THE PROBLEM OF CLASSIFICATION OF PARTS OF SPEECH

The words of the language depending on their formal and semantic features are divided into certain grammatical classes. These traditional grammatical parts of words are called parts of speech. The problem of parts of speech has a long history and takes its origin from the time of ancient Greeks and Romans. The very term the part of speech was introduced in the grammatical teaching of ancient Greece and the first classifications of parts of speech were offered by ancient Greeks and Romans. The problem of classifying parts of speech of any language is very difficult and the main difficulties are the following:

1. The systems of parts of speech are different in different languages /e.g. in the English, German languages we have the article which we don’t find in Russian/. (the 1^st classification was offered by Aristotel)

2. The properties of parts of speech are different in different languages /e.g. in Russian the noun has 6 cases, the category of gender and the category of number, in German the noun has 4 cases, the category of gender and the category of number, in English the noun has 2 cases, it has no category of gender, it has the category of number/. /The adjective in Russian has 4 grammatical categories: the category of case, the category of gender, the category of number and the category of degree of comparison. In English the adjective has only one grammatical category - the category of degree of comparison/.

3. In one and the same language we have different parts of speech in the different periods of its history. /e.g. there was no article in old English. Statives as a part of speech appeared in Middle English/.

4. In one and the same language the properties of parts of speech and different in different periods of our history /e.g. the noun in old English had the category of case, the category of gender, the category of number/. /the noun of modern English has the category of case, the category of number, it has not the category of gender/. /the adjective in old English had the category of case, the category of number, the category of gender, the degrees of comparison and it had strong and weak forms. In Modern English the adjective has only 1 grammatical category - the category of degrees of comparison/.

5. In the course of time words change from one part of speech in another /e.g. the conjunction while with a preposition was origin a noun, asleep was a noun - a sleep, because was a noun with а by cause/.

In one and the same language morphological categories and s functions of different parts of speech may coincide /e.g. the and the numeral have the same function in the sentence, i.e. the function of an attribute, that is why the English linguist Rain didn’t consider that the numeral is a separate part of speech. He considered it to be the adjective. Morphological categories of certain words also coincide, e.g. many words are unchangable: She smiled happily /adverb/. I was worried but happily he came on time /modal word/. Due to the fact that both adverbs and modal words are unchangable many linguists consider that they belong to one part of speech. Even in dictionaries such words as certainly, perhaps are characterized as adverbs.

In the 40-s of the last century linguists worked out certain criteria for classifying words into parts of speech. These criteria are meaning, form and function taken together.

By meaning we understand not the individual meaning of each separate word but the meaning common to all the words of the given part of speech. This meaning is called the categorial meaning of a part of speech. /e.g. the categorial meaning of the noun is thingness, the categotial meaning of the adjective is property, the categorial meaning of the verb is process/.

Вy form we understand the morphological characteristics of a type of a word /Thus in Modern English the noun has the category of case and number/. /the verb is characterized by the category of tense, mood, voice, person, number, etc./ /Some parts of speech are unchangable, so they are characterized by invariability: modal words, prepositions, conjunctions/.

By function we mean the syntactical function of the word in a sentence and its combinability /e.g. the noun has the functions of the subject and the object and it combines with the article, the adjective, the verb and some other parts of speech. The verb has the function of the predicate, it combines mainly with nouns, pronouns and adverbs/.

Taking these criteria into consideration linguists gave the following classification of parts of speech of the modern English language: the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the stative, the verb, the adverb, modal words, prepositions, particles, interjections and the article. Though not all linguists consider that the article is a separate part of speech.

e.g. Noun:

1. Nouns denote thingness /meaning/

2. Nouns have the category of case and number /form/

3. The noun has the function of the subject, object and predicative /function/

It combines with the article, adjective and other parts of speech.

The statives:

1. Meaning.

Statives denote a passing state in which a person or a thing happens to be

2. Form.

Statives are unchangable

3. Function.

Statives have the function of the predicative they combine with link verbs.

/The child was asleep. The house was afire./

The preposition:

1. Meaning.

Prepositions denote relations between thing and phenomena.

2. Form.

Prepositions are unchangable.

3. Function.

Prepositions are never a separate part of speech, they combine with nouns and pronouns.

The parts of speech of any language are usually subdivided into notional parts of speech and functional parts of speech.

The notional parts of speech are the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the stative and modal words.

The notional parts of speech have a full lexical meaning and are used in the functions of the parts of the sentence.

The functional parts of speech are not used in the function of the parts of the sentence. They express relations between words and sentences or emphasize the meaning of words or sentences.

The functional parts of speech are: the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the article and the interjection.

The syntectico-distributional classification of words

Some modern linguists critisize the traditional classification of words into parts of speech and they offer their own classification of words according to the position of words in sentences. They classify words into certain classes, e.g. The American linguist Harris classified the words in the following way:

The words book, student, paper оccur in the position between the article and the verb is and he called them the N-class.

The words like, red, beautiful occur in the position between the article and the N-class, he called them the A-class.

The words like writer, speak, read occur in the position after the words of the N-class, (it the word will) and he called them the V-class. The words like quickly, beautifully occur in the position after intransitive, he called them the D-class.

The positions marked N,A,V,В may be filled in by nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and their equivalents e.g. in the position of the words of N-class we may find nouns - the boy is clever, pronouns - They are stupid, gerund - Reading is useful, infinitive - to go there as to spoil everything.

Another American linguist Charles Fries (“The structure of English”, NY, 1952) also divides words into 4 classes. He gives no names for these classes. He calls them: class 1,2,3,4.

To classify words into classes Charles Fries chose 3 typical sentences. He called them frames, according to the function:

1 2 3 4

Frame A: The concert was good /always/

1 2 1 4

Frame B: The clerk remembered the tax suddenly.

1 2 4

Frame C: The team went there.

The symbols for classes given by Charles Fries are not widely used but the symbols of classes given by Harris /N,V,A_fD/ are widely used in modern English. The four classes of notional words are divided into subclasses: V-class: V-transitive /read/, V-intransitive /work, run, go/,

N-class

N-nouns N-pronouns

N-proper N-common

N-animate N-inanimate N-animate

Besides the notional words there are also classes of functional words. Notional words are great in number, but functional words are few. Functional words are not used in the positions of notional words. They signal the relations between notional words and sentences and serve to intensify the meaning of notional words of whole sentences. There are 154 functional words.

According to Charles Fries there are the following functional words in English:

• Determiners

They include the article and some types of pronoun. They are used with the words of N-class. The determiners are subdivided into definite and indefinite. Definite determiners include the definite article /the work/, the demonstrative pronouns /this, that/, the possessive pronouns /my, his, our/. Indefinite determiners include the indefinite article /a book/, the indefinite pronouns /any, some, another, either/

• Modal and auxiliary verbs, they are used with the words of V-class.

• The words of the, very - type. They are used with the words of A-class: Very interesting, extremely_ difficult. They can't be used with verbs.

• Conjunctions /and, but/.

• Prepositions /in, on/.

• Introducers /it, there/. It's not very easy to swim across this river. There are flowers.

• Interrogative words /when, why/.

• Interjections /oh, alas/.

• The words «yes» and «no».

• Attention getting signals./Look, I say, listen/. Look here./

• The polite formula /please/.

Let, It is a device which includes the speaker into the request.

Help him, please. Let us help him.

Professor Bloch grouped the functional words of the English language into the following way:

Group 1: The words which are used as specifiers of notional words. They are determiners of nouns (articles, demonstrative, possessive and indefinite pronouns), modal and auxiliary verbs which specify notional verbs, intensifiers of adjective and adverbs (the words of the very type).

Group 2: It includes the words which serve as interpositional elements which determine the relations of notional words to one another. We have here prepositions and conjunctions.

Group 3: It includes the functional words which refer to the whole sentence. Here we have interrogative words, attention getting signals, the words yes and no, intersections, sentence introducers, the word let, please and some others.