Functions of a word in a sentence

In English grammar, a function word is a word that expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with other words in a sentence.

In contrast to a content word, a function word has little or no meaningful content. Nonetheless, as Ammon Shea points out, «the fact that a word does not have a readily identifiable meaning does not mean that it serves no purpose.»

Function words are also known as:

• structure words
• grammatical words
• grammatical functors
• grammatical morphemes
• function morphemes
• form words
• empty words

According to James Pennebaker, «function words account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of your vocabulary but make up almost 60 percent of the words you use.»

Content Words vs. Function Words

Function words include determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, modals, qualifiers, and question words. Content words are words with specific meanings, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and main verbs (those without helping verbs.) In the sentence, «The sly brown fox jumped gracefully over the lazy dog and cat,» the content words are:

• fox, dog, and cat (nouns)
• sly, brown, and lazy (adjectives)
• gracefully (adverb)
• jumped (main verb)

Function words include:

• the (determiner)
• over (preposition)
• and (conjunction)

Even though the function words don’t have concrete meanings, sentences would make a lot less sense without them.

Determiners

Determiners are words such as articles (the, a), possessive pronouns (their, your), quantifiers (much), demonstratives (that, those), and numbers. They function as adjectives to modify nouns and go in front of a noun to show the reader whether the noun is specific or general, such as in «that coat» (specific) vs. «a coat» (general). 

• Articles: a, an, the
• Demonstratives: that, this, those, these
• Possessive pronouns: my, your, their, our, ours, whose, his, hers, its, which 
• Quantifiers: some, both, most, many, a few, a lot of, any, much, a little, enough, several, none, all

Conjunctions

Conjunctions connect parts of a sentence, such as items in a list, two separate sentences, or clauses and phrases to a sentence. In the previous sentence, the conjunctions are or and and.

• Conjunctions: and, but, for, yet, neither, or, so, when, although, however, as, because, before 

Prepositions

Prepositions begin prepositional phrases, which contain nouns and other modifiers. Prepositions function to give more information about nouns. In the phrase «the river that flows through the woods.» The prepositional phrase is «through the woods,» and the preposition is «through.»

• Prepositions: in, of, between, on, with, by, at, without, through, over, across, around, into, within

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that stand in for nouns. Their antecedent needs to be clear, or your reader will be confused. Take «It’s so difficult» as an example. Without context, the reader has no idea what «it» refers to. In context, «Oh my gosh, this grammar lesson,» he said. «It’s so difficult,» the reader easily knows that it refers to the lesson, which is its noun antecedent.

• Pronouns: she, they, he, it, him, her, you, me, anybody, somebody, someone, anyone

Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary verbs are also called helping verbs. They pair with a main verb to change tense, such as when you want to express something in present continuous tense (I am walking), past perfect tense (I had walked), or future tense (I am going to walk there). 

• Auxiliary verbs: be, is, am, are, have, has, do, does, did, get, got, was, were

Modals

Modal verbs express condition or possibility. It’s not certain that something is going to happen, but it might. For example, in «If I could have gone with you, I would have,» modal verbs include could and would.

• Modals: may, might, can, could, will, would, shall, should

Qualifiers

Qualifiers function like adverbs and show the degree of an adjective or verb, but they have no real meaning themselves. In the sample sentence, «I thought that somewhat new dish was pretty darn delicious,» the qualifiers are somewhat and pretty.

• Qualifiers: very, really, quite, somewhat, rather, too, pretty (much)

Question Words

It’s easy to guess what function that question words have in English. Besides forming questions, they can also appear in statements, such as in «I don’t know how in the world that happened,» where the question word is how.

• Question words: how, where, what, when, why, who

Sources

• Shea, Ammon Shea. «Bad English.» TarcherPerigee, 2014, New York.
• Pennebaker, James. «The Secret Life of Pronouns.» Bloomsbury Press, 2011, New York.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In linguistics, function words (also called functors)^[1] are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. They signal the structural relationships that words have to one another and are the glue that holds sentences together. Thus they form important elements in the structures of sentences.^[2]

Words that are not function words are called content words (or open class words, lexical words, or autosemantic words) and include nouns, most verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs although some adverbs are function words (like then and why). Dictionaries define the specific meanings of content words but can describe only the general usages of function words. By contrast, grammars describe the use of function words in detail but treat lexical words only in general terms.

