THE PROBLEM OF PARTS OF SPEECH CLASSIFICATION

 

o Principles for classifying words into lexical-grammatical classes (‘parts of speech’):

- the general semantic principle

- the formal morphological principle

- the functional syntactic principle

 

o Different classifications of words into ‘parts of speech’: the underlying principle/-s; their strengths and weaknesses.

 

o The major groups of vocabulary (acc. to prof. Smirnitsky):

- parts of speech proper,

- function / form words,

- words outside the sentence structure.

Their defining characteristics

 

o The field approach to classifying words into lexical-grammatical classes. The field structure of a lexical-grammatical class. Central and peripheral elements.

 

o Overlaps between two or more lexical-grammatical classes. Zones of syncretism, syncretic elements.

 

o Word-class ambiguities and borderline cases in classifying words, e.g.:

- Noun – Verb

- Noun – Adj.

- Verb – Adj.

- Determiner – Pronoun – Adj.

- Preposition – Conjunction, etc.