the main lexico-grammatical classes of notional words are represented
by Substantivity, Qualitativeness, Quantitativeness, Verbality and Adverbiality.
In analytical languages, the semantic criterion for the classification of notional words is justly
given preference to because the words lack morphological characteristics.
Grammatical charactetistics are of morphological and syntactical types.
The notional words in English, which is analytical in order, are not morphologically formed up
(except the verb). Their morphological characteristics are not differentially significant. The
morphological characterization of notional words is their paradigmatic definition. The paradigms
of words, the system of thei grammatical forms, can be of synthetic type if synthetic devices
prevail and of analytical type in case analytical word forms are numerous in the paradigm and
dominate over the synthetic ones. The paradigm of English nouns is synthetical: worker, workers,
worker's, workers'. There are synthetical devices in the form-derivation of the verbs but their
paradigms contain more analytical markers than synthetical ones. On this ground the verb-
paradigm in English must be defined as analytical in type.
The lexico-grammatical classes of notional words in English are likely to be defined as lexico-
syntactical groupings. The syntactical characterization of notional words must be made with
regard to their functional significance in the frame of the sentence and in accordance with their
combinability in particular contextual conditions.
The functions of the N-words are in accord with their significative meaning of substantivity.
They usually occur as subjects or nominal object complements. The function of the A-words is
predetermined by their qualitative semantics. They function as either attributive modifiers of
different types or as qualitative predicate compounds. The main function of the verb is that of a
predicate. Non-finite verbs are dependent elements. Due to their twofold nature the non-finites can
occur in the positions of their nominal or adjectival correlatives. The Infinitive which preserves its
nominal features can be used in different nounal functions. Its verbal features in such cases reveal
minimally. The Particple in Modern English possesses stronger adjectival characteristics than
those of the verb. The participle forms more regularly occur in the positions of qualitative elements
and function as attributive modifiers. The Gerund is very much nounal in its syntactical functioning
but it retains its verbal features in any case of its occurrence: the subject, the object, the predicate ot
the attribute.

1.3 General Characteristics of Function Words

Function words are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but
instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify
the attitude or mood of the speaker. Dictionaries define the specific meanings of content words, but
can only describe the general usages of function words. By contrast, grammars describe the use of
function words in detail, but have little interest in lexical words.
Here follows a list of the type of words included in function words:
articles - the and a - only a, the indefinite article is inflected with an affix n before a noun
starting with a vowel in English. In highly inflected languages, the articles take on the case of the
declension of the following noun.
pronouns - inflected in English, as he- him, she - her, etc
prepositions - uninflected in English.
conjunctions - uninflected
auxiliary verbs - forming part of the conjugation (pattern of the tenses of main verbs) are
always inflected
interjections - sometimes called "filled pauses", are uninflected
particles - convey the attitude of the speaker and are uninflected, as if, then, well, however,
thus, etc.
expletives - set up sentences, and other functions, It is, There are, etc.
These words are referred to as “functional” or “grammatical” words because they carry little
meaning (have no synonyms) and typically “help” another word. Determiners, for instance, add
grammatical information about specificity and definiteness (the dog vs. a dog), but do not
essentially alter the meaning. They are also called “closed class words,” since languages do not
easily add new words to the set.
Function words are generally unstressed. Therefore function words are prone to contraction--
for example, the auxiliary have in I've seen it.
Function words are typically lacking in the speech of young children, certain kinds of aphasia,
and telegraphic speech. It is also well known that languages rarely borrow function words from
other languages or make up new ones (hence their status as closed class). Most recent innovations
in the English vocabulary, such as pizza, angst, fax, e-mail, phat, AIDS, website, browser,
screenager, and techno-babble are lexical rather than functional in nature (see, for example, the
journal American Speech for lists of new words).
Function words add mainly grammatical information, which means that they are defined above
all by their syntactic behavior. Most traditional grammars assumed (and their descendents continue
to assume) that the structure of sentences and phrases is determined mainly by lexical words.
Function words were regarded as mere additions to lexical phrases. Thus, the sentence The rabbit
will see the fox was analysed as a noun phrase the rabbit, followed by a verb phrase will see the
fox. The determiner the was thus an addition to the noun phrase, and the auxiliary will was added to
the verb phrase.
A shift in this thinking came in the 1980s within the framework of generative grammar. From
then on, auxiliaries were attributed with an independent contribution to the sentence structure.
However, function words still did not determine the categorial status of a phrase--for example, a
phrase such as the rabbit continued to be regarded as a noun phrase containing a determiner.
This view changed radically by the mid-1980s, as function words were increasingly interpreted
as the determinants of the categorial status of sentence elements. To use the technical terminology,
function words were “projecting to a phrase” or “heading a phrase.” Determiners, for example,
came to be regarded as the head of determiner phrases--that is, the rabbit was now interpreted as a
determiner phrase the containing the noun phrase rabbit. “Functional projections” were thus
assigned a structure similar to “lexical phrases.”
Research in the late 1980s and 1990s revolved around the question of exactly which functional
projections a sentence may contain. Each function word expressing a grammatical function was
soon regarded as a main structural building block of the sentence. The increasing importance of
function words in linguistic theories went hand-in-hand with an increasingly abstract description of
sentence structure. This shift provided many empirical and theoretical advantages.
First, sentence structure could now be divided into three functional domains: (1) a lexical
domain around the verb, which establishes semantic relations between the main sentence elements;
(2) a grammatical domain around the auxiliary, which establishes grammatical relations such as
agreement (the auxiliary agrees in number and person with the subject: I am/She is/They are
leaving.); (3) a discourse domain around the complementizer that, which links an embedded clause
to a main clause (I know that this is true or I wonder whether this is true).
Second, differences between languages could be explained by how the function words, and the
domains they define, were used. For instance, the so-called verb-second languages such as German,
Middle English, Dutch, and Swedish move the verb to the complementizer domain, whereas
languages such as English refrain from doing so. The word order of the equivalent German
sentence Yesterday the rabbit saw the fox would thus be Yesterday saw the rabbit the fox.
Differences between even unrelated languages were reduced to very basic principles.
Function words and lexical words are not sharply distinct categories but rather form a
continuum. Certain classes of words can thus share features with both prototypical lexical words
and prototypical function words. The English preposition is a case in point: some prepositions have
lexical meaning, such as location (behind) and direction (toward); others have little meaning (of or
to). Many are used to introduce sentences (after, for, like) and are therefore similar to prototypical
function words, namely complementizers.
In short, function words have little lexical meaning and no stress. In traditional grammars, they
do not have their own projection or phrase, whereas in some modern approaches they do. They are
very similar (and are historically related) to grammatical markers on lexical words.

2. THE NOUN
2.1 General Characteristics
The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any
other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning),
morphological (the form and grammatical categories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness,
substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:
1. According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common Nouns which name
specific people or places are known as proper nouns (John, London). Many names consist of more
than one word (John Wesley, Queen Mary). Proper nouns may also refer to times or to dates in the
calendar: January, February, Thanksgiving. All other nouns are common nouns. Since proper
nouns usually refer to something or someone unique, they do not normally take plurals. However,
they may do so, especially when number is being specifically referred to: there are three Davids in
my class.
For the same reason, names of people and places are not normally preceded by determiners the or
a/an, though they can be in certain circumstances: it's nothing like the America I remember; my
brother is an Einstein at maths.
2. According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in
their turn fall into human and non-human.
3. According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable (count) and uncountable (non-
count). Common nouns are either count or non-count. Count nouns can be "counted": one pen,
two pens, three pens, four pens... Non-count nouns, on the other hand, cannot be counted in this
way: one software, *two softwares, *three softwares, *four softwares... From the point of view of
grammar, this means that count nouns have singular as well as plural forms, whereas non-count
nouns have only a singular form. It also means that non-count nouns do not take a/an before them.
In general, non-count nouns are considered to refer to indivisible wholes. For this reason, they are
sometimes called mass nouns.
Some common nouns may be either count or non-count, depending on the kind of reference they
have. For example, in I made a cake, cake is a count noun, and the a before it indicates singular
number. However, in I like cake, the reference is less specific. It refers to "cake in general", and so
cake is non-count in this sentence.
This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles of
classification.
Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems
all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived (stem + affix, affix + stem – thingness);
compound (stem+ stem – armchair ) and composite (the Hague). The noun has morphological
categories of number and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.
Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used in the sentence in all syntactic functions but
predicate. Speaking about noun combinability, we can say that it can go into right-hand and left-
hand connections with practically all parts of speech. That is why practically all parts of speech but
the verb can act as noun determiners. However, the most common noun determiners are considered
to be articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and nouns themselves in the common and genitive
case.

2.2 The category of number

The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of
quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural
form :: the singular form. The category of number in English is restricted in its realization because
of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The number
category is realized only within subclass of countable nouns.
The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional quantity: the noun in the
singular does not necessarily denote one object while the plural form may be used to denote one
object consisting of several parts.
The singular form may denote:
a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);
b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic animal);
c) indiscreteness (wholeness or uncountableness - money, milk).
The plural form may denote:
a) the existence of several objects (cats);
b) the inner discreteness (pluralia tantum, jeans).
To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:
1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed :
cat::cats;
2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by syntactical and
lexical correlation in the context. There are two groups here:
A. Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material
nouns, collective nouns;
B. Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of
sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.
3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is not expressed
formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is
eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.

