Differences b/n Form-Class and Structure-Class Words

The form classes are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. English has lots of words that do not fit into these classes, and most of the rest of these words belong to structure classes.

Structure Classes 1. Their members have mostly grammatical meaning. Example:The word the tells us a particular noun will follow in the sentence. 2. Their members generally do not change form. Example: The word the will never be any thing but the. There’s no thest or thed or dethe. 3. They are mostly closed, relatively small groups. Example: Words like of, out, his, and the cover all the grammatical bases and can be used to describe any relationship between form-class words. There’s no need for new structure-class words.

Form Classes 1. Their members usually have lexical meaning. Example: The word smell tells us we’re dealing with a particular sense. We could look up specifics in the dictionary. 2. Their members usually undergo changes in form. Example: The word smell can become smelly, smelliest, or smelled. 3. They are open-ended, not limited in the number of their members. Example: New inventions, observations, sciences, sports, ideas, etc. require us to constantly create new form-class words. After all, I need a word to refer to my smelloscope.

Module 1 Concepts: Pronouns

Pronouns typically stand in for nouns and noun phrases. The antecedent is the noun phrase referred to by the pronoun.

• Did you see that horrible accident? It really frightened me.

  • that horrible accident (antecedent) = it (pronoun)

Pronouns differ from other structure-class words because they can change inflections. See how the different personal pronouns in this passage all refer to the same antecedent:

Karen went purse-shopping. She had to have the latest clutch. The store’s staff helped her out a lot while she shopped. Finally, the purse was hers!

You may have learned that pronouns substitute for nouns. That’s not entirely accurate; they actually substitute for noun phrases. If they only substituted for nouns, we would change That old torn hat is lying there to That old torn it is lying there. Because pronouns substitute for entire noun phrases, however, we can say It is lying there.

Notice that we need the context of the first sentence (That old torn hat is lying there) to understand what it is. The context provides an antecedent for it. When speaking to someone, your context might be something you’re pointing to, rather than a verbalized antecedent:

• As you’re pointing to an old desktop computer, you say, “It runs so slow.”

Personal pronouns refer to people or things. The form of the pronoun can indicate:

• 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person (I, you, he, she, it)

• number (I/we, she/them)

• gender (he, she)

The form of personal pronouns can also indicate whether they are functioning as subjects of sentences, as objects of verbs or prepositions, or as possessives.

• Karen went purse-shopping. She had to have the latest clutch. (subject case)

• The store’s staff helped her out a lot while she shopped. (object case)

• Finally, the purse was hers! (possessive case)

When the antecedent occurs in the same sentence as the pronoun, the pronoun is reflexive:

• You saw yourself in the mirror.

• Phil criticized himself.

• She promised herself never to eat McDonald’s late at night again.

When multiple antecedents all engage in the same mutual action, they call for reciprocal pronouns:

• Can you imagine 23 faculty members shouting at one another?

• We know each other very well.

Indefinite pronouns usually don’t have a specific referent, so they have no antecedent. You don’t need any context to understand the pronouns in these statements:

• Nobody came to our party.

• One should always say please and thank you.