2. Problems of part-of-speech classification. The criteria for discriminating parts of speech. Notional and functional parts of speech. “Subcategorization” of p. Of sp.

The problem of parts of speech is one that causes great controversies both in general linguistic theory and in the analysis of separate languages. What is meant by a "part of speech" is a type of word differing from other types in some grammatical point or points. To take the clearest example of all, the verb is a type of word different from all other types in that it alone has the grammatical category of tense. Tense is one of the distinctive features characterising the verb as against every other type of word. P. of sp. are discriminated on the basis of 3 criteria: semantic, formal, functional.

1. By meaning (semantic criteria) we do not mean the individual meaning of each separate word (its lexical meaning) but the meaning common to all the words of the given class and constituting its. essence. Thus, the meaning of the substantive (noun) is "thingness". This applies equally to all and every noun and constitutes the structural meaning of the noun as a type of word.

2. By form we mean the morphological characteristics of a type of word. Thus, the noun is characterised by the category of number (singular and plural), the verb by tense, mood, etc. Several types of words (prepositions, conjunctions, and others) are characterised by invariability.

3. By function we mean the syntactical properties of a type of word. These are subdivided into two: its method of combining with other words (has to deal with phrases), its function in the sentence (with sentence structure). E.g a verb combines with a following noun (write letters) and also with a following adverb (write quickly).

Giving a list of parts of speech, we have not mentioned the terms "notional" and "functional". Notional (noun, adj., numeral, pron-n, verb, adv)- words of complete nominal meaning characterized by self-dependent functions in the sent. Functional (the article, prep., conj., particle, modal word, interjection)- words of incomplete nominal meaning and non-self-dependent mediatory functions in the sentence; unchangeable words. Each part of speech after its identification is further subdivided into subseries in accord with various particular semantico-functional and formal features of constituent words. This subdivision is called “subcategorization” of parts of speech.(e.g. Nouns are subcategorized into proper and common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, etc.)

3. Grammatical characteristics of the noun. Gr. Categories of the noun. The problem of case. Article determination.

The noun in Modern English has only two grammatical categories, number and case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analysed. There are 2 numbers: singular and plural. The singular noun shows that one object is meant and the plural shows that more than one is meant.

Pluralia Tantum and Singularia Tantum. The nouns which have only a plural form and no singular are termed Pl.T.; nouns which have only a singular form and no plural – S.T. Plural tantum: trousers, scissors. They include nouns of 2 types: the noun which denote material objects consisting of 2 parts (trousers); and those which denote more or less indefinite plurality (premises). Close to these groups of pluralia tantum nouns are also some names of sciences (physics, politics), names of diseases. Singularia tantum – nouns which have no plural form (milk, names of abstract notions).

Collective Nouns and Nouns of Multitude. Certain nouns denoting groups of human beings and animals can be used in 2 different ways: either they are taken to denote the group as a whole and in that case they are treated as singular and termed as ‘collective nouns’; or else they are taken to denote the group as consisting of a certain number of individual human beings and termed nouns of multitude.

Case – the category of noun expressing relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other things, or properties, or actions and manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This category is expressed by the opposition of the form in –‘s, usually called the “possessive” or “genitive” case, to the unfeatured form of the noun, called the “common” case. Side by side with this view there are a number of other views, which can be roughly classified into two main groups: (1) the number of cases in English is more than two, (2) there are no cases at all in English nouns. The views, concerning ‘s: 1) when the -'s belongs to a noun it is still the genitive ending, and when it belongs to a phrase it tends to become a syntactical element, a postposition; 2) since the -'s can belong to a phrase it is no longer a case inflection even when it belongs to a single noun; 3) the -'s when belonging to a noun, no longer expresses a case, but a new grammatical category, viz. the category of "possession", for example, the possessive form father's exists in contradistinction to the non-possessive form father.

The question arises whether the group "article + noun" can be a form of the noun in the same way as, for example, the group will speak is a form of the verb speak. If we endorse the view that the group "article + noun" is an analytical form of the noun we shall have to set up a grammatical category in the noun which is expressed by one or the other article or by its absence. That category might be called determination. In that case we could also find a "zero article".