2.3 The category of case

Case expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s
coat). The category of case correlates with the objective category of possession. The case category
in English is realized through the opposition: The Common Case :: The Possessive Case (sister ::
sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term “genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive
case” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. The scope of
meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following :
a) Possessive Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a father,
b) Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,
c) Objective Genitive : The man’s release – The man was released,
d) Adverbial Genitive : Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,
e) Equation Genitive : a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,
f) Genitive of destination: children’s books – books for children,
g) Mixed Group: yesterday’s paper
To avoid confusion with the plural, the marker of the genitive case is represented in written form
with an apostrophe. This fact makes possible disengagement of –`s form from the noun to which it
properly belongs. E.g.: The man I saw yesterday’s son, where -`s is appended to the whole group
(the so-called group genitive). It may even follow a word which normally does not possess such a
formant, as in somebody else’s book.
There is no universal point of view as to the case system in English. Different scholars stick to a
different number of cases.
1. There are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;
2. There are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same relations may be expressed by
the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;
3. There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of
objective pronouns me, him, whom;
4. Case Grammar. Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of cases. They show
relations in the so-called deep structure of the sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to
different relations to nouns. There are 6 cases:
1) Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;
2) Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the door;
3) Dative Case (D) John believed that he would win (the case of the animate being
affected by the state of action identified by the verb);
4) Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged ( the result of the action or state identified
by the verb);
5) Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;
6) Objective case (O) John stole the book.

2.4 The Problem of Gender in English

Gender plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison with its role in many
other languages. There is no gender concord, and the reference of the pronouns he, she, it is very
largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as ‘natural’ gender for English, it depends
upon the classification of persons and objects as male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of
gender as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular semantic association.
According to some language analysts (B. Ilyish, F. Palmer, and E. Morokhovskaya), nouns have no
category of gender in Modern English. Prof. Ilyish states that not a single word in Modern English
shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female being. Thus, the words
husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical
meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor and actress is a purely lexical one. In other
words, the category of sex should not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an
objective biological category. It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings
are manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger – tigress). Still, other scholars (M.Blokh,
John Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof. Blokh states that the existence of
the category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation of nouns with personal
pronouns of the third person (he, she, it). Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter
(non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.
2.5 THE ARTICLE
Students of English will always find it helpful to consult such sources for the study of the articles in
English as Oxford English Dictionary and Christophersen's monograph The Articles: a Study of
Their Theory and Use.
Questions that cannot be answered one way while speaking about the articles:
1) is the article a separate part of speech (determiner)?
2) is the article a word or a morpheme (auxiliary morpheme)?
The two main views of the article are, then, these:
(1) The article is a word (possibly a separate part of speech) and the collocation "article +
noun" is a phrase (if of a peculiar kind).
(2) The article is a form element in the system of the noun; it is thus a kind of morpheme,
or if a word, an auxiliary word of the same kind as the auxiliary verbs. In that case the phrase
"article + noun" is a morphological formation similar to the formation "auxiliary verb + .+
infinitive or participle", which is an analytical form of the verb.
3) The name "determiners" is given to closed system items, which, functioning as adjuncts, show
their head-words to be nouns. Rayevska states, that the most central type of "determiner" is that to
which we traditionally give the name article.
According to Blokh, article is also defined as a determining unit? But of a specific nature
accompanying the noun in communicative collocation. Its special character is clearly seen against
the background of determining words of half-notional semantics. Whereas the function of the
determiners such as this, any, some is to explicitly interpret the referent of the noun in relation to
other objects or phenomena of a like kind, the semantic purpose of the article is to specify the
nounal referent, as it were, altogether unostentatiously, to define it in the most general way, without
any explicitly expressed contrasts. For example, Some woman called in your absence, she didn't give
her name. (I.e. a woman strange to me.)— A woman called while you were out, she left a message.
(I.e. simply a woman, without a further connotation.) Another peculiarity of the article, as different
from the determiners in question, is that, in the absence of a determiner, the use of the article with
the noun is quite obligatory, in so far as the cases of non-use of the article are subject to no less
definite rules than the use of it. Taking into consideration these peculiar features of the article, the
linguist is called upon to make a sound statement about its segmental status in the system of
morphology. Namely, his task is to decide whether the article is a purely auxiliary element of a
special grammatical form of the noun which functions as a component of a definite morphological
category, or it is a separate word, i.e. a lexical unit in the determiner word set, if of a more abstract
meaning than other determiners.
1. Number and meaning of articles
There are only two material articles, the definite article the and the indefinite article a (an). The
distinction thus is between, for instance, the language and a language. However, the noun
language, and indeed many other nouns, are also used without any article, as in the
sentence Language is a means of communication. It is obvious that the absence of the
article in this sentence is in itself a means of showing that "language in general", and not any
specific language (such as English, or French, etc.), is meant. Hence we may say that there
are three variants: (1) the language, (2) a language, (3) language. The last one is sometimes
called a 'zero article'. The idea of a zero article takes its origin in the notion of "zero morpheme",
which has been applied to in English, for instance, to the singular form of nouns (room) as
distinct from the plural form with its -s-inflection. If, therefore, we were to interpret the
article as a morpheme, the idea of a zero article would make no difficulty. If, on the other
hand, we take the article to be a word, the idea of a "zero word" would entail some
difficulty.
The article determination of the noun should be divided into two binary correlations connected with
each other hierarchically.
The opposition of the higher level operates in the whole system of articles. It contrasts the definite
article with the noun against the two other forms of article determination of the noun, i.e. the
indefinite article and the meaningful absence of the article. In this opposition the definite article
should be interpreted as the strong member by virtue of its identifying and individualising function,
while the other forms of article determination should be interpreted as the weak member, i.e. the
member that leaves the feature in question ("identification") unmarked.
The opposition of the lower level operates within the article subsystem that forms the weak member
of the upper opposition. This opposition contrasts the two types of generalisation, i.e. the relative
generalisation distinguishing its strong member (the indefinite article plus the meaningful absence
of the article as its analogue with uncountable nouns and nouns in the plural) and the absolute, or
"abstract" generalisation distinguishing the weak member of the opposition (the meaningful
absence of the article).
The described oppositional system can be shown on the following diagram (see Fig. 1).
ARTICLE DETERMINATION