Since it was first proposed in 1952 by C. C. Fries, the distinguishing of function/structure words from content/lexical words has been highly influential in the grammar used in second-language acquisition and English-language teaching.^[3]

Overview[edit]

Function words might be prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, grammatical articles or particles, all of which belong to the group of closed-class words. Interjections are sometimes considered function words but they belong to the group of open-class words. Function words might or might not be inflected or might have affixes.

Function words belong to the closed class of words in grammar because it is very uncommon to have new function words created in the course of speech. In the open class of words, i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, new words may be added readily, such as slang words, technical terms, and adoptions and adaptations of foreign words.

Each function word either: gives grammatical information about other words in a sentence or clause, and cannot be isolated from other words; or gives information about the speaker’s mental model as to what is being said.

Grammatical words, as a class, can have distinct phonological properties from content words. Grammatical words sometimes do not make full use of all the sounds in a language. For example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with clicks, but very few function words do.^[4] In English, very few words other than function words begin with the voiced th [ð]^{[citation needed]}. English function words may have fewer than three letters; e.g., ‘I’, ‘an’, ‘in’, while non-function words usually have three or more (e.g., ‘eye’, ‘Ann’, ‘inn’).

The following is a list of the kind of words considered to be function words with English examples. They are all uninflected in English unless marked otherwise:

• articles — the and a. In some inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the declension of the following noun.
• pronouns — he :: him, she :: her, etc. — inflected in English
• adpositions — in, under, towards, before, of, for, etc.
• conjunctions — and and but
• subordinating conjunctions — if, then, well, however, thus, etc.
• auxiliary verbs — would, could, should, etc. — inflected in English
• particles — up, on, down
• interjections — oh, ah, eh, sometimes called «filled pauses»
• expletives — take the place of sentences, among other functions.
• pro-sentences — yes, no, okay, etc.

See also[edit]

• Content word, words that name objects of reality and their qualities
• Grammaticalization, process by which words representing objects and actions transform to become grammatical markers

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Kordić, Snježana (2001). Wörter im Grenzbereich von Lexikon und Grammatik im Serbokroatischen [Serbo-Croatian Words on the Border Between Lexicon and Grammar]. Studies in Slavic Linguistics ; 18 (in German). Munich: Lincom Europa. p. 280. ISBN 3-89586-954-6. LCCN 2005530313. OCLC 47905097. OL 2863539W. CROSBI 426497. Summary.

External links[edit]

• Short list of 225 English function words

The
traditional term “parts of speech” was developed in Ancient Greek
linguistics and reflects the fact that at that time there was no
distinction between language as a system and speech, between the word
as a part of an utterance and the word as a part of lexis. The term
“parts of speech” is accepted by modern linguistics as a
conventional, or “non-explanatory” term (“name-term”) to
denote the lexico-grammatical classes of words correlating with each
other in the general system of language on the basis of their
grammatically relevant properties.

There
are three types of grammatically relevant properties of words that
differentiate classes of words called “parts of speech”:
semantic, formal and functional properties. They traditionally make
the criteria for the classification of parts of speech. The semantic
criterion refers to the generalized semantic properties common to the
whole class of words, e.g.: the generalized (or, categorial) meaning
of nouns is “thingness”, of verbs process, of adjectives
substantive property, of adverbs non-substantive property. The formal
criterion embraces the formal features (word-building and
word-changing) that are characteristic for a particular part of
speech, e.g.: the noun is characterized by a specific set of
word-building affixes, cf.: property, bitterness, worker, etc., and
is changed according to the categories of number, case and article
determination: boy-boys, boy – boy’s, boy – the boy – a boy,
etc. Combinability is also a relevant formal feature for each
particular part of speech; for example, verbs can be modified by
adverbs, while nouns cannot (except in specific contexts). The
functional criterion is based on the functions that the words of a
particular class fulfill in the sentence, e.g.: the most
characteristic functions of the noun are those of a subject and an
object; the only function of the finite form of the verb is that of a
predicate; the adjective functions in most contexts as an attribute;
the adverb as an adverbial modifier.

