GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH

According to their meaning, morphological characteristics and syntactical functions, words fall under certain classes called parts of speech.

Grammatists distinguish between notional and structural parts of speech. The notional parts of speech perform certain functions in the sen­tence: the functions of subject, predicate, attribute, object, or adverbial modifier.

The notional parts of speech are:

(1) The Noun;

(2) The Adjective;

(3) The Pronoun;

(4) The Numeral;

(5) The Verb;

(6) The Adverb;

(7) The Words of the Category of State;

(8) The Modal Words;

(9) The Interjection.

The structural parts of speech either express relations between words or sentences or emphasize the meaning of words or sentences. They never perform any independent function in the sentence. Here belong:

(1) The Preposition;

(2) The Conjunction;

(3) The Particle;

(4) The Article.

Chapter I

THE NOUN

 

§ 1.The noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word.

In the concept of substance we include not only names of living beings (e. g. boy, girl, bird) and lifeless things (e. g. table, chair, book), but also names of abstract notions, i. e. qualities, states, actions (kindness, strength, sleep, fear, conversation, fight), abstracted from their bearers.

§ 2. The noun has the followingmorphological characteristics:

1. Nouns that can be counted havetwo numbers: singular and plural (e. g. singular: a girl, plural: girls).

2. Nouns denoting living beings (and some nouns denoting lifeless things) have two case forms: the common case and the genitive case.

It is doubtful whether the grammatical category ofgender exists in Modern English for it is hardly ever expressed by means of grammatical forms.

There is practically only one gender-forming suffix in Modern English, the suffix -ess, expressing feminine gender. It is not widely used.

heir - heir-ess

poet - poet-ess

actor - actr-ess

waiter - waitr-ess

host - host-ess

lion - lion-ess

§ 3. The noun has certain syntactical characteristics.

The chief syntactical functions of the noun in the sentence are those of the subject and the object. But it may also be used as an attribute or a predicative.

 

The sun was rising in all his splendid beauty. (Dickens) (subject)

Troy and Yates followed the tourists. (Heym) (object)

He (Bosinney) was an architect ... (Galsworthy) (predicative)

Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish... (Mansfield) (ATTRIBUTE; the noun glass is used in the common case)

The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from hisfather'syacht. (Mansfield) (ATTRIBUTE; the noun father is used in the gen­itive case)

 

A noun preceded by a preposition (a prepositional phrase) may be used asattribute, prepositional indirect object, andadverbial modifier.

To the left were clean panes of glass. (Сh. Bronte) (attribute)

Bicket did not answer, his throat felt too dry. He had heard of the police. (Galsworthy) (object)

She wentinto the drawing room and lighted the fire. (Mansfield) (ADVERBIAL MODIFIER)

"Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment. (Mansfield) (ADVERBIAL MODIFIER)

 

The noun is generally associated with thearticle. Because of the comparative scarcity of morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show that the word is a noun.

A noun can be modified by an adjective, a pronoun, by another noun or by verbals.

 

§4. The Morphological composition of nouns.

According to their morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative andcompound nouns.

1.Simple nouns are nouns, which have neither prefixes nor suffixes. They are indecomposable: chair, table, room, map, fish, work etc.

2. Derivative nouns are nouns, which have derivative elements (prefixes or suffixes or both): reader, sailor, blackness, childhood, misconduct, inexperience etc. Productive noun-forming suffixes are:

 

-er: reader, teacher, worker

-ist: communist, telegraphist, dramatist

-ess: heiress, hostess, actress

-ness: carelessness, madness, blackness

-ism: socialism, nationalism, imperialism

-ion: operation,

-ation: examination, consideration

-or: doctor, visitor

-ing: meeting, building

 

Unproductive suffixes are:

 

-hood: childhood, manhood

-dom: freedom

-ship: friendship, relationship

-ment: development

-ance: importance

-ence: dependence

-ty: cruelty

-ity: generosity

-ure: culture, structure

 

The most common prefixes are:

 

re- : reduction, reconstruction co- : co-author, coexistence

dis-: disarmament, distribution ex- : ex-minister, ex-champion

mis- : misunderstanding over- : overestimation

in- : information, inequality under- : undersecretary

counter- : counteraction anti- : anticyclone

sub- : subdivision, subcommittee

inter- : interaction

un- : unemployment

 

3. Compound nouns are nouns built from two or more stems. Compound nouns often have one stress. The meaning of a com­pound often differs from the meanings of its elements. The main types of compound nouns are as follows:

(a) noun-stem + noun-stem: apple-tree, snowball;

(b) adjective-stem + noun-stem: blackbird, bluebell;

(c) verb-stem + noun-stem: pickpocket; the stem of a gerund or of a participle may be the first component of a compound noun: dining room, reading-hall, dancing-girl.