[Part of speech] / a part of speech / a word class / a lexical category
In grammar, a part of speech (also a word class, a lexical class, or a lexical category) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed word classes, which acquire new members infrequently if at all.
Almost all languages have the lexical categories noun and verb, but beyond these there are significant variations in different languages.[1] For example, Japanese has as many as three classes of adjectives where English has one; Chinese, Korean and Japanese have nominal classifiers whereas European languages do not; many languages do not have a distinction between adjectives and adverbs, adjectives and verbs (see stative verbs) or adjectives and nouns[citation needed], etc. This variation in the number of categories and their identifying properties entails that analysis be done for each individual language. Nevertheless the labels for each category are assigned on the basis of universal criteria.[1]
History
The classification of words into lexical categories is found from the earliest moments in the history of linguistics.[2] In the Nirukta, written in the 5th or 6th century BC, the Sanskrit grammarianYāska defined four main categories of words:[3]
These four were grouped into two large classes: inflected (nouns and verbs) and uninflected (pre-verbs and particles).
The ancient work on the grammar of the Tamil language, Tolkappiyam, dated variously between 1st and 10th centuries AD, classifies words[4] in Tamil as
peyar (noun),
vinai (verb),
idai (part of speech which modifies the relationships between verbs and nouns) and
uri (word that further qualifies a noun or verb)
A century or two after the work of Nirukta, the Greek scholar Plato wrote in the Cratylus dialog that "... sentences are, I conceive, a combination of verbs [rhēma] and nouns [ónoma]".[5] Another class, "conjunctions" (covering conjunctions, pronouns, and the article), was later added by Aristotle.
By the end of the 2nd century BC, the classification scheme had been expanded into eight categories, seen in the Art of Grammar (Τέχνη Γραμματική) :
Noun: a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a concrete or abstract entity
Verb: a part of speech without case inflection, but inflected for tense, person and number, signifying an activity or process performed or undergone
Participle: a part of speech sharing the features of the verb and the noun
Interjection: a part of speech expressing emotion alone
Pronoun: a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for a person
Preposition: a part of speech placed before other words in composition and in syntax
Adverb: a part of speech without inflection, in modification of or in addition to a verb, adjective, clause, sentence, or other adverb
Conjunction: a part of speech binding together the discourse and filling gaps in its interpretation
English words have been traditionally classified into eight lexical categories, or parts of speech (and are still done so in most dictionaries):
Noun
any abstract or concrete entity; a person (police officer, Michael), place (coastline, London), thing (necktie, television), idea (happiness), or quality (bravery)
Pronoun
any substitute for a noun or noun phrase
Adjective
any qualifier of a noun
Verb
any action (walk), occurrence (happen), or state of being (be)
Adverb
any qualifier of an adjective, verb, clause, sentence, or other adverb
Preposition
any establisher of relation and syntactic context
Conjunction
any syntactic connector
Interjection
any emotional greeting (or "exclamation")
Although these are the traditional eight English parts of speech, modern linguists have been able to classify English words into even more specific categories and sub-categories based on function.
The four main parts of speech in English, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, are labelled form classes as well. This is because prototypical members of each class share the ability to change their form by accepting derivational or inflectional morphemes. The term form is used because it refers literally to the similarities in shape of the word in its pronunciation and spelling for each part of speech.[10]
Neither written nor spoken English generally marks words as belonging to one part of speech or another, as they tend to be understood in the context of the sentence. Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave, and telephone might all be either verb forms or nouns. Although -ly is a frequent adverb marker, not all adverbs end in -ly (-wise is another common adverb marker) and not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. For instance, tomorrow, fast, very can all be adverbs, while early, friendly, ugly are all adjectives (though early can also function as an adverb). Verbs can also be used as adjectives (e.g. "The astonished child watched the spectacle unfold" instead of the verb usage "The unfolding spectacle astonished the child"). In such cases, the verb is in its participle form.
In certain circumstances, even words with primarily grammatical functions can be used as verbs or nouns, as in "We must look to the how's and not just the why's" or "Miranda was to-ing and fro-ing and not paying attention".
In Old English, past participles of strong verbs were marked with a ge- prefix, as are most strong and weak past participles in Dutch and German today, and often by a vowel change in the stem. Those of weak verbs were marked by the ending -d, with or without an epenthetic vowel before it. Modern English past participles derive from these forms (although the ge- prefix, which became y- in Middle English, has now been lost).
Old English present participles were marked with an ending in -ende (or -iende for verbs whose infinitives ended in -ian). In Middle English, various forms were used in different regions: -ende (southwest, southeast, Midlands), -inde (southwest, southeast), -and (north), -inge (southeast). The last is the one that became standard, falling together with the suffix -ing used to form verbal nouns. See -ing (etymology).
The present participle, also sometimes called the active, imperfect, or progressive participle, takes the ending -ing. It is identical in form to the gerund (and verbal noun); the term present participle is sometimes used to include the gerund, and the term "gerund–participle" is also used.
The past participle, also sometimes called the passive or perfect participle, is identical to the past tense form (in -ed) in the case of regular verbs, but takes various forms in the case of irregular verbs, such as sung, written, put, gone, etc.
The present participle, or participial phrases (clauses) formed from it, are used as follows:
to form the progressive (continuous) aspect: Jim was sleeping.
as an adjective phrase modifying a noun phrase: The man sitting over there is my uncle.
adverbially, the subject being understood to be the same as that of the main clause: Looking at the plans, I gradually came to see where the problem lay.
similarly, but with a different subject, placed before the participle (the nominative absolute construction): He and I having reconciled our differences, the project then proceeded smoothly.
more generally as a clause or sentence modifier: Broadly speaking, the project was successful. (See also dangling participle.)
Past participles, or participial phrases (clauses) formed from them, are used as follows:
to form the perfect aspect: The chicken has eaten.
as an adjective phrase: The chicken eaten by the children was contaminated. (See also reduced relative clause.)
adverbially: Seen from this perspective, the problem presents no easy solution.
in a nominative absolute construction, with a subject: The task finished, we returned home.
Both types of participles are also often used as pure adjectives (see Types of participles above). Here present participles are used in their active sense ("an exciting adventure", i.e. one that excites), while past participles are usually used passively ("the attached files", i.e. those that have been attached), although those formed from intransitive verbs may sometimes be used with active meaning ("our fallen comrades", i.e. those who have fallen). Some such adjectives also form adverbs, such as interestingly and excitedly.
The gerund is distinct from the present participle in that it (or rather the verb phrase it forms) acts as a noun rather than an adjective or adverb: "I like sleeping'"; "Sleeping is not allowed." There is also a pure verbal noun with the same form ("the breaking of one's vows is not to be taken lightly"). For more on the distinctions between these uses of the -ing verb form, see -ing: uses.
첫댓글You must be specific! The last sentence of the first paragraph reveals an attempt to apply the nominative absolute (a noun phrase that ends or begins a sentence that is grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence). 독립주격(
첫댓글 You must be specific! The last sentence of the first paragraph reveals an attempt to apply the nominative absolute (a noun phrase that ends or begins a sentence that is grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence).
독립주격(
flow의 뜻
[의복·머리털이] 흐르듯이 드리워지다[down]; (바람에) 나부끼다
Her hair flowed over her shoulders.
그녀의 머리카락이 두 어깨 위로 흘러내리고 있었다.
< Nominative absolute 설명 예문>
Their manes flowing, the horses ran from the burning barn.