9. The problem of parts of speech.

In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. semantic criterion - grammatical meaning of whole class of words. formal criterion - paradigmatic properties. functional criterion concerns syntactic function of words in sentence and their combinability. We can classify the words of the English language into notional and functional. To the notional parts of speech belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the verb, and the adverb. To the functional parts of speech belong the article, the pronoun, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal words, and the interjection. In notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in actual speech the border line between notional and function words is not always clear cut. Some notional words develop the meanings peculiar to function words - e.g. semi-notional words – to turn, to get, etc. Although the number of function words is limited, they are the most frequently used units. The system of English parts of speech as presented here is not the only one possible. All depends on which feature we want to base our classification.