Which part of speech is the word that

The word “THAT” can be used as a Definite Article, a Conjunction, an Adverb, Pronoun, and Adjective. Take a look at the definitions and examples below to learn how “THAT” works as different parts of speech.

1. Definite Article

“That” is classified as a definite article when it is used to indicate something/someone specific that the listeners or readers already know. For instance, read the sample sentence below:

“Pick up that book on the floor.”

The person being talked to knows exactly what “book” the speaker is referring to.

Definition:

a. refers to a specific person or thing, assuming that the person being addressed understands or is familiar with it

• Examples:
• Look at that old woman
• She lived in New York at that time.
• Where is that friend of yours?

  2.   Conjunction

Sometimes, “that” can also serve as a conjunction by combining two clauses. For instance, in the sentence:

“I bought the materials that are required for the project.”

“That“ is used to introduce the clause “…are required for the project.” It combines the dependent clause with the independent clause, “I bought the materials…”

Definition:

a. used to introduce a clause that is the subject or object of a verb

• Examples:
• He said that he was hungry.

b. used to introduce a clause that completes or explains the meaning of a previous noun or adjective or of the pronoun it

• Examples:
• She was so exhausted that she couldn’t think straight.

c. used to introduce a clause that states a reason or purpose

• Examples:
• The boss seems pleased that I wanted to pursue with the training.

  3.   Adverb

The word can also be used as an adverb, especially in verbal communication. It is normally used to show the intensity of a particular adjective. Take for example the sentence below:

“He is that old.”

In this sample sentence, the word “that” somehow intensifies and shows the degree of the adjective “old.”

Definition:

a. to the degree that is stated or suggested

• Examples:
• It wasn’t that difficult.

b. to the degree or extent indicated by a gesture

• Examples:
• She wouldn’t go that far.

c. to a great degree

• Examples:
• It was that wide, perhaps even wider.

  4.   Pronoun

In some cases, the word “that” also functions as a freestanding pronoun. Look at the sample sentence below:

“That’s exactly what I thought.”

It can be presumed that the word “that” is representing or replacing a specific thought.

Definition:

a. used to identify a specific person or thing observed by the speaker

• Examples:
• That is my brother with a new car.

b. referring to a specific thing previously mentioned, known, or understood

• Examples:
• It’s not as bad as all that.
• All the people that were left behind became infected with the virus.

  5.   Adjective

The word “that” functions as an adjective when it is used to modify a noun. It is also useful in clarifying which noun the speaker is referring to in the sentence. Take for example, the sentence below:

“That cat is so adorable.”

The word “that” modifies “cat” by emphasizing that it is the particular noun being referred to.

Definition:

a. used to indicate which person, thing, or idea is being shown, pointed to, or mentioned

• Examples:
• That building is the oldest in the city.
• Do you want this bag or that one?

b. used to indicate the one that is farther away or less familiar

• Examples:
• I don’t know how it got that way.

When you start breaking it down, the English language is pretty complicated—especially if you’re trying to learn it from scratch! One of the most important English words to understand is the.

But what part of speech is the word the, and when should it be used in a sentence? Is the word the a preposition? Is the a pronoun? Or is the word the considered a different part of speech?

To help you learn exactly how the word the works in the English language, we’re going to do the following in this article:

• Answer the question, «What part of speech is the?»
• Explain how to use the correctly in sentences, with examples
• Provide a full list of other words that are classified as the same part of speech as the in the English language

Okay, let’s get started learning about the word the!

In the English language the word the is classified as an article, which is a word used to define a noun. (More on that a little later.)

But an article isn’t one of the eight parts of speech. Articles are considered a type of adjective, so «the» is technically an adjective as well. However, «the» can also sometimes function as an adverb in certain instances, too.

In short, the word «the» is an article that functions as both an adjective and an adverb, depending on how it’s being used. Having said that, the is most commonly used as an article in the English language. So, if you were wondering, «Is the a pronoun, preposition, or conjunction,» the answer is no: it’s an article, adjective, and an adverb!

While we might think of an article as a story that appears in a newspaper or website, in English grammar, articles are words that help specify nouns.

