CHAPTER IV

GRAMMAR: WORDS (AND PHRASES)

INTRODUCING WORD CLASSES

11 WORD CLASSES => commonly known as parts of speech:
 4 CONTENT WORDS
 7 FUNCTION WORDS

Four of those 11 word classes are

nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs (NAVA words)

These four word classes stand out for three reasons:

1. are crucial for conveying information (in the broadest sense);
2. have derivational morphology: we can form nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs by adding suffixes;
3. have a very large number of members: English has thousands of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

NAVA WORDS - OR CONTENT WORDS

Largely semantic definitions, definitions in terms of meaning:
- A noun is a naming word: it refers to a thing, person, substance, etc.
- An adjective is a word that describes something about a noun: it denotes a quality.
- A verb is a doing word: it refers to an action.
- An adverb is a word that says something about other types of words, such as verbs and adjectives.

DEFINING WORD CLASSES: FORM, FUNCTION AND MEANING

it is best to see the definition of a word class as combining three elements:

FORM FUNCTION MEANING

we can tell the class of a word we can tell the class of a word
partly from its form, made up by the way it occurs in certain this is a less reliable criterion.
of stems and affixes positions or structural contexts.

is the 2nd most important is most important is least important

RECOGNISING A WORD'S FUNCTION: A PREVIEW OF PHRASES AND CLAUSES
A hierarchy of units
 The sentence is the largest unit of language that we are concerned with in grammar.
 The terms most commonly used for these intermediate units are phrase and clause.

Each of the four NAVA word classes can be the main word of a phrase, which is called after the word:

NOUN PHRASE my hair its main word (the head of the phrase) is a noun

VERB PHRASE has been growing its main word (= head) is a verb

ADJECTIVE PHRASE very untidy its main word (= head) is an adjective

ADVERB PHRASE just recently its main word (= head) is an adverb

DEFINING CONTENT WORD CLASSES IN TERMS OF FUNCTION, FORM AND MEANING

1. NOUNS: is by far the most numerous word class

FUNCTION FORM MEANING

CONCRETE: ABSTRACT:
referring to referring to
people, objects, events, states, times
places, substances

COUNT: NON-COUNT:
Many nouns have characteristic suffixes:
-er; -ism; -ion or -ation; -ity; -ness; refer to things that can refer to substances,
the head of be counted qualities, etc.
a noun phrase
Most nouns can change their form from PROPER: COMMON:
singular to plural by adding -s or -es denote an individual classify things into
(goal - goals; dress - dresses) person, place, etc. types. All the
Normally begins with a count and non-count
capital letter nouns are common.

COLLECTIVE:
referring to groups of people, animals or things

2. ADJECTIVES

FUNCTION FORM MEANING

two functions:
1) as head (or main word)
of an adjective phrase
2) as modifier in a noun phrase
- Most common adjectives can have
comparative and superlative
(rich, richer, richest); Adjectives typically
describe some quality
- irregular adjectives which have attributed to nouns
special comparative and superlative
forms, like good, better, best.

3. VERBS

FUNCTION FORM MEANING

Derivational suffixes
-ise, -ize and -ify Verbs can express actions,
 as the main element of a verb
events, states, etc.
phrase or they can follow Inflectional suffixes
other verbs called auxiliaries.
each verb has up five different Such 'goings on' can be physical
inflectional forms: (eat), mental (think), perceptual
 core element of clauses.
Plain form, s-form, ed-form, (see), social (buy), and so on.
ing-form and en-form
4. ADVERBS
Adverbs are a particularly vague class of words to define.
We can distinguish three types of adverb:
1) Most adverbs add some kind of circumstantial information (of place, manner, etc.)
to the state of affairs expressed in the main part of the clause;
2) Some adverbs modify adjectives and other adverbs in terms of degree;

3) Sentence adverbs, which apply semantically to the whole clause or sentence,

express an attitude to it, or a connection between it and another clause or sentence.

FUNCTION FORM MEANING

it is head of an adverb phrase.
It can stand alone as a minimal
adverb phrase, or it can be
preceded and/or followed by
another word, which is often
itself an adverb
 Many adverbs are formed by
adding -ly to an adjective;
 A few adverbs have
many different types of meaning
superlative and comparative (time, place, frequency, manner)
forms (soon, sooner, soonest);
 A major group do not
resemble adjectives (ex. now).

FUNCTION WORD CLASSES (7)

1. DETERMINERS begin noun phrases and are sometimes obligatory.

 If the head of a noun phrase is a singular count noun, then some determiner has to be added.

 The and a/an are the most common determiners

Some common determiners:

the, a/an, this, that, these, all, some, any, no, every, each, many, which, what, his, our

2. PRONOUNS are noun or noun phrases because they have a generalised or unspecific meaning.
 they are limited as to what words can be added to them.

Some common pronouns:

I, me, mine, myself, we, he, she, it, they, this, that, these, everything, some, many, who, which, what

3. NUMERALS include cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers

 they are exceptional as a function word class: there is an infinite number of numerals.
 the vast maiority of these numerals are compounds made up from a few basic number words.

Some basic numerals:

one, two, three, tour, five, ten, eleven, twenty, eighty, hundred, thousand
4. PREPOSITIONS introduce prepositional phrases, and express relations of possession, place, time etc…

Some common prepositions (in order of frequency):

of, in, to, for, with, on, by, at. from, as, into, about, like, after, between, through,
over

5. CONJUNCTIONS are introductory linking words; but they often introduce clauses rather than phrases.

 they subdivide into two different classes, subordinating conjunctions and coordinating conjunctions.

Some common subordinating conjunctions (in order of frequency)

that, as, if, when, than, because, while, where, although, whether, before, since, so
Coordinating conjunctions (in order of frequency):
and. but, or, nor

6. AUXILIARIES are a small class of verbs which precede the main verb in the verb phrase

modal auxiliaries:
can, will, may, shall, could, would, might, should, must

7. DISCOURSE MARKERS are peripheral to grammar

 we can add them (particularly in speech) at the beginning, middle or end of utterances, without
obvious straints on position;

 Their role is to signal feelings and interactive meanings between speakers in dialogue to indicate
how the discourse is developing;

 They can occur in combination

Some discourse markers:

first of all…, first/secondly
or
ugh, um, oh, ouch
or
swear words , greetings, response words (yes/no)
or
goodbye, right, okay, hey