WORD CATEGORIES

DR.VMS
WORD CATEGORIES
Open class categories: (new words can be freely created in
these categories)
Noun (N) table, computer, event, joy, action
Verb (V) run, arrive, laugh, know, love, think, say, spray
Adjective (A) big, yellow, stable, intelligent, legal, fake
Adverb (Adv) badly, curiously, possibly, often
CLOSED CATEGORIES
Preposition (P) on, of, by, through, into, from, for, to Determiner (D)
the, a, this, some, every
Numerals (Num) one, two, three, ten, thirteen
Complementizers (C) that, if, whether, for
Auxiliaries (V) have, be
Modals (v or M) will, would, can, could, may, might, shall, should
Coordinators (Coord) and, or, but
Negation/Affirmation (Neg/Aff) no ,too
“SUBCATEGORIES” OF
VERBS
manner adverbs: slowly, carefully, quickly degree adverbs:
too, enough
frequency adverbs: often, rarely, always
modal adverbs: possibly, probably
WORD AFFIXES
simplest meaningful units, the “semantic atoms,” are often
called morphemes.
Words can have more than one morpheme in them.
book book-s, table table-s
DETERMINERS:
Articles: a, the
Demonstratives: that, this, these, those quantifiers: some,
every, each, no
AFFIXES
I dance present tense (meaning habitually, or at least
sometimes)
I danc-ed past tense
I am danc-ing present am progressive -ing (meaning I’m
dancing now)
SYNTACTIC
CONTEXTS
This is my most_________book
(Certain choices of words will yield well , others will not)
----- interesting, valuable, linguistic * John, slept, carefully,

This frame only allows adjectives (A) in the space, but not all
adjectives
FOLLOWING A
DETERMINER

The______ is here

----- book, milk ,furniture

*big, grow, very
 MODIFIERS
a word that modifies a verb is probably an adverb of some kind, and
similarly for other categories:

Categ Modifier Example

ory

V Adv [V stop] stop suddenly (a way of

stopping)
 
N A(djective) [N stop] sudden stop (a type of stop)
 
P Intensifier [P in] the middle right in the middle,
smack in the middle
A Degree [A sad] very sad, too sad, more sad
 
Adv Degree [Adv sadly] very sadly, too sadly, more
sadly
 MODIFIERS
John was shooting - John was shooting accurately
Assume we have independently established that accurately is an
adverb; since shooting accurately is a way of shooting, we can
conclude that in this sentence, shooting is a verb (V). Similarly, in:
I resent any unnecessary shooting of lions
we conclude from the fact that unnecessary is an adjective, and from
the fact that an unnecessary shooting is a type of shooting that in this
sentence, shooting is a noun (N). The reverse may hold true:
John shot - John shot accurately
Since shot is the past tense of shoot, we know that shot is a verb in
this sentence. Since accurately modifies it, we may conclude that
accurately is an adverb.
COMPLEMENTARY
DISTRIBUTION
two words having the same category is available when the two words
have complementary distribution, by which we mean that in a given
context, either one of two elements may occur but not both. For x.
_________ books
only certain words can occur: the or these.
the and these are in complementary distribution: if one appears, the
other cannot.
AFFIXES

prefixes:
pre-test, post-test, ex-husband, dis-appear, un-qualified, re-
think,
in-accurate
suffixes:
test-s, test-ed, test-able, nation-al-iz-ation
infixes:
Edu-ma-cation-Ghetto speak for ’education
COMPOSITIONALITY
denationalization: 1. The action of denationalizing, or the con­
dition of being denationalized. 2. The action of removing (an
industry, etc.) from national control and returning it to private
ownership.
The word nation is a free morpheme, and we can see that it is an
N, since it can be modified by adjectives, and it can bear plural
morphology The meaning of this word is built progressively from
the meaning of its part:
Nation-al characterizes a property that a nation can have. National
- ize means make national. De-nationalize means undo the
nationalizing. Denationaliz-ation is the process or the result of
denationalizing.
COMPOSITIONALITY

The speaker needs to know each of the five morphemes, de-, nation, -
al, -ize, -ation.
The speaker needs to know what kind of morpheme each one is. Is it
free? If not, then is it a prefix, suffix, etc?

nation-al *-alnation- -al is a suffix

pre-test *test-pre--pre- is a prefix
WORD STRUCTURE
nation - national - nationalize - nationalization Derivations like this
are standardly represented by a tree.
NATIONALIZATION
Thank You