Meaning

Using this criterion, we generalize about the kind of meanings that words convey. For example, we could group together the words brother and car, as well as David, house, and London, on the basis that they all refer to people, places, or things. In fact, this has traditionally been a popular approach to determining members of the class of nouns. It has also been applied to verbs, by saying that they denote some kind of "action", like cook, drive, eat, run, shout, walk.

This approach has certain merits, since it allows us to determine word classes by replacing words in a sentence with words of "similar" meaning. For instance, in the sentence My son cooks dinner every Sunday, we can replace the verb cooks with other "action" words:

My son cooks dinner every Sunday.

My son prepares dinner every Sunday.

My son eats dinner every Sunday.

My son misses dinner every Sunday.

On the basis of this replacement test, we can conclude that all of these words belong to the same class, that of "action" words, or verbs.

However, this approach also has some serious limitations. The definition of a noun as a word denoting a person, place, or thing, is wholly inadequate, since it excludes abstract nouns such as time, imagination, repetition, wisdom, and chance. Similarly, to say that verbs are "action" words excludes a verb like be, as in I want to be happy. What "action" does be refer to here? So although this criterion has a certain validity when applied to some words, we need other, more stringent criteria as well.

2. The form or `shape' of a word

As in many other languages, English employs a great number of word endings to signal different word classes. Many words also take what are called INFLECTIONS, that is, regular changes in their form under certain conditions. For example, nouns can take a plural inflection, usually by adding an -s at the end:

Some Examples of Word Endings in English

Nouns	Verbs	Adjectives	Adverbs

Suffixes
-ster	gangster	-ify	beautify	-ful	useful	-ly	happily
-eer	profiteer	-ize	symbolize	-less	speechless	-ward	onward
-er	teenager	-en	ripen	-ly	manly	-wise	clockwise
-let	booklet			-y	meaty	-like	childlike
-ette	cigarette			-ish	foolish
-ess	actress			-able	readable
-y	daddy			-ed	tired
-hood	childhood
-ship	friendship
-dom	kingdom
-ry	rocketry
-ist	stylist
-ism	idealism
-ant	inhabitant
-ment	amazement
-age	leverage
-ness	meanness
-ity	sanity

Inflections
-s	caps	-s	helps	-er	shorter	-er	sooner
-en	oxen	-ed	located	-est	quickest	-est	soonest
-'s	Mike's	-ing	writing
		-en	taken

3. The position or `environment' of a word in a sentence

This criterion refers to where words typically occur in a sentence, and the kinds of words which typically occur near to them. We can illustrate the use of this criterion using a simple example. Compare the following:

[1] I cook dinner every Sunday

[2] The cook is on holiday

In [1], cook is a verb, but in [2], it is a noun. We can see that it is a verb in [1] because it takes the inflections which are typical of verbs:

I cook dinner every Sunday

I cooked dinner last Sunday

I am cooking dinner today

My son cooks dinner every Sunday

And we can see that cook is a noun in [2] because it takes the plural -s inflection

The cooks are on holiday

If we really need to, we can also apply a replacement test, based on our first criterion, replacing cook in each sentence with "similar" words:

I cook dinner every Sunday	The cook is on holiday
I eat dinner every Sunday I prepare dinner every Sunday I miss dinner every Sunday	The chef is on holiday The gardener is on holiday The doctor is on holiday

Notice that we can replace verbs with verbs, and nouns with nouns, but we cannot replace verbs with nouns or nouns with verbs:

*I chef dinner every Sunday

*The eat is on holiday

It should be clear from this discussion that there is no one-to-one relation between words and their classes. Cook can be a verb or a noun -- it all depends on how the word is used. In fact, many words can belong to more than one word class. Here are some more examples:

She looks very pale (verb)

She's very proud of her looks (noun)

He drives a fast car (adjective)

He drives very fast on the motorway (adverb)

Turn on the light (noun)

I'm trying to light the fire (verb)

I usually have a light lunch (adjective)

You will see here that each italicised word can belong to more than one word class. However, they only belong to one word class at a time, depending on how they are used. So it is quite wrong to say, for example, "cook is a verb". Instead, we have to say something like "cook is a verb in the sentence I cook dinner every Sunday, but it is a noun in The cook is on holiday".

The linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study makes it possible to divide all the words of the language into:

a) those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding references in the objective reality – notionalwords;

b) those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – functionwords, or grammaticalwords.

So, the word classes of traditional grammar are a combination of the bases (notional) and the function (grammatical) words. The bases are called the open classes, so named because it is relatively easy to create new words in each of those categories, while the function words are called the closed classes, since it is less common (though not impossible) for speakers of a language to create new vocabulary in those categories. Slang illustrates the creativity of speakers to invent new vocabulary in the open classes, such as the noun homeboy (a friend), or the verb to ralph (to vomit), or the adjective rad (good). But when was the last time someone invented new vocabulary in one of the closed classes? The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded as new scientific discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are explored. In the late twentieth century, for example, developments in computer technology have given rise to many new nouns:

Internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem, multimedia

New verbs have also been introduced:

download, upload, reboot, right-click, double-click

The adjective and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though less prolifically.

On the other hand, we never invent new prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions. These classes include words like of, the, and but. The subclass of pronouns, within the open noun class, is also closed.

It is commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and modal words.

The division of language units into notion and function words reveals the interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning. 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. seminotional words – to turn, to get, etc.

Notional words constitute the bulk of the existing word stock while function words constitute a smaller group of words. Although the number of function words is limited (there are only about 50 of them in Modern English), they are the most frequently used units.

Generally speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech is far from being solved. Some words cannot find their proper place. The most striking example here is the class of adverbs. Some language analysts call it a ragbag, a dustbin (Frank Palmer), Russian academician V.V. Vinogradov defined the class of adverbs in the Russian language as мусорная куча. It can be explained by the fact that to the class of adverbs belong those words that cannot find their place anywhere else. At the same time, there are no grounds for grouping them together either. Compare: perfectly (She speaks English perfectly) and again (He is here again). Examples are numerous (all temporals). There are some words that do not belong anywhere - e.g. after all. Speaking about after all it should be mentioned that this unit is quite often used by native speakers, and practically never by our students. Some more striking examples: anyway, actually, in fact. The problem is that if these words belong nowhere, there is no place for them in the system of words, then how can we use them correctly? What makes things worse is the fact that these words are devoid of nominative power, and they have no direct equivalents in the Ukrainian or Russian languages. Meanwhile, native speakers use these words subconsciously, without realizing how they work.

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