Parts of Speech


Invariant words: no prefixes or suffixes in English


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Invariant words: no prefixes or suffixes in English

  • Prepositions (in, on, at, about, across, beyond, etc.)
  • Modals (may, might, can, could, must, shall, should, etc.)

Morphological Properties of English Verbs

  • Base
  • Participle
  • Past
  • Present
  • Gerund
  • mow
  • mown
  • mowed
  • mows
  • mowing
  • prove
  • proven
  • proved
  • proves
  • proving
  • go
  • gone
  • went
  • goes
  • going
  • meet
  • met
  • met
  • meets
  • meeting
  • cut
  • cut
  • cut
  • cuts
  • cutting
  • Past Participle
  • Present Participle
  • Third person singular subject
  • Infinitive

What are participles?

  • Verb forms that act like adjectives or nouns:
    • Mown grass
      • Participle in an adjective position
    • Mowing is fun
      • Participle in a noun position

Other uses of English Participles

  • The grass was mown.
    • Passive verb
  • I was mowing the grass.

Distributional criteria for parts of speech

Template 1: adjectives

  • Great ideas spread quickly.
  • Interesting ideas spread quickly.
  • Stupid ideas spread quickly.
  • Colorless ideas spread quickly.
  • Words of the same category have the same distribution. For example, adjectives can come before nouns.

Template 2: adjectives

  • They are very adjective.
  • They are very nice/gentlemanly/ladylike.
  • *They are very gentlemen/ladies/faxes.
  • *They are very starve/die.
  • *They are very to/at/on.
  • They are very in.
  • They are very off.

Template 3: adjectives and adverbs

  • Very adverb or adjective
  • Very slow
  • Very slowly
  • Very badly
  • Very happy

Template 4: adverb

  • He treats her adverb.
  • He treats her well.
  • He treats her arrogantly.
  • He treats her nicely.
  • He treats her nice.
  • He treats her good.

Template 5: nouns

  • noun can be a pain in the neck.
  • Television can be a pain in the neck.
  • Linguistics can be a pain in the neck.
  • This can be a pain in the neck.
  • *Happy can be a pain in the neck.
  • *From can be a pain in the neck.
  • *The can be a pain in the neck.
  • *Breathe can be a pain in the neck.

Template 6: verbs

  • They/it can verb.
  • They/it can stay/leave/die/cry.
  • *They/it can gorgeous/cute/trendy.
  • *They/it can from/to/in/off/on.
  • *They/it can door/bible/gold/camera.

Template 7: Modals

  • Modal I be frank?
  • Can I be frank?
  • Must I be frank?
  • Should I be frank?
  • Need I be frank?

Template 8: determiner

  • He wrote determiner other works.
  • He wrote the/all/these/no/few/many other works.
  • *He wrote despair/be/have other works.
  • *He wrote student other works.
  • ?He wrote successful other works.

Template 9: prepositions

  • Right preposition.
    • Right is an intensifier.
  • Right up/down/in/on/across the street
  • Right down the stairs
  • Right in the drawer
  • Right from school
  • Right across the street
  • *He right despaired.
  • *She chose right this one.

Problems

Template 1 problem

  • Templates need to be more exact:
    • Great ideas spread quickly.
    • The ideas spread quickly.
  • Do great and the have the same part of speech?

Template 5: need subcategories

  • Cat can be a pain in the neck.
  • The template only works for
    • Plural nouns (e.g., cats)
    • Mass nouns (e.g., water)
    • Pronouns (e.g., he)
    • Proper nouns (e.g., Sam)
  • Cat is a singular count noun.

Count and mass nouns

  • Singular count nouns must occur with a determiner:
    • The cat was a pain in the neck.
    • A cat can be a pain in the neck.
    • *Cat was a pain in the neck.
  • Plural nouns and mass nouns can occur without a determiner.
    • Cats can be a pain in the neck.
    • Water can be a pain in the neck.
  • Singular mass nouns change their meaning when they occur with “a”
    • a water
    • a coffee
    • ?An information

Other things to take into account

  • He can be a pain in the neck.
  • *Him can be a pain in the neck.
  • This music rocks.
  • These CDs rock.

Template 6: Need subcategories

  • *They can handle.
  • *They can accommodate.
  • *They can harbor.
  • The template only works for intransitive verbs.
  • These verbs need another noun after them.
    • They can handle boredom.
    • They can accommodate changes.
    • They can harbor criminals.

Template 9: prepositions

  • She looked at him right strangely. (dialect)
  • She is right pretty. (dialect)
  • You look a right clown. (Oxford English Dictionary)
  • The government made a right mess of it. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Words can have more than one part of speech

  • He needs to see a doctor. (verb)
  • Need I be frank? (modal)
  • I feel a need to explore my roots. (noun)

Importance to you

  • The distributional theory of parts of speech is problematic, but it is your best bet for your grammar writing project.
  • When you are building a lexicon, you will decide on parts of speech for words by using template tests and morphological tests.

In-class exercise

  • Goals:
    • Interpret the results of distributional tests for parts of speech.
    • Discover that some words are problematic for the distributional theory of parts of speech.
    • Reminder:
      • When you know a language, you know a complex body of unconscious knowledge.

Words that evade classification

  • More tests for prepositions and adjectives
  • Attempt to categorize like, worth, near, opposite, due, close, far

Predicative and non-predicative adjuncts

  • Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, page 604
  • Adjectives: predicative modifiers
    • Tired of the ship, the captain saw an island on which to land.
      • Tired is predicated of the captain.
    • *Tired of the ship, there was a small island.
  • Prepositions: non-predicative modifiers
    • Ahead of the ship, the captain saw an island on which to land.
    • Ahead of the ship, there was an island on which to land.

Become, Feel, Seem, Look

  • Adjectives
    • He became/seemed/felt/looked happy
  • Prepositions
    • *He became/seemed/felt/looked in the park.
    • Exceptions
      • He became/seemed/felt/looked under the weather
      • He became/seemed/felt/looked out of his mind

Degree modification

  • Adjectives
    • Very smart
    • Smarter
    • Smart enough
    • *very much smart
  • Prepositions
    • *very in the room
    • ?very much in the room
    • *more on the table
      • ?This book is more on the table than that one.
    • ?This book is enough on the table not to fall.
    • ?This book is on the table enough not to fall.
    • This book is very much on the table.
    • ?This book is more about linguistics than that one.

Followed by bare NP or PP

  • Adjectives: Cannot be followed by bare NP
    • Fond of Sam
    • *Fond Sam
    • Happy about the promotion
    • *Happy the promotion
  • Prepositions: Can be followed by bare NP
    • In the room
    • About linguistics

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