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In grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed word classes, which acquire new members infrequently if at all. In Linguistics, an open class (or open word class) is a Word class that accepts the addition of new items through such processes as compounding In Linguistics, a closed class (or closed word class) is a Word class to which no new items can normally be added and that usually contains a relatively

Different languages may have different lexical categories, or they might associate different properties to the same one. For example, Japanese has at least three classes of adjectives where English has one; Chinese and Japanese have measure words while European languages have nothing resembling them; many languages don't have a distinction between adjectives and adverbs, or adjectives and nouns, etc. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities In Linguistics, measure words, known more formally as numeral classifiers and also called counters, count words, counter words, or Many linguists argue that the formal distinctions between parts of speech must be made within the framework of a specific language or language family, and should not be carried over to other languages or language families.

Contents

History

The classification of words into lexical categories is found from the earliest moments in the history of linguistics. See also History of grammar Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe and explain the human faculty of Language. [1] In the Nirukta, written in the 5th or 6th century BCE, the Sanskrit grammarian Yāska defined four main categories of words :[2]

  1. nāma - nouns or substantives
  2. ākhyāta - verbs
  3. upasarga - pre-verbs or prefixes
  4. nipāta - particles, invariant words (perhaps prepositions)

These four were grouped into two large classes: inflected (nouns and verbs) and uninflected (pre-verbs and particles). Nirukta ("explanation etymological interpretation" is one of the six {{IAST|Vedānga}} disciplines of Hinduism, treating Etymology, particularly The 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC. The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC. The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of vyākaraṇa is one of the six Vedanga disciplines Yāska (यास्कः(6th-5th centuries BC according to Shukla Georgetown University was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pānini. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. A prefix is a type of Affix attached to a stem which modifies the meaning of that stem In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice

A century or two later, the Greek scholar Plato wrote in the Cratylus dialog that ". In the context of the art architecture and culture of Ancient Greece, the classical period corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries Biography Early life Birth and family Plato was born in Athens Greece Cratylus ( Greek: Κράτυλος is the name of a dialogue by Plato. . . sentences are, I conceive, a combination of verbs [rhēma] and nouns [ónoma]". [3] Another class, "conjunctions" (covering conjunctions, pronouns, and the article), was later added by Aristotle. In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

By the end of the 2nd century BCE, the classification scheme had been expanded into eight categories, seen in the Tékhnē grammatiké:

  1. Noun: a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a concrete or abstract entity
  2. Verb: a part of speech without case inflection, but inflected for tense, person and number, signifying an activity or process performed or undergone
  3. Participle: a part of speech sharing the features of the verb and the noun
  4. Article: a part of speech inflected for case and preposed or postposed to nouns (the relative pronoun is meant by the postposed article)
  5. Pronoun: a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for person
  6. Preposition: a part of speech placed before other words in composition and in syntax
  7. Adverb: a part of speech without inflection, in modification of or in addition to a verb
  8. Conjunction: a part of speech binding together the discourse and filling gaps in its interpretation

The Latin grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 CE) modified the above eight-fold system, substituting "interjection" for "article". The 2nd century BC started the first day of 200 BC and ended the last day of 101 BC. The Art of Grammar (Τέχνη Γραμματική is a treatise on Greek Grammar attributed to Dionysius Thrax, and written in the 2nd The grammar of Latin, like that of other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflected, which allows for a large degree of flexibility when choosing word order Priscianus Caesariensis ( fl 500 AD commonly known as Priscian, was a Latin grammarian. Events By Place Europe Possible date for the Battle of Mons Badonicus: Romano-British and Celts defeat an Anglo-Saxon An interjection is a Part of speech that usually has no connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses Emotion on the part of the speaker It wasn't until 1767 that the adjective was taken as a separate class. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the [4]

Traditional English grammar is patterned after the European tradition above, and is still taught in schools and used in dictionaries. A dictionary is a book of alphabetically listed Words in a specific language with definitions etymologies pronunciations and other information or a book of alphabetically It names eight parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection (sometimes called an exclamation). For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. An interjection is a Part of speech that usually has no connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses Emotion on the part of the speaker

Controversies

Since the Greek grammarians of 2nd century BCE, parts of speech have been defined by morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from However, there is currently no generally agreed-upon classification scheme that can apply to all languages, or even a set of criteria upon which such a scheme should be based.

Linguists recognize that the above list of eight word classes is simplified and artificial. [5] For example, "adverb" is to some extent a catch-all class that includes words with many different functions. Some have even argued that the most basic of category distinctions, that of nouns and verbs, is unfounded,[6] or not applicable to certain languages. [7]

Functional classification

Common ways of delimiting words by function include:

English

English frequently does not mark words as belonging to one part of speech or another. In Linguistics, an open class (or open word class) is a Word class that accepts the addition of new items through such processes as compounding In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the An interjection is a Part of speech that usually has no connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses Emotion on the part of the speaker For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a Verb functioning In Linguistics, a closed class (or closed word class) is a Word class to which no new items can normally be added and that usually contains a relatively In Linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a Verb functioning In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. Coverbs is a term of General linguistics most often applied in languages with Serial verb construction, but also for Complex predicates consisting of two A determiner is a Noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase including quantity rather than its attributes as expressed Quantification has two distinct meanings In Mathematics and Empirical science, it refers to human acts known as Counting and Measuring Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others What are traditionally and popularly called possessive adjectives &mdash in linguistic analyses possessive pronouns, possessive determiners or genitive pronouns In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore In Linguistics, measure words, known more formally as numeral classifiers and also called counters, count words, counter words, or In Grammar, a preposition is a Part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. Although not widely accepted in Linguistics, the term preverb is used in Caucasian (including all three families Northwest Caucasian, In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or In Traditional grammar, a contraction is the formation of a new Word from one or more individual words English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States For other meanings see the disambiguation page Marker In Linguistics, a marker is a free or bound Morpheme that indicates Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave and telephone might all be either verb forms or nouns. Although -ly is an adverb marker, not all adverbs end in -ly and not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. For instance, tomorrow, slow, fast, crosswise can all be adverbs, while early, friendly, ugly are all adjectives (though early can also function as an adverb).

In certain circumstances, even words with primarily grammatical functions can be used as verbs or nouns, as in "We must look to the hows and not just the whys" or "Miranda was to-ing and fro-ing and not paying attention".

See also

References

  1. ^ Robins, R. A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as Noun phrase or Verb phrase, which can be decomposed into smaller syntactic Part-of-speech tagging ( POS tagging or POST) also called grammatical tagging or word-category disambiguation, is the process of marking up the H. (1989). General Linguistics. 4th ed. London: Longman.
  2. ^ Bimal Krishna Matilal (1990). Bimal Krishna Matilal (1935-1991 was an Indian Philosopher whose influential writings present the Indian philosophical tradition as being concerned with The word and the world: India's contribution to the study of language. Oxford. Yaska is dealt with in Chapter 3.  
  3. ^ Cratylus 431b
  4. ^ Beauzée, Nicolas, Grammaire générale, ou exposition raisonnée des éléments nécessaires du langage. (Paris, 1767).
  5. ^ Zwicky, Arnold (2006). What part of speech is "the"? Some would label "the" as an adjective because it tells "which one" about the noun that follows it. By doing so, the word "the" is modifying the noun and, thus, it is quite adjectival. Language Log. Language Log is a collaborative language Blog maintained by University of Pennsylvania phonetician Mark Liberman.
  6. ^ Hopper, P. and S. Thompson. 1985. "The Iconicity of the Universal Categories 'Noun' and 'Verbs'". In Typological Studies in Language: Iconicity and Syntax. John Haiman (ed), vol. 6, pp. 151-183, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
  7. ^ Broschart, Jürgen 1997. "Why Tongan does it differently: Categorial Distinctions in a Language without Nouns and Verbs. " Linguistic Typology 1(2):123-165.

External links

Dictionary

lexical category

-noun

  1. (grammar) A linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question, such as noun or verb.
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