Relative Generalisation Absolute

Generalisation
("Classification") ("Abstraction")

Fig. 1
The best way of demonstrating the actual oppositional value of the articles on the immediate textual
material is to contrast them in syntactically equivalent conditions in pairs. Cf. the examples given
below.
Identical nounal positions for the pair "the definite article — the indefinite article": The train
hooted (that train). — A train hooted (some train).
Correlative nounal positions for the pair "the definite article — the absence of the article": I'm
afraid the oxygen is out (our supply of oxygen). — Oxygen is necessary for life (oxygen in general,
life in general).
Correlative nounal positions for the pair "the indefinite article — the absence of the article": Be
careful, there is a puddle under your feet (a kind of puddle).— Be careful, there is mud on the
ground (as different from clean space).
Finally, correlative nounal positions for the easily neutralised pair "the zero article of relative
generalisation — the zero article of absolute generalisation": New information should be gathered
on this subject (some information). — Scientific information should be gathered systematically in
all fields of human knowledge (information in general).

3. THE VERB

3.1. General characteristics

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all it performs the central role
in realizing predication - connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is why the
verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance. Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of
grammatical categories. Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions based on
different principles of classification can be found.
Semantic features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of verbiality - the
ability to denote a process developing in time. This meaning is inherent not only in the verbs
denoting processes, but also in those denoting states, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.
Morphological features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical categories:
tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and phase. The common categories for finite
and non-finite forms are voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the
English verb find their expression in synthetical and analytical forms. The formative elements
expressing these categories are grammatical affixes, inner inflexion and function words. Some
categories have only synthetical forms (person, number), others - only analytical (voice). There are
also categories expressed by both synthetical and analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect).
Syntactic features. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be modified by
adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic
function of the predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can
perform this function while non-finite forms can be used in any function but predicate. And finally,
any verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.

3.2. Classifications of English verbs

According to different principles of classification, classifications can be morphological, lexical-
morphological, syntactical and functional.
A. Morphological classifications.
I. According to their stem-types all verbs fall into:
simple (to go),
sound-replacive (food - to feed, blood - to bleed),
stress-replacive (import - to import, transport - to transport),
expanded (with the help of suffixes and prefixes): cultivate, justify, overcome,
composite (correspond to composite nouns): to blackmail),
phrasal: to have a smoke, to give a smile (they always have an ordinary verb as an equivalent). 2.
According to the way of forming past tenses and Participle II verbs can be regular and irregular.
B. Lexical-morphological classification is based on the implicit grammatical meanings of the verb.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity verbs fall into transitive
and intransitive.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of stativeness/non-stativeness verbs fall into stative
and dynamic.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of terminativeness/non-terminativeness verbs fall
into terminative and durative. This classification is closely connected with the categories of Aspect
and Phase.
C. Syntactic classifications.
According to the nature of predication (primary and secondary) all verbs fall into finite and non-
finite.
According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be of obligatory and optional valency, and
thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any directionality. In this way, verbs fall
into the verbs of directed (to see, to take, etc.) and non-directed action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.):
D. Functional classification.
According to their functional significance verbs can be notional (with the full lexical meaning),
semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries.