The as an Article

So what are «articles» in the English language? Articles are words that identify nouns in order to demonstrate whether the noun is specific or nonspecific. Nouns (a person, place, thing, or idea) can be identified by two different types of articles in the English language: definite articles identify specific nouns, and indefinite articles identify nonspecific nouns.

The word the is considered a definite article because it defines the meaning of a noun as one particular thing. It’s an article that gives a noun a definite meaning: a definite article. Generally, definite articles are used to identify nouns that the audience already knows about. Here’s a few examples of how «the» works as a definite article:

We went to the rodeo on Saturday. Did you see the cowboy get trampled by the bull?

This (grisly!) sentence has three instances of «the» functioning as a definite article: the rodeo, the cowboy, and the bull. Notice that in each instance, the comes directly before the noun. That’s because it’s an article’s job to identify nouns.

In each of these three instances, the refers to a specific (or definite) person, place, or thing. When the speaker says the rodeo, they’re talking about one specific rodeo that happened at a certain place and time. The same goes for the cowboy and the bull: these are two specific people/animals that had one kinda terrible thing happen to them!

It can be a bit easier to see how definite articles work if you see them in the same sentence as an indefinite article (a or an). This sentence makes the difference a lot more clear:

A bat flew into the restaurant and made people panic.

Okay. This sentence has two articles in it: a and the. So what’s the difference? Well, you use a when you’re referring to a general, non-specific person, place, or thing because its an indefinite article. So in this case, using a tells us this isn’t a specific bat. It’s just a random bat from the wild that decided to go on an adventure.

Notice that in the example, the writer uses the to refer to the restaurant. That’s because the event happened at a specific time and at a specific place. A bat flew into one particular restaurant to cause havoc, which is why it’s referred to as the restaurant in the sentence.

The last thing to keep in mind is that the is the only definite article in the English language, and it can be used with both singular and plural nouns. This is probably one reason why people make the mistake of asking, «Is the a pronoun?» Since articles, including the, define the meaning of nouns, it seems like they could also be combined with pronouns. But that’s not the case. Just remember: articles only modify nouns.

Adjectives are words that help describe nouns. Because «the» can describe whether a noun is a specific object or not, «the» is also considered an adjective.

The as an Adjective

You know now that the is classified as a definite article and that the is used to refer to a specific person, place, or thing. But defining what part of speech articles are is a little bit tricky.

There are eight parts of speech in the English language: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. The thing about these eight parts of speech in English is that they contain smaller categories of types of words and phrases in the English language. Articles are considered a type of determiner, which is a type of adjective.

Let’s break down how articles fall under the umbrella of «determiners,» which fall under the umbrella of adjectives. In English, the category of «determiners» includes all words and phrases in the English language that are combined with a noun to express an aspect of what the noun is referring to. Some examples of determiners are the, a, an, this, that, my, their, many, few, several, each, and any. The is used in front of a noun to express that the noun refers to a specific thing, right? So that’s why «the» can be considered a determiner.

And here’s how determiners—including the article the—can be considered adjectives. Articles and other determiners are sometimes classified as adjectives because they describe the nouns that they precede. Technically, the describes the noun it precedes by communicating specificity and directness. When you say, «the duck,» you’re describing the noun «duck» as referring to a specific duck. This is different than saying a duck, which could mean any one duck anywhere in the world!

When «the» comes directly before a word that’s not a noun, then it’s operating as an adverb instead of an adjective.

The as an Adverb

Finally, we mentioned that the can also be used as an adverb, which is one of the eight main parts of speech we outlined above. Adverbs modify or describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, but never modify nouns.

Sometimes, the can be used to modify adverbs or adjectives that occur in the comparative degree. Adverbs or adjectives that compare the amounts or intensity of a feeling, state of being, or action characterizing two or more things are in the comparative degree. Sometimes the appears before these adverbs or adjectives to help convey the comparison!

Here’s an example where the functions as an adverb instead of an article/adjective:

Lainey believes the most outrageous things.

Okay. We know that when the is functioning as an adjective, it comes before a noun in order to clarify whether it’s specific or non-specific. In this case, however, the precedes the word most, which isn’t a noun—it’s an adjective. And since an adverb modifies an adjective, adverb, or verb, that means the functions as an adverb in this sentence.

