What part of speech is the word according to

The words
of language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are
divided into classes. The traditional grammatical classes of words
are called “parts of speech”, since the word is distinguished not
only by grammatical, but also by semantico-lexemic properties, some
scholars also refer to parts of speech as lexico-grammatical
categories (Смирницкий).

It should
be noted that the term “parts of speech” is purely traditional
and conventional. This name was introduced in the grammatical
teaching of Ancient Greece, where no strict differenciation was drawn
between the word as a vocabulary unit and the word as a functional
element of the sentence.

In modern
linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of the
three criteria: “semantic, formal and functional” (Щерба).

The
semantic criterion presupposes (предполагать,
заключать
в
себя)
the generalized meaning, which is characteristic of all the words
constituting (составлять)
a given part of speech. This meaning is understood as the categorical
meaning of the part of speech.

The formal
criterion exposes (выставлять
на
показ)
the specific inflexional and derivational (word-building) features of
part a part of speech.

The
functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the
sentence, typical of a part of speech.

These
three factors of categorical characterization of words are referred
to as ‘meaning’, form and function.

The
three-criteria characterization of parts of speech was developed and
applied to practice in Soviet linguistics. Three names are especially
notable for the elaboration of these criteria: V.V. Vinogradov
in connection with the study of Russian Grammar, A.I. Smirnitskyand
B.A. Ilyish in connection with their study of English Grammar.

Alongside
of the three-criteria principle of dividing the words into
grammatical classes modern linguistics has developed another,
narrower principle based on syntactic featuring of words only.

On
the material of Russian, the principle of syntactic approach to the
classification of word-stock were outlined in the works of A.M.
Peshkovsky. The principles of syntactic classification of English
words were worked out by L. Bloomfield and his followers L. Harris
and especially Ch. Fries.

Here
is how Ch. Fries presents his scheme of English word-classes.

For
his materials he chooses tape-recorded spontaneous conversations
which last 50 hours.

The
three typical sentences are:

Frames:

A.
The concert was good (always).

B.
The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly).

C.
The team went there.

As
a result he divides the words into 4 classes: class I, II, III, IV,
which correspond to the traditional nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs.

Thus,
class I includes all words which can be used in the position of the
words ‘concert’ (frame A), clerk and tax (frame B), team (frame C),
i.e. in the position of subject and object.

Class
II includes the words which have the position of the words ‘was’,
‘remembered’, ‘went’ in the given frames, i.e. in the position of the
predicate or part of the predicate.

Class
III includes the words having the position of ‘good’, and ‘new’, i.e.
in the position of the predicative or attribute.

And
the words of class IV are used in the position of ‘there’ in Frame C,
i.e. of an adverbial modifier.

These
classes are subdivided into subtypes.

Ch.
Fries sticks to the positional approach. Thus such words as man, he,
the others, another belong to class I as they can take the position
before the words of class II, i.e. before the finite verb.

Besides
the 4 classes, Fries finds 15 groups of function words. Following the
positional approach, he includes into one and the same group the
words of quite different types.

Thus,
group A includes all words, which can take the position of the
definite article ‘the’, such as: no, your, their, both, few, much,
John’s, our, four, twenty.

But
Fries admits, that some of these words may take the position of class
I in other sentences.

Thus,
this division is very complicated, one and the same word may be found
in different classes due to its position in the sentence. So Fries’
idea, though interesting, doesn’t reach its aim to create a new
classification of classes of words, but his material gives
interesting data concerning the distribution of words and their
syntactic valency.

Today
many scholars believe that it is difficult to classify English parts
of speech using one criterion.

Some
Soviet linguists class the English parts of speech according to a
number of features.

1.
Lexico-grammatical meaning: (noun — substance, adjective — property,
verb — action, numeral — number, etc).

2.
Lexico — grammatical morphemes: (-er, -ist, -hood — noun; -fy, -ize —
verb; -ful, -less — adjective, etc).

3.
Grammatical categories and paradigms.

4.
Syntactic functions

5.
Combinability (power to combine with other words).

In
accord with the described criteria, words are divided into notional
and functional, which reflects their division in the earlier
grammatical tradition into changeable and unchangeable.

To
the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun,
the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.

To
the basic functional series of words in English belong the article,
the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the
interjection.

