Word classes are the way we group different

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Words are the building blocks in any sentence. They just don’t ‘mean’ something, they ‘do’ something in every sentence. Hence words are grouped into word classes based on what they do. A word class is a group of words that have certain common features. The term “word class” is analogous to the more conventional term, “part of speech.” It is also variously named grammatical category, lexical category, and syntactic category.

• Types of Word Classes
• Open and Closed Word Classes
• Open Word Classes
• Closed Word Classes
• How to identify the word classes in a sentence?
• How to classify a word class?
• What is the difference between a word class and part of speech?

Word classes can be divided into two families:

• Lexical Classes: Also known as open classes and form classes. The lexical classes include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
• Function Classes: Also known as closed classes and structure classes. Includes: pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.

Open and Closed Word Classes

As previously mentioned some word classes are open, that is, the class can be expanded with the addition of new words. Take the example of the class of nouns, it is potentially infinite as the number of words in the class is increasing as new scientific and technological discoveries are made.

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed developments in computer technology which have in turn given rise to many new nouns like the Internet, URL website, bitmap, email, etc.

On the other hand, the word classes of prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions are known as closed word classes. Words like of, the, and but come under these. They are named closed word classes because they consist of a definite set of words. These classes never expand even though the words included in the class may change their spelling.

Open Word Classes

1) Nouns

This class includes words that you frequently use in everyday life. Nouns are most commonly understood as “naming” words, that is, it performs the function of naming “people, places or things”.

• A person – Boy, Girl, John, etc
• A thing- House, Dog, etc
• A place- China, America, etc

However, the use of nouns is not restricted to just names of people, places, or things. Nouns also denote abstract and intangible concepts such as an idea, quality, or state. Example: Danger, Happiness, Love, etc.

2) Verbs

The words that you use to describe an action are known as verbs. Hence verbs are generally known as “action” words. Have a look at the given example: Rahul rides a scooter. The verb in the above sentence denotes an action that Rahul performs which is the action of riding a scooter.

However, the idea of verbs as “action” words is somewhat restricted. Many verbs don’t stand for action at all as in the given instance: Rahul seems desperate. We cannot say that the verb ‘seems ‘ refer to an action.

3) Adverbs

In English, an adverb describes a word that alters the meaning of a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs in a sentence give you more information about the sentence. They are used to express how an action is fulfilled. Adverbs can broadly be categorized into Simple Adverbs, IInterrogative adverbs, and Relative Adverbs.

Remember:

• Most adverbs end with the common ending – ly.
• An adverb that modifies an adjective or another adverb usually goes before it.

4) Adjectives

Adjectives describe the quality of a noun. For example They stay in a beautiful house

The word beautiful indicates or refers to one of the attributes of the house that is described. Hence beautiful becomes the adjective in the above sentence.

A point to keep in mind: Some adjectives can be identified by their ending. Typical adjective endings include: able, al, ful, ic, etc.

You can even try out our other articles on How to Improve Your Vocabulary as well to expand your knowledge base.

Closed Word Classes

1) Determiners

You might have often noticed that nouns are preceded by words like the, a, or an. These words are known as Determiners. They suggest the type of reference that the noun has.

• The determiner ‘the’ is called a Definite Article. It can be placed both before singular and plural nouns. For example The Taxi, The taxis
• The determiner a or an is known as the Indefinite Article. It is used along with a singular noun. Example: A taxi

Apart from these, many other determiners express quantity. These include ‘al’, ‘both’, ‘many’ etc.

2) Conjunctions

These are used to express connections between different words.

Example: John and David are friends. And is used as a conjunction in the given sentence.
The most familiar conjunctions in English are: and, but, and or.

Conjunctions are further divided into two:

• Coordinating Conjunctions: These conjunctions connect elements of equal syntactic structure. Example: Paul and David study together.
• Subordinating Conjunctions: Connects elements of unequal syntactic structure. Example: I left early because I had an interview the next day.

3) Prepositions

Prepositions indicate the relation between different words. They occur before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase and indicate a direction, time, place, location, and spatial relationship. Common prepositions include across, after, at, before, by, during, from, in, into, of, on, to, under, with, without, etc.

4) Pronouns

If we did not have the pronoun word families we would have to repeat a whole lot of nouns. A word that takes the position of a noun is named as a pronoun. Pronouns can be employed as a substitute for a noun.

• Pronouns are divided into 5 categories:
• Personal Pronouns: I, you, she, etc
• Demonstrative Pronouns: This, these, etc
• Possessive Pronouns: Yours, His, etc
• Interrogative Pronouns: Which, What, etc
• Reflexive Pronouns: Herself, Himself, etc.
• Reciprocal Pronouns: Each other
• Indefinite Pronouns: Few, Nobody, etc.
• Relative Pronouns: Which, Whom, etc.

5) Interjections

Short exclamations like Oh!, Ah! etc are known as Interjections. Even though they have no grammatical value, we often use them in daily speech. Interjections are primarily used to express emotions such as anger, surprise, etc. Given below are a few examples.

Well! That hurts
Hey! Don’t be so clumsy

Remember, an interjection is always followed by an exclamation mark.

Read More:

• English Idioms
• Literary Devices

FAQs on Word Classes

1. How to identify the word classes in a sentence?

A word class is a group of words that have certain common features. To find out the word classes within a sentence it is important that you familiarise yourself with the most common word classes in English. These include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, etc.

2. How to classify a word class?

Word classes in English belong to two major categories. These are Open word classes that include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The second category is closed word classes that include: pronouns, determiners, interjections, etc.

3. What is the difference between a word class and part of speech?

The term “word class” is analogous to the more conventional term, “part of speech”. Both these terms refer to a group of words that have certain common features.

Conclusion

To understand the grammatical structures of sentences in a better way it’s best if you begin with word classes. Even though comprehending the different word classes may initially be a hectic task, once you master word classes, you will reach the exact meaning or message conveyed by a sentence.

In English grammar, a word class is a set of words that display the same formal properties, especially their inflections and distribution. The term «word class» is similar to the more traditional term, part of speech. It is also variously called grammatical category, lexical category, and syntactic category (although these terms are not wholly or universally synonymous).

The two major families of word classes are lexical (or open or form) classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and function (or closed or structure) classes (determiners, particles, prepositions, and others).

Examples and Observations

• «When linguists began to look closely at English grammatical structure in the 1940s and 1950s, they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that the term part of speech soon fell out of favor, word class being introduced instead. Word classes are equivalent to parts of speech, but defined according to strict linguistic criteria.» (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• «There is no single correct way of analyzing words into word classes…Grammarians disagree about the boundaries between the word classes (see gradience), and it is not always clear whether to lump subcategories together or to split them. For example, in some grammars…pronouns are classed as nouns, whereas in other frameworks…they are treated as a separate word class.» (Bas Aarts, Sylvia Chalker, Edmund Weiner, The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2014)

Form Classes and Structure Classes

«[The] distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning determines the first division in our classification: form-class words and structure-class words. In general, the form classes provide the primary lexical content; the structure classes explain the grammatical or structural relationship. Think of the form-class words as the bricks of the language and the structure words as the mortar that holds them together.»

The form classes also known as content words or open classes include:

• Nouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Adverbs

The structure classes, also known as function words or closed classes, include:

• Determiners
• Pronouns
• Auxiliaries
• Conjunctions
• Qualifiers
• Interrogatives
• Prepositions
• Expletives
• Particles

«Probably the most striking difference between the form classes and the structure classes is characterized by their numbers. Of the half million or more words in our language, the structure words—with some notable exceptions—can be counted in the hundreds. The form classes, however, are large, open classes; new nouns and verbs and adjectives and adverbs regularly enter the language as new technology and new ideas require them.» (Martha Kolln and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar. Allyn and Bacon, 1998)

One Word, Multiple Classes

«Items may belong to more than one class. In most instances, we can only assign a word to a word class when we encounter it in context. Looks is a verb in ‘It looks good,’ but a noun in ‘She has good looks‘; that is a conjunction in ‘I know that they are abroad,’ but a pronoun in ‘I know that‘ and a determiner in ‘I know that man’; one is a generic pronoun in ‘One must be careful not to offend them,’ but a numeral in ‘Give me one good reason.'» (Sidney Greenbaum, Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1996)

