2. Classification of parts of speech suggested by Henry Sweet

The first scholar who established the principles of the parts of speech classification in application to the English language was the founder of Classical English Grammar Henry Sweet, the author of “New English grammar, Logical and Historical”, which saw light in 1891. Henry Sweet described the three main features characterizing parts of speech, namely meaning, form and function. Nevertheless the classification he worked out reveals considerable divergence between theory and practice.

According to H. Sweet there are two large groups of words:

• declinable, i.e. capable of inflection,

• indeclinable, i.e. incapable of inflection.

The declinable parts of speech fall under the three main divisions: NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, and VERBS.

PRONOUNS are a special class of nouns and adjectives, and are accordingly distinguished as NOUN-PRONOUNS (e.g.: I, they) and ADJECTIVE-PRONOUNS (e.g.: my, that).

NUMERALS are another special class of nouns and adjectives: three in three of us is a NOUN-NUMERAL, in three men it is an ADJECTIVE-NUMERAL.

VERBALS are considered to be a class of words intermediate between VERBS on the one hand and NOUNS and ADJECTIVES on the other: they do not express predication, but keep all the other meanings and grammatical functions of the verbs from which they are formed. NOUN-VERBALS comprise INFINITIVES, such as go in I will go, I wish to go, and GERUND, such as going in I think of going.

ADJECTIVE-VERBALS comprise various participles, such as melting and melted in melting snow and the snow is melted.

INDECLINABLE WORDS or PARTICLES comprise ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, CONJUNCTIONS, and INTERJECTIONS.

Table 1. Henry Sweet’s classification of parts of speech in English

DECLINABLE	NOUN-WORDS: noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund. ADJECTIVE-WORDS: adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participle. VERB: finite verb, verbals (infinitive, gerund, participles)
INDECLINABLE (PARTICLES)	Adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection.

In spite of the fact that H. Sweet declared that three principles should be taken into account when distinguishing parts of speech, his own classification was based partially on the only criterion, that of form. That was one of the drawbacks of his classification. Another one consisted in the fact that there was obvious overlap: e.g., verbals could be found in the subclass of the adjective as well as in the subclass of the noun. In other words, H. Sweet’s classification was not strict enough; it was rather inconsistent.

But it has evident strong points as well. In the light of the problem of modern development of structural theory some of Sweet’s ideas, especially those expounded in his article “Words, Logic and Meaning” (1875-1876) seem to indicate the anticipation of views characterizing modern linguistics. Thus, the purely synchronic approach towards the description of the phenomena of modern languages initiated by F. de Saussure is expressed by H. Sweet: “before history must come knowledge of what now exists. We must learn to observe things as they are without regard to their origin”.

The priority of oral speech over written proclaimed by structuralists was also stated by H. Sweet who was an eminent phonetician.