The
difference between them may be summed up as follows:

1) Notional
parts
of speech express notions and function as sentence parts (subject,
object, attribute, adverbial modifier).

2) Notional
parts
of speech have a naming function and make a sentence by themselves:
Go!

***

1)
Functional
words
(or form-words) cannot be used as parts of the sentence and cannot
make a sentence by themselves.

2)
Functional
words
have no naming function but express relations.

3)
Functional
words
have a negative combinability but a linking or specifying function.
E.g. prepositions and conjunctions are used to connect words, while
particles and articles — to specify them.

Each
part of speech is further subseries in accord with various particular
semantico-functional and formal features of the words.

Thus,
nouns are subdivided into proper and common, animate and unanimate,
countable and uncountable, conctrete and abstract.

E.g.
Mary-girl, man-earth, can-water, stone-honesty.

This
proves that the majority of English parts of speech has a field-like
structure.

The
theory of grammatical fields was worked out by V.G. Admoni on the
material of the German language.

The
essence of this theory is as follows. Every part of speech has words,
which obtain all the features of this part of speech. They are its
nucleus. But there are such words which don’t have all the features
of this part of speech, though they belong to it.

Consequently,
the field includes central and peripheral elements.

Because
of the rigid word-order in the English sentence and scantiness of
inflected forms, English parts of speech have developed a number of
grammatical meanings and an ability to be converted.

E.g.
It’s better to be a has-been than a never-was.

He
grows old. He grows roses.

The
conversation may be written one part of speech.

She
took off her glasses.

Give
me a glass of water.

The
person in the glass was making faces.

Don’t
break the glass when cleaning the window.

They
are called variants of one part of speech. Because of homonymy and
polysemy many notional words may have the same form as functional
words.

E.g.
He grows roses — He grows old.

Professor
Ilyish objects to the division of words into notional and functional
(formal) parts of speech. He says that prepositions and conjunctions
are no less notional than nouns and verbs, as they also express some
relations and connections existing independently.

Соседние файлы в папке Gosy

• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #
• #

The word “TO” can be used as a  Preposition and as an Adverb. Take a look at the definitions and examples below to learn how “TO” works as these parts of speech.

1. Preposition

“To” can be considered as a preposition if it is used to indicate that a noun/pronoun is moving towards something. For instance, read the sample sentence below:

“I am heading to the fire exit.”

The word “to” shows that the pronoun “I” is moving in the direction of the “fire exit.”

Definition:

a. expressing motion in the direction of a particular location

• Examples:
• He ran to the kitchen.

b. identifying the person or thing affected

• Examples:
• She went to the Church.

c. identifying a particular relationship between one person and another

• Examples:
• Come to me.

2. Adverb

In some cases, the word “to” can also be considered as an adverb if it is used to modify a verb. Take the example below:

“My mom came in and pushed the door to.”

In this example, the word “to” is considered as an adverb because it modifies or is referring to the verb “pushed.”

Definition:

a. so as to be closed or nearly closed

• Examples:
• She pulled the door to behind her.
• The wind blew the window to.

b. into a state of being awake or conscious

• Examples:
• When she came to, she was lying on the floor with her hands and feet tied up.

AN-244

Phrasal Syntax
seminar

Marosán Lajos

Parts of Speech

Tarr Dániel

1995

Parts of Speech

Parts
of Speech are words classified
according to their functions in sentences, for purposes of traditional
grammatical analysis. According to traditional grammars eight parts of speech
are usually identified: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions,
pronouns, verbs, and interjections.

                          
Noun                                    girl, man, dog,
orange, truth …

  
                        Pronoun                               I, she, everyone,
nothing, who …

                          
Verb                                     be, become,
take, look, sing …

                          
Adjective                              small, happy, young,
wooden …

                          
Adverb                                 slowly, very,
here, afterwards, nevertheless

                          
Preposition                           at, in, by, on, for,
with, from, to …

                          
Conjunction                         and, but, because,
although, while …

                          
Interjection                           ouch, oh, alas, grrr,
psst …

Most
of the major language groups spoken today, notably the Indo-European languages
and Semitic languages, use almost the identical categories; Chinese, however,
has fewer parts of speech than English.[1]

The
part of speech classification is the center of all traditional grammars.
Traditional grammars generally provide short definitions for each part of
speech, while many modern grammars, using the same categories, refer to them as
“word-classes” or “form-classes”. To preface our discussion, we will do the
same:

Nouns

A noun
(Latin nomen, “name”) is usually defined as a word denoting a thing, place,
person, quality, or action and functioning in a sentence as the subject or
object of action expressed by a verb or as the object of a preposition. In
modern English, proper nouns, which are always capitalized and denote
individuals and personifications, are distinguished from common nouns. Nouns
and verbs may sometimes take the same form, as in Polynesian languages. Verbal
nouns, or gerunds, combine features of both parts of speech. They occur in the
Semitic and Indo-European languages and in English most commonly with words
ending in -ing.

Nouns
may be inflected to indicate gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), number,
and case. In modern English, however, gender has been eliminated, and
only two forms, singular and plural, indicate number (how many perform or
receive an action). Some languages have three numbers: a singular form
(indicating, for example, one book), a plural form (indicating three or more
books), and a dual form (indicating, specifically, two books). English has
three cases of nouns: nominative (subject), genitive
(possessive), and objective (indicating the relationship between the
noun and other words).

Adjectives

An
adjective is a word that modifies, or qualifies, a noun or pronoun, in
one of three forms of comparative degree: positive (strong, beautiful), comparative
(stronger, more beautiful), or superlative (strongest, most beautiful).
In many languages, the form of an adjective changes to correspond with the
number and gender of the noun or pronoun it modifies.

Adverbs

An
adverb is a word that modifies a verb (he walked slowly), an adjective
(a very good book), or another adverb (he walked very slowly). Adverbs may
indicate place or direction (where, whence), time (ever,
immediately), degree (very, almost), manner (thus, and words
ending in —ly, such as wisely), and belief or doubt (perhaps,
no). Like adjectives, they too may be comparative (wisely, more wisely, most
wisely).

Prepositions

Words
that combine with a noun or pronoun to form a phrase are termed prepositions.
In languages such as Latin or German, they change the form of the noun or
pronoun to the objective case (as in the equivalent of the English
phrase “give to me”), or to the possessive case (as in the phrase “the
roof of the house”).

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are the words that connect sentences, clauses,
phrases, or words, and sometimes paragraphs. Coordinate conjunctions
(and, but, or, however, nevertheless, neither … nor) join independent clauses,
or parts of a sentence; subordinate conjunctions introduce subordinate
clauses (where, when, after, while, because, if, unless, since, whether).

Pronouns

A pronoun
is an identifying word used instead of a noun and inflected in the same way
nouns are. Personal pronouns, in English, are I, you, he/she/it, we, you
(plural), and they. Demonstrative pronouns are thus, that, and such.
Introducing questions, who and which are interrogative pronouns; when
introducing clauses they are called relative pronouns. Indefinite pronouns
are each, either, some, any, many, few, and all.

Verbs

Words
that express some form of action are called verbs. Their inflection,
known as conjugation, is simpler in English than in most other
languages. Conjugation in general involves changes of form according to person
and number (who and how many performed the action), tense (when
the action was performed), voice (indicating whether the subject of the
verb performed or received the action), and mood (indicating the frame
of mind of the performer). In English grammar, verbs have three moods: the indicative,
which expresses actuality; the subjunctive, which expresses contingency;
and the imperative, which expresses command (I walk; I might walk;
Walk!)

Certain
words, derived from verbs but not functioning as such, are called verbals.
In addition to verbal nouns, or gerunds, participles can serve as adjectives
(the written word), and infinitives often serve as nouns (to err is human).

Interjections

Interjections are exclamations such as oh, alas, ugh, or well (often
printed with an exclamation point). Used for emphasis or to express an
emotional reaction, they do not truly function as grammatical elements of a
sentence.[2]

    
It is useful to make a distinction and consider words as falling into two broad
categories; closed
class words and open class words. The former consists of classes that are finite (and
often small) with membership that is relatively stable and unchanging in the
language. These words play a major part in English grammar, often corresponding
to inflections in some other languages, and they are sometimes referred to as
‘grammatical words’, ‘function words’, or ‘structure words’. These terms also
stress their function in the grammatical sense, as structural markers, thus a
determiner typically signals the beginning of a noun phrase, a preposition the
beginning of a prepositional phrase, a conjunction the beginning of a clause. Closed
classes are: pronoun /she, they/, determiner /the, a/, primary
verb /be/, modal verb
/can, might/, preposition /in, of/, and conjunction /and, or/. Open classes are: noun /room, hospital/, adjective /happy, new/, full verb /grow, search/, and adverb /really, steadily/. To these two lesser
categories may be added: numerals /one, first/, and interjections /oh, aha/; and finally a small number of words
of unique function which do not easily fit into any of these classes /eg.: the negative particle not and the infinite
marker to/.

Quirk
and Greenbaum[3]point out the ambiguity of the term word, for
words are enrolled in their classes in their ‘dictionary form’, and not as they
might appear in sentences when they function as constituents of phrases. Since
words in their various grammatical forms appear in sentences that are normal
usage, it is more correct if we refer to them as lexical items. Thus, a lexical item is a word as it occurs in a
dictionary, where work, works, working, worked will all be counted as
different grammatical forms of the word work. This distinction however
is not always necessary, for it is only important with certain parts of speech
that have inflections; that is endings or modifications that change the
word-form into another. These are nouns /answer,
answers/, verbs /give, given/, pronouns /they, theirs/, adjectives
/large, largest/, and a few adverbs
/soon, sooner/ and determiners /few,
fewer/.

A word may belong to more than one class; for example round
is also a preposition /”drive round the corner”/ and an adjective
/”she has a round face”/. In such cases we can say that the same morphological form is a realization of more than one lexical item. A
morphological form may be simple, consisting of a stem only /eg.: play/,
or complex, consisting of more than one morpheme /eg.: playful/. The morphological form of a word is
therefore defined as composition of stems and affixes.

We
assign words to their various classes according to their properties in entering
phrasal or clausal structure. For example, determiners link up with nouns to
form noun phrases /eg.: a soldier/;
and pronouns can replace noun phrases /eg.:
him/. This is not to deny the general validity of traditional
definitions based on meaning. In fact it is impossible to separate grammatical
form from semantic factors. The distinction between generic /the tiger lives/ and specific /these tigers/, unmarked and marked
forms prove that.

Another
possible assignment is according to morphological characteristics, notably the
occurrence of derivational suffixes, which marks a word as a member of a
particular class. For example, the suffix -ness, marks an item as a noun
/kindness/, while the suffix  -less marks an item as an adjective
/helpless/. Such indicators help to identify word classes without
semantic factors.

For
the sake of completeness, it should also be added that a word also has a phonological and an orthographic form. Words which share the same phonological or
orthographic “shape”, but are morphologically unrelated are called homonyms /eg.: rose
(noun) and rose (past tense verb)/. Words with the same pronunciation
are specified as homophones, and words with the same spelling are determined as homographs. Words which partake the same morphological form are
called homomorphs /eg.: meeting
(noun) and meeting (verb)/. There is also a correspondence between words
with different morphological form, but same meaning. These are called synonyms. Of the three major kinds of equivalence, homonymy is
phonological and/or graphic, and synonymy is semantic.

      
We have to go back to the distinction of closed-class items and open-class
items, because this introduces a peculiarity of great importance. That is, closed-class items are ‘closed’ in the sense that they cannot normally
be extended by the creation of additional members. For example, it is very
unlikely for a new pronoun to develop. It is also very easy to list all the
members in a closed class. These items are said to be constitute a system in
being mutually exclusive: the decision to use one item in a given structure
excludes the possibility of using any other /the book or a
book, but not *a the book/. These items are also reciprocally
defining in meaning: it is less easy to state the meaning of any individual
item than to define it in relation to the rest of the system.

By
contrast open
class items belong to a class in that
they have the same grammatical properties and structural possibilities as other
members of the class (that is, as other nouns or verbs or adjectives or
adverbs), but the class is ‘open’ in the sense that it is indefinitely
extendible. New items can be created and no inventory can be made that would be
complete. This ultimately affects the way in which we attempt to define any
item in an open class; because while it is possible to relate the meaning of a
noun to another with which it has semantic affinity /eg.: house = chamber/,
one could not define it as not house, which is possible with closed
class items /this = not that/.