Suffixes as Signals

«We recognize the class of a word by its use in context. Some words have suffixes (endings added to words to form new words) that help to signal the class they belong to. These suffixes are not necessarily sufficient in themselves to identify the class of a word. For example, -ly is a typical suffix for adverbs (slowly, proudly), but we also find this suffix in adjectives: cowardly, homely, manly. And we can sometimes convert words from one class to another even though they have suffixes that are typical of their original class: an engineer, to engineer; a negative response, a negative.» (Sidney Greenbaum and Gerald Nelson, An Introduction to English Grammar, 3rd ed. Pearson, 2009)

A Matter of Degree

«[N]ot all the members of a class will necessarily have all the identifying properties. Membership in a particular class is really a matter of degree. In this regard, grammar is not so different from the real world. There are prototypical sports like ‘football’ and not so sporty sports like ‘darts.’ There are exemplary mammals like ‘dogs’ and freakish ones like the ‘platypus.’ Similarly, there are good examples of verbs like watch and lousy examples like beware; exemplary nouns like chair that display all the features of a typical noun and some not so good ones like Kenny.» (Kersti Börjars and Kate Burridge, Introducing English Grammar, 2nd ed. Hodder, 2010)

1. The Problem of Classifying Words.

2. 2) The Traditional Classification of Words.

3. Notional and Functional Parts of Speech.

4. The Field Structure of Parts of Speech.

The Problem of Classifying Words.

It’s well-recognized in linguistics that all
words are classified into lexico-grammatical classes which are called
parts of speech
in traditional grammar. The problem of classifying words has always
been in the centre of attention of linguistics because it presents a
number of difficulties. Linguists have always tried to work out such
a classification which should be based on one principle as logics
requires.

It is necessary to say that none of these classifications has
happened to be satisfactory so far. Most linguists had to resort to
some other principles to make the classification more or less clear.

First of all, we should speak about the
classification of words worked out by Henry
Sweet. He took as the basic principle
the morphological properties of words and on this principle he
classified all the words into declinable
and indeclinable.
However this classification failed to be better than the traditional
one, because the group of the declinable words included nouns,
adjectives and verbs. All the other words were referred to
indeclinable words. Having realized that his classification happened
to be rather vague, Henry Sweet resorted to some other principles.

1) the principle of
syntactic functioning. This principle
made it possible for him to distinguish the following groups of
words:

(a) noun-words
which can function like nouns (nouns, pronouns, infinitive, gerund);

(b) adjective-words
(adjectives, pronouns, participle, infinitive, gerund);

(c) verb-words
(verbs and verbals).

We can see that the words of the same traditional
parts of speech happen to be included into different groups of words
at once.

Sweet’s classification is not accepted but it proves that the
traditional classification is more rigid and adequate.

Another theory was put forward in American
linguistics by Charles Fries.
He rejects the traditional classification of words into parts of
speech and works out his own. His classification is based on the
positional principle.
He classifies all the words according to the position they can take
in the sentence.

Thus, he takes such sentences as “the clerk
remembered the tax”, “the concert was good”, “a good concert
was there yesterday”. Fries states that words which can be found in
the position of “clerk”, “tax”, “concert” should be
included into Class I. Their peculiarity is that in the sentence such
words can take the position before words of CLASS II, which
correspond to “remembered”, “was”. Words taking the position
of “good” belong to CLASS III, and finally words in the position
of “there” and “yesterday” make up CLASS IV.

It is not difficult to see that these 4 classes of words in general
correspond to the traditional parts of speech: nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs.

However, not only nouns are included into CLASS I because Fries
refers to this class any words in the position before the words of
CLASS II, and we can find there such words as “man”, “he”,
“the others”, “to live”, “writing” and that does not
correspond to the traditional classification of words.

Besides these four classes Fries distinguishes 15 more groups of
words. They are also differentiated by the positional principle.

Mostly these groups of words which he marks with letters are much
wider than the traditional formal or functional parts of speech.

For ex., group A includes words which can be found
in the position of the definite article. It means words which can be
used as determiners or attributive elements. So in this group we can
find such words as “the”, “my”, “both”, “much”,
“Tom’s”, “no”.

But we can see that many of such words can be included into CLASS I
or III. Charles Fries says that it mustn’t embarrass us as the main
thing that they can take the position of the definite article. Ch.
Fries ignores morphological features of words and their syntactic
functioning.

