Part-of-Speech System

Parts of speech are grammatical word-classes that differ from one another by their general meaning, and their formal characteristics. The latter include morphological, derivational, and syntactic properties of words.

• Part-of-speech meaning is represented by the most abstract conceptual category which is shared by all individual words of a particular class.

Primarily, part-of-speech meanings are associated with notional parts of speech. Nouns are said to denote THINGS, while other word classes denote properties of things. Adjectives and numerals manifest static properties of things – their QUALITIES and QUANTITIES respectively. Numerals also denote abstract NUMBERS. Verbs manifest dynamic properties of things – STATES, PROCESSES and ACTIONS, which together represent the EXISTENCE of things in relation to time. Adverbs are said to denote PROPERTIES of PROPERTIES, i.e. the characteristics of qualities, quantities, states, processes, and actions. The meanings of pronouns fall within the above conceptual categories. Interjections manifest human EMOTIONS.

The meaning of functional word classes (prepositions, conjunctions, articles and particles) is not autonomous, it integrates into the meanings of notional word classes, and thus it is more difficult to define. However, it can be claimed that prepositions and conjunctions manifest RELATION – prepositions denote relation between things (the house is near the river), and conjunctions signify relation between things, properties of things, and events designated by sentences (bread and butter; black and white; to come and to see; he came, and she left). Articles and the particle to refer to the notion of IDENTIFICATION: they point to a bounded thing or to a bounded state, process or action (a table, the water, to sleep, to grow, to come, to read). Other particles relate to the notion of SPECIFICATION: they specify a thing or its property as viewed by the speaker (just a child, but a child, just here, only now, me too, not a word).

The general conceptual categories designated by word classes are further stratified into sub-categories as the meanings of subclasses belonging to one and the same part of speech. Different meanings of such subclasses cause different formal characteristics of the respective words. E.g. the subclasses of proper names and common names for nouns, the subclasses of common names denoting physical bodies, masses, substances, groups or sets, and collectives or aggregates; the units of these subclasses relate to concrete and abstract things; the subclasses of qualitative and relative adjectives; the subclasses of adverbs denoting location, time, mode, and evaluation; the subclasses of particles including intensifying, limiting, specifying, additive, and connective particles.

• Morphological properties of word-classes are represented by particular sets of grammatical categories the forms of which demonstrate how the part-of-speech units can be modified. Morphological properties are exhibited by notional word-classes. E.g. Ukr.: the categories of number, case, and gender for nouns, adjectives, numerals, and personal pronouns; the category of the degrees of comparison for adjectives and adverbs; the categories of tense, voice, mood, aspect, and transitivity for verbs.

• Derivational (word-formation) properties are relevant for notional and some functional classes. Particular parts of speech can have their specific word-formation patterns, e.g. Eng. n + -hood = N (manhood), n + -ish = A (childish), a + -ly = Adv (quickly), a + -ize = V (generalize), re- + V = V (re-read), num + -ty = Num (seventy), prep + prep = Prep (upon), conj + conj = Conj (either…or).

• Syntactic properties of word-classes include: (1) the syntactic function in a sentence or clause, (2) the ability to modify particular word-classes, and (3) the ability to be modified by particular word-classes.

For example, in a sentence a noun can be the subject (A student came in), the predicative (She is a student), an object (I gave the book to a student), an attribute (The student’s paper is excellent), an adverbial modifier (The book is on the table); a noun can be modified by an article (a pen), proposition (by pen), possessive (his pen) or demonstrative pronoun (this pen), adjective (red pen), numeral (one pen, two pens), and another noun (student’s pen); a noun can modify another noun (student’s pen). In a sentence, an adverb can be an adverbial modifier (She came quickly. She came yesterday); an adverb can be modified by another adverb (very quickly); an adverb can modify a verb, adjective, numeral or another adverb (to run quickly, very quickly, about ten, very well, approximately here).

In root languages, where there are no affixes, syntax remains the only formal characteristics of word classes.

Conventionally, a part-of-speech system includes such classes as nouns, adjectives, numerals, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and particles. Among word-classes, there are notional and functional parts of speech. Notional parts of speech – nouns, adjectives, numerals, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, and interjections – comprise words that have distinct lexical meanings. Such words perform particular syntactic functions in a sentence. Functional parts of speech – prepositions, conjunctions, articles and particles – are formed by words whose meaning is usually related to grammar. These words do not function as independent elements of a sentence or clause; they relate to the notional parts of speech.

Part-of-speech systems in different languages do not coincide. For example, unlike English or French, Ukrainian and Russian have no articles. In Chinese and Japanese there is such part of speech as the predicative, which corresponds to the classes of verbs and adjectives in Indo-European languages. The invariable word classes found in all languages (a linguistic universal) are the noun and the verb. Other classes can converge with them and with one another:

adverbs integrate into adjectives (a language has no class of adverbs);

numerals integrate into adjectives and/or nouns (a language has no class of numerals);

adjectives integrate into nouns and/or verbs (a language has no class of adjectives).

Commonalities between the part-of-speech systems are less obvious in sub-classes of the general word-classes. Here, languages that belong to different families tend to be culturally specific. Thus, the organization of languages demonstrates both universal and idioethnic properties.

SYNTAX

Syntax studies how words combine in phrases, sentences, and larger units (groups of sentences linked formally and semantically). Such combinations are represented in syntactic patterns of phrases and sentences that are studied by the syntax of a phrase, and the syntax of a sentence respectively. Syntactic patterns can be analyzed with regard to their form, meaning, and function in speech. Hence, the theory of syntax includes formal syntax, semantic syntax, and communicative, or functional, syntax.