However,
the distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ parts of speech or word classes
must not be treated incautiously. On the on hand, it is not very easy to create
new words, and on the other, we must not overstate the extent to which we speak
of ‘closedness’, for new prepositions like by way of [4]are no means impossible. Although parts of speech have
deceptively specific labels, words tend to be rather heterogeneous. The adverb
and the verb are especially mixed classes, each having small and fairly well
defined groups of closed-system items alongside the indefinitely large
open-class items. So far as the verb is concerned, the closed-system subgroup
is known be the well established term “auxiliary”…

Some
mention must be finally made of two additional classes, numerals and interjections,
which are common in the difficulty of classifying them as either closed or open
classes. Numerals whether the cardinal numerals /one, two, three/,
or the ordinal numerals /first, second, third/, must be placed somewhere
between open-class and closed-class items: they resemble the former in that
they make up a class of infinite membership; but they resemble the latter in
that the semantic relations among them are mutually exclusive and mutually
defining. Interjections might be considered a closed class on the
grounds that those that are fully institutionalized are few in number. But
unlike the closed classes, they are grammatically peripheral — they do not
enter into constructions with other word classes, and they are only loosely
connected to sentences with which they may be orthographically or
phonologically associated.

       
A further and related contrast between words, is the distinction between stative
and dynamic. Broadly speaking, nouns can be characterized naturally
as ‘stative’ in that they refer to entities that are regarded as
stable, whether these are concrete /house, table/ or abstract /hope,
length/. On the other hand verbs and adverbs can equally naturally be
characterized as ‘dynamic’: verbs are fitted to indicate action, activity and
temporary or changing conditions; and adverbs in so far as they add a
particular condition of time, place, manner, etc. to the dynamic implication of
the verb.

But
it is not uncommon to find verbs which may be used either dynamically or
statively. If we say that “some specific tigers are living in a cramped
cage”, we imply that this is a temporary condition and the verb phrase is dynamic
in its use. On the other hand, when we say that “a species of animal known as
tiger lives in China”, the generic statement entails that this is not a
temporary circumstance and the verb phrase is stative. Moreover some verbs
cannot normally be used with the progressive aspect /*He is knowing English/
and therefore belong to the stative rather than the dynamic category. In
contrast to verbs, most nouns and adjectives are stative in that they denote a
phenomena or quality that is regarded for linguistic purposes as stable and
indeed for all practical purposes permanent /Jack is an engineer — Jack
is very tall/. Also adjectives can resemble verbs in referring to
transitionary conditions of behavior or activity. /He is being a nuisance
— He is being naughty/.

       
The names of the parts of speech are traditional, however, and neither in
themselves nor in relation to each other do these names give a safe guide to
their meaning, which instead is best understood in terms of their grammatical
properties. One fundamental relation is that grammar provides the means of
referring back to an expression without repeating it. This is achieved by means
of pro-forms. Participles and pronouns can serve
as replacements for a noun /the big
room and the small one/, more
usually, however, pronouns replace noun phrases rather than nouns /their beautiful new car was badly damaged when it was struck be a
falling tree/.

The
relationship which often obtains between a pronoun and its antecedent is not
one which can be explained by the simple act of replacement. In some
constructions we have repetition, which are by no means equivalent in meaning /Many students
did better than many students expected/. In some constructions repetition can be avoided by ellipsis /They hoped they would play a Mozart quartet and
they will/. Therefore the general term
pro-form is best applied to words and word sequences which are essentially
devices for rephrasing or anticipating the content of a neighboring expression,
often with the effect of grammatical complexity.

Such
devices are not limited to pronouns and participles: the word such can
described as a pro-form as there are pro-forms also for place, time and other
adverbials under certain circumstances /M.is
in London and J. is there too/.
In older English and still sometimes in very formal English we find thus and so
used as pro-forms for adverbials /He
often behaved silly, but he did not always behave thus/so/. But so has a more important function in
modern usage, namely to substitute with the ‘pro-verb’ do for a main
verb and whatever follows it in the clause /He
wished they would take him seriously for his ideas, but unfortunately
they didn’t do so/. Do can also
act as pro-form on its own /I told him
about it — I did too/.

