1. The problem of and approaches to the parts of speech division

1. Classical approach

The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:

1. Classical (logical-inflectional)

2. Functional

3. Distributional

4. Complex

The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. The first of these groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

1. Functional approach

A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined as functional. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles. To nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles.

2. Distributional approach

A distributional approach to the parts to the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of different types. He introduced four major classes of words and 15 form-classes

3. Complex approach

In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning). The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities.

4. The field nature of parts of speech

Proponents of the field theory state that every part of speech may be represented by items endowed with typical qualities – semantic, syntactic, morphological and so on. These words are thought to make up a nucleus (or core) of this part of speech, whereas the words that have some specific qualities, common for some other parts of speech, form the periphery. Thus, such nouns as table belong to the nucleus, whereas development and blackness, with their peculiar characteristics, belong to the peripheries that overlap with the field of the verb when the noun development is concerned, while the noun blackness may be placed on the overlapping part of the field of the noun with that of the adjective.

The movement from the core of the stable grammatical behaviour and semantic properties to a more irregular periphery has been called gradience. Adjectives may be taken as an example. As a rule, five main criteria are used to identify the central class of English adjectives:

(A) they occur after forms of to be, e.g. he is sad;

(B) they occur after articles and before nouns, e.g. the big car,

(C) they occur after very, e.g. very nice;

(D) they occur in the comparative or superlative form, e.g. sadder/saddest, more/most impressive;

(E) they occur before -ly to form adverbs, e.g. quickly.

We can now use these criteria to test how much like an adjective a word is. In the matrix below, candidate words are listed on the left, and the five criteria are along the top. Here, sad, for instance, is clearly an adjective. One finds absolutely appropriate such forms and phrases as he is sad, the sad girl, very sad, sadder/saddest, sadly. The last word in the list, want, is nothing like an adjective because it has none of the listed peculiarities.

The pattern in the diagram below is of course wholly artificial because it depends on the way which criteria are placed in sequence, but it does help to show the gradual nature of the changes as one moves away from the core adjective, represented by sad. Some adjectives, it seems, are more adjective-like than others.

The very notion of periphery is quite complicated. Contrary to the classical field structures in physics, the grammatical field structure has unevenly represented periphery sectors. The distance of these sectors from the centre is denned in terms of properties that their lexical units share with the core.

Besides, some part of the periphery may overlap with two or more other parts of speech.

2. The notional :: functional parts of speech

The words of language are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. The traditional grammatical classes or words are called “parts of speech”.

Words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional.

To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.

To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.

The difference between them may be summed up as follows:

1) Notional parts of speech express notions and function as sentence parts (subject, object, attribute, adverbial modifier).

2) Notional parts of speech have a naming function and make a sentence by themselves: Go!

1) Functional words (or form-words) cannot be used as parts of the sentence and cannot make a sentence by themselves.

2) Functional words have no naming function but express relations.

3) Functional words have a negative combinability but a linking or specifying function. E.g. prepositions and conjunctions are used to connect words, while particles and articles - to specify them.

3. The noun and its morphological features. Syntactic features of the noun.

The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical catrgories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).

Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived ( stem + affix, affix + stem – thingness); compound ( stem+ stem – armchair ) and composite ( the Hague ). The noun has morphological categories of number and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.

Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used un the sentence in all syntactic functions but predicate. Speaking about noun combinability, we can say that it can go into right-hand and left-hand connections with practically all parts of speech. That is why practically all parts of speech but the verb can act as noun determiners. However, the most common noun determiners are considered to be articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and nouns themselves in the common and genitive case.

4. Semantic and grammatical properties of the noun (common and proper).

Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:

1. According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;

Proper nouns name specific people, places, things, or ideas.

Britney, Paris, Rover, Nike

Sometimes, they contain two or more important words.

Central Park Zoo, Pacific Ocean

Common nouns are your run-of-the-mill, generic nouns. They name people, places, things or ideas that are not specific.

woman, city, dog, shoe

Since these nouns are not naming anything specific, they do not need to start with capital letters unless they begin a sentence.

2. According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.

3. According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable.

This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles of classification.