His classification failed to achieve the goal, because we can never
be sure what class or group we should refer this or that word to
without a context and hence this classification is not rigid.
However, Ch. Fries’s classification of words is interesting
because it illustrates the combining power or syntactic valency of
words.

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3) Lexical and Grammatical Word Classes

Compound Words

We know, that lexical morphemes carry the main meaning (or significance) of the word it belongs to. The morpheme ‘ready’ in ‘readiness’ carries the meaning of the word, as does ‘bound’ in ‘unbound’, or ‘cran’ in ‘cranberry’. These morphemes, because they carry the lexical meaning, are lexical morphemes.

Grammatical morphemes can become attached to lexical morphemes. The ‘ing’ in ‘singing’ carries no lexical meaning, but it does provide a grammatical context for the lexical morpheme. It tells us that the ‘sing’ is ‘ing’ (as in ‘on-going’). In the same way, the morpheme ‘ely’ in ‘timely’ carries no meaning, but it does turn the noun ‘time’ into a word more frequently used as an adverb. Time the thing becomes the description of an action – as in ‘his intervention was timely’.

Of course, as with so many things in life, these definitions are by no means uncomplicated. For example, if we were to consider the lexical meaning of the words ‘stand’ and ‘under’, then they would be distinctive and straightforward. ‘Stand’, means to be upright, and ‘under’ means to be beneath something. However, when we put these two lexical morphemes together (although technically ‘under’ is actually a preposition), we get the word ‘understand’ which has an entirely different lexical meaning.

The combining of morphemes in order to create a new lexis is known as compounding, and words which are formed by the combination of such morphemes are known as compound words. Compound words do not necessarily have to be the consequence of combining lexical morphemes alone. Certainly, the lexical morphemes ‘earth’ and ‘quake’ combined create ‘earthquake’, but the combination of grammatical morpheme ‘to’ and the lexical morpheme ‘day’ creates ‘today’.

Here is a list of compound words. See if you can identify the lexical and grammatical morphemes:

Whether these compound words are composed of grammatical or lexical morphemes, the compound itself is almost always lexical. ‘Therefore’ is composed of two morphemes which in some ways can both be considered grammatical, but the compound carries a lexical meaning of ‘as a consequence of’.

Word Classes

It is useful to be able to distinguish between lexical and grammatical morphemes, because by doing so we are able to understand that words are constructed using specific mechanisms. Understanding those mechanisms means that we understand more clearly not only how we use words today, but how new words are formed.

If this is true of the morphemes in relation to the construction of words, then is is true also of words in relation to the construction of sentences. This is our next topic: the categorisations of words.

Words are divided into various classes (or ‘parts of speech’), each of which has a specific function in relation to creating meaning within sentences. The first and easiest distinction is that between open-class words (or lexical words) and closed-class words (or grammatical words).

Open-class words, or Lexical words

Open-class words, as Leslie Jeffries writes, are “those which contain the main semantic information in a text, and they fall into the four main lexical word classes: noun, verb, adjective and adverb” (Jeffries, 2006, p. 83). Stott and Chapman, in their book Grammar and Writing (2001) define these classes as:

• Verb: A word or phrase which expresses the action, process or state in the clause (e.g. I’m eating my favourite meal right now; I will go to that football match; I went quietly)

• Adverb: Single words that modify verbs by adding to their meaning (e.g. The choir sang sweetly). Words or phrases that modify or give extra definition to the verb in terms of place, manner and time (e.g. I’m eating my favourite meal right now; I’m eating my favourite meal in my favourite restaurant), are often referred to as adverbial.

• Noun: Words that names persons / places / things or abstractions (e.g. Edward, Tanzania, guitar, happiness). In earlier centuries all nouns in the English language were given a capital letter. In German, they still do the same. In English now, only proper nouns are given capital letters.

• Adjective: Words that modify nouns by adding to their meanings (e.g. That was a long film). Most adjectives have comparative (I’m glad it wasn’t any longer) and Superlative forms (It was the longest film I’ve ever seen).