Some
pro-forms can refer forward to what not been stated rather than back to what
has been stated. These are the wh-items. Indeed, wh-words,
including what, which, who and when, may be
regarded as a special set of pro-forms /Where is M.? — M. is in London. — J. is there too/. The paraphrase for wh-words is broad enough
to explain also their use in subordinate clauses /I wonder what M. thinks/. Through the use of wh-words we can ask for
the identification of subject, object, complement or adverbial of a sentence /They [S] make [V] him [O] the chairman [C] every year
[A]. — Who [S] makes him…?/.

         
Now that we have outlined the various aspects of Parts of Speech, according to
traditional grammars, we will look at some other approaches and other
specifications, without the sake of complexity, only to widen our views a
little more on the subject:

     
Otto Jespersen[5]starts out from the point that all clauses consist of
several words. One word is defined or modified by another word, which in turn
may be defined or modified by a third word. This leads to the establishment of
different ranks of words according to their mutual relations as defined or
defining. In the combination “extremely hot weather” weather may
be called a primary word or principal; hot
is a secondary word or
adjunct; and extremely is a
tertiary word or subjunct. Primary and secondary words are superior in relation to tertiary words; secondary and tertiary
words are inferior in relation to primary words. It is therefore
possible to have two or more (coordinate) adjuncts to the same principal /that
nice [A] young [A] lady [P]/.

The
logical basis of this system of subordination is the greater or lesser degree
of specialization. Primary words are more special (apply to a smaller number of individuals) than secondary
words, and these in their turn are less general than tertiary words. The word
defined by another word, is in itself always more special than the word
defining it, though the latter serves to render the former more special than it
is in itself. Thus in the sentence “very clever student”, student
is the most special idea, whereas clever can be applied to many more
men, and very, which indicates only a high degree, can be applied any
idea. Student is more special than clever, though clever
student is more special than student; clever is more special
than very, though very clever is more special than clever.

It
is a natural consequence of these definitions that proper nouns can only be
used as principals, and while there are thus some words that can only stand as
principals as expressing highly specialized ideas, there are other words that
may be either primary and secondary words in different combinations /conservative Liberals — liberal Conservatives/. Further there are words of such general signification
that they can never be used as primary words, like the articles.

His
further definitions of parts of speech fall under the categories of substantives (=principals), adjectives
(=adjuncts), adverbs (=subjuncts), verbs
(=verbs not subject to conjugation), verbids
(=participles and infinitives), predicatives (=‘mediate adjuncts’; {most commonly}a verb connecting two ideas in
such a way that the second becomes a kind of adjunct to the first (the
object)./Eg.: the rose is red/), objects (=primary words, but more special as well as more
general than the first principal /eg.: an owl sees a  bird/.), and pronouns
(= a separate “parts of speech”, understood differently according to the
situation in which they are used).

       
Lyons[6]
starts out from distinguishing formal
and nominal definitions. Nominal definitions of the parts of
speech may be used to determine the names, though not the membership, of the
major syntactic classes of English. Creating syntactic classes on ‘formal’
distributional grounds, with all the members of each of them listed in the
lexicon, associated with the grammar, will mean that though not all members of
class X will denote persons, places and things; most of the lexical items which
refer to persons, places and things will fall within it; and if this is so we
may call X the class of nouns. In other words we have ‘formal’ class X and
‘notional’ class A; they are not co-extensive, but if A is wholly or mainly
included in X, then X may be given the label suggested by the ‘notional’ definition
of A.

He
also points out the necessity of considering the distinction between deep and
surface structure and define parts of speech not as classes of words in
surface structure, but as deep-structure constituents of sentences. The
distinction between deep and surface structures is not made explicitly in
traditional grammar, but it is implied by the assumption that all clauses and
phrases are derived from simple, modally ‘unmarked’ sentences. It is asserted
that every simple sentence is made up of two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is necessarily a noun (or a pronoun standing for a noun).
The predicate falls into one of three types according to the part of speech
which occurs in it: 1. intransitive verb, 2. transitive verb with its object,
3. the ‘verb to be’ with its complement. The object, like the
subject, must be a noun, while the complement must either be an adjective, or a
noun.