We know that can be a little complicated, so let’s dig into another example together:

Giovanni’s is the best pizza place in Montana.

The trick to figuring out whether the article the is functioning as an adjective or an adverb is pretty simple: just look at the word directly after the and figure out its part of speech. If that word is a noun, then the is functioning as an adjective. If that word isn’t a noun, then the is functioning like an adverb.

Now, reread the second example. The word the comes before the word best. Is best a noun? No, it isn’t. Best is an adjective, so we know that the is working like an adverb in this sentence.

How to Use The Correctly in Sentences

An important part of answering the question, «What part of speech is the word the?» includes explaining how to use the correctly in a sentence. Articles like the are some of the most common words used in the English language. So you need to know how and when to use it! And since using the as an adverb is less common, we’ll provide examples of how the can be used as an adverb as well.

Using The as an Article

In general, it is correct and appropriate to use the in front of a noun of any kind when you want to convey specificity. It’s often assumed that you use the to refer to a specific person, place, or thing that the person you’re speaking to will already be aware of. Oftentimes, this shared awareness of who, what, or where «the» is referring to is created by things already said in the conversation, or by context clues in a given social situation.

Let’s look at an example here:

Say you’re visiting a friend who just had a baby. You’re sitting in the kitchen at your friend’s house while your friend makes coffee. The baby, who has been peacefully dozing in a bassinet in the living room, begins crying. Your friend turns to you and asks, «Can you hold the baby while I finish doing this?»

Now, because of all of the context surrounding the social situation, you know which baby your friend is referring to when they say, the baby. There’s no need for further clarification, because in this case, the gives enough direct and specific meaning to the noun baby for you to know what to do!

In many cases, using the to define a noun requires less or no awareness of an immediate social situation because people have a shared common knowledge of the noun that the is referring to. Here are two examples:

Are you going to watch the eclipse tomorrow?

Did you hear what the President said this morning?

In the first example, the speaker is referring to a natural phenomenon that most people are aware of—eclipses are cool and rare! When there’s going to be an eclipse, everyone knows about it. If you started a conversation with someone by saying, «Are you going to watch the eclipse tomorrow?» it’s pretty likely they’d know which eclipse the is referring to.

In the second example, if an American speaking to another American mentions what the President said, the other American is likely going to assume that the refers to the President of the United States. Conversely, if two Canadians said this to one another, they would likely assume they’re talking about the Canadian prime minister!

So in many situations, using the before a noun gives that noun specific meaning in the context of a particular social situation.

Using The as an Adverb

Now let’s look at an example of how «the» can be used as an adverb. Take a look at this sample sentence:

The tornado warning made it all the more likely that the game would be canceled.

Remember how we explained that the can be combined with adverbs that are making a comparison of levels or amounts of something between two entities? The example above shows how the can be combined with an adverb in such a situation. The is combined with more and likely to form an adverbial phrase.

So how do you figure this out? Well, if the words immediately after the are adverbs, then the is functioning as an adverb, too!

Here’s another example of how the can be used as an adverb:

I had the worst day ever.

In this case, the is being combined with the adverb worst to compare the speaker’s day to the other days. Compared to all the other days ever, this person’s was the worst…period. Some other examples of adverbs that you might see the combined with include all the better, the best, the bigger, the shorter, and all the sooner.

One thing that can help clarify which adverbs the can be combined with is to check out a list of comparative and superlative adverbs and think about which ones the makes sense with!

3 Articles in the English Language

Now that we’ve answered the question, «What part of speech is the?», you know that the is classified as an article. To help you gain a better understanding of what articles are and how they function in the English language, here’s a handy list of 3 words in the English language that are also categorized as articles.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking for more grammar resources, be sure to check out our guides on every grammar rule you need to know to ace the SAT (or the ACT)!

Learning more about English grammar can be really helpful when you’re studying a foreign language, too. We highly recommend that you study a foreign language in high school—not only is it great for you, it looks great on college applications, too. If you’re not sure which language to study, check out this helpful article that will make your decision a lot easier.

Speaking of applying for college…one of the most important parts of your application packet is your essay. Check out this expert guide to writing college essays that will help you get into your dream school.

Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article!

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 ].