Word forms and functional words

Both
the traditional and the syntactico — distributional classifications
divide parts of speech into notional
and
functional.

Criteria
for differentiating:

1. the
   prominence of their lexical meaning

2. peculiarities
   of their combinability

3. ability
   to be substituted by a word of a more general meaning

4. ability
   to create/add new items

Notional
words

1. Complete
   nominative force

2. Self-dependent
   functions in a sentence

3. Can
   be used in isolation

4. Can
   be substituted by a word of a more general meaning

5. Open
   classes (new items can be added to them, they are indefinitely
   extendable)

Functional
words

1. Incomplete
   nominative force

2. Non-self-dependent
   mediatory functions:
   linking
   or specifying

3. Obligatory
   combinability

4. Cannot
   be substituted

5. Closed
   classes (closed
   systems, including a limited number of members. As a rule, they
   cannot be extended by creating new items)

The
main notional
parts of speech are nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Members of these four classes are
often connected by derivational relations: strength
—
strengthen;-
strong —
strongly.

Functional
parts of speech are
prepositions, conjunctions, articles, particles.

Pronouns
constitute a class of words which takes an intermediary position
between notional and functional words. On the one hand, they can
substitute for nouns and adjectives, on the other hand, pronouns are
used as connectives and specifiers.

Groups
of functional words (function words — Ch. Fries)

• With
  a
  unilateral combinability
  – articles, auxiliaries, modals, particles

• With
  a
  bilateral combinability
  – prepositions and conjunctions which connect 2 or more notional
  words or word- groups

• Heterogeneous
  subclass
  uniting introductory it/there, interrogative words, interjections
  etc

There
may be also groups of closed-system items(functional words) within an
open class notional words)- e.g. notional,
functional and auxiliary verbs.

A
word in English is very often not marked morphologically and it is
easy for words to pass from one class to another (round
as
a noun, adjective, verb, preposition). Such words arc treated either
as lexico-grammatical homonyms or as words belonging to one class.

7.The noun. The category of number

Noun
as a part of speech:

1. Semantic
   – a part of speech which categorial meaning is thingness

2. Formal
   – a) form-building – the category of number, the category of
   case, the category of gender, the category of article determination

b)
derivational – typical word-building patterns: suffixation,
compounding, convertion (to walk – a walk)

3)
Functional – a) combinability: left-hand prepositional
combinability with another N/V/Adj./Adv. [+ prep.Noun],casal
combinability [N’s+N](
.:
the
speech of the President —
the
President’s speech),
contact comb-ty [N+N]- stone-wall constructions, take
an intermediary position between compound nouns and noun phrases
(stone wall, car roof, speech sound),
comb-ty with articles and other determiners [art./det. + N]

b)
Syntactic functions – subject, object, other functions are less
typical

Nouns
fall into several subclasses which differ as to their semantic and
grammatical properties: common — proper, concrete — abstract,
countable — uncountable (count — non-count, count — mass),
animate — inanimate, personal — non-personal (human —
non-human).

Lexico-
semantic variants of nouns may belong to different subclasses: paper
— a paper, etc.

The
class of nouns can be described as a lexico-grammatical field.
Nouns denoting things constitute the centre (nucleus) of the field.
Nouns denoting processes, qualities, abstract notions (predicate
nouns) are marginal, peripheral elements of the field.

• Nucleus
  and periphery are distinguished on the basis of lexico-semantic
  properties and morph. characteristics – subclasses of Nouns

• The
  nucleus -> common- concrete-countable- animate Nouns

• The
  periphery -> abstract – material- uncountable Nouns

The
category of number

The
only category of nouns, which is generally accepted, is the category
of number. Many scholars think that the notion of case applies to
English pronouns, but not to nouns. Gender distinctions are not
marked morphologically.

The
category of number
— is a semantically rooted morphological category ,

• depends
  on how the referent is perceived: as a discrete, hence countable
  entity, one or more than one, OR as an indiscrete indivisible, hence
  uncountable entity

• this
  semantic contrast is revealed through lexical and morphological
  means which are accompanied by syntactic marking

Lexical
( lexico-syntactic) means:

• The
  process of lexicalizing
  semantic contrast consists in denoting a discrete countable entity
  by one word – a meal and an indiscrete uncountable entity – by
  another – food.

We
made a journey – we made a travel

Lexico-
grammatical means:

-s
– news – singularia tantum, goods – pluralia tantum, marked
through syntactic
patterning – the
form of the predicate verb, use of articles and corresponding
pronouns

Lexicalization
of the plural form (the
process when a word requires a new name, a word already having a
meaning gets a new one)

Colours
— > flag, pains -.> efforts

Grammatical
means:

The
morph. Category of Number is realized through inflectional
marking (categorial
forms) and/or syntactic patterning

Form:
the category of Number is constituted by the inflectional opposition
of 2 categorial forms of Noun:

Non-pl.(sg.)
— Pl⁺
binary,
privative opposition

Dog⁻
dogs⁺
⁺
—a
strong marked member, marked through the inflexion, ⁻-
zero morpheme.