They classes are referred to as open-class because “they are open-ended and can be added to readily” (Jeffries, 2006, p. 83), but they are also often referred to as lexical words because they carry a lexicial meaning (sometimes they are even referred to as semantic words, for the same reason). Sara Thorne goes on to say:

New words can be added to nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs as they become necessary, developing language to match changes in the society around us. The computer age, for example, has introduced new words like hardware, software, CD-Rom and spreadsheet; the 1980s introduced words like Rambo, kissogram and wimp; the 1990s introduced words like babelicious, alcopop and e-verdict; and the twenty-first century words like bling, chav, sudoko, bluetooth, chuggers (‘charity muggers’), mediatrics (‘media dramatics’ i.e. a story created from nothing), and doorstepping (journalists catching celebrities on their doorsteps to question them about incidents they would prefer not to discuss). Open-class words are often called lexical words and have a clearly definable meaning. (Thorne, 2008. p. 4)

Closed-class words, or Grammatical words

If open-class words tend to change frequently, then closed-class words tend not to change very often. Closed-class or grammatical words (sometimes referred to as function words) have less meaning than open-class or lexical words, but do useful jobs in language. They are the ‘little words’ that act as the glue, or connectors, inside a sentence. Without them, lexical words might still carry meaning but they do not make as much sense.

Grammatical words include articles, prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns.

• Articles: There are only two articles in English: the definite article, the, and the indefinite article a(n) (Jeffries, 2006. p. 96).

• Prepositions: Define the relationships that exist between elements. This includes relationships of place (at, on, by, opposite), of direction (towards, past, out, of, to, through), of time (at, before, in, on), of comparison (as, like), of source (from, out of), and of purpose (for) (Thorne, 2008. p. 20). Prepositions are by no means uncomplicated – you will have noticed from this list that the word ‘at’ can function as both a preposition of place and of time, depending on its contexts.

• Conjuntions: The function of conjunctions is to link together elements of sentences and phrases. They come in two forms. Co-ordinating conjunctions are words that join two clauses in a sentence, where each clause is of equal importance (i.e., ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘either’, ‘or’, ‘neither’, ‘nor’). Subordinating conjunctions are words that link sentences where one half is a consequence of the other (‘although’, ‘as’, ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘since’, ‘that’, ‘though’, ‘until’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘while’, etc.).

• Pronouns: Pronouns come in two forms. Firstly, the pronoun itself, where words are “used instead of a noun or noun phrase (e.g. it, he, who, theirs)”. Secondly, there is the personal pronoun, in which “[w]ords identify speakers, addressees and others (I, you, she, it, we, they)” (Stott and Shapman, 2001).

What is the significance of word classes?

Note: I am indebted to Dr. Geoffrey Finch for his help with much of this next section, to which I have added some additional notes and material. This means that some parts of this section have doubtless either already appeared in one of Dr. Finch’s book, or will imminently do so – but without the details I have been unable to reference them properly.  See here for published works, and buy them all — ‘cos they’re great.

Word classes are important in the acquisition of language because they enable us to construct sentences with a maximum of economy. Knowing that only a verb can complete the following sentence:

or an adverb the one below,

means that we don’t have to try out every word in our mental lexicon to see whether it will fit or not.

So classifications of words and grammar enable us to communicate much more efficiently. Not only this, such systems enable us to communicate with much more variety. Humans simply could not memorise a lexicon which contained a different word for every thing they wanted to express. This means that there are only two options – either make do with a limited range of expression, or develop a system which allows for individual words to mean more than one thing. Word classes are part of that very system – as we shall discover more of in a moment.

Bauer, Holmes and Warren (2006) argue that word class systems are like the assembly instructions for language:

Kit-sets for furniture (and other construction toys for older children) generally come with a parts list and a set of instructions. If the parts list of a language is the set of words used by that language, then the grammar is the instruction set. If your build-it-yourself bookcase arrives with a parts list and no instructions, then the construction of a well-formed piece of furniture may be more difficult, if not impossible. If we have a set of words but no grammar then the construction of well-formed sentences is similarly compromised.