Classifications
in general may be based either on one criterion (such classifications
are called homogeneous, or monodifferential), or on a combination of
several criteria (such classifications are called heterogeneous, or
polydifferential). The traditional classification of parts of speech
is polydifferential (heterogeneous); it is based on the combination
of all the three criteria mentioned above: ‘meaning – form –
function’.

Traditionally,
all parts of speech are subdivided on the upper level of
classification into notional words and functional words. Notional
words, which traditionally include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
pronouns and numerals, have complete nominative meanings, are in most
cases changeable and fulfill self-dependent syntactic functions in
the sentence. The noun, for example, as a part of speech, is
traditionally characterized by 1) the categorial meaning of substance
(“thingness”), 2) a specific set of word-building affixes, the
grammatical categories of number, case and article determination,
prepositional connections and modification by an adjective, and 3)
the substantive functions of subject, object or predicative in the
sentence. In the same way, all the other notional parts of speech are
described. Functional words, which include conjunctions,
prepositions, articles, interjections, particles, and modal words,
have incomplete nominative value, are unchangeable and fulfill
mediatory, constructional syntactic functions.

The
employment of the three criteria combined, in present-day mainstream
linguistics, was developed mainly by V. V. Vinogradov, L. V. Scherba,
A. I. Smirnitsky, B. A. Ilyish and others.

There
are certain limitations and controversial points in the traditional
classification of parts of speech, which make some linguists doubt
its scientific credibility. First of all, the three criteria turn out
to be relevant only for the subdivision of notional words. As for
functional words – prepositions, conjunctions, particles,
interjections, etc. – these classes of words do not distinguish
either common semantic, or formal, or functional properties, they are
rather characterized by the absence of all three criteria in any
generalized form. Second, the status of pronouns and the numerals,
which in the traditional classification are listed as notional, is
also questionable, since they do not have any syntactic functions of
their own, but rather different groups inside these two classes
resemble in their formal and functional properties different notional
parts of speech: e.g., cardinal numerals function as substantives,
while ordinal numerals function as adjectives; the same can be said
about personal pronouns and possessive pronouns. Third, it is very
difficult to draw rigorous borderlines between different classes of
words, because there are always phenomena that are indistinguishable
in their status. E.g., non-finite forms of verbs, such as the
infinitive, the gerund, participles I and II are actually verbal
forms, but lack some of the characteristics of the verb: they have no
person or number forms, no tense or mood forms, and what is even more
important, they never perform the characteristic verbal function,
that of a predicate. Equally dubious is the part-of-speech
characterization of auxiliary verbs, intensifying adverbs,
conjunctive adverbs and pronouns, and of many other groups of words
which have the morphological characteristics of notional words, but
play mediatory constructional functions in a sentence, like
functional words. There are even words that defy any classification
at all; for example, many linguists doubt whether the words of
agreement and disagreement, yes and no, can occupy any position in
the classification of parts of speech.

These,
and a number of other problems, made linguists search for alternative
ways to classify lexical units. Some of them thought that the
contradictions could be settled if parts of speech were classified
following what was seen as a strictly scientific approach, a unified
basis of subdivision; in other words, if a homogeneous, or
monodifferential classification of parts of speech were undertaken.

It
must be noted that the idea was not entirely new. The first
classification of parts of speech was homogeneous: in ancient Greek
grammar the words were subdivided mainly on the basis of their formal
properties into changeable and unchangeable; nouns, adjectives and
numerals were treated jointly as a big class of “names” because
they shared the same morphological forms. This classical linguistic
tradition was followed by the first English grammars: Henry Sweet
divided all the words in English into “declinables” and
“indeclinables”. But the approach which worked well for the
description of highly inflectional languages turned out to be less
efficient for the description of other languages.

The
syntactic approach, which establishes the word classes in accord with
their functional characteristics, is more universal and applicable to
languages of different morphological types. The principles of a
monodifferential syntactico-distributional classification of words in
English were developed by the representatives of American Descriptive
Linguistics, L. Bloomfield, Z. Harris and Ch. Fries.

Ch.
Fries selected the most widely used grammatical constructions and
used them as substitution frames: the frames were parsed into parts,
or positions, each of them got a separate number, and then Ch. Fries
conducted a series of substitution tests to find out what words can
be used in each of the positions. Some of the frames were as follows:
The concert was good (always). The clerk remembered the tax
(suddenly). The team went there. All the words that can be used in
place of the article made one group, the ones that could be used
instead of the word “clerk” another, etc. The results of his
experiments were surprisingly similar to the traditional
classification of parts of speech: four main positions were
distinguished in the sentences; the words which can be used in these
positions without affecting the meaning of the structures were united
in four big classes of words, and generally speaking coincide with
the four major notional parts of speech in the traditional
classification: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Besides these
“positional words” (“form-words”), Ch. Fries distinguished 15
limited groups of words, which cannot fill in the positions in the
frames. These “function words” are practically the same as the
functional words in the traditional classification.

The
syntactico-distributional classification of words distinguished on a
consistently syntactic basis testifies to the objective nature of the
classification of parts of speech. More than that, in some respects
the results of this approach turn out to be even more confusing than
the allegedly “non-scientific” traditional classification: for
example, Group A, embracing words that can substitute for the article
“the” in the above given frames, includes words as diverse as
“the, no, your, their, both, few, much, John’s, twenty”, or one
word might be found in different distributional classes. Thus, the
syntactico-distributional classification cannot replace the
traditional classification of parts of speech, but the major features
of different classes of words revealed in syntactico-distributional
classification can be used as an important supplement to traditional
classification.

The
combination of syntactico-distributional and traditional
classifications strongly suggests the unconditional subdivision of
the lexicon into two big supra-classes: notional and functional
words. The major formal grammatical feature of this subdivision is
their open or closed character. The notional parts of speech are open
classes of words, with established basic semantic, formal and
functional characteristics. There are only four notional classes of
words, which correlate with the four main syntactic positions in the
sentence: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They are
interconnected by the four stages of the lexical paradigmatic series
of derivation, e.g.: to decide – decision – decisive –
decisively. The functional words are closed classes of words: they
cannot be further enlarged and are given by lists. The closed
character of the functional words is determined by their role in the
structure of the sentence: the functional words expose various
constructional functions of syntactic units, and this makes them
closer to grammatical rather than to lexical means of the language.

As
for pronouns and the numerals, according to the functional approach
they form a separate supra-class of substitutional parts of speech,
since they have no function of their own in the sentence, but
substitute for notional parts of speech and perform their
characteristic functions. The difference between the four notional
parts of speech and substitutional parts of speech is also supported
by the fact that the latter are closed groups of words like
functional parts of speech.

The
three supra-classes are further subdivided into classes (the parts of
speech proper) and sub-classes (groups inside the parts of speech).
For example, nouns are divided into personal and common, animate and
inanimate, countable and uncountable, etc.; pronouns are subdivided
into personal, possessive (conjoint and absolute), objective
pronouns, demonstrative, reflexive, relative, etc.; numerals are
subdivided into cardinal and ordinal, et

The
field approach, which was outlined in the previous units, also helps
clarify many disputable points in the traditional classification of
parts of speech. The borderlines between the classes of words are not
rigid; instead of borderlines there is a continuum of numerous
intermediary phenomena, combining the features of two or more major
classes of words. Field theory states that in each class of words
there is a core, the bulk of its members that possess all the
characteristic features of the class, and a periphery (marginal
part), which includes the words of mixed, dubious character,
intermediary between this class and other classes. For example, the
non-finite forms of the verb (the infinitive, the gerund, participles
I and II) make up the periphery of the verbal class: they lack some
of the features of a verb, but possess certain features
characteristic to either nouns, or adjectives, or adverbs. There are
numerous intermediary phenomena that form a continuum between the
notional and functional supra-classes; for example, there are adverbs
whose functioning is close to that of conjunctions and prepositions,
e.g.: however, nevertheless, besides, etc. Notional words of broad
meaning are similar in their functioning to the substitutive
functioning of the pronouns, e.g.: He speaks English better than I
do; Have you seen my pen? I can’t find the wretched thing. Together
with the regular pronouns they form the stages of the paradigmatic
series, in which the four notional parts of speech are substitutively
represented, cf.: one, it, thing, matter, way… — do, make, act…-
such, similar same… — thus, so, there…

The
implementation of the field approach to the distribution of words in
parts of speech was formulated by the Russian linguists G. S. Schur
and V. G. Admoni.

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Definition of a Word

A word is a speech sound or a combination of sound having a particular meaning for an idea, object or thought and has a spoken or written form. In English language word is composed by an individual letter (e.g., ‘I’), I am a boy, or by combination of letters (e.g., Jam, name of a person) Jam is a boy. Morphology, a branch of linguistics, deals with the structure of words where we learn under which rules new words are formed, how we assigned a meaning to a word? how a word functions in a proper context? how to spell a word? etc.

Examples of word: All sentences are formed by a series of words. A sentence starts with a word, consists on words and ends with a word. Therefore, there is nothing else in a sentence than a word. 

Some different examples are: Boy, kite, fox, mobile phone, nature, etc.

Different Types of Word

There are many types of word; abbreviation, acronym, antonym, back formation, Clipped words (clipping), collocation, compound words, Content words, contractions, derivation, diminutive, function word, homograph, homonym, homophone, legalism, linker, conjunct, borrowed, metonym, monosyllable, polysyllable, rhyme, synonym, etc. Read below for short introduction to each type of word.

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a word that is a short form of a long word.

Example: Dr for doctor, gym for gymnasium

Acronym

Acronym is one of the commonly used types of word formed from the first letter or letters of a compound word/ term and used as a single word.

Example: PIA for Pakistan International Airline

Antonym

An antonym is a word that has opposite meaning of an another word

Example: Forward is an antonym of word backward or open is an antonym of word close.

Back formation

Back formation word is a new word that is produced by removing a part of another word.

Example: In English, ‘tweeze’ (pluck) is a back formation from ‘tweezers’.

Clipped words

Clipped word is a word that has been clipped from an already existing long word for ease of use.

Example: ad for advertisement

Collocation

Collocation is a use of certain words that are frequently used together in form of a phrase or a short sentence.

Example: Make the bed,

Compound words

Compound words are created by placing two or more words together. When compound word is formed the individual words lose their meaning and form a new meaning collectively. Both words are joined by a hyphen, a space or sometime can be written together. 

Example: Ink-pot, ice cream,

Content word

A content word is a word that carries some information or has meaning in speech and writing.

Example:  Energy, goal, idea.

Contraction

A Contraction is a word that is formed by shortening two or more  words and  joining them by an apostrophe.

Example:  ‘Don’t’ is a contraction of the word ‘do not’.

Derivation

Derivation is a word that is derived from within a language or from another language.

Example: Strategize (to make a plan) from strategy (a plan).

Diminutive

Diminutive is a word that is formed by adding a diminutive suffix with a word.

Example: Duckling by adding suffix link with word duck.

Function word

Function word is a word that is mainly used for expressing some grammatical relationships between other words in a sentence.

Example: (Such as preposition, or auxiliary verb) but, with, into etc.

Homograph

Homograph is a word that is same in written form (spelled alike) as another word but with a different meaning, origin, and occasionally pronounced with a different pronunciation

Example:  Bow for ship and same word bow for shooting arrows.

Homonym

Homonyms are the words that are spelled alike and have same pronunciation as another word but have a different meaning.

Example: Lead (noun) a material and lead (verb) to guide or direct.

Homophone

Homophones are the words that have same pronunciation as another word but differ in spelling, meaning, and origin.

Example: To, two, and too are homophones.

Hyponym

Hyponym is a word that has more specific meaning than another more general word of which it is an example.

Example: ‘Parrot’ is a hyponym of ‘birds’.

Legalism

Legalism is a type of word that is used in law terminology.