3.3. The category of voice

The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action
or the recipient of the action (John broke the vase - the vase was broken). The objective relations
between the action and the subject or object of the action find their expression in language as the
grammatical category of voice. Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective relations
between the action itself and the subject or object of the action:
The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The
realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of
transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into
transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises
6 groups:
1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;
2.Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;
3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may
develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out
of the room;
4.Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both
transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;
5.Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;
6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk,
to jump.
Some scholars admit the existence of Middle, Reflexive and Reciprocal voices. "Middle Voice" -
the verbs primarily transitive may develop an intransitive middle meaning: That adds a lot; The
door opened; The book sells easily; The dress washes well. "Reflexive Voice": He dressed; He
washed - the subject is both the agent and the recipient of the action at the same time. It is always
possible to use a reflexive pronoun in this case: He washed himself. "Reciprocal voice”: They met;
They kissed - it is always possible to use a reciprocal pronoun here: They kissed each other.
We cannot, however, speak of different voices, because all these meanings are not expressed
morphologically.

3.4. The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential
characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs
referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being 'now ' or the
present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of
oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical
category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the
temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show
the binary opposition):

Present Past

Future I Future II
Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally
described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past.
Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as
the 'future' tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is
undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in
sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference.
That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

3.5. The Category of Aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action.
It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive).
The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.
There are some verbs in English that do not normally occur with progressive aspect, even in those
contexts in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the progressive form. Among the so-called
‘non-progressive’ verbs are think, understand, know, hate, love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc.
The most striking characteristic that they have in common is the fact that they are ‘stative’ - they
refer to a state of affairs, rather than to an action, event or process. It should be observed, however,
that all the ‘non-progressive' verbs take the progressive aspect under particular circumstances. As
the result of internal transposition verbs of non-progressive nature can be found in the Continuous
form: Now I'm knowing you. Generally speaking the Continuous form has at least two semantic
features - duration (the action is always in progress) and definiteness (the action is always limited
to a definite point or period of time). In other words, the purpose of the Continuous form is to serve
as a frame which makes the process of the action more concrete and isolated.
4. THE ADJECTIVE
4.1 General Characteristics
While traditional grammars usually define nouns and verbs semantically, they often shift to
functional criteria to characterize adjectives. For example, Rayevska defines an adjective as a word
which expresses the attributes of substances (good, young, easy, soft, loud, hard, wooden, flaxen).
As a class of lexical words adjectives are identified by their ability to fill the position between
noun-determiner and noun and the position after a copula-verb and a qualifier.
Semantic features of the adjective.The adjective expresses property or quality of a substance.
According to Blokh, each adjective used in the text, presupposes relation to some noun the
property of whose referent it denotes, such as material, colour, dimensions, position, state, and
other characteristics both permanent and temporary. It follows from this that, unlike nouns,
adjectives do not possess a full nominative value. Indeed, words like long, hospitable, fragrant
cannot affect any self-dependent nominations; as units of informative sequences they exist
only in collocations showing what is long, who is hospitable, what is fragrant.
Considered in meaning, adjectives fall into two large groups:
a) qualitative adjectives,
b) relative adjectives.
Qualitative adjectives denote qualities of size, shape, colour, etc. which an object may possess in
various degrees. Qualitative adjectives have degrees of comparison.
Relative adjectives express qualities which characterise an object through its relation to another
object; wooden tables → tables made of wood, woollen gloves → gloves made of wool, Siberian
wheat → wheat from Siberia. Further examples of relative adjectives are: rural, industrial, urban,
etc.
Linguistically it is utterly impossible to draw a rigid line of demarcation between the two classes,
for in the course of language development the so-called relative adjectives gradually develop
qualitative meanings. Thus, for instance, through metaphoric extension adjectives denoting material
have come to be used in the figurative sense, e. g.: golden age золотий вік, golden hours
щасливий час, golden mean золота середина, golden opportunity чудова нагода, golden hair
золотаве волосся, etc.
Morphological features of the adjective. Adjectives in Modern English are invariable. As is well
known, it has neither number, nor case, nor gender distinctions. Some adjectives have,
however, degrees of comparison, which make part of the morphological system of a language . It
seems practical to distinguish between base adjectives and derived adjectives.
Base adjectives exhibit the following formal qualities: they may take inflections -er and -est or
have some morphophonemic changes in cases of the suppletion, such as, for instance, in good —
better —the best; bad — worse — the worst. Base adjectives are also distinguished formally by the
fact that they serve as stems from which nouns and adverbs are formed by the derivational suffixes
-ness and -ly.
Base adjectives are mostly of one syllable, and none have more than two syllables except a few that
begin with a derivational prefix un-or in-, e. g.: uncommon, inhuman, etc. They have no
derivational suffixes and usually form their comparative and superlative degrees by means of the
inflectional suffixes -er and -est. Quite a number of based adjectives form verbs by adding the
derivational suffix -en, the prefix en- or both: blacken, brighten, cheapen, sweeten, widen, enrich,
enlarge, embitter, enlighten, enliven, etc.