Deriving
from these associations with particular parts of speech it is possible to
determine traditional parts of speech or their function solely on the basis of
constituent-structure relations. The class of nouns is the one constituent
class which all sentences have in common at the highest level of constituent
structure. The class of intransitive verbs is the only class which combines
directly with nouns to form sentences. The class of transitive verbs combine
with nouns and with no other class to form predicates. Be is the
copula-class, since it combines with both nouns and the class of adjectives.
This argument rests of course on the specific assumptions incorporated in the
syntactic function of the parts of speech; namely the status of the copula or
‘verb to be’, and the universality of the distinction between verbs and
adjectives.

‘To
be’ is not itself a constituent of deep structure, but a semantically-empty
“dummy verb” generated for the specification of certain distinctions (usually
carried by the verb) when there is no other verbal element to carry these
distinctions. Sentences that are temporally, modally and aspectually unmarked
do not need the dummy carrier /M. is clever/. As for the distinction
between verbs and adjectives it is traditionally referred to as to do with the
surface phenomenon of inflection. The adjective, when it occurs in predicative
position, does not take the verbal suffixes associated with distinctions of
tense, mood and aspect, but instead a dummy verb is generated by the grammar to
carry the necessary inflexional suffixes /M. is clever — *M. is
clever-s/. The verb is less freely transformed
to the position of modifier in the noun-phrase; but when it occurs in this
syntactic position, unlike the adjective, it bears the suffix -ing /the clever man — the singing man — *the clever-ing man/. A distinction between stative verbs and verbs of action is also relevant to English. Stative verbs do not
normally occur in the progressive form, while the majority of English verbs,
which occur freely in the progressive are called verbs of action. This
aspectual difference is matched by a similar difference in English adjectives.
Most adjectives are stative, in the sense that they do not normally take
progressive aspect when they occur in predicative position /M. is clever — *M. is being clever/, but there are a number of adjectives which occur
freely with the progressive in the appropriate circumstances /M. is being silly now/. In other words, to be stative is normal for the
class of adjectives, but abnormal for the verbs; to be non-stative is normal
for verbs, but abnormal for adjectives. It is, however, the aspectual contrast
which correlates with the notional definition of the verb and the adjective in
terms of “action” and “quality”.

          
To follow this argument Huddleston[7]points
out that nothing said about inflection requires that all the forms of a lexeme
should belong to the same part of speech. The main problem area concerns the
traditional non-finite forms of verb lexemes, participles, the gerund and the
infinitive. A participle is said to be a “verbal adjective”, while the gerund
and the infinitive are “verbal nouns”. According to traditional doctrine, a
gerund like writing in She likes writing letters is a noun
because it is the object of the verb like. This would lead traditional
grammarians to classify together as nouns words which are syntactically very
different. /Eg.: Writing the
letters took some time — The writing of the letters took some time/. Instead of saying that both are nouns because they
are subject of took, he suggests that we call writing a verb in the
former case, because it is the head of the extended verb phrase, and call it a
noun in the latter case, because it is a head of the noun phrase. Since the
relation between this later type of noun writing and the stem write
is lexical rather than inflectional, he calls this a “deverbal noun”, for it is
derived by a lexical-morphological process from a verb stem.

The
second problem area concerns possessives. In the traditional treatment of forms
like John’s in John’s book is regarded as an inflectional form of
the noun John but is also said to have the force of an adjective. This
is easily resolved in the light of the analyses of ‘s as a clitic rather
than an inflexional suffix: John’s is not syntactically a single word,
not a form of John, so that the issue of whether a lexeme and a member
of its paradigm belong to the same parts of speech does not arise.

References

Huddleston,
R. —
Introduction to the grammar of English .

                               
[ Cambridge University Press, 1984 ].

Jespersen,
O. —
Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles . (Vol. II.)

                               
[ Allen and Unwin, 1954, London ].

Lyons — Introduction
to Theoretical Linguistics .

                               
[ Cambridge University Press, 1968 ].

Mc
Cawley, J.D.
— The Syntactic Phenomena of English .

                               
[ The University of Chicago Press, 1988 ].

Quirk
& Greenbaum
— A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language .

                               
[Longman, 1983, London ].

Quirk
& Greenbaum
— A University Grammar of English .

                               
[ Longman, 1973 ].

Quirk
& Greenbaum
— A Student’s Grammar of the English Language .

                               
[ Longman, 1991 ].

Microsoft
(R) Encarta. 1994 Microsoft Corporation.

                               
[ Funk & Wagnall’s Corp., 1994 ].