Example: Summon, confess, judiciary

Linker/ conjuncts

Linker or conjuncts are the words or phrase like ‘however’ or ‘what’s more’ that links what has already been written or said to what is following.

Example: however, whereas, moreover.

Loanword/ borrowed

A loanword or borrowed word is a word taken from one language to use it in another language without any change.

Example: The word pizza is taken from Italian language and used in English language

Metonym

Metonym is a word which we use to refer to something else that it is directly related to that.

Example: ‘Islamabad’ is frequently used as a metonym for the Pakistan government.

Monosyllable

Monosyllable is a word that has only one syllable.

Example: Come, go, in, yes, or no are monosyllables.

Polysyllable

Polysyllable is a word that has two or more than two syllables.

Example: Interwoven, something or language are polysyllables.

Rhyme

Rhyme is a type of word used in poetry that ends with similar sound as the other words in stanza.

Example; good, wood, should, could.

Synonym

Synonym is a word that has similar meaning as another word.

Example: ‘happiness’ is a synonym for ‘joy’.

The words of language are divided into grammatically relevant

sets, or classes. Parts of speech are grammatical (or lexico-grammatical)

classes of words identified on the basis of the three criteria: the

meaning common to all the words of the given class, the form with

the morphological characteristics of a type of word, and the function 20

in the sentence typical of all the words of this class (e. g. the English

noun has the categorical meaning of “thingness”, the changeable

forms of number and case, and the functions of the subject, object and

substantive predicative).

The notion of “parts of speech” goes back to the times of Ancient

Greece. Aristotle (384–322 B. C.) distinguished between nouns,

verbs and connectives. Traditional grammars of English, following

the approach which can be traced back to Latin, agreed that there

were eight parts of speech in English: the noun, pronoun, adjective,

verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection. Some books

additionally mentioned the article. A. I. Smirnitsky and B. A .Ilyish are

Russian scholars of English grammar notable, among other things, for

the development of the three-criteria characterization of the parts of

speech.

Modern classifications, proposed by different scholars, distinguish,

as a rule, between notional parts of speech, having a full nominative

value, and functional parts of speech characterized by a partial

nominative value. The complete lists of notional and functional words,

ever mentioned in those classifications, include the following items.

Notional words: Functional words:

1) nouns; 1) prepositions;

2) adjectives; 2) conjunctions;

3) verbs; 3) articles;

4) adverbs; 4) particles;

5) pronouns; 5) postpositions.

6) numerals;

7) statives;

modal words;

9) interjections.

The main problem with the traditional classification is that some

grammatical phenomena given above have intermediary features in

this system. They make up a continuum, a transition zone, between the

polar entities. For example, there is a very specific group of quantifiers

in English (such words as many, much, little, few). They have features

of pronouns, numerals, and adjectives and are referred to as “hybrids.

Statives can be considered as making up a separate part of speech

(according to B. A. Ilyish), or as a specific group within the class of

adjectives (according to M. Y. Blokh).

There are hardly any reasons for the identification of postpositions

as a separate functional class because these are prepositions and adverbs

in a specific lexical modifying function. The separate notional class

of modal words in this system is open to criticism because they are

adverbs by nature. The same refers to the functional class of particles.

The grammatical status of the English article is not clear enough;

in linguistic literature there are variants of its interpretation as a sort of

an auxiliary word or even a detached morpheme.

In general, the items of the traditional part-of-speech system

demonstrate different featuring. Sometimes one or even two of the three

criteria of their identification may fail. Let’s review the system in detail.

Noun is characterized by the categorical meaning of “thingness”,

or substance. It has the changeable forms of number and case. The

substantive functions in the sentence are those of the subject, object

and predicative.

Adjectives are words expressing properties of objects. There

are qualitative and relative adjectives. The forms of the degrees of

comparison are typical of qualitative adjectives. Adjectival functions in

the sentence are those of attribute and predicative.

Verb is characterized by the categorial meaning of process expressed

by both finite and non-finite forms. The verb has the changeable forms

of the 6 categories: person, number, tense, aspect, voice and mood. The

syntactic function of the finite verb is that of predicate. The non-finite

forms of the verb (Infinitive, Gerund, Participle I, Participle II) perform

all the other functions (subject, object, attribute, adverbial modifier,

predicative).