The language instruction set is useful not only in constructing sentences, but also in deconstructing them, in understanding what someone is saying to us. And understanding what someone is saying is not just understanding the words they use. Compare, for instance, Tama would like to speak to you and you would like to speak to Tama. These sentences share the same words, and the result of the situation expressed might be the same (i.e. the people referred to as you and Tama get together to talk), but our understanding of these sentences involves not just knowing what each word means but also recognizing how the words, as components of sentences, are combined. After all, Max loves Alice does not mean Alice loves Max. Success in communicating the message depends on speakers and listeners working with the same instruction set. It is this type of shared knowledge which constitutes part at least of what we call grammar. (Bauer, Holmes and Warren, 2006. p. 104)

Problems with classifications

The criteria by which linguists assign words to particular classes, however, are less certain. Most people if asked to say what a verb or a noun are rely on what is called ‘notional’ criteria. These are broadly semantic in origin. They include referring to a verb as a ‘doing word’, i.e. a word that denotes an action of some sort (go, destroy, eat), and a noun as a ‘naming word’, i.e. one that denotes an entity or thing (car, cat, hill). Similarly, adjectives are said to denote states or qualities (ill, happy, rich), and adverbs, the manner in which something is done (badly, slowly, well).

As a rule of thumb this works reasonably well, but it’s not subtle enough to capture the way in which word classification essentially works. Not all verbs are ‘doing’ words. The verbs ‘to be’, and ‘to have’ clearly aren’t. And neither are all nouns necessarily ‘things’. Nouns such as ‘advice’, and ‘consequence’ are difficult to conceive as entities. We’re forced to call them ‘abstract’ nouns, a recognition that in some way they are not typical. Indeed, notional criteria only work for prototypical class members, but there are many others for which such criteria are not adequate. The word ‘assassination’, for example, seems like a verb since it describes a process or action, but it is in fact a noun.

The Lawlessness of English

The English language is flexible. It has, over the centuries developed from a corruption of Latin — the twisting and changing of ‘proper’ Latin with local jargon and slang. “From at least the time of Shakespeare”, Measham says, “the English language has not been overly hampered by rules” (Measham, 1965. P. 83).

To use an example from Measham — look at these three sentences:

• Gardening is a good way of getting blisters.
• I was gardening at the time the wall fell down.
• I had on my gardening boots.

The word ‘gardening’ appears three times. But does it serve the same function each time?

• Gardening is a good way of getting blisters

here ‘gardening’ functions as a noun.

• I was gardening at the time the wall fell down

here ‘gardening’ functions as a verb: it describes an action.

• I had on my gardening boots

here ‘gardening’ functions as an adjective.

Of course, for native English speakers the meaning of these sentences might appear plain, despite the fact that the same word operates in very different functions. 

So how can we classify words at all?

The only secure way to assign words into word classes is on the basis of how they behave in the language. If a word behaves in a way characteristic of a noun, or a verb, then it’s safe to call it one. This, of course, means recognising that words can belong to more than one class. It also means recognising that words may be more or less noun-like or verb-like in behaviour.

Word classes are similar to family groupings in that some members are more recognisably part of their class than others. Basic to word behaviour are two sets of criteria, namely, the morphological, and the syntactic. Morphological criteria, as we have seen, are concerned with the structure of words. Important here are such processes as inflection. Most verbs will inflect to show tense (show + ed), most nouns to indicate plurality (bat + s), and many adjectives to show the comparative and superlative (fat > fatter > fattest). But there is no one criterion which all words in a particular class will obey. As a consequence, linguists also use syntactic criteria, in particular, the distribution of a word in an individual string. This is the topic we will be considering in my next post: Whereabouts a word can occur in a phrase or sentence is an important indication of its class.

Using the behaviour of individual words as an indication of word class means that our approach is descriptive rather than prescriptive. And we shall also find that, because of the variable character of words, each class will contain within it several sub-classes. So there are sub-classes of nouns, verbs, and so on. And because the different classes have features in common it is possible to cross-classify them into larger groups. Linguists, therefore, differentiate between lexical and grammatical classes. The former contain words which have a meaning outside the context in which they are used, and include nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives and adverbs, whilst the latter consist of words which are only meaningful as part of the syntactic frame for example, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns and auxiliary verbs.

Bibliography

Jeffries, L. (2006). Discovering Language: The Structure of Modern English. Basingstoke, Palgrave.

Thorne, S. (2008). Mastering Advanced English Language. Basingstoke, Palgrave.

Sott, R. and Chapman, J. (2001). Grammar and Writing. Harlowe, Longman

Measham, D. C. (1965). English Now and Then. Cambridge, Cambridge

Bauer, L., Holmes, J. and Warren, P (2006). Language Matters. Basingstoke, Palgrave