What part of speech is the word book

The word “THE” is a Definite Article and an Adverb.Take a look at the definitions and examples below and you will see how this little word can be used as different parts of speech.

 1. Definite Article

This word “The” is considered as a definite article because it is used to refer to something specific. It is also placed before a noun, if the audience already knows what is being referred to (there is only one or the subject has already been mentioned). For example, let’s look at the sentence below:

“The pope will visit the Philippines in 2015.”

“The” is used because there is only one pope in the whole world.

Definition:

a. used to indicate a person or thing that has already been mentioned or seen or is clearly understood from the situation

• Joe is the tallest boy in class.

b. used to refer to things or people that are common in daily life

• The moon is aligned between the Sun and the Earth.

c. used to refer to things that occur in nature

• The inner planets of the solar system are denser compared to the outer planets.

2. Adverb

Aside from acting as a definite article, “The” can also be used as an adverb. Take for example the sentence below:

“Since getting a new computer, he was able to produce outputs all the quicker.”

In that sentence, “the” serves as an adverb because it modifies the adjective quicker. Take note that the word can only be used as an adverb if it is used together with an adjective or another adverb which is in the comparative degree.

Definition:

a. than before: than otherwise —used before a comparative

• The sooner the better.

b. to what extent

• Mercury is the most cratered planet in our Solar System.

c. beyond all others

• The more the merrier.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what part of speech a word is, you’re not alone. In this lesson, we’ll explore how to answer that question as well as why that answer can seem a bit confusing. You’ll also find a quiz at the bottom of the page so that you can test yourself, along with a free PDF download. Jackpot!

Pop quiz, hot shot! Let’s say you’re at the grocery store deciding between chunky and creamy peanut butter (tough choice) when someone walks up to you and asks, «What part of speech is the word love?»

Obviously, the first thing to do is run away from this person. But then, your mind might linger on that question, and you might start to wonder Hmm … what part of speech is the word love anyway?

At that point, you would probably think of some example sentences to figure it out.

I love peanut butter. 

From this sentence, you might conclude that love is a verb since you know that verbs express action, and love is showing an action in this sentence.

You wouldn’t be wrong, but then you might think of this sentence:

Love for peanut butter brought me to the store today. 

Wait a minute! Here, love is a noun. It’s an idea, and it’s the subject of the sentence. What’s the deal? How can love be a verb and a noun?

Here’s a secret about the parts of speech that many people don’t realize: 

Many words can function as more than one part of speech.

They will only be doing one part-of-speech job at a time, though. In our example sentences above, we can see that love can be a verb and a noun, and we can also see that it’s doing just one of those jobs in each sentence.

How can you figure out what part(s) of speech a word can be, and how will you know what the word is acting as in any given sentence?

The first thing to do is to study the parts of speech and understand how they work. 

Here’s what you can do after you have a sense of what the parts of speech are and how they work:

Let’s look at two examples of words acting as different parts of speech.

We’ll look at the words for and iron, and we’ll see them acting as different parts of speech. We’ll also take a peek at what the dictionary says for each word. 

What part of speech are the words in bold?

For

I asked for pie. (preposition)

I cried, for I knew that the pie was gone. (conjunction)

Iron

Where is the iron? (noun)

Please iron my shirt. (verb)

Test Yourself

I. Label the Parts of Speech

Directions: Name the part of speech for the underlined word in each sentence. Use a dictionary if you need one. For extra credit, diagram the sentences. Scroll down to see the answers.

II. Write Your Own Sentences

Directions: Write your own sentences using the words below. Make sure the word is being used as the part of speech indicated on the left side. Underline the word in your sentence. The first one is done for you. Feel free to use a dictionary!

1. Drive

Noun: The long drive through the countryside lifted my spirits.

Verb: I always drive within the speed limit.

2. Baby

Noun: ___________________________________

Adjective: ________________________________

Verb: ___________________________________

3. Up

Preposition: ________________________________

Adverb: ___________________________________

Answers

I. Label the Parts of Speech

* The sentence diagrams for 4, 5, 9, and 10 are available in the downloadable version of this lesson.

Answers for II. Write Your Own Sentences are also available in the free, downloadable version of this lesson.

Would you like to see another example of this concept? Let’s look at how the word balance can be a noun or a verb, and how it can help you think about your life.

The analysis of structures consisting of what I’ll start by calling a verb + an adverby- or prepositiony- word, is difficult.

Sometimes (perhaps most often), as John Lawler indicates, it is best to consider the whole structure — even if there may be / must be intervening words — as a unit. This then constitutes a multi-word verb (MWV). Often, there is a single-word paraphrase,

eg the plane touched down = the plane landed

though there doesn’t need to be:

Big Al knocked Elliot out (unless one allows KO’d). Notice that the verbs touched and knocked would not carry the same meaning (in fact touch cannot be strictly intransitive).

However, this is not always the case.

Although ‘put the book back on the table’ has a single-word verb equivalent (‘replace the book on the table’), the very similar ‘pass the book back to Tom’ and ‘kick the ball back under the table’ have not. It seems illogical to argue that ‘put back’ is much more firmly bound than ‘pass back’ and ‘kick back’ are here. In the latter examples, the back arguably modifies (further describes) the process described by the bare verb. One could also argue that it describes the resulting state (which is an adjectival function!)