Adverbs have the categorical meaning of the secondary property,

i. e. the property of process or another property. They are characterized

by the forms of the degrees of comparison (for qualitative adverbs) and

the functions of various adverbial modifiers.

Pronouns point to the things and properties without naming them.

The categorial meaning of indication (deixis) is the only common feature 22

that unites the heterogeneous groups of English personal, possessive,

demonstrative, interrogative, relative, conjunctive, indefinite, defining,

negative, reflexive, and reciprocal pronouns.

Numerals have the categorical meaning of number (cardinal and

ordinal). They are invariable in English and used in the attributive and

substantive functions.

Statives are words of the category of state, or qualifying a-words,

which express a passing state a person or thing happens to be in (e. g.

aware, alive, asleep, afraid etc).

Modal words express the attitude of the speaker to the situation

reflected in the sentence and its parts. Here belong the words of

probability (probably, perhaps, etc), of qualitative evaluation

(  fortunately, unfortunately, luckily, etc) and also of affirmation and

negation.

Interjection, occupying a detached position in the sentence, is a signal of emotions. Preposition expresses the dependencies and interdependencies of

substantive referents.

Conjunction expresses connections of phenomena.

Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the

noun in communicative collocations. The article expresses the specific

limitation of the substantive function.

Particle unites the functional words of specifying and limiting

meaning (even, just, only, etc).

Each part of speech is further subdivided into groups and subgroups

in accord with various semantic, formal and functional features of

constituent words. Thus, nouns are subcategorized into proper and

common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, concrete

and abstract, etc. Verbs are subcategorized into fully predicative and

partially predicative, transitive and intransitive, actional and statal,

terminative and durative, etc. Adjectives are subcategorized into

qualitative and relative, etc.

When taking some definitions of the parts of speech, one cannot

but see that they are difficult to work with. When linguists began to

look closely at English grammatical structure in the 1940s and 1950s, 23

they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that

the term “part of speech” soon fell out of favour, “word class” being

introduced instead. Of the various alternative systems of word classes

attempted by different scholars, the one proposed by Ch. C. Fries is of

a particular interest. Ch. C. Fries developed the syntactico-distributional

classification of words based on the study of their position in the sentence

and combinability. It was done by means of substitution tests. Tape recorded spontaneous conversations comprising about 250,000 word entries provided the material. The words isolated from that corpus were

tested on the three typical sentence patterns (substitution test-frames)

with the marked main positions of notional words:

1 2 3 4

Frame A. The concert was good (always).

1 2 1 4

Frame B. The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly).

1 2 4

Frame C. The team went there.

The notional words could fill in the marked positions of the frames

without affecting their general structural meanings (“thing and its

quality at a given time” for the first frame; “actor — action — thing

acted upon” for the second frame; “actor — action — direction of the

action” for the third frame).

As a result of successive substitution tests on the given frames,

4 positional classes of notional words were identified. They corresponded

to the traditional grammatical classes of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and

adverbs. The other words (154 units) were unable to fill in the marked

notional positions of the frames without destroying their structural

meanings. Ch. C. Fries distributed them into 15 groups of function

words representing the three main sets: 1) the specifiers of notional

words (the determiners of nouns, modal verbs, functional modifiers

and the intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs); 2) the interpositional

elements (prepositions and conjunctions); 3) the words, referring to

the sentence as a whole (question-words; inducement words: let, let’s,

please, etc; attention-getting words; words of affirmation and negation;

sentence introducers it, there; and some others).

Working bibliography

1.Иванова И. П. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка / И. П. Иванова, В. В. Бурлакова, Г. Г. Почепцов. М., 1981.С. 14–20.

2.Прибыток И. И. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка/И. И. Прибыток. М., 2008. С. 25–30.

3.Blokh M. Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar / M. Y. Blokh. Moscow, 2004. P. 37–48.

4.Crystal D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language / D. Crystal. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1995. P. 206–207.

5.Ilyish B. A. The Structure of Modern English / B. A. Ilyish. Leningrad, 1971. P. 27–35