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Positional Classes
2. Structure classes closed normally uninflected, and recognized by position alone. - determiner - personal pronouns - auxiliary - qualifier - prepositions - expletives - pre determiner - post determiner - subordinating conjunction - coordinating conjunction - relative
3. Positional Classes based on the positions occupied by the form classes words and phrases - nominal - verbal - adjectival - adverbial
Nominals
Those that occupy noun positions Fs: S, SC, DO, IO, OC, OP
But occupancy of these positions does not positively identify nouns because words of other form classes can occupy them as well.
Examples
Pattern 2: Steadily is the best way to work. Now is the best time.
S slot is occupied by an adverb. Pattern 4: Swimming develops your lungs. Swimming is a verb and cannot be declared as a noun because: (1) it cannot take a noun inflection {-s pl} and {-s ps} (2) it does not contain a noun-forming derivational suffix.
Word groups and individual words can be nominals, and they occupy the usual noun positions.
examples: - About a plateful is my limit. (Prepositional phrase occupying S position) - A chipmunk emerged from under the porch. (Prepositional phrase occupying OP position).
Verbals
Those that occupy verb positions The main verbal position is that of the main verb comes after the opening NP slot the verb by form is a verbal by position.
- The football team may play tomorrow. - They have been waiting there for long.
To identify the other verbal positions, we must first make a distinction between 2 kinds of verb forms. Certain verb forms and verb phrases have complete assertive power needed to make a sentence go. For examples:
- I choose the T-shirt. - She chooses the T-shirt. contrastive inflection for person.
- She has been chosen as a cheerleader. - We have been chosen as cheerleaders. contrastive inflection for person and number
- I am being chosen as a cheerleader. - They were being chosen as cheerleaders. contrastive form for person, number, and tense
Verb forms that are capable of full assertion in a sentence and of changing their form to indicate person, number and tense are called FINITE VERBS.
Verb forms that do not assert fully and do not change their form to indicate person, number or tense are called NONFINITE VERBS. There are three nonfinite verb forms: - the present participle {-ING vb} - the past participle {-D pp} - the infinitive (to)+ verb stem
The nonfinite verb forms also frequently appear in sentence portion, like:
1. a. Shaking his fist b. Being angry c. The willow bending in the wind
2. a. Having crushed the invaders b. Having stayed calm c. The guide having disappeared
3. a. To stop this nonsense b. To be sensible c. His cousin to come
All the verb forms mentioned are nonfinite and participate partially in one of the seven sentence pattern, but they do not have full assertive power of the main verb. These forms are called NONFINITE VERBALS.
When nonfinite verb form present participle {-ING vb}, past participle {-D pp}, and (to)+verb stem appears alone in a noun position, it is labeled a NOMINAL, e.g.
- To err is human. (S position) - She enjoys skiing. (DO position) - His hobby is swimming. (SC position)
Likewise, the whole sentence portion containing a verbal and occurring in a noun position is labeled a NOMINAL, e.g. - Playing football is his favorite pastime. (S position) - He like to play football. (DO position) - His specialty is making doughnut. (SC position) - He got paid for fixing the car. (OP position)
Complements of the Verbals The main verb can be complemented by nominals functioning as SC, DO, IO, and OC. These same kinds of complements can follow not only the main verb but also other verbals in the sentence. - Her hobby is collecting stamps. SC collecting stamps (nominal) verbal DO
He
enjoys
main verb
playing football.
DO nominal verbal DO
DO
DO
DO
Verbals and sentence portions containing verbals occur not only as nominals but also as adjectivals and adverbials, functioning as modifiers.