In ‘Back on the table, the book was soon spotted by the boy who had left it,’ the issue is further complicated.

Every word is a part of speech, each playing a specific role in a sentence. There are 8 different parts of speech including noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Each word in a sentence plays a vital role in conveying the meaning and intent of the sentence.

What is Part of Speech?

The English language has thousands of words and every word has some function to perform. Some words are there to show action, some to join, and some to name something. And together, all the functions performed by words in the English language fall under Parts of speech.           
 

Parts of Speech Definition

The parts of speech are the “traditional grammatical categories to which words are assigned in accordance with their syntactic functions, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and so on.” In other words, they refer to the different roles that words can play in a sentence and how they relate to one another based on grammar and syntax.

Parts of Speech Table

Types	Function	Examples	Sentences
Noun	Refers Things or person	Pen, Chair, Ram, Honesty	Cars are expensive. This chair is of wood. Ram is a topper. Honesty is the best policy.
Pronoun	Replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, it, they	They are expensive. It is of wood. He is a topper. It is the best policy
Adjective	Describes a noun	Super, Red, Our, Big, Great class	Super cars are expensive Red chair is for kids Ram is a class topper. Great things take time.
Verb	Describes action or state	Play, be, work, love, like	I play football I will be a doctor I like to work I love writing poem.
Adverb	Describes a verb, adjective or adverb	Silently, too, very	I love reading silently. It is too tough to handle. He can speak very fast.
Preposition	Links a noun to another word	at, in, of, after, under,	The ball is under the table. I am at a restaurant. she is in trouble. I am going after her. It is so nice of him
Conjunction	Joins clauses and sentences	and, but, though, after	First, I will go to college and then I may go to fest. I don’t have a car but I know how to drive. She failed the exam though she worked hard. He will come after he finish his match.
Interjection	Shows exclamation	oh!, wow!, alas! Hurray!	Oh! I got fail again. Wow! I got the job. Alas! She is no more. Hurray! we are going to party.

Parts of Speech Examples with Sentences

Noun

Examples: Luggage, Cattle.

Sentence:  Never leave your luggage unattended.

In some places, cattle are fed barely.

Pronoun

Examples: who, either, themselves

Sentence: I know a man who plays the guitar very well.

Either of the two cars is for sale.

They enjoyed themselves at the party.

Adjective

Examples: kind, moving, wounder.

Sentence: 

She is a kind person.

Boarding a moving bus can be dangerous.

Never poke a wounded animal.

Verb

Examples: Praise, Hate, Punish

Sentence: She always praises her friends.

I don’t hate anybody.

The boy has been punished by his teacher

Adverb

Examples: Always, enough, immediately

Sentence: we should always help each other.

We should be wise enough to understand what is good for us.

We should leave bad habits immediately.

Preposition

Examples: Off, Below, From. to

Sentence: 

He plunged off the cliff

I live below the 9th floor.

I travel daily from Delhi to Noida.

Conjunction

Examples: whereas, as well as, so, 

Sentence: The new software is fairly simple whereas the old one was a bit complicated.

The finance company is not performing well as well as some of its competitors.

He was ready so he may come. 

Interjection

Examples: oops! whoa! phew! 

Sentence: Oops! I forgot to mention her name.

Whoa! you drive fast. 

Phew! That was close call, we had a narrow escape.

Parts of Speech Quiz

Choose the correct Parts of Speech of the BOLD word from the following questions.

1. Let us play, Shall We?

       a. Conjunction

       b. Pronoun

       c. Verb

2.  It is a good practice to arrange books on shelves.

      a. Verb

      b. Noun

      c. Adjective

3. Whose books are these?

      a. Pronoun

     b. Preposition

     c. verb

4.  Father, please get me that toy. 

     a. Pronoun

     b. Adverb

     c. Adjective

5.  His mentality is rather obnoxious.

     a. Adverb

     b. Adjective

     c. Noun

6.  He is the guy whose money got stolen.

      a. Pronoun

      b. Conjunction

      c. Adjective

7. I will have finished my semester by the end of this year.

      a. Interjection

      b. Conjunction

      c. Preposition

8. Bingo! That’s the one I have been looking for

    a. Interjection

     b. Conjunction

     c. Preposition

Quiz Answers

1. c,  2. b,  3. a,  4. c,  5. a,  6. b,  7. c,  8. a

FAQs on Parts of Speech

Q1. What are Parts of Speech?

Ans. A word is assigned to a category as per its function, and those categories are together known as Parts of Speech.

Q2. What are the 8 Parts of Speech?

Ans. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection.

Q3. How many Parts of Speech are there?

Ans. There are a total of 8 parts of Speech.

Q4. What Part of Speech is “our”?

Ans. Adjective. Eg. Our car.

Q5. What Part of Speech is “Quickly”?

Ans. Adverb. let us understand it with this example – Milk sours quickly in warm weather.

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 ].