![]() CATEGORIES: BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism |
The Parts of Speech Problem. Grammatical Classes of WordsThe parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes. The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem: 1. Classical, or logical-inflectional, worked out by prescriptivists 2. Functional, worked out by descriptivists 3. Distributional, worked out by structuralists 4. Complex The Principles of Classification as Used by Prescriptive Grammarians Prescriptive grammarians, who treated Latin as an ideal language, described English in terms of Latin forms and Latin grammatical constraints. Similar to Latin, words in English were divided into declinables (nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, participles) and indeclinables (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, articles). The number of parts of speech varied from author to author: in early grammars nouns and adjectives formed one part of speech; later they came to be treated as two different parts of speech. The same applies to participles, which were either a separate part of speech or part of the verb. The article was first classed with the adjective. Later it was given the status of a part of speech and toward the end of the 19th century the article was integrated into the adjective. The underlying principle of classification was form, which, as can be seen from their treatment of the English noun, was not only morphologic but also syntactic, i.e. if it was form in Latin, it had to be form in English. The Principles of Classification as Used by Non-Structural Descriptive Grammarians Non-structural descriptive grammarians adopted the system of parts of speech worked out by prescriptivists and elaborated it further. Henry Sweet (1892), similar to his predecessors, divided words into declinable and indeclinable. To declinables he attributed noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjectivenumeral, participle), verb (finite verb), verbals (infinitive, gerund, participle) and to indeclinables (particles), adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Henry Sweet speaks of three principles of classification: form, meaning, and function. However, the results of his classification reveal a considerable divergence between theory and practice: the division of the parts of speech into declinable and indeclinable is a division based on form. Only within the class can we see the operation of the principle of function. Otto Jespersen, another noted descriptivist, also speaks of three principles of classification: “In my opinion everything should be kept in view, form, function and meaning...” (O Jespersen, 1935:91). On the basis of the three criteria, the scholar distinguishes the following parts of speech: substantives, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, and particles (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections). Otto Jespersen’s system is a further elaboration of Henry Sweet’s system. Unlike Henry Sweet, Otto Jespersen separates nouns (which he calls substantives) from noun-words, a class of words distinguished on the basis of function – a noun word is a word that can function as a noun; he also distinguishes pronouns as a separate part of speech, thus isolating them from Henry Sweet’s noun-words and adjectivewords. Both scholars treat the verb alike: to Henry Sweet the verb includes primarily finite forms: he doubts as to the inclusion of non-finites in the verb. Although the scholar speaks of form, function and meaning, in practice he gives preference to form. Date: 2015-12-17; view: 4335
|