Foreign Languages Teacher Training Faculty

Theory and Practice of Intercultural Communication

Department

Lecture 3

Word Сlasses. The problem of grouping

words into word classes; i.e. Parts of Speech.

M.A., lecturer Pentina Yevgeniya Olegovna

1.Describe the existing approaches to the parts of speech problem. How these
approaches influence FLT? Give examples.

2. What principle was H. Sweet‘s classification based on? Analyze H. Sweet‘s

classification and give examples. How it may help in the field of FLT?
3. What principle lay in the basis of Ch. Fries‘s classification? What were the
substitution patterns? How many classes did Ch. Fries single out? How many groups
of functional words?

4.What parts of speech are traditionally singled out? What are the merits and demerits
of the traditional classification of words into parts of speech?

5. Analyze the information from the given resource https

://topteachingtasks.com/engaging-ways-to-teach-parts-of-speech-in-your-classroom/
Prepare a list of arguments in favor of better way to teach parts of speech. Reason
your preference.
6.Problem-solving task. Study the following problem situation and give your solutions. Present
appropriate exercises and activities.
“English language contains more nouns than any other type of word. Without nouns, we couldn’t talk
about the things around us. We couldn’t form sentences and share ideas. In FLT classes, nouns are
one of the first things students learn about. What do students have to cover in a class on nouns that
they don’t already know? Which difficulties they might have?”

7.Anlyze the problem of the definitions of the English noun and parameters of its categorization.
What is a new concept of the category of case of the English noun (CONs and PROs)

8.Dwell on this point:

“The grammatical category of gender is less problematic than number and case. The undergraduate
students faced problems in learning English nouns mainly due to the students' lack of knowledge.
Teachers should pay more attention to the issue of noun case” Express your own opinion, give
examples and prove your ideas.

9.Comment on various interpretations of number distinctions of the English noun. The type of noun
which can be confusing for FL students who are learning about singular and plural nouns is noncount
nouns. Express your own opinion and give examples
 What are the grouping parts of speech?

Traditional grammar classifies words based on eight parts

of speech: the verb, the noun, the pronoun, the adjective,
the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the
interjection.
The study of grammatical classes of words.

The words of language, depending on various formal and semantic features,

are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. The traditional
grammatical classes of words are called ―parts of speech. Since the word is
distinguished not only by grammatical, but also by semantico-lexemic
properties, some scholars (V. Smirnitsky) refer to parts of speech as ―lexico-
grammatical series of words, or as “lexico-grammatical categories”
Prof. M. Blokh introduced the term “grammatical classes”. He starts from the
assumption that what is traditionally called a part of speech is a type of word,
which grammatically differs from other types of words.

It should be noted that the traditional term ―parts of speech was developed in
Ancient Greek linguistics and reflects the fact that at that time there was no
distinction between language as a system and speech, between the word as a
part of an utterance and the word as a part of lexis.

The term ―parts of speech is accepted by modern linguistics as a conventional,

or ―non- explanatory term (name-term) to denote the lexico- grammatical
classes of words correlating with each other in the general system of language
on the basis of their grammatically relevant properties.
The system of parts of speech is historically changeable,
e.g. articles, modal verbs, statives were not recognized as separate
parts of speech in Old English, though they are recognized as such
in Modern English. As a matter of fact, language vocabulary is not
a chaotic mass of words, grammar organizes these words into
grammatical classes of words and every new lexeme, appearing in
the language, should join one of the existing classes and share the
features of other lexemes of the same class. The theory of parts of
speech is problematic and controversial:
1) the principles of word discrimination;
2) the number of parts of speech in a certain language;
3) the qualitative division of parts of speech.
Let’s practice
Noun is characterized by the categorical meaning of “thingness”, or substance.
It has the changeable forms of number and case. The substantive functions in
the sentence are those of the subject, object and predicative.

Adjectives. The features of the adjective: 1) the categorial meaning of property

(qualitative and relative); 2) the forms of the degrees of comparison (for
qualitative adjectives); the specific suffixal forms of derivation; 3) adjectival
functions in the sentence (attribute to a noun, adjectival predicative).
Verb is characterized by the categorial meaning of process expressed by both
finite and non-finite forms. The verb has the changeable forms of the 6
categories: person, number, tense, aspect, voice and mood. The
syntactic function of the finite verb is that of predicate. The non-finite
forms of the verb (Infinitive, Gerund, Participle I, Participle II) perform
all the other functions (subject, object, attribute, adverbial modifier,
predicative).
Adverbs have the categorical meaning of the secondary property, i. e. the
property of process or another property (quickly, loudly, gently, often,
always, here, there, yesterday, today, tomorrow etc. ). They are
characterized by the forms of the degrees of comparison (for qualitative
adverbs) and the functions of various adverbial modifiers.
Pronouns point to the things and properties without naming them: I, you, he,
she, we, they, him, her, he, she, us and them etc.
Numerals have the categorical meaning of number. They are invariable in
English and used in the attributive and substantive functions.
Statives are words of the category of state, or qualifying words, which
express a passing state a person or thing happens to be in
(aware, alive, asleep, afraid etc).
Modal words express the attitude of the speaker to the situation
reflected in the sentence and its parts. Here belong the words of
probability (probably, perhaps, etc), of qualitative evaluation
(fortunately, unfortunately, luckily, etc.) and also of affirmation and negation
Interjection, occupying a detached position in the sentence, is
a signal of emotions (ahh, alas, alrighty, dang, gee, nah, oops, phew,woops
yikes etc.).
Preposition expresses the dependencies and interdependencies of
substantive referents (beneath,beside,between,from,in front of,inside,under)
Conjunction expresses connections of phenomena (and, or, so, but etc.).
Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the
noun in communicative collocations. Particle unites the functional
words of specifying and limiting meaning (even, just, only, off, up, down
etc).
Define the underlined parts of speech and their
grammatical peculiarities. Let’s practice
1. It’s cold today, so Benji and I are walking fast.
2. Mum’s watching the news.
3. He’s crying as the policeman asks people to help.
4. Here are the answers to some questions.
5. I wish Mark good luck and I am sure his dad will
understand him.
6. Do you ever dream about climbing Mount Everest or
visiting Antarctica?
7. I want to climb a snow mountain.
Nouns are subcategorized into
Proper: Mary, Robinson,London and Common:girl,person, city,
Animate:man, scholar, leopard and Inanimate:earth, field, rose
Countable: coin/coins, floor/floors and Uncountable: news, growth,
water
Concrete: stone, grain, leaf and Abstract: honesty, love, darkness

Verbs are subcategorized into

Adjectives are subcategorized
into qualitative and relative,
factive and evaluative etc.
fully predicative and
partially predicative
transitive and intransitive
actional and statal
terminative and durative
Some English words can play many roles in a sentence,
for example:
Dream
A dream: noun form
To dream: verb form
Dream job: adjective form

Work in pairs. Basing on the given

example, think of the activities which
you may adapt to your FLT classroom
Let’s practice