Word Classes and

The Lexicon
Here is where our presentation begins
Members of group 4

01. 02. 03.

Wahyu Reza
Estri mustaqimah Ferizka erviana
Trisnolya
1903046009 1903046011 1903046013
 01.

Word classes
What are word classes?
Inthepreceding chapters, we have used terms such as ‘noun’, ‘adjective’, ‘adverb’,
‘verb’ and ‘preposition’ without defining them. The terms are in every day use and
every day definitions are available, such as nouns being the names of persons,
places and things and verbs being the names of actions or states. Meaning, the kind
of things that a given word denotes. Speakers and writers actually do with verbs,
nouns and soon. ‘denote’ is used for the relationship between a given word and the
set of noun phrases, by means of which speakers and writers refer to entities. Word
is placed in a clause or phrase, a topic which was introduced in preceded by words
such as the, a and this but verbs cannot. Precede a noun, as in new books, or follow
certain verbs, as in is new, seemed verbs occur in differents lots in the clause.
Denotation and words that do not. Words that have a denotation apply to people,
places, things (in the broadest sense), actions, states and proper- they are known as
lexicalor content words, and in english include nouns (e.g. Villa, baby, idea), verbs
(e.g. Buy, destroy, think), adjectives (e.g. Wooden, strong, abstract) and adverbs
(e.g. Rapidly, hopefully). Not refer are known as grammaticalor form words.
 Form words in english are the definite and indefinite articles
the and many accounts of word classes in english treatverbs
such as may, could and must and prepositions such as with,
from and by as grammatical words, each word cost a certain
only those words essential for the message to be interpreted
correctly. The words that typically turned up in telegrams were
nouns, verbs and (lessoften) adjectives and adverbs, namely
content words. Articles, demonstrativ eadjectives, auxiliary
verbs greenlight is rather important; the prepositions above
and below cannot bewhat the telegram test shows is that
some missing words can that many have major meanings and
can only be described as words with telegram test,
prepositions (along with modal verbs such as can and must)
will be regarded as lexical or content words.
Criteria for word classes
Four types of criteria are employed to set up word classes – syntactic,
morphological, morpho-syntactic and semantic. (Semantic criteria have to do with
meaning.) We begin with a brief explanation of morphological and morpho-
syntactic criteria, which have to do with what is Called inflectional morphology

4.2.1 Morphological Criteria

Single form criteria are used in headings because of what is at stake
only whether the given word allows grammatical suffixes or not. This
least important of the four criteria listed above and irrelevant evant to
some language than others. This is the biggest interest with with
respect to languages ​such as Russian, where nouns have differences
suffixes ('suffixes' in traditional and informal terminology) depend about
their relationship with the verb
4.2.2 Morpho-syntactic criteria
This criterion must be performed in an inflectional suffix, as described above in
relationship to the example of a tiger, and information marked by them