week 4: words
Open classes
•
•
•
We can readily coin new words to add it (i.e. book
books
Their membership is fairly open-ended (word/s having different meaning i.e mean)
A member of one class may be identical in spelling and/ pronunciation with a
member of another class (i.e We Vwater the plants with rain Nwater)
closed classes
• have a fairl fixed membership
‘fuzzy edges’
• Words have members which are identical in form to members of other
classes (i.e. ‘this’ can be either pronoun or determiner)
Example:
- I love this (pronoun)
- This flower is for you (determiner)
• The same word is shared by an open and a closed class
Example:
- I have a round ball (adjective)
- Many children are playing soccer round the field (preposition)
• Idioms which behave like a single preposition
Example:
Instead of, away from, with reference to
the open classes – using three types of criterion/test
1.



2.
3.
FORM
Certain suffixes are characteristics of certain word classes (i.e. Electric-ITY (noun),
electric-FY (verb), electric-Al or electr-IC (adjective)
Certain suffixes can be added to change the form of a word (i.e. Box-ES (noun),
work-ED (verb), tall-ER (adjective). These pureley grammatical endings are called
INFLECTIONS - -s/es, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -’s.
In some less regularcases, English words have inflections which involve some
other change in the form of a word (i.e. man/men, go/went, good/better/best)
FUNCTION
We can tell the class of a word by the way it behaves (i.e. The cook does not
actually cook the meal)
MEANING
This is a supportive criterion (i.e. Word type classified accroding to meaning)
Noun (N)
1.
2.
3.
FUNCTION
Nouns can function as the head (H) of a noun phrase (NP)
FORM
(1) Many nouns have characteristic suffixes (i.e. –Er (singer), -ist
(hypnotist), -ism (fascism), -tion (caution, station), -ity(divinity), -hood
(falshood), -ence (preference), -ness (goodness)
(2) Most nouns can change their form from SINGULAR into PLURAL
MEANING
Nouns typically refer to physical phenomena: people, objects, places,
substances, etc. (Concrete Noun).
Other nouns refer to events, states, activities, processes, times,
occasions, etc. (Abstract Nouns such as happiness, meeting, health, etc.)
three subclasses of nouns based on form, function and meaning
• COUNT/MASS NOUNS. Coun nouns refer to countable things
and they have plural forms. Mass nouns refer to substances &
qualities and they have no plural form such as happiness,
gold, etc.
• PROPER/COMMON NOUNS. Proper nouns denote to an
individual person, place, etc. It begins with a capital letter
such as John. Common nouns classify things into type. All
count and mass nouns are common nouns.
• COLLECTIVE NOUNS. They are generally count nouns, but
even in the singular form they refer to groups of people,
animals and things. Example: family, government, committee.
Verb (V)
• FUNCTION. Verbs here refer to FULL-VERB as the main
element in a verb phrase. They can stand on their own as a
predicator or the can follow others (operator).
• FORM. (i) some verbs have characteristics suffixes like -ise
(realise), and -ify (clarify), (ii) each verb has different forms
(regular and 200 irregular verbs).
• MEANING. Verbs can express action, events, process,
activities, states, etc. Such actions can be physical (eat),
mental (think), perceptual (see), social (buy), etc.
Adjective (Aj)
• FUNCTION. (i) as a head in an adjective phrase, (ii) as a modifier in a noun
phrase
• FORM. Most adjectives are GRADABLE
• MEANING. typically denote some quality or property attributed to nouns
Types of adjective meanings:
(i) physical qualities of colour, shape, etc.
(ii)pschological qualities of emotion such as funny, brave, etc.
(iii) evaluative qualities: good, wrong,
Adverb (Av)
 FUNCTION. as a head of an adverb phrase
or as a modifier in an adjective phrase
 FORM. (i) mostly are formed by the additon of -ly to an adjective, (ii) a few adverbs
resemble adjectives
 MEANING
Adverb Type
manner
place
direction
time - when
duration
frequency
degree
Eliciting Question
how?
where?
where to/from?
when?
how long?
how often?
to what degree?
Examples
well, nicely
here, there
up, back, forward
then, once
long, briefly, always
always, weekly
rather, quite, much
Exercise:
• do some exercise (3a, 3b, 3c, 3e, 3f)
• do another given exercise in the classroom