Sg.
– no positive mark, zero inflexion, a weak unmarked member, many
a river

Pl.
– morpheme of plurality – (e)s, represented by:

• the
  allomorphs ( variants of 1 morpheme) books
  (s), boys(z), boxes(iz)

• by
  some other allomorphs ex. oxen

• internal
  inflexion – sound interchange mouse-mice

• zero
  inflexion (NB! – only in grammar) – sheep,
  means

Meaning
of their category of Number and its members the
foundation
is laid by the opposition

Discreteness
– non- discreteness which
embraces countable and uncountable nouns

Discrete
counts
form the inflexional opposition

Non-pl.-
pl.
dog⁻-dogs⁺

Non-pl.
– a single object having distinct outer boundaries

Pl.
– a set of homogeneous objects having distinct inner and outer
boundaries

Indiscrete
uncounts
constitute the lexico-gram.
opposition of subclasses of nouns:

Sg.
Only – pl. only

Sg.
only –
indiscrete entities having no boundaries ->mainly abstract and
material uncounts

Pl.only
(see
pract. Grammar)

THE
CATEGORY OF NUMBER

Discreteness
Non-discreteness

morphological
c. lexico-gram.
subclass

Non-pl.(oneness)
Sg. only

—
a single discrete entity — indiscrete
entities, no boundaries

Pl.(more
–than- oneness) Pl. only

—
multiplicity of discrete entities <…>

Bloh
Pl only

The
characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects
consisting of two halves
(trousers,
scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.),
the
nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning,
i.e. rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and
abstract (supplies,
outskirts, clothes, parings; tidings, earnings, contents, politics;
police, cattle, poultry, etc.),
the
nouns denoting some diseases as well as some abnormal states of the
body and mind
(measles,
rickets, mumps, creeps, hysterics, etc.).
As is seen from the examples, from the point of view of number as
such, the absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute
plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the
rest).

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The words of language are divided into grammatically relevant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

substantive predicative).

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

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

verbs and connectives. Traditional grammars of English, following

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

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

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

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

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

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

speech.

Modern classifications, proposed by different scholars, distinguish,

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

value, and functional parts of speech characterized by a partial

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

ever mentioned in those classifications, include the following items.

Notional words: Functional words:

1) nouns; 1) prepositions;

2) adjectives; 2) conjunctions;

3) verbs; 3) articles;

4) adverbs; 4) particles;

5) pronouns; 5) postpositions.

6) numerals;

7) statives;

modal words;

9) interjections.

The main problem with the traditional classification is that some

grammatical phenomena given above have intermediary features in

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

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

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

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

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

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

adjectives (according to M. Y. Blokh).

There are hardly any reasons for the identification of postpositions

as a separate functional class because these are prepositions and adverbs

in a specific lexical modifying function. The separate notional class

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

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

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

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

an auxiliary word or even a detached morpheme.

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

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

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

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

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

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

and predicative.

Adjectives are words expressing properties of objects. There

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

comparison are typical of qualitative adjectives. Adjectival functions in

the sentence are those of attribute and predicative.

Verb is characterized by the categorial meaning of process expressed

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

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

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

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

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

predicative).

Adverbs have the categorical meaning of the secondary property,

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

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

the functions of various adverbial modifiers.

Pronouns point to the things and properties without naming them.

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

that unites the heterogeneous groups of English personal, possessive,

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

negative, reflexive, and reciprocal pronouns.

Numerals have the categorical meaning of number (cardinal and

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

substantive functions.

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

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

aware, alive, asleep, afraid etc).

Modal words express the attitude of the speaker to the situation

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

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

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

negation.

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

substantive referents.

Conjunction expresses connections of phenomena.

Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the

noun in communicative collocations. The article expresses the specific

limitation of the substantive function.

Particle unites the functional words of specifying and limiting

meaning (even, just, only, etc).

Each part of speech is further subdivided into groups and subgroups

in accord with various semantic, formal and functional features of

constituent words. Thus, nouns are subcategorized into proper and

common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, concrete

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

partially predicative, transitive and intransitive, actional and statal,

terminative and durative, etc. Adjectives are subcategorized into

qualitative and relative, etc.

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

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

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

they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that

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

introduced instead. Of the various alternative systems of word classes

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

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

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

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

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

with the marked main positions of notional words:

1 2 3 4

Frame A. The concert was good (always).