Derived adjectives are formed by the addition of derivational suffixes to free or bound stems. They
usually form analytical comparatives and superlatives by means of the qualifiers more and most.
Some of the more important suffixes which form derived adjectives are:
-able added to verbs and bound stems, denoting quality with implication of capacity, fitness or
worthness to be acted upon; -able is often used in the sense of "tending to", "given to", "favouring",
"causing", "able to" or "liable to". This very common suffix is a live one which can be added to
virtually any verb thus giving rise to many new coinages. As it is the descendant of an active
derivational suffix in Latin, it also appears as a part of many words borrowed from Latin and
French. Examples formed from verbs: remarkable, adaptable, conceivable, drinkable, eatable,
regrettable, understandable, etc.; examples formed from bound stems: capable, portable, viable.
The unproductive variant of the suffix -able is the suffix -ible (Latin -ibilis, -bilis), which we find in
adjectives Latin in origin: visible, forcible, comprehensible, etc.; -ible is no longer used in the
formation of new words.
-al, -ial (Lat. -alls, French -al, -el) denoting quality "belonging to", "pertaining to", "having the
character of", "appropriate to", e. g.: elemental, bacterial, automnal, fundamental, etc.
The suffix -al added to nouns and bound stems (fatal, local, natural, national, traditional, etc.) is
often found in combination with -ic, e. g.: biological, botanical, juridical, typical, etc.
-ish —Germanic in origin, denoting nationality, quality with the meaning "of the nature of",
"belonging to", "resembling" also with the sense "somewhat like", often implying contempt,
derogatory in force, e. g.: Turkish, bogish, outlandish, whitish, wolfish.
-y — Germanic in origin, denoting quality "pertaining to", "abounding in", "tending or inclined to",
e.g.: rocky, watery, bushy, milky, sunny, etc.
Syntactic features. (a) Adjectives combine with nouns both preceding and (occasionally)
following them (large room, times immemorial). They also combine with a preceding adverb
(very large). Adjectives can be followed by the phrase "preposition + noun" (free from
danger). Occasionally they combine with a preceding verb (married young). (b) In the
sentence, an adjective can be either an attribute (large room) or a predicative (is large). It
can also be an objective predicative (painted the door green).
4.2 The Category of Intensity and Comparison
1) how many degrees of comparison has the English adjective?
If we take, for example, the three forms of an English adjective: large, larger, (the) largest, shall
we say that they are, all three of them, degrees of comparison? In that case we ought to term
them positive, comparative, and superlative. Or shall we say that only the latter two are
degrees of comparison (comparative and superlative), whereas the first (large), does not express
any idea of comparison and is therefore not a degree of comparison at all? Both views have
found their advocates in grammatical theory.
Now it is well known that not every adjective has degrees of comparison. This may depend on
two factors. One of these is not grammatical, but semantic. Since degrees of comparison
express a difference of degree in the same property, only those adjectives admit of degrees of
comparison which denote properties capable of appearing in different degrees. Thus, it is obvious
that, for example, the adjective middle has no degrees of comparison. The same might be said
about many other adjectives, such as blind, deaf, dead, etc. However, this should not be
taken too absolutely. Occasionally we may meet with such a sentence as this: You cannot be
deader than dead.
2) A more complex problem in the sphere of degrees of comparison is that of the formations
more difficult, (the) most difficult, or more beautiful, (the) most beautiful. The question is
this: is more difficult an analytical comparative degree of the adjective difficult? In that
case the word more would be an auxiliary word serving to make up that analytical form,
and the phrase would belong to the sphere of morphology. Or is more difficult a free
phrase, not different in its essential character from the phrase very difficult or somewhat
difficult"? In that case the adjective difficult would have no degrees of comparison at all
(forming degrees of comparison of this adjective by means of the inflections -er, -est is
impossible), and the whole phrase would be a syntactical formation. The traditional view held
both by practical and theoretical grammars until recently was that phrases of this type were
analytical degrees of comparison. Recently, however, the view has been put forward that they
do not essentially differ from phrases of the type very difficult, which, of course, nobody
would think of treating as analytical forms.
Let us examine the arguments that have been or may be put forward in favour of one and
the other view.
The view that formations of the type more difficult are analytical degrees of comparison
may be supported by the following considerations: (1) The actual meaning of formations like
more difficult, (the) most difficult does not differ from that of the degrees of comparison
larger, (the) largest. (2) Qualitative adjectives, like difficult, express properties which may
be present in different degrees, and therefore they are bound to have degrees of
comparison.
The argument against such formations being analytical degrees of comparison would run
roughly like this. No formation should be interpreted as an analytical form unless there
are compelling reasons for it, and if there are considerations contradicting such a view.
Now, in this particular case there are such considerations: (1) The words more and most
have the same meaning in these phrases as in other phrases in which they may appear, e.
g. more time, most people, etc. (2) Alongside of the phrases more difficult, (the) most
difficult there are also the phrases less difficult, (the) least difficult, and there seems to be
no sufficient reason for treating the two sets of phrases in different ways, saying that
more difficult is an analytical form, while less difficult is not. Besides, the very fact that
more and less, (the) most and (the) least can equally well combine with difficult, would
seem to show that they are free phrases and none of them is an analytical form. The fact
that more difficult stands in the same sense relation to difficult as larger to large is of
course certain, but it should have no impact on the interpretation of the phrases more
difficult, (the) most difficult from a grammatical viewpoint.
Taking now a general view of both lines of argument, we can say that, roughly speaking,
considerations of meaning tend towards recognising such formations as analytical forms, whereas
strictly grammatical considerations lead to the contrary view.
A few adjectives do not, as is well known, form any degrees of comparison by means of
inflections. Their degrees of comparison are derived from a different root. These are good,
better, best; bad, worse, worst, and a few more. Should these formations be acknowledged as
suppletive forms of the adjectives good, bad, etc., or should they not? There seems no
valid reason for denying them that status. The relation good: better = large: larger is
indeed of the same kind as the relation go: went = live: lived, where nobody has expressed
any doubt about went being a suppletive past tense form of the verb go. Thus, it is clear
enough that there is every reason to take better, worse, etc., as suppletive degrees of
comparison to the corresponding adjectives.

