5 The definition of a word. Notional words.

Word is defined as the minimal potential sentence, the minimal free linguistic form, the elementary component of the sentence, the articulate sound symbol, the grammatically arranged combination of sound with meaning, the meaningfully integral & immediately identifiable lingual unit, the uninterrupted string of morphemes. It’s a nominative unit of a language, it’s formed by morphemes, enters the lexicon of language as its elementary component; together with other nominative units the word is used for the formation of the sentence – a unit of information in the communication process.

Notional words – some words denoting things, actions and other extralinguistic phenomena. Notional words possess some morphemic features expressing grammatical meanings. These features determine the grammatical form of the word. Grammatical meanings are very abstract, very general. Therefore the grammatical form is not confined to an individual word, but unites a whole class of words, so that each word of the class expresses the corresponding grammatical meaning together with its individual, concrete semantics. Noun: meaning – thingness; form: have the category of number, case; functions: combining with words to form phrases, function in the sentence. Adjective: meaning – property; form: adjective combine with nouns, preceding adverb. In the sentence can be attribute. Pronoun: meaning point to the thing without naming it; form: some have category of number; function: combine with verbs, in the sentence can be subject or the object. Numerals: meaning – denote number; form: invariable; function: combine with following noun, in the sentence – attribute. Verb: meaning – process, form: have category of tense, aspect, mood, voice, person & number; function: connected with noun, adjective and adverb; in the sentence – predicate or part of it. Adverb: meaning – indicates time and place, property; form: invariable; function: combines with verb, adjective, noun; in the sentence – adverbial modifier. Stative: meaning – a passing state a person or thing happens to be in; form: invariable; function: follow link verb; in the sentence – predicative.

6 The Stative. The Particle. The Modal words.

Syntactical functions. The essence of the words asleep, afloat, astir, ablaze, etc. and their position in the system of parts of speech is still under discussion. It is a special part of speech, which may be called "stative" and is characterised by the prefix a-. The main function of the statives is that of predicative and in this case they are preceded by a link verb, most usually the verb be, but occasionally also fall, keep, feel. E.g.The child was fast asleep. With the link verb fall we find the stative asleep, as in the sentence He soon fell asleep. The link verb keep is found with statives, e. g. in ...but in a crafty madness keeps aloof. The link verb feel is found in the sentence He felt ashamed of himself...

Statives are also occasionally found in the function of objective predicatives, particularly after the verb find or have and a noun or pronoun,e.g. He found his sister alone. Then Skene spoke, and in a moment had his audience afire.

The ParticleThe particle is a function word that is not assignable to any of the traditional grammatical word classes (such as pronouns, articles or conjunctions). The term is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of elements and lacks a precise universal definition. It is mostly used for words that help to encode grammatical categories (such as negation, mood or case) and are uninflected.In English, the infinitive marker to and the negator not are examples of words that are usually regarded as particles.

Different types of particles in EnglishArticles, infinitival, prepositional, and adverbial particles

The definite article the (the indefinite article a or an cannot really be classed as uninflected, due to their inherently singular meaning disbarring them from plural usage); the infinitive to, as in to walk; prepositions, such as over in I went over the hill; adverbs, such as even in even the youngest of them; or phrasal verbs, such as put off in we put it off too long

Interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions should be grouped together, because of their similar functions

Interjections ah,alas,farewell,goodbye,hello,hi,hmm,hum,oh,wow,yes. Sentence connectors

so,well, still,yet,as,also,however,nevertheless,otherwise,moreover, in addition,thus,anyway,too.

Tags or tag questions (sentence-finals)"...didn't they?" or "...did they not?…"; "...wasn't it?" or "...was it not?…"; "...shouldn't it?". Conjunctions and (together with),or,nor,but,while (as in The repair takes only a short time while you wait), although/though,because,unless,since (as in since you asked, I will tell you).

Particles as parts of speech usually refer to the word (or, sometimes, phrase) immediately following and give special prominence to the notion expressed by this word (or phrase), or single it out in some other way, depending on the meaning of the particle.

The question of the place of a particle in sentence structure remains unsolved.

Modal WordsThe distinction between modal words and adverbs is, as we saw in our general survey of parts of speech, based on two criteria: (1) their meaning: modal words express the speaker's view concerning the reality of the action expressed in the sentence, (2) their syntactical function: they are not adverbial modifiers but parentheses, whether we take a parenthesis to be a special part of the sentence or whether we say that it stands outside its structure.

Modal words have been variously classified into groups according to their meaning: those expressing certainty, such as certainly, surely, undoubtedly; those expressing doubt, such as perhaps, maybe, possibly, etc. From the grammatical viewpoint it is sufficient to state that all modal words express some kind of attitude of the speaker concerning the reality of the action expressed in the sentence.

The use of modal words depends to a great extent on the type of the sentence.

A modal word can also make up a sentence by itself. This happens when it is used to answer a general question, that is, a question admitting of a yes- or no-answer. Certainly, perhaps, maybe, etc. may be used in this way. In these cases, then, modal words are the main part of the sentence.