1 2 1 4

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

1 2 4

Frame C. The team went there.

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

without affecting their general structural meanings (“thing and its

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

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

action” for the third frame).

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

4 positional classes of notional words were identified. They corresponded

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

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

notional positions of the frames without destroying their structural

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sentence introducers it, there; and some others).

Working bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

В английском языке существуют правила, которые встречаются крайне редко. И даже если иногда кажется, что все темы уже давно пройдены, спешим вас обрадовать, — у нас еще есть, чем удивить. В данной статье мы рассмотрим один из таких примеров, а именно разницу между content (самостоятельные) и function (служебные) words.

Кроме того, что все английские слова делятся на 8 частей речи, они также относятся к одной из перечисленных групп: content или function. Прежде чем детально рассмотреть каждую из них, предлагаем сперва разобраться, что же они значат.

Content Words = информация или значение

Function Words = слова, необходимые для грамматического построения предложений

Иными словами, content words дают нам важную пояснительную информацию о словах в предложении, а function — связывают эти слова в предложении между собой.

Виды знаменательных слов или content word types

Самостоятельные слова чаще всего выступают в роли существительного, глагола, прилагательного или наречия. Самостоятельное слово в качестве существительного указывает на объект, а глагола — на происходящее действие или состояние.  Прилагательные же дают нам информацию о предмете, в то время как наречия говорят о том, как, где и когда было совершено действие. При этом, все перечисленные части речи в качестве самостоятельных слов предоставляют необходимые для понимания ситуации данные.

Имя существительное = человек, предмет или место

Глагол = действие или состояние

Имя прилагательное = описание предмета, человека, места или объекта

Наречие = описание предмета, человека, места или объекта

Например:

Building — здание (имя существительное, указывает на объект).

Phoebe — Фиби (имя собственное, указывает на человека).

River — река (имя существительное, указывает на объект).

Science — наука (имя существительное, указывает на объект).

Box — коробка (имя существительное, указывает на предмет).

Smile — улыбаться (глагол, указывает на действие).

Buy — покупать (глагол, указывает на действие).

Learn — учить (глагол, указывает на действие).

Take care about — заботиться (глагол, указывает на действие).

Trust — доверять (глагол, указывает на состояние).

Light — светлый (имя прилагательное, описывает предмет).

Difficult — сложный (имя прилагательное, описывает действие/ситуацию).

Kind — добрый (имя прилагательное, описывает человека).

Chip — светлый (имя прилагательное, описывает предмет).

Tender — мягкий (имя прилагательное, описывает предмет).

Slow — медленный (имя прилагательное, описывает действие/ситуацию).

Quickly — быстро (наречие; описывает действие).

Carefully — осторожно (наречие; описывает действие).

Often — часто (наречие; описывает действие).

Slowly — медленно (наречие; описывает действие).

Кроме всех перечисленных выше частей речи, самостоятельные слова также могут выступать в роли:

• Отрицательных частиц/слов: no, not и never.
• Указательных местоимений: this, that, these и those.
• Вопросительных слов: what, where, when, how and why.

Виды функциональных слов или function word types

Функциональные слова соединяют слова в предложении. Функциональными словами могут быть вспомогательные глаголы, предлоги, артикли, союзы и местоимения. Вспомогательные глаголы указывают на время (например: Present Simple, Past Perfect и т. д.), предлоги — на пространственно-временные отношения слов в предложении. Артикли говорят о числе и конкретике, а местоимения указываю на существительное (объект, человека).

К вспомогательным глаголам относятся все формы do, have, be.

Артикли: a/an, the.

Например:

In — в (предлог, указывает на пространственно-временные отношения).

At — в/на (предлог, указывает на пространственно-временные отношения).

Between — между (предлог, указывает на пространственно-временные отношения).

Under — под (предлог, указывает на пространственно-временные отношения).

And — и (союз).

But — но (союз).

So — так (союз).

As — как, согласно (союз).

Since — с тех пор, как (союз).

Ours — наш (местоимение).

I — я (местоимение).

We — мы (местоимение).

Him — его (местоимение).

Знать о существовании самостоятельных и функциональных слов важно не только для общего развития, но и потому что первые всегда выделяются во время разговора (ударение). Функциональные же слова не выделяются интонационно. Таким образом, изучив эту статью вы значительно улучшите свои коммуникационные навыки и станете еще ближе к чистой британской речи.

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

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

Function words are also known as:

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

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

Content Words vs. Function Words

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

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

Function words include:

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

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

Determiners

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

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

Conjunctions

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

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

Prepositions

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

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

Pronouns

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

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

Auxiliary Verbs

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

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

Modals

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

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

Qualifiers

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

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

Question Words

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

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

Sources

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