5. THE ADVERB
Semantic features. The meaning of the adverb as a part of speech is hard to define. Indeed,
some adverbs indicate time or place of an action (yesterday, here), while others indicate its
property (quickly) and others again the degree of a property (very). As, however, we should look
for one central meaning characterising the part of speech as a whole, it seems best to formulate
the meaning of the adverb as "property of an action or of a property".
Morphological features. Adverbs are invariable. Some of them, however, have degrees of
comparison (fast, faster, fastest).
Syntactic features. (a) An adverb combines with a verb (run quickly), with an adjective (very
long), occasionally with a noun (the then president) and with a phrase (so out of things).
(b) An adverb can sometimes follow a preposition (from there). (c) In a sentence an adverb is
almost always an adverbial modifier, or part of it (from there), but it may occasionally be an
attribute.
6. THE PRONOUN
Semantic features. The meaning of the pronoun as a separate part of speech is somewhat
difficult to define. In fact, some pronouns share essential peculiarities of nouns (e.g. he), while
others have much in common with adjectives (e. g. which). This made some scholars think
that pronouns were not a separate part of speech at all and should be distributed between
nouns and adjectives. However, this view proved untenable and entailed insurmountable
difficulties. Hence it has proved necessary to find a definition of the specific meaning of
pronouns, distinguishing them from both nouns and adjectives. From this angle the
meaning of pronouns as a part of speech can be stated as follows: pronouns point to the things
and properties without naming them. Thus, for example, the pronoun it points to a thing
without being the name of any particular class of things. The pronoun its points to the property
of a thing by referring it to another thing. The pronoun what can point both to a thing and a
property.
Members of the
Pronoun Type Example
Subclass
 mine, yours, his, hers, ours,
Possessive theirs
The white car is mine

myself, yourself, himself,

herself, itself, oneself, He injured himself playing
Reflexive ourselves, yourselves, football
themselves

Reciprocal each other, one another They really hate each other

Relative that, which, who, whose, The book that you gave me
whom, where, when was really boring

Demonstrative this, that, these, those This is a new car

who, what, why, where, when,

Interrogative whatever
What did he say to you?

Indefinite anything, anybody, anyone,

something, somebody,
There's something in my shoe
someone, nothing, nobody,
none, no one

Morphological features. As far as form goes pronouns fall into different types. Some of them
have the category of number (singular and plural), e. g. this, while others have no such
category, e. g. somebody. Again, some pronouns have the category of case (he — him,
somebody — somebody's), while others have none (something).
Syntactic features. (a) Some pronouns combine with verbs (he speaks, find him), while others
can also combine with a following noun (this room). (b) In the sentence, some pronouns may
be the subject (he, what) or the object, while others are the attribute (my). Pronouns can be
predicatives.

7. THE NUMERAL
The treatment of numerals presents some difficulties, too. The so-called cardinal numerals
(one, two) are somewhat different from the so-called ordinal numerals (first, second).
Semantic features. Numerals denote either number or place in a series.
Morphological features. Numerals are invariable.
Syntactic features. (a) As far as phrases go, both cardinal and ordinal numerals combine
with a following noun (three rooms, third room); occasionally a numeral follows a noun
(soldiers three, George the Third). (b) In a sentence, a numeral most usually is an attribute
(three rooms, the third room), but it can also be subject, predicative, and object: Three of
them came in time; "We Are Seven" (the title of a poem by Wordsworth); I found only
four.

THE PREPOSITION
The problem of prepositions has caused very heated discussions, especially in the last few
years. Both the meaning and the syntactical functions of prepositions have been the subject of
controversy.
Semantic features. The meaning of prepositions is obviously that of relations between things
and phenomena.
Morphological features. Prepositions are invariable.
Syntactic features. Prepositions enter into phrases in which they are preceded by a noun,
adjective, numeral, verb or adverb, and followed by a noun, adjective, numeral or pronoun.
(b) In a sentence a preposition never is a separate part of it. It goes together with the following
word to form an object, adverbial modifier, predicative or attribute, and in extremely rare
cases a subject (There were about a hundred people in the hall).

8. THE CONJUNCTION
 The problem of conjunctions is of the same order as that of prepositions, but it has
attracted less attention.
Semantic features.Conjunctions express connections between things and phenomena.
Morphological features. Conjunctions are invariable.
Syntactic features. (a) They connect any two words, phrases or clauses. (b) In a sentence,
conjunctions are never a special part of it. They either connect homogeneous parts of a
sentence or homogeneous clauses (the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions), or they join a
subordinate clause to its head clause (the so-called subordinating conjunctions).
A further remark is necessary here. We have said that prepo sitions express relations
between phenomena, and conjunctions express connections between them. It must be
acknowledged that the two notions, relations and connections, are somewhat hard to
distinguish. This is confirmed by the well-known fact that phrases of one and the other kind
may be more or less synonymous: cf., e. g., an old man and his son and an old man with his
son. It is also confirmed by the fact that in some cases a preposition and a conjunction may be
identical in sound and have the same meaning (e. g. before introducing a noun and before
introducing a subordinate clause; the same about after). Since it is hard to distinguish between
prepositions and conjunctions as far as meaning goes, and morphologically they are both
invariable, the only palpable difference between them appears to be their syntactical function.
It may be reasonably doubted whether this is a sufficient basis for consid ering them to be
separate parts of speech. It might be argued that prepositions and conjunctions make up a single
part of speech, with subdivisions based on the difference of syntactical functions. Such a view
would go some way toward solving the awkward problem of homonymy with reference to
such words as before, after, since, and the like. However, since this is an issue for further
consideration, we will, for the time being, stick to the traditional view of prepositions and
conjunctions as separate parts of speech.

9. THE PARTICLE
By particles we mean such word as only, solely, exclusively, even (even old people
came), just (just turn the handle), etc. These were traditionally classed with adverbs, from
which they, however, differ in more than one respect.
Semantic features. The meaning of particles is very hard to define. We might say,
approximately, that they denote subjective shades of meaning introduced by the speaker or
writer and serving to emphasise or limit some point in what he says.
Morphological features. Particles are invariable.
Syntactic features. (a) Particles may combine with practically every part of speech, more
usually preceding it (only three), but occasionally following it (for advanced students only).
(b) Particles never are a separate part of a sentence. They enter the part of the sentence
formed by the word (or phrase) to which they refer. (It might also be argued that particles
do not belong to any part of a sentence.)

10. THE INTERJECTION

Semantic features. Interjections express feelings (ah, alas). They are not names of feelings but
the immediate expression of them. Some interjections represent noises, etc., with a strong
emotional colouring (bang!).
Morphological features. Interjections are invariable.
Syntactic features. (a) Interjections usually do not enter into phrases. Only in a few cases do they
combine with a preposition and noun or pronoun, e.g. alas for him! (b) In a sentence an
interjection forms a kind of parenthesis. An interjection may also be a sentence in itself, e.
g. Alas! as an answer to a question.

So far we have been considering parts of speech as they are usually termed and treated in
grammatical tradition: we have been considering nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. Some modern
linguists prefer to avoid this traditional grouping and terminology and to establish a
classification of types of words based entirely on their morphological characteristics and on
their ability (or inability) to enter into phrases with other words of different types.