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ENGLISH SYNTAX
WEEK 2: WORD CLASSES
 ENGLISH SYNTAX
WEEK 2: WORD CLASSES

MAIN CONTENTS

1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• "Word classes, such as noun and verb, are traditionally called parts of
speech."
• "We can divide word classes into open classes and closed classes. Open
classes readily admit new words, and therefore they contain most words
in the language. Closed classes, on the other hand, rarely admit new
words, so that it is possible to list all the words belonging to them."
• There are four open classes:

• Seven closed classes are recognized:

(Greenbaum, 1996, p.79)

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• "Linguists nowadays use the term 'word classes' and not the traditional
term 'parts of speech'. 'Word classes' is neat and self-explanatory but is
associated with the idea of words pinned down on the page or in the
transcript of speech. 'Parts of speech' is not self-explanatory, but it does
have the merit of reminding us that we are dealing not with dead text but
with speakers and writers doing things with language."
• Definitions such as nouns being the names of persons, places and things
and verbs being the names of actions or states are inadequate for serious
investigation of English.
• "It is important to take into account of what speakers and writers actually
do with verbs, nouns and so on...[and] where a given word is placed in a
clause or a phrase."
(Miller, 2002, pp.34-45)
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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• "The term 'denote' is used for the relationship between a given word and
the set of entities, in the broadest sense, to which it can be applied."
• "Traditional dictionary explanations of the meanings of individual words
can be thought of as embryo descriptions of denotations."
• Based on denotations, we can categorize words into lexical/content words
and grammatical/form words.
• However, in some contexts, grammatical words, e.g. prepositions, have
major meanings and can also be described as words with denotations.
(Miller, 2002, pp.34-35)

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• Task: Work in pairs/groups to work out eight adjectives in the following
passage:
Decrepit Victorian mansions loomed out of the snowfall on the town's sporadic
hills. Beyond them, cedars wove a steep mat of still green...The wind drove
snowflakes steadily inland, hurling them against the fragrant trees, and the snow
began to settle on the highest branches with a gentle implacability.

(Miller, 2002, p.45)

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• Task: Work in pairs/groups to work out eight adjectives in the following
passage:
Decrepit Victorian mansions loomed out of the snowfall on the town's sporadic
hills. Beyond them, cedars wove a steep mat of still green...The wind drove
snowflakes steadily inland, hurling them against the fragrant trees, and the snow
began to settle on the highest branches with a gentle implacability.
• Discuss: Based on what criteria did you identify the words as adjectives
(e.g. meanings...)? Among these criteria, what do you think is the most
important?

(Miller, 2002, p.45)

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• Verbs: Seven categories apply to verbs (main verbs and auxiliaries),
affecting the forms that verbs take: mood, modality, tense, aspect, voice,
number, person
 Mood: indicative, imperative, subjunctive
E.g. She is nice. (Indicative) Run! (Imperative)
We insisted that she be in charge (Subjunctive)
 Modality: We should go home now.
 Tense: We went to Nha Trang last year.
 Aspect: the way the time is viewed by the speaker or writer - perfect or
progressive: E.g. They are doing the gardening.
 Voice: active or passive: E.g. The report has been written.
 Numbers & person: E.g. My daughter writes to me regularly
(Greenbaum, 1996)
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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• Nouns: Two categories apply to nouns: number & case
 Number: singular or plural: E.g. book – books
 Case: common or genitive/possessive: E.g. the man, the man's house
• Pronoun: Four categories apply to pronouns: number, person, case, gender
 Number: E.g. this, that, these, those
 Person: first, second, third: E.g. I, you, he, she, it, reflexive (myself, himself)
 Case: E.g. mine, theirs, whose (e.g. Whose is that book?)
 Gender: E.g. he, she, relative pronouns (who, which)
(Greenbaum, 1996)

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1. WHAT ARE WORD CLASSES?

• Adjectives and adverbs
 Comparison: a grammatical category that can be expressed by
inflections in many gradable adjectives and in a few gradable adverbs.
The inflectional forms usually end in –er and –est
 E.g.

(Miller, 2002, p.45)

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Morphological
• Syntactic
• Morpho-syntactic
• Semantic

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Morphological criterion:
 Inflectional morphology: expressing grammatical information (e.g. number, case,
tense, person) and not affecting the word class (e.g. book– books)
 Directional morphology: forming new lexical items and changing the word class
(e.g. book– bookish)
 The morphological criterion concerns whether a given word allows grammatical
suffixes or not.
 This criterion is considered the least important among the four criteria (Miller, 2002)
and inadequate for differentiating word classes because: (1) many words are
invariable and not inflected (e.g. plural noun: deer, sheep; comparison: (more)
beautiful); (2) most words are not marked by affixes as belonging to particular
classes, and (3) some affixes that are characteristics of a class remain when words
are converted to another class (e.g. N-V: condition, proposition)
(Greenbaum, 1996).
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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Morpho-syntactic criteria:
 These criteria concern about inflectional suffixes and the information
signalled by them.
 E.g. noun suffixes expressing number (cats, children), verb suffixes
expressing tense, person or aspect (pulled, lives, singing), adjective
suffixes expressing greater or greatest quantity (bigger, biggest)
 These morpho-syntactic properties of English words which signal
information about tense, person, or number are relevant to the recognition
of different word classes, but they are also relevant to linkage (agreement
and government).

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Syntactic criteria:
 "The syntactic criteria for word classes are based on what words a given
word occurs with and the types of phrase in which a given word occurs.
Syntactic criteria are the most important." (Miller, 2002, p.39)
 E.g. NP

Det N'

AP N

Adv A
A very beautiful garden

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Syntactic criteria:
 Central/prototypical & peripheral members of a class: If a word meets
all major criteria for a class, it is a central or prototypical member of that
class. If a word meets very few criteria, it is a peripheral member.
Otherwise, it is in between the class.
 All central nouns meet the criteria of occurring to the left of a verb in an
active declarative clause (e.g. My son is playing.), of occurring
immediately to the right of a verb in an active declarative clause (e.g. My
son is playing football.), or of occurring to the right of a verb but preceded
by a preposition (e.g. My son is playing football with his friends.)

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Syntactic criteria:
 For adjectives: Central/prototypical members meet criteria of: (1) occurring in a noun
phrase (as an attributive adjective); (2) occurring as the complement of a copula (as a
predicative adjective); (3) occurring with words such as very and occurring in the
comparative, either with the suffix –er or with –more.
 E.g.1. (1) a lovely baby; (2) The baby looks lovely. (3) a very lovely baby/more lovely
 lovely is a central member as it meets all the criteria.
 E.g.2: (2) The baby falls asleep. *(1) an asleep baby/ (3) The more asleep baby
 asleep is a peripheral member as it meets only one criterion.
 E.g.2: (1) a woollen cloak; (2) The cloak is woollen.
*(3) a woollener cloak; * a more woollen cloak; * a very woolen cloak
 woollen is a member in between the category as it meets a few criteria but not all.

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Syntactic criteria:
 Task: Categorize the following words as central, peripheral, or in between:
tall, unique, asleep, rich, awake, wooden, major
 Key:
Central: tall, rich
Peripheral: asleep, awake, major
In between: unique, wooden

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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Semantic criteria: what words mean
 "Word classes must be defined on the basis of formal criteria – their morphological
properties, their morpho-syntactic properties and their syntactic properties. Only when
these formal patterns have been established can we move on to investigate the
connection between meaning and word classes" (Miller, 2002, p.42).
 "The traditional semantic definitions of word classes, [e.g. of nouns as referring to
persons, places and things], while quite unsatisfactory as definitions, nonetheless
reflect an important fact about language and how ordinary speakers understand the
world around them" (Miller, 2002, p.43).
 Semantic definitions of word classes are adequate for central members of a class only.
E.g. Nouns such as girl, town, car combine with the and a, take the plural suffix –s, are
modified by adjectives and occur to the left or the right of the verb in [NON-COPULA,
ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] clauses.
 The focus is on what speakers and writers do with words rather than on traditional
dictionary meanings.
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2. CRITERIA FOR WORD CLASSES

• Semantic criteria: what speakers do with words
 When speakers and writers produce utterances, they perform actions.
 Speech acts: e.g. making statements, asking questions, issuing commands –
prominent in human communication
 Other speech acts that are less prominent but also important: referring to entities and
predicating properties.
 Referring to entities  performance of nouns and noun phrases
 Predication  performance of verbs (part of a larger speech act, e.g. making a
statement, asking a question or issuing a command)
 Adjectives/adverbs: labelled modifiers in traditional grammar; used to assign a property
to something

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SUMMARY
• Word classes are traditionally defined by what they denote – people, places
and things (nouns), actions (verbs) and properties (adjectives). This definition
is inadequate although meaning still has an important part to play.
• Reliable definitions are based on formal criteria – morphological (does a word take
inflectional suffixes or is it invariable?), morpho-syntactic (does a word take suffixes
having to do with person, number or case?), and syntactic (where in a phrase or
clause does a word occur?).
• Once formal criteria have been set up, the connection between word classes and
meaning can be studied.
• Meaning is based on not just what a word or class or word refers to but also on what
speaker and writers do with it – refer, predicate or assert, modify.

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REFERENCES
• Greenbaum, S. (1996). English Grammar. Oxford, Great Britain:
Oxford University Press.
• Miller, J. (2002). An Introduction to English Syntax. Edinburgh, Great
Britain: Edinburgh University Press.

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