Verbs are subcategorized into:

Adjectives are subcategorized into:

- fully predicative and partially predicative: go, read, blow – can, may, be, become

- transitive and intransitive: take, put, speak, listen, see, give – live, stay, ripen, rain

- actional and statal: write, play, strike, receive, ride – exist, sleep, rest, suffer

- factive and evaluative: roll, begin, build, tremble – consider, mind, desire, hate.

- qualitative and relative: long, red, lovely, comfortable – wooden, daily, rural

- of constant feature and temporary feature: healthy, joyful – ill, glad

- factive and evaluative: tall, heavy, metal, native – kind, brave, wise, stupid.

The adverb, the numeral, the pronoun are also subdivided into corresponding groups.

This general outline of the division of the lexicon into part of speech classes was developed by modern linguists on the lines of traditional morphology.

It is known that the distribution of words between different parts of speech may to a certain extent differ with different authors.

Modern principles of part of speech identification have been formulated as a result of painstaking research conducted on the vast materials of numerous languages. The three celebrated names are especially notable for the elaboration of three-criteria characterization of parts of speech, namely, V.V.Vinogradov in connection with the study of Russian grammar, A.I .Smirnitsky and B.A.Ilish in connection with their study of English grammar.

Alongside of the tree-criteria principle of dividing the words into grammatical classes modern linguistics has developed another, narrower principle of word-classes identification based on syntactic featuring of words only.

The synactico-distributional classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution testing. The testing results in developing the standard model of four main “positions” of notional words in the English sentence: those of the noun (N), verb (V), adjective (A) and adverb (D). Pronouns are included into corresponding positional classes as their substitutes. Words standing outside the “positions” in the sentence are treated as function words of various syntactic values.

The synactico-distributional classification of words was originated by Ch.Fries. He presented sentences that are typical of the English language as “frames”. In the result of substitution test he singled out different groups of words. The words that in the process of filling in the “frame” did not effect the general structural meaning he treated as notional. Notional words can be related to the three frames:

1. The first frame – “thing and its quality at a given time”.

2. The second frame – “actor- action – thing acted upon – characteristic of the action”.

3. The third frame – “actor – action –direction f the action”.

The words unable to fill in the positions of the frames without destroying their structural meaning are treated as functional. The identified groups of functional words can be distributed among the three main sets.

The words of the first set are used as specifiers of notional words. Here belong:

• determiners of nouns,

• modal verbs serving as specifiers of notional verbs,

• functional modifiers,

• intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs.

The words of the second set play the role of interpositional elements, determining the relations of notional words to one another. Here belong:

• prepositions,

• conjunctions.

The words of the third set refer to the sentence as a whole. Such are:

• question-words (what, why, how etc.),

• inducement-words (let’s, please etc.),

• attention-getting words,

• words of affirmation and negation,

• sentence introducers (it, there).

Comparing the syntactico-distributional classification of words with the traditional parts of speech division of words, it becomes obvious that there is similarity of the general schemes of the two: the opposition of notional and functional words, the four absolutely cardinal classes of notional words (since numerals and pronouns have no positional functions of their own), the interpretation of functional words as syntactic mediators.

But under the traits of similarity are essential features of difference. The proper evaluation of these features makes it possible to speak about some important generalizations about the structure of the lexemic system of language.

While comparing the two classifications there arises the undoubtful fact that the lexicon is divided into notional and functional parts. The open character of the notional part of the lexicon and the closed character of the functional part of it receives the strict status of a formal grammatical feature.

The unity of notional lexemes finds its demonstration in an inter-class system of derivation. It can be presented as a formal four-stage series penetrating the lexicon and reflected in regular phrase correlations.