RIVERS STATE UNIVERSITY

AHOADA

TITTLE OF ASSIGNMENT
A PART OF SPEECH IS A CATEGORY OF WORDS THAT HAVE SIMILAR
GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES. DISCUSS.

LECTURER’S NAME:
Dr. FLORENCE NNE AGWU

SUBMITTED BY:
PRECIOUS ANTHONY

FACULTY:
HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT:
ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES

COURSE TITLE:
USE OF ENGLISH

COURSE CODE:
GST 141

DATE:
rd
3 May, 2023
INTRODUCTION:

In linguistic, a part of speech (POS) is a grammatical concept that categorizes words into
groups based on their syntactic and morphological properties. These categories help to
indentify the function of word in a sentence and their relationship to other words around
them. The main parts of speech in English are:

1. Nouns
2. Verbs
3. Adjectives
4. Adverbs
5. Pronouns
6. Preposition
7. Conjunction and interjection.

In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or Pos, also known as

ward class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical
items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assigned to the same part of
speech generally display similar syntactic behavior (they play similar roles within the
grammatical structure of sentences), sometimes similar morphological behavior in that they
undergo inflection for similar properties and even similar semantic behavior. Commonly
listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition,
conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, and determiner.

Other terms than part of speech particularly in modern linguistic classifications, which often
make precise distinctions than the traditional scheme does include word class, lexical class,
and lexical category. Some authors restrict the term lexical category to refer only to a
particular type of syntactic category; for them the term excludes those parts of speech that are
considered to be function words, such as pronouns. The term form class is also used, although
this has various conflicting definitions. Word classes may be classified as open or closed:
open classes (typically including nouns, verbs and adjectives) acquire new members
infrequently, if at all.

Almost all languages have the word classes noun and verb, but beyond these two there are
significant variations among different languages. For example:

 Japanese has as many as three classes of adjectives, where English has one.
 Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese have a class of nominal classifiers.
 Many languages do not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs, or between
adjectives and verbs.

Because of such variation in the number of categories and their identifying properties,
analysis of parts of speech must be done for each individual language. Nevertheless, the
labels for each category are assigned on the basis of universal criteria.

Western tradition:
A century or two after the work of Yaska, the Greek scholar Plato wrote in his Cratylus
dialogue, “sentences are, I conceive, a combination of verbs and nouns”. Aristotle added
another class, “conjunction” which included not only the words known today as conjunctions,
but also other parts (the interpretations differ; in one interpretation it is pronouns,
prepositions, and the article).
By the end of the 2nd century BCE, grammarians had expanded this classification scheme into
eight categories, seen in the Art of Grammar, attributed to Dionysius Thrax:

1. ‘Name’ translated as “Noun”: a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a concrete
or abstract entity. It includes various species like nouns, adjectives, proper nouns,
appellatives, collectives, ordinals, numerals and more.
2. Verb: a part of speech without case inflection, but inflected for tense, person and
number, signifying an activity or process performed or undergone.
3. Participle: a part of speech sharing features of the verb and the noun.
4. Article: a declinable part of speech, taken to include the definite article, but also the
basis relative pronoun.
5. Pronoun: a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for a person.
6. Preposition: a part of speech placed before other words in composition and in syntax.
7. Adverb: a part of speech without inflection, in modification of or in addition to a verb,
adjective, clause, sentence, or other adverb
8. Conjunction: a part of speech binding together the discourse and filling gaps in its
interpretation.

It can be seen that these parts of speech are defined by morphological, syntactic and semantic
criteria.

The Latin grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 CE) modified the above eightfold system, excluding
“article” (since the Latin language, unlike Greek, does not have articles) but adding
“interjection”.

India:
In the Nirukta, written in the 6th or 5th century BCE, the Sanskrit grammarian Yaska defined
four main categories of words:
1. Noun (including adjective)
2. Verb
3. Pre-verb or prefix
4. Particle. Invariant word (perhaps preposition)

These four were grouped into two larger classes: inflectable (nouns and verbs) and non
inflectable (pre-verbs and particles).

The ancient work on the grammar of the Tamil language, Tolkappiyam, argued to have been
written around 2nd century CE, classifies Tamil words as peyar, vinai, idai (part of speech
which modifies the relationships between verbs and nouns), and uri (word that further
qualifies a noun or verb).

The Latin names for the parts of speech, from which the corresponding modern English terms
derive, were nomen, verbum, participium, pronomen, praepositio, adverbium, conjunction
and interjection. The category nomen included substantives (nomen substantivum,
corresponding to what are today called nouns in English), adjectives (nomen adjectivum) and
numerals (nomen numerale). This is reflected in the older English terminology noun
substantive, noun adjective and noun numeral. Later the adjective became a separate class, as
often did the numerals, and the English word noun came to be applied to substantives only

Classification Works of English grammar generally follow the pattern of the European
tradition as described above, except that participles are now usually regarded as forms of
verbs rather than as a separate part of speech, and numerals are often conflated with other
parts of speech: nouns (cardinal numerals, e.g., “one”, and collective numerals, e.g.,
“dozen”), adjectives (ordinal numerals, e.g., “first”, and multiplier numerals, e.g., “single”)
and adverbs (multiplicative numerals, e.g., “once”, and distributive numerals, e.g., “singly”).

Additionally, there are other parts of speech including particles (yes, no) and postpositions
(ago, notwithstanding) although many fewer words are in these categories.

Some traditional classifications consider articles to be adjectives, yielding eight parts of

speech rather than nine. And some modern classifications define further classes in addition to
these.

Some word classes are OPEN, that is, new words can be added to the class as the need arises.
The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded
as new scientific discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are
explored. In the late twentieth century, for example, developments in computer technology
have given rise to many new nouns: internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup,
bitmap, modern, multimedia

New verbs has also been introduce: download, upload, reboot, right-click, double-click

The adjectives and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though
less prolifically.

On the other hand, we never invent new preposition, determiners or conjunctions. These
classes include words like of, the, and but. They are called CLOSED word classes because
they are made up of finite sets of words which are never expanded (though their members
may change their spelling, for example, over long period of time). The subclasses of
pronouns, within the open nouns class, is also closed.

Words in an open class are know as open – class items. Words in a closed class are known as
closed – class items.

Some word classes are OPEN , that is, new words can be added to the class as the need arises.
The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded
as new scientific discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are
explored. In the late twentieth century, for example, developments in computer technology
have given rise to many new nouns: internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup,
bitmap, modern, multimedia

New verbs has also been introduce: download, upload, reboot, right-click, double-click

The adjectives and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though
less prolifically. On the other hand, we never invent new preposition, determiners or
conjunctions. These classes include words like of, the, and but. They are called CLOSE word
classes because they are made up of finite sets of words which are never expanded (though
their members may change their spelling, for example, over long period of time). The
subclasses of pronouns, within the open nouns class, is also closed.
Words in an open class are known as open – class items. Words in a closed class are known
as closed – class items.

OPEN AND CLOSED CLASSES

Word classes may be either open or closed. An open class is one that commonly accepts the
addition of new words, while a closed class is one to which new items are very rarely added.
Open classes normally contain large numbers of words, while closed classes are much
smaller. Typical open classes found in English and many other languages are nouns, verbs
(excluding auxiliary verbs, if these are regarded as a separate class), adjectives, adverbs and
interjections. Idiophones are often an open class, though less familiar to English speakers,
and are often open to nonce words. Typical closed classes are prepositions (or postposition),
determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns.

Words are added to open classes through such processes as compounding, derivation,
coining, and borrowing. When a new word is added through some such process, it can
subsequently be used grammatically in sentences in the same ways as other words in its class.
A closed class may obtain new items through these same processes, but such changes are
much rare and take much more time. A closed class is normally seen as part of the core
Language and is not expected to change. In English, for example, new nouns, verbs, etc. are
being added to the language constantly (including by the common process of verbing and
other types of conversion, where an existing word comes to be used in a different part of
speech). However, it is very unusual for a new pronoun, for example, to become accepted in
the language, even in cases where there may be felt to be a need for one, as in the case of
gender-neutral pronouns.

The open-closed distinction is related to the distinction between lexical and functional
categories, and to that between content words and function words, and some authors consider
these identical, but the connection is not strict. Open classes are generally lexical categories
in the stricter sense, containing words with greater semantic content, while closed classes are
normally functional categories, consisting of words that perform essentially grammatical
functions. This is not universal: in many languages verbs and adjectives are closed classes,
usually consisting of few members, and in Japanese the formation of new pronouns form
existing nouns is relatively common, though to what extent these form a distinct word class is
debated.
REFEERENCE:
www.google.com
www.askai.com