Theoretical grammar of english

٧Pronouns - are they a different part of speech?
NO: - Sweet, Sherba
classical school
but - Jesperson: can't be applied to all WCs
YES: Are they notional of functional?
Notional: classical school, functional: present day.Barhudarov: structural Ws.
■ Principles of classification. The modern classification is traced back to ancient Greece.
Though criticized, it's natural and easy to remember. Principles:
1.Semantic. Has been criticized a lot. Jesperson: Traditional grammar says that by means of the verb something is said about sth/sb. But! "You 're a scoundret" - it's the words scoundrel that says sth about sb. Using this principle we should treat this word as a verb!
Nouns denote things, objects.
Verbs - action, state
Adjectives- qualities, properties
But! Words as 'action', 'flight' denote actions. Whiteness denotes quality.
So this principle alone is not reliable.
2. Formal approach. The form of a word. In this case the noun should be defined as a word which has a plural -s or in the possessive case 's. But then the invariable parts of sp should be classed together in a strange group: must, for, sheep.
One of the famous classifications was worked out within this approach (H. Sweet). He was the 1^st grammarian who represented the facts of English beyond the framework of Latin grammar.
1) Declinable:
- noun-words: infinitives& gerunds, noun numerals, nouns proper, noun pronouns adjective-words: adjectives proper, adjective pronouns, adjective numerals, participles
- verbs: verbs proper, verbals.
2) Indeclinable: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections.
The principles of Sweet's classification are not unified. This happened because Sweet worked under the strong influence of the rules of classical grammar. He starts from form, taking into consideration the ability of words to have inflexions. That's the origin of his division, but it's easy to notice that adverbs and numerals are indeclinable and pronouns have few formal exponents. So Sweet declares his own basic principle.