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2) The Traditional Classification of Words.

In traditional grammar words are classified into parts of speech on the basis of 3 main principles: meaning, form and function.

Meaning implies not the concrete lexical meaning of the word but a general one, typical of all the words included into this or that part of speech.

Form implies morphological properties of words, the presence of some formal language means, signifying the particular grammar categories.

Function is understood either as a syntactic valency of words or as a syntactic positional role of the word in the sentence.

Proceeding from these principles, all the words in English are classified into 12 classes: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, numerals, articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and modal words.

NOUNS.

The general meaning of nouns is thingness or substance.

Due to their form nouns can distinguish the morphological category of number. Some scholars speak of the morphological category of case but this opinion is doubtful.

Commenting on the functions of nouns we should say that syntactically they can function as any member of the sentence but the predicate. As to their syntactic valency they can combine with adjectives, nouns (picture gallery), verbs (the child grows), numerals, verbals (a book to read), pronouns (my book).

Occasionally nouns can combine with adverbs but in such cases adverbs become adjectivized and perform the attributive function representing a compressed subordinate attributive clause, e.g. the then president, the room downstairs.

Adjectives.

The general meaning of adjectives is property or quality. In their form most adjectives are unchangeable, only some adjectives distinguish the morphological category of degrees of comparison, which is marked by the inflexions - er or - est or by suppletive forms like good – better – the best.

Commenting on the functions of adjectives we should say that they can perform the functions of o an attribute and predicative. As for their syntactic valency, adjectives can combine with nouns (a true friend), adverbs (very beautiful), link-verbs or notional verbs in nominal or double predicates (married young), pronouns (sth new).

3) Notional and Functional Parts of Speech.

All the parts of speech are divided into notional and functional.

Notional parts of speech have an independent lexical meaning and can function as self-dependent members of the sentence. There are 6 of them in English: nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns and numerals. Some scholars treat numerals and pronouns as functional parts of speech.

Functional parts of speech may have a dependent meaning. They mark various types of syntactic relations or modify notional parts of speech. Functional parts of speech have no self-dependent syntactic functions in the sentence. There are 6 functional parts of speech in English: articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and modal words (certainly, of course, maybe).

4) The Field Structure of Parts of Speech.

The difficulties of classifying words into parts of speech in many cases are explained by the fact that words which are traditionally included into a definite part of speech are not homogeneous in all their properties. This fact prompted that parts of speech should be treated as a system of units having a field structure.

The theory of the field structure of parts of speech was started in the works of the American linguists Glisson and Sledd. This theory helps us to understand why words of traditionally one part of speech happen to be classified into different groups or classes like in the theory of Ch. Fries.

The complicated character of correlation between words or groups of words within one part of speech was well investigated by the Russian linguists Admony and Shchur. The theory they have worked out is known as the theory of grammatical or lexico-grammatical fields.

Grammatical and first of all morphological characteristics are taken into consideration when describing the field structure of this or that part of speech.

The theory of the morphological fields of parts of speech runs that each part of speech includes words, which possess all its characteristic features. These words make up the nucleus of the morphological field of the part of speech. Besides these words the part of speech may include words which possess not all but only some characteristic features of this part of speech. These words make up the periphery of the morphological field of this part of speech. The periphery in its turn can also be subdivided into some groups of words which differ in their characteristic features.

e.g. words like “table”, “boy”, “street” make up the nucleus of the noun, while words like “clothes”, “news”, “air”, “sugar” make up the periphery of the noun, because they lack such feature of nouns as the category of number.

Besides private peculiarities of the noun, which make up the periphery, make it possible to single out such groups of nouns as “Singularia Tantum”, “Pluralia Tantum”, “Collective nouns”, “Substantivized adjectives” and so on.

But the most important fact is that words making up the periphery of one part of speech can overlap the boundaries of this part of speech and get into the periphery of some other part of speech, getting some of its characteristics.

So morphological fields of parts of speech can overlap each other and that explains the difficulties defining the status of such words and their classification.

For example, Substantivized adjectives like “the poor”, “the young” function like nouns but do not differentiate the category of number on the one hand, and on the other hand they may have degrees of comparison like adjectives (the poorest).

Verbals which make up the periphery of the morphological field of the verb also share the characteristics of the verb and some other part of speech (noun, adjective, adverb).

When referring a word to a definite part of speech, the most significant part of speech characteristics of this word, which are revealed in the actual context, should be taken into consideration.

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