Defining Open-Class Words
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This document defines and discusses open-class words in English including nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. It examines the criteria used to define word classes including meaning, internal form, and function. For each word class, it analyzes these criteria and notes areas of ambiguity, highlighting that function within context is often the most reliable indicator of a word's class. The document also briefly discusses how words can change classes through affixation or functional conversion based on grammatical context.
Defining Open-Class Words
- 2. When defining grammatical categories, linguists use three main criteria: meaning, internal form, and function.
- 3. NOUNS (a) Meaning Nouns are often defined as “naming words” because they refer to concrete objects. The problem with the meaning definition, though, is that there are nouns which refer not to concrete things but abstractions (e.g. “love,” “happiness”), processes (e.g. “the laughing,” “the twinkling”) and so on.
- 4. NOUNS (b) Internal Form Plural Morphemes In English, many nouns can be made plural by the addition of a plural ending (e.g. “cats,” “dogs,” “horses”). This kind of ending is an example of one of the ‘building blocks’ called morphemes which make up words.
- 5. NOUNS (b) Internal Form Nouns that can be made into plurals are usually called count nouns, because you can ‘count’ them: cat one cat two cats dog one dog two dogs horse one horse two horses ox one ox two oxen
- 6. NOUNS (b) Internal Form But there are many nouns which are not countable. These are usually called uncountable or mass nouns. So this internal-form property of nouns is also not completely reliable. furniture *one furniture *two furnitures grief *one grief *two griefs
- 7. NOUNS (b) Internal Form Other ‘nouny’ endings There are other internal form markers which come at the end of some nouns, for example: Station Junction Sublimation Partition
- 8. NOUNS (b) Internal Form These various ‘-ion’ endings are a reflection of the fact that these words were borrowed into English from Latin. But not very many nouns in English have such endings.
- 9. NOUNS (b) Internal Form There are also morphemes which can be added to words from other open word classes to turn them into nouns, for example: bombard (verb) bombardment (noun) prefer (verb) preference (noun)
- 10. NOUNS (b) Internal Form But again, many nouns do not have such ‘nouny’ endings (e.g. “book,” “pen”), and some endings can end words belonging to different word classes (so “cutting,” for example, with its “- ing” ending, can be a noun, a verb, or an adjective in different sentential contexts.)
- 11. NOUNS (c) Function Although it is probably the most difficult of the three defining criteria to come to terms with, the most reliable way to a spot a noun is in relation to its function.
- 12. NOUNS (c) Function So, if it is the head of a noun phrase (e.g. “the boy,” “a girl,” “a book,” “the man who I met”) it must be a noun by virtue of its surrounding grammatical context.
- 13. NOUNS (c) Function Nouns can also modify other nouns inside noun phrases, in which case they normally have tp occur closer to the head noun than the other modifier: “An enormous grey stone wall”
- 14. ADJECTIVES (a) Meaning Adjectives prototypically refer to the properties of nouns. They are often described as “describing” words. The difficulty with defining adjectives as referring to properties of nouns is that there are plenty of adjectives which do not fit the specification.
- 15. ADJECTIVES (b) Internal Form It is possible to compare adjectives: that is to produce comparative and superlative versions of them by (a) adding comparative/superlative morphological endings (‘-er’ and ‘- est’) or (b) inserting comparative/superlative words (‘more,’ ‘most’) in front of them:
- 16. ADJECTIVES (b) Internal Form ADJECTIVE COMPARATIVE SUPERLATIVE red redder reddest beautiful more beautiful most beautiful But not all adjectives can be compared: (‘*more male,’ ‘*most male,’ and ‘*malest’ sound very odd for example). This is because ‘male’ is a non-gradable adjective. It is easier to compare gradable adjectives.
- 17. ADJECTIVES (b) Internal Form Other ‘adjectival’ endings Many adjectives end in ‘-y’ which was formed from nouns by adding the suffix ‘-y.’ Other suffixes which do a similar job are ‘-ous’ (generous) and ‘-al’ (conical). But of course, there are plenty of adjectives which do not have any ‘adjective endings’ (e.g. red, green).
- 18. ADJECTIVES (c) Function Functionally, adjectives have two roles: 1. They act as pre-modifiers to the head nouns of noun phrases. 2. They can be the headwords of adjective phrases. As we noted when looking at nouns, many words can be ambiguous with respect to word class. But ambiguities can be resolved if we consider the functional context which the word is related to. So ‘red’ can be a noun or a verb but in ‘a penny red’ it is a noun and in “a red stamp” it is an adjective.
- 19. VERBS (a) Meaning Verbs are often described as ‘doing words,’ and it is certainly true that they prototypically refer to actions and processes. But meaning is again rather unreliable as a way of defining verbs because as we all know we have different types of verbs which function in various ways.
- 20. VERBS (b) Internal Form 1. In their finite form verbs are marked tense. Most verbs can be converted to past tense by adding ‘- ed’ morpheme. 2. Verbs can also be marked for person concord with the subject of the sentence (singular subject- singular verb, plural subject-plural verb)
- 21. VERBS (b) Internal Form 3. Finally, verbs can carry marking in relation to what is usually called ‘aspect.’ Aspect has something to do with whether an action is perceived as being something which happens in a moment (punctual) or is spread over a longer period of time (continuous).
- 22. VERBS (c) Function Verbs always function inside verb phrases, either as the main (head) verb, or as an auxiliary to it. The participial forms (those ending in ‘-ing,’ ‘-ed,’ ‘-en’) are ambiguous formally between verbs and adjectives but their differing functions in context remove the ambiguity.
- 23. ADVERBS (a) Meaning If the prototypical role for adjectives is to modify nouns, the prototypical role for adverbs is to modify or specify circumstances under which verbs operate. Adverbs typically tell us when, where, and how something happens.
- 24. ADVERBS (b) Internal Form Adverbs are formed by adding ‘-ly’ to some adjectives. Like adjectives, some adverbs compare: ADVERB COMPARATIVE SUPERLATIVE quickly more quickly most quickly slowly more slowly most slowly
- 25. ADVERBS (c) Function Adverbs can function as the head of an adverb phrase and can also modify adjectives and other adverbs.
- 26. ADVERBS (d) Adverb Mobility The most typical place for the manner adverbs is at the end of the sentence. Compare: She quickly ate the sandwich. She ate the sandwich quickly. Although possible, there are cases that some positions are more natural than others.
- 27. There are two ways in English to change words from one word-class to another:
- 28. 1. Attach a derivational affix to the word concerned: bit (noun) bitty (adj) confine (verb) confinement (noun) man (noun) manly (adv)
- 29. 2. Leave the internal structure of the word alone but instead change the surrounding grammatical context to force a change of word class. Compare: I hit the table. The batter produced a really big hit.
- 30. In the first sentence ‘hit’ is a verb and in the second, a noun. This kind of word-class change is sometimes called ‘functional conversion’ because the grammatical function of the word is changed without any alteration to its internal form.