Open Word Classes

Words and their Characteristics

Morphological Characteristics
● Inflections (grammatical functions - suffixes)
● Derivations (common endings - prefixes and suffixes)
● Compounding (new word out of two independent bases)

● Common endings
Syntactic Characteristics
● Position in relation to other structures
● Roles they can perform
Semantic Characteristics
● What they represent
● Definition provided in the dictionary
Nouns
● Morphological characteristics:
○ Number, case
○ Complex morphological structure
● Syntactic characteristics:
○ As head of noun phrases they can have a wide range of roles
● Semantic characteristics:
○ They refer to concrete and abstract entities
Lexical Verbs
● Morphological characteristics:
○ Tense, aspect, voice
○ Complex morphological structure
● Syntactic characteristics:
○ Main verb
● Semantic characteristics:
○ They refer to processes
Adjectives
● Morphological characteristics:
○ Comparison
○ Complex morphological structure
● Syntactic characteristics:
○ Premodifiers, heads
● Semantic characteristics:
○ They qualify, classify, identify, and intensify
Adverbs
● Morphological characteristics:
○ Comparison
○ Derivation
● Syntactic characteristics:
○ Modifiers, adverbials
● Semantic characteristics:
○ Heterogenous meanings; degree, circumstance, stance, linking
Distributions of lexical word classes across registers
Morphological
Structure - Google common endings to the
four open word classes
Word Classes
One of the great contributions that the grammarians of ancient Greece
and Rome made to our understanding of language was the development
of a set of categories for classifying words. These categories came to be
known in English as parts of speech, and traditionally eight (or sometimes
nine) of these are presented as if they were a full and true account of the
possible classes into which words fall. They are usually given as noun,
verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, article and/or
interjection.

Taken from: Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. (2004). The functional analysis of English
 Verbs
Lexical, primary and main
Class and role

CLASS ROLE

Lexical Main

Primary Auxiliary

Modal
Lexical Verbs
● E.g., think, run, happen, distract, surround
Lexical Verbs
● E.g., think, run, happen, distract, surround
● Main verb: standing alone as the entire verb phrase
Lexical Verbs
● E.g., think, run, happen, distract, surround
● Main verb: standing alone as the entire verb phrase
○ I thought hard about it.
○ They run in the park every morning.
○ It happened a couple of years ago.
○ That noise distracts me.
○ The trees surround the house.
Study the examples
● The much higher frequency of lexical verbs reflects the fact that main
verbs often occur without any auxiliary in simple tense forms (6.2), and in
non-finite clauses (3.12).
● Modern linguists have raised a number of objections to the traditional
classification and particularly to the criteria for assigning these labels to
items, yet most of them still use all or most of these labels to indicate the
word classes of lexical items.
Regular and Irregular verbs
- Regular lexical verbs have fours morphological variants: base form, -s (third
person singular present tense), -ing (progressive aspect and present participle), -ed
(simple past tense and past participles)
- E.g.: move, moves, moving, moved
- Irregular verbs can be grouped into classes depending on the patterns they adopt
to form their past tense and their past participle..
Lexemes
● Three-lexeme verbs: (to) cut, cuts, cutting
● Four-lexeme verbs: (to) dig, digs, dug, digging
● Five-lexeme verbs: (to) write, writes, wrote, written, writing
What are the different forms?
● try
● execute
● put
● study
● fill
● understand
● close
● admit
● order
● push
Primary Verbs
● Be, have, do
Primary Verbs
● Be, have, do
● Main verb: standing alone as the entire verb phrase
● Auxiliary verb: occurring together with some main verb
Primary Verbs
● Be, have, do
● Main verb: standing alone as the entire verb phrase
○ I have some money.
○ We did the exercise together.
○ It is quite impressive.
● Auxiliary verb: occurring together with some main verb
○ Have you had one already?
○ Do you need one?
○ This isn’t working apparently.
○ The chest of drawers was moved from its original position.
Primary Auxiliaries
● Have/has: auxiliary for the perfect aspect
● Be: auxiliary for the progressive aspect and the passive voice
● Do/did: auxiliary for the present and the past tense
Study the examples
The businessman said the only topic of discussion at the coffee was domestic politics.
'You have to understand what it's like to have seven people meet who don't know each
other, and who want to have the honor of being with the president;Tamraz said,
describing the 45-minute coffee. 'We were looking for topics. We asked him, "How are
the elections going? Are we going to win?" 'Had it known more about some of the
guests, the White House might have reconsidered inviting them.
Lexemes
● Eight-lexeme verb: (to) be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been
● Four-lexeme verb: (to) have, has, having, had
● Five-lexeme verb: (to) do, does, did, doing, done
Modal Verbs
● Can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must
Modal Verbs
● Can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must
● Auxiliary verb: occurring together with some main verb
Modal Verbs
● Can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must
● Auxiliary verb: occurring together with some main verb
○ I can’t remember which one.
○ You won’t see her in the winter.
○ I must have left it in the car.
○ It should be lifted carefully.
Modal Verbs
● Modal verbs express modality.
● They precede the negative particle not in negations.
● The precede the subject in polar questions.
● They are followed by a bare infinitive verb.
● They are the first element in the verb phrase.
● They are neither marked for tense nor person.
Study the examples
● You can’t mark without a scheme. You must make a scheme.
● We shall not attempt a detailed account of linguistic categories in this book, but
will use as far as possible those which are well enough known.
● -“Will you do it?” -”I will.”
Verbs Distribution
Uses of auxiliary verbs
1. A: I heard a weird noise in the middle of the night. B: Did you? What kind of
noise?
2. A: You don’t believe in ghosts, do you? B: No, I don’t.
3. A: I’ve never been to a fortune-teller. B: Neither have I. C: I have. It was really
interesting.
4. A: I don’t believe you really saw a UFO. B: I did see one! It couldn’t have been
anything else.
Uses of auxiliary verbs
1. A: I heard a weird noise in the middle of the night. B: Did you? What kind of
noise? (to show surprise)
2. A: You don’t believe in ghosts, do you? B: No, I don’t. (to check information)
3. A: I’ve never been to a fortune-teller. B: Neither have I. C: I have. It was really
interesting. (to say that you are the same/different)
4. A: I don’t believe you really saw a UFO. B: I did see one! It couldn’t have been
anything else. (to add emphasis)
Practice auxiliaries
A: You're Tom's sister, aren't you? B: Yes, I'm Carla.
A: It's a great club, 1_____ it? B: Well, it's OK. But I don't like the music much.
A: 2_____ you? I love it! I've never been here before. B: Neither 3_____ . I don't go clubbing very often.
A: Oh, 4_____ you? I 5_____. In fact, I usually go most weekends. B: 6_____ you? I can't afford to go out every
weekend.
A: I didn't see you at Tom's birthday party last Saturday. Why 7_____ you go? B: I 8_____ go, but I arrived really
late because my car broke down.
A: Oh, that's why I didn't see you. I left early. B: I fancy a drink. I'm really thirsty after all that dancing.
A: So _____ I. Let's go to the bar.
Practice
● Channel and Miller pleaded guilty to a single felony and were placed on probation
for two years.
Practice
● Channel and Miller pleaded guilty to a single felony and were placed on probation
for two years.
○ Pleaded; lexical, main, regular
○ Were: primary, auxiliary
○ Placed: lexical, main, regular
Practice
1. They said we finally found out why our cattle are dying of lead poisoning.
2. Lebed has declined to run for a seat in the upper house of parliament, even
though he could have won one easily.
3. This program must be kept constantly up to date through study of shifts in mass
consciousness and through constant effort to connect up with them.
4. Oh, come on, doesn’t John want a little bit?
5. Endotoxins bind specifically to receptors found on the gut cell membranes of the
susceptible insects.
Semantic Domains of Verbs
● Activity (make, work, move, carry, catch, smile…)
● Mental (see, know, consider, love, wonder…)
● Communication (say, tell, talk, claim, offer…)
● Existence (seem, stand, live, appear…)
● Occurrence (become, happen, change, grow…)
● Causative (help, let, allow, require)
● Aspectual (start, keep, stop, begin, continue)
Semantic domains distribution
Semantic domains distribution
Valency Patterns
● Possible combinations of clause elements:
○ They are…
○ She took…
○ Mary and Ann came…
○ I arrived…
○ She told…
○ The activity seems…
Major Clause elements
● Subject
● Predicate
○ This was…
○ Is he…?
○ A little girl with wiry braids kicks….
○ The car broke…
○ The initiative was established…
○ Tactics can win…
Valency Patterns
1. Intransitive
2. Monotransitive
3. Ditransitive
4. Complex transitive
5. Copular
Intransitive (SV)
1) More people came.
2) Fred has arrived.
3) I might leave.
Monotransitive (SVOd)
1) She carried a long whippy willow twig.
2) Maddy and Lucius cooked dinner.
3) The cat caught a mouse.
4) The events reshaped history.
Ditransitive (SVOiOd)
1) Fred Unsworth gave her a huge vote of confidence.
2) She bought her daughter a new bike.
3) The company offered him a position.
4) The teacher assigned the students a difficult project.
Complex transitive (SVOdPo) (SVOdA)
1. They painted the room blue.
2. I find this book fascinating.
3. Mike left the car outside.
4. He put his hand on Cathy’s shoulder.
Copular (SVPs) (SVA)
1. Carrie felt a little less bold.
2. They remain optimistic about the future.
3. I was there.
4. Terry stayed at Lucy’s.
Multi-word Lexical Verbs
● Phrasal verbs (verb + adverbial particle): pick up
● Prepositional verbs (verb + preposition): look at
● Phrasal-prepositional verbs (verb + particle + preposition): get away with
● Multi-word verb (verb + noun; verb + prepositional phrase; verb + verb): take a
look, take into account, make do
Phrasal Verbs
● The meaning is often difficult to predict from their individual parts: show off, give
away, look after, go ahead, break down
● Nearly all phrasal verbs allow particle movement: I’ve got to get this one back; He
picked the phone up.
○ Compare; I’m waiting for somebody; It was hard to look at him.
● Nearly always, phrasal verbs with a pronominal object place the particle following
it: I’ll pick them up; I got it back.
Prepositional Verbs
● All prepositional verbs take a prepositional object. (a noun phrase occurring after
a preposition)
○ It just looks like [the barrel].
○ I’ve never even thought about [it].
● A reason why they are considered as a single unit is because can often be replaced
by a simple transitive verb with a similar meaning:
○ Looks like - resemble
○ Thought about - considered
○ Asked for - requested
○ Deal with - handle
○ Stand for - tolerate
Phrasal-prepositional verbs
● They consist of a lexical verb combined with an adverbial particle plus a
preposition.
○ Oh I shall look forward to this now.
○ But since there was no other mill, people had to put up with such treatment.
○ Perhaps I can get out of it without having to tell her anything.
○ No one has been able to come up with a product as lucrative and easy to market as opium.
● Phrasal-prepositional verbs function as a semantic unit and can sometimes be
replaced by a single transitive lexical verb with similar meaning:
○ Put up with - tolerate
○ Get out of - avoid
○ Look forward to - anticipate
Multi-word verbs occurrences