5.3 Word categories

Question 1

Knowing a word entails:

Answer 1

entails knowing its meaning, its pronunciation and spelling, its collocations, and also the
grammatical category to which it belongs.

Question 2

Why is it important, when you study a foreign language, to know the
names and functions of different ‘word categories’?
How are they also called?

Answer 2

–because most of the grammatical forms and rules that you need to learn refer to specific word categories. For example, in French, verbs have tenses and nouns have a gender, but nouns have no declensions as they would in German or Russian
-they are sometimes referred to as ‘word classes’

Question 3

Word category

Answer 3

refers to the different types of words that exist in a language (also known as ‘word class’ or ‘part of speech’). All words belong to certain categories according to the part they play in a
sentence. The main word categories in English are: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, determiner and
exclamation.

Question 4

Determiner

Answer 4

Introduces a noun (not in the book: or an adjective if there is one)
-The dog
-many classes
-these trees
-my new friend
—The main types are:
-Article (the house)
-Demonstratives (this house)
-Possessives (my house)
-Quantifiers (some houses)

Question 5

Article

Answer 5

a word that goes in front of a noun: e.g. the house, a statue, an error

–It’s not in the book but for what I have seen it is a type of determiner
–they can be indefinite (an, a)
or definite (the)

Question 6

Noun

Answer 6

a word that refers to a thing (‘street’, ‘happiness’), an animal (lion), a place (seaside, Moscow), or a person (woman, Mohammed).

Question 7

Verb

Answer 7

describes what a person or thing is, does or what happens. For
example, an action, a state, an event, a situation, a change (e.g. ‘run’, ‘occur’, ‘seem’, ‘become’).

Question 8

Adjetive

Answer 8

describes a noun, giving extra information about it (e.g. ‘sweet’, ‘black’, ‘technical’)

Question 9

Adverb

Answer 9

modifies the meaning of a verb (e.g. ‘slowly climbing’),
adjective (e.g. ‘incredibly beautiful’) adverb (e.g. ‘nearly always’)
–When used withaverb, this type of word can give information about
how something happens or is done, where something happens or when
something happens (e.g. ‘lazily’, ‘abroad’, ‘yesterday’, ‘almost’, ‘very’).

Question 10

Pronoun

Answer 10

used in place of a noun that has already been mentioned or that is already known, often to avoid repeating the noun (e.g. ‘she’, ‘him’, ‘mine’, ‘themselves’, ‘it’).

Question 11

Preposition

Answer 11

used in front of nouns or pronouns and shows the relationship between the noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence.
In March
before me
at nine
until I finish
because of you
Can describe, for example, the position of something, the time when something happens, or the way in which something is done
(e.g. ‘under’, ‘after’, ‘by’, ‘because of’).

Question 12

Conjunction

Answer 12

used to connect phrases, clauses, and sentences (e.g. ‘or’,
‘and’, ‘but’, ‘until’, ‘because’).

Question 13

Exclamation

Answer 13

expresses an emotion, such as surprise, pleasure or anger
(e.g. ‘Ah!’ ‘Wow!’).

Question 14

All words have meaning and …

Answer 14

Form

Question 15

Words and forms

Answer 15

Some words can adopt a range of different forms depending on the function they play within a particular sentence

Question 16

Morphology

Answer 16

Is the area of linguistics that deals with word forms

Question 17

What two basic types of changes in the structure of a word (word form)

Answer 17

1-Words may undergo variations or inflections according to their
grammatical function. For example, when the word ‘shoe’ takes an ‘s’ at
the end, its meaning does not fundamentally change, but the word
becomes plural.
2- Other changes of form may create new words that either have an entirely different meaning (‘friendly’/‘unfriendly’), or belong toadifferent word category. For example, the words ‘national’ (adjective), ‘nationally’ (adverb) and ‘nationalise’ (verb) all derive from the noun ‘nation’. New words can be formed in this way by adding parts to the beginning (prefixes) or the end (suffixes) of the word in question. The word ‘unfriendly’ has a prefix (‘un’, meaning ‘not’) and a suffix (‘ly’, which turns the noun ‘friend’ into an adverb).

Question 18

Form

Answer 18

the external shape of a word as opposed to its meaning. ‘Form’
may also refer to one of the different shapes that a word may take in a
sentence.

Question 19

Inflections (in the form of a word)

Answer 19

changes in the form of a word according to the word’s
grammatical function (e.g. ‘shoe’ (singular)/‘shoes’ (plural)

Question 20

Morpheme:

Answer 20

a minimal and indivisible morphological unit that cannot
be analysed into smaller units (e.g. ‘in’ + ‘come’ + ‘-ing’ together form
‘incoming’) (OED). ‘A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the
grammar of a language’ (Payne 1997, cited in SIL International, 2004)

Question 21

Prefix and suffix (note prefix only one f suffix two f)

Answer 21

Prefix: letters/sounds added to the beginning of an existing word in
order to create a new word with a different meaning (e.g. ‘un’ + ‘happy’
= ‘unhappy’; ‘inter’ + ‘cultural’ = ‘intercultural’).
Suffix: letters or sounds added to the end of an existing word to create
a new word with a different meaning (e.g. ‘work’ + ‘er’ = ‘worker’; ‘friend’ + ‘ly’ = ‘friendly’).

Question 22

Is it possible to identify which class a word belongs to just by looking at its form? What about when there is no word-class marker?

Answer 22

In his book How Language Works, David Crystal (2006) explains that:
‘In languages which haveacomplex morphology … it is often possible to
tell which class a word belongs to just by looking at its shape. A particular kind of prefix might identify verbs; a particular kind of suffix might identify nouns. English has only a few endings which are strongly associated with word classes in this way: -ness, for example, is a noun suffix; -ize [-ise] isaverb suffix. Most of the time, you cannot tell what class a word belongs to simply by listening to it or looking at it.’
(p. 243)

In other languages it may be easier to determine a word’s category by
looking at its form, thus in Spanish most words ending in -er, -ar and -ir are likely to be verbs, as are words ending in -are and -ire in Italian.

Crystal continues discussing the case of English:
‘When there is no word-class marker, everything depends on how the word ‘behaves’ in a sentence. Round is a good illustration of this principle in
action, for it can belong to any of five word classes, depending on the
grammatical context.’
(Crystal, 2006, p. 243)

Question 23

What do you need to use a word correctly? (we are talking about form) and how does this happen in your native language compared to when you are learning a new language?
–how do you overcome this?

Answer 23

In order to use a word correctly you need to know the different forms that the word can take within a sentence and be able to use the right one for the context. In your own language you do this automatically. A native English
speaker does not need to think twice in order to produce the sentences ‘go to the shop’, ‘she goes to work’, ‘I went last week’ or ‘they’re all gone’.
However, someone who has just started learning English may need to check which form of the verb ‘go’ is required in each case. Being repeatedly exposed to the language over a period of time will help you get a better ‘feel’ for which structures go where, but you may also need to consciously study
language forms to help you decide on the correct usage. New language
learners normally begin with just a few forms, often in the context of specific phrases, and then gradually learn to use the full range of available variants of a word. Through exposure to the language and frequent practice you become
able to use an increasing number of language structures automatically. Until then you may need to refer to a grammar table in order to remember which form should be used. Grammar tables can be very useful, as long as you have
the necessary knowledge to interpret them correctly. You may remember the term ‘paradigmatic’, which was introduced in Unit1to refer to the contrast in meanings between signs (see Section 1.10). In language course books, grammar books and some dictionaries, you can often find all the different
forms that a word can take grouped together into a table, a figure or a list
that presents them as a system or paradigm.

The number of choices available within the same paradigm may also vary from one language to another. In English, nouns normally vary in number (singular or plural) but they are neither feminine nor masculine. In French, Spanish and Italian, a noun’s gender may be either feminine or masculine,
whereas in German, it may be feminine, masculine or neuter. Arabic has a specific number category for things that come in pairs (e.g. hands, scissors,
eyes, trousers), which is known as the ‘dual form’, whereas in most European languages number is only divided into either singular or plural.

Question 24

Common dictionary abbreviations

Answer 24

Dictionaries are structured and use a range of abbreviations and symbols
to help you find what you are looking for without having to read
sometimes very lengthy entries. Different types of words have different labels to show what category or categories they belong to, for example, noun and/or verb. These symbols and abbreviations should be explained in a list at the front of your dictionary. These may vary slightly from dictionary to dictionary so you should take time to familiarise yourself with the conventions followed by the dictionary you are using. Common
abbreviations include:
n. for ‘noun’
v. for ‘verb’
nom. for ‘nominative’
gen. for ‘genitive’
dat. for ‘dative’
acc. for ‘accusative’
sing. for ‘singular’
pl. for ‘plural’
m. for ‘masculine’
f. for ‘feminine’
nt. (or neut.) for ‘neuter’