L I 2 0 1 3 N AT H A L I E F. M A R T I N

LEXICAL CATEGORIES

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Syntactic Categories

Contemporary Linguistics

Analysis: p. 146-150.

Making Sense of It All!

What is the syntactic category of:a) Brillig

b) Slithy

c) Toves*

d) Gyre*

e) Gimble*

f) Wabe*

g) Mimsy

h) Borogroves

i) Mome

j) Raths

k) Outgrabe

Which are English words? Why is it important that those words remain there?

Syntactic Categories

= Word Classes = Parts of SpeechAll languages have syntactic categories. The

syntactic category of a word determines the role it can play in a sentence.

Only a noun can complete the sentence “Give a __________ to me.”

Syntactic Categories (1)

Lexical categories

Noun (N)Verb (V)Adjective (A)Preposition (P)Adverb (Adv)

Clearly identifiable meanings!

Examplesmoisture,

policymelt, remaingood,

intelligentto, nearslowly, now

Syntactic Categories (2)

Non-lexical categories Determiner (Det) Degree word (Deg) Auxiliary (Aux) Conjunction (Con)

Functional words!

Examples the, this very, more will, can and, or

Lexical Categories of Words

Lexical Categories

Non-Lexical Categories

Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs Prepositions *

Determiner Degree words Auxiliary Conjunctions

TRICKS! Distinguishing Categories

By meaning: Nouns = entities (people, things), including individuals (Harry,

Sue), objects (book, desk), Verbs = actions (run, jump), sensations (feel, hurt), and states

(be, remain) Adjectives: Properties and attributes of a noun. Adverbs:

Properties and attributes of the actions, sensations, and states (verbs)

Manner and time

What about words like: likelihood, give a push, near, etc.

Distinguishing Categories

Native speakers may have a good intuition about the syntactic category of a word.

But linguists require more objective ways of determining syntactic categories.

There are two tests one can use:1. Inflection 2. Distribution

Test 1: Inflection

Certain inflectional paradigms apply only to one syntactic category.

For example, if a word can take the inflectional suffix -ed in English, it must belong to the verb category.

Lets try in out: The cute cat dances. You think the end is near.

What about these words: sing (-ed*), intelligent (-er*), knowledge(-s*), etc.

Test 2: Distribution

The words with which a word may co-occur can be used to determine its syntactic category.

Example: only nouns can come after a or the in English.

All languages have such distributional restrictions on syntactic categories.

Lets try in out: Great joy is to come in the morning. Joy comes later today. Holidays are the best!

Distribution tests – Rules of other languages

Distribution tests for syntactic categories are different in all languages.

Chinese has no articles like a, the. So you can’t test for nouns with them.

But in Chinese, only nouns co-occur with “classifiers”. If a word can come after a classifier, it must be a noun.

Indicate the category of each word in the following sentences.

a. The glass suddenly broke.

b. A jogger ran towards the end of the lane.

c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.

d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the drums in the

orchestra.

Det / N / Adv / V

Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N

N / Aux / V / Det / N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det

/ N

Det / N / Adv / V / Deg / A

WHAT GOT LOSTIN TRANSLATION?

FOUND ON MY HEATER :

Translation and Lexical Categories