word classes

Question 1

Nouns (N)

Answer 1

Usually a major and open word class (lots of members and new ones added all the time)
In english and many other language, noun inflect for number
Cat - cats, day - days, mouse - mice
**other language example
In english, nouns can take the definite article
The cat, the flip, the information, the friends, the ice
And can function as the subject of a sentence: The _______ surprised me
In other languages, nouns inflect for case, gender, and other things

Question 2

Verbs (V)

Answer 2

Usually a major and open word class
In many languages, verbs inflect for tense or aspect
In many language verbs agree with subject
In many language verbs combine with auxiliary

Question 3

adjectives

Answer 3

• Can be a major and open, or a minor and close word classes – some languages have very few adjectives and know new ones are added
  In english, many adjectives inflect for comparative and superlative: harder hardest
  In languages which have adjective, they can appear next to and modify a noun
  English: the ________ thing/person

Question 4

Adverbs

Answer 4

• A cover term for words that are not nouns, verbs, adjective or adpositions but which still have lexical content
  Can be major and open, or a minor and closed word class
  In English, adverbs cannot appear in predicative positions
  Can’t say: the person is quickly
  Can say: the person is quick
  In languages which have adverbs, they modify a verb and often have flexible position in a sentence
  He answered my quickly/he quickly answered me/quickly, he answered me

Question 5

Adpositions

Answer 5

Typically a close class with a dozen to a hundred members
Some adpositions have lexical content (make clear semantic contribution);
around, under, while others don’t; of
Must typically appear with and next to a noun phrase
Around the house, under the bed, “picture) of horses
English has prepositions and they dont inflect
Other language example**

Question 6

Auxiliaries (aux)

Answer 6

Always a closed, grammatical class
A subcllas of verbs which express grammatical info related to tense, aspect, negation, necessity, ability
English auxiliaries precede the main verb
Is singing, has, sung, will sing, may sing, can sing
*list of english auxiliary pg 116

Question 7

Quantifiers and numeral

Answer 7

Are always closed, grammatical class while numeral are usually an open class
Both occur within the noun phrase and indicate quantity or number of items denoted by the noun
Often only one quantifier allowed per noun phrase
Many, much, all, no, every, several

Question 8

Demonstrative

Answer 8

Closed class
Occur within the noun phrase (usually at its edge) and have deictic meaning
English proximal demonstratives: this house, these three houses
English distal demonstratives: that house, those houses

Question 9

Articles

Answer 9

A very small, closed grammatical class whose members express discourse-related notions like definite, indefinite
English article: a (indefinite article), the (definite)
Articles are usually small words and must occur with a noun ( are ungrammatical without a noun)
English *the/a can be difficult
This that many and some can be difficult ←- not article
Many languages don’t have articles

Question 10

Conjuctions

Answer 10

A small, closed class
Conjoin two or more words, phrases, sentences and therefore occur between (and sometimes also after) elements of the same syntactic type
English: and, or, but
Ex. the man AND the woman; fight OR flight; small BUT significant; it was grass AND messy AND glorius

Question 11

Pronouns

Answer 11

A close class
Take the place of a whole noun
My two older brother breedhouses
They breed horses
Cannot be modified by noun modifiers such as adjectives, demonstratives and quantifies
*older they, *my they, *two they
Many subtypes
Ex. possessive pronouns (my, your, her, his, its, our, their), interrogative pronouns (who?, what?, which?, where?)

Question 12

Additional word classes

Answer 12

Degree words: very/so/quite/too happy
Complemetizers: im happy that you call, she wondered if he was sick
Particle: a class of words that do not inflect and do not belong in any of the other classes
May have discourse function
German example: