Questions tagged [word-classes]
a set of words that display the same formal (linguistic) properties, especially their inflections and distribution.
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questions
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1answer
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Looking for a theoretical treatment of closed- and open-classes
The concept of open-class (e.g. English nouns) and closed-class (e.g. English prepositions) word categories seems to be taken as a given in a lot of papers and textbooks. I'm looking for a treatment ...
7
votes
0answers
82 views
Is Riau Indonesian really monocategorial?
There have been plenty of publications (mostly by David Gil) discussing how Riau Indonesian is a unique language that lacks word categories.
To me, this sounds huge: a truly unique language, no word ...
0
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1answer
180 views
Are cold as in cool and cold as in calm seperate words? What is “cool” without context, it can't be a word?
Homonyms are two words that are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings. A definition is a statement of the exact meaning of a word, especially in a dictionary.
Cool as in ...
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2answers
95 views
What is a word called that can function as multiple other types of words?
Say we have a word W such that it is, in some context, appropriate to use as: a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and an interjection.
Is there a particular name for these types of multi-class ...
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1answer
59 views
How do we distinguish a preposition from an adverb?
Huddleston and Pullum analyze the final word in each of these as a preposition, where traditional grammar would define them as adverbs. How can we tell which is the correct analysis?
the sky above
...
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2answers
171 views
The Grelling-Nelson Paradox
The following excerpt is from Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.
Divide the adjectives in English into two categories: those which are self-descriptive, such as "...
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1answer
76 views
Terminology around non-word, but word-like, structures
In traditional linguistics literatures there is a clear separation between words and non-words. Words are basically what you'd find in a dictionary. But in todays world you find all kinds of word-like ...
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0answers
28 views
Find theme or topic by a set of words
Is there a way to find a common topic given a set of words?
For example, by giving the words: blue, red, green, the common theme would be color, or from beef, hamburger, salad, sandwich I would get ...
4
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0answers
150 views
Tests for determining NP status
What are the tests for determining whether a noun is part of a full NP or if it is simply a noun?
I'm aware of tests for nounhood generally (plural, formation of an NP with a or the, modification by ...
0
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1answer
213 views
How would you describe X of Y phrases where X and Y are nouns?
What grammatical feature is being used, when we say something like, "I drink a cup of coffee"? In this sentence we have one noun modifying another noun, "coffee" modifying "cup". Would "cup" or even "...
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3answers
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Specific English word classification
I'm looking for a maximum subset of the English language such that words can be divided into two categories, one of which must include at least nouns, proper names, adjectives, numerals, verbs and ...
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2answers
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Is the word “here” a preposition?
In a related question, I got entangled in a debate whether the word "here" (which I would classify readily as an adverb) is in reality a preposition. I am curious which modern analyses find ...
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3answers
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always | never | “all the time” - what kind of words are these?
always
never
"all the time"
They aren't 'expletives', but they express a non-expiry. What word would describe this type of word?
Context : he never brings me flowers; he's always late; you criticise ...
1
vote
1answer
557 views
I'm having trouble with my syntax tree and wanted some help for a project! [closed]
I have to include null complementizers if they exist as well as any mission NP covert subjects.
This is my sentence:
The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end.
i've been ...
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votes
4answers
5k views
What kind of a word class are numbers?
For example, in the sentence: 'that book weighs six kilos'...what is the word class of 'six'? I know some grammars have 'numerals' as a word class, but if you don't have that, what is it? an Adjective?...
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2answers
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Does adding the suffix -ly to a noun or an adjective provide morphological evidence for word class?
For example, adding -ly to quick to make quickly.
Or adding -ly to gentleman to make gentlemanly.
2
votes
1answer
156 views
Are adjective complement clauses considered to be adverbial?
One: In school, we are often told that an adverb can modify, not only a verb, but also an adjective. So we have ...
i) verb modifier: The man leaped suddenly.
ii) adjective modifier: Suddenly ...
5
votes
2answers
157 views
What is the name of this class of grammatical modifiers?
In French (and many other languages), adjectives and pronouns have different classes, e.g.:
Adjectives
demonstrative
indefinite
interrogative
numerical
possessive
Pronouns
demonstrative
indefinite
...
2
votes
4answers
566 views
Terminology for the words used to represent fractions in a language? Examples where it is different to the words used for cardinal or ordinal numbers?
While in English Romance languages and Germanic languages, the rendering of fractions usually corresponds to that of the ordinal numbers, i.e a fifth, and a sixth, a seventh, etc. ; it seems to me ...
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5answers
3k views
Does any linguist honestly believe that nouns and verbs are not universals?
Does any serious scholar really believe that some languages have no distinction between verbs and nouns?
Wikipedia pages suggest this. I studied physics, so linguistics is not my field at all.
...
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2answers
339 views
What kind of wordplay is this?
In his book Humorous English, Evan Esar gives example uses of devices he broadly labels synonymics. He writes of synonymic puns:
Many a wife sends her husband to an early grave with a series of ...
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2answers
178 views
Does anyone know the name of this form of wordplay?
In his book "Humorous English," Evan Esar writes,
"The blended compound is the fusion of two compounds, with the terminal word of one being the same or similar to the initial word of the other. By ...
17
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2answers
2k views
Does Japanese have pronouns?
It is often said that Japanese doesn't really have a pronoun word class, such as in the Wikipedia article on Japanese Grammar:
Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns (代åč© daimeishi), ...
5
votes
2answers
833 views
Languages with different open and closed word classes
The prototypical example of languages with unusual open and closed categories, which is mentioned almost every time that the topic comes up, is Japanese, where pronouns are an open category and verbs ...
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0answers
370 views
Are there other words that behave like “weather” in English?
I have been looking at how nouns behave with determiners and plurals and such. So things like mass, count, and collective nouns. One oddball that I have found is "weather", and I am wondering if there ...
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1answer
1k views
What is the difference in word pairs like “scary” and “scared” [closed]
Take the word pairs "scary" and "scared", or "pleasing" and "pleased". The former adjectives give the impression of inspiring the particular emotion, and the latter adjectives are the emotion itself. ...
3
votes
2answers
579 views
Are “part of speech” and “syntactic type” the same concept?
Are "part of speech" and "syntactic type" the same concept? If not, what are their differences?
5
votes
1answer
13k views
What's the difference between open/closed class words and functional/lexical categories?
These two classifications seem to point to the same types of words.
2
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0answers
206 views
Across languages that have adjectives, what are the most common grammatical inflections for adjectives?
Not all languages have adjectives; some use adjectival nouns ("red.one" instead of "red") and/or stative verbs ("be.red" instead of "red").
Among languages that have adjectives, not all allow ...
0
votes
2answers
642 views
Word classes “which is why”
What are the word classes of the adverbial "[...] which is why [...]"?
is cannot be a lexical verb, can it?
I thought which is a relative pronoun, and why is an adverb of reason.
3
votes
2answers
858 views
Are sentences the only constituents that “sentence adverbs” modify?
For those who came in late, a "sentence adverb" is a word that modifies an entire sentence rather than just the verb or predicate. A sentence adverb communicates speaker attitudes about the ...
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votes
2answers
3k views
When are numbers nouns?
In my native language, Portuguese, numbers have officially been in various classes, from adjectives and nouns to "quantifiers" and determiners.
I'm thinking that perhaps we can't group them all, ...
3
votes
4answers
4k views
What's the difference between 'parts of speech' and 'syntactic categories'?
As far as I can tell, the only difference between these two ways of describing classes of words is that 'syntactic categories' actually relies on evidence of use for determining categories, while '...
3
votes
2answers
268 views
“Like” in English (and perhaps other languages)
How is English "like" — as in "you look like a monkey" — generally analyzed these days? I can think of two ways to go here. I'm tempted to call it either a preposition, or some sort of ...
9
votes
2answers
335 views
What is it called when a word is constructed out of a language, but is not a part of that language?
I am not a linguist in any way shape or form, but I am studying Japanese, and came across this linguistic issue that fascinates me.
Over on the Japanese Language and Usage site, there is a discussion ...
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3answers
3k views
English co-compounds? Is bittersweet a co-compound?
I'm looking for English or other standard European language co-compounds, and for other common examples.
I came across "bittersweet" but I'm not sure if it's really a co-compound. It has a ...
4
votes
2answers
3k views
Is Conversion syntactic or morphological?
Conversion, such as:
permit (verb): I permit you to do so
permit (noun): Take this permit
Can be considered to be a morphological (i.e. lexical) process. But there are arguments for it being a ...
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votes
5answers
6k views
What languages lack personal pronouns, and why?
The Japanese language lacks personal pronouns in the IE sense. Japanese is very pro-drop, and often sentences will be constructed so personal pronouns do not appear, and the agents which the pronouns ...
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6answers
6k views
What's the global difference between nouns and verbs?
Is there a way to distinguish nouns and verbs that applies to all languages?
This problem has been occupying my mind for some time now. I'm not quite sure how to approach this question, so I'll just ...
7
votes
3answers
471 views
Are there some analyses or linguists with the view that Chinese does not have lexical word class?
I'm not a linguist but a language enthusiast and I read lots of stuff about all languages mostly on the internet in blogs but also in accessible books and sometimes attempt to read some things not ...
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5answers
1k views
What parts of speech / word classes do languages most frequently lack?
Among conlangers, AllNoun is a notable syntax because it only makes use one part of speech / word class, which is analagous to nouns. A natural language I've heard of (but I can't remember or find a ...
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3answers
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Are word classes universal?
I'm working on an application that takes a special database of words and its word class and determines the such from a given sentence. I'm now working to see if word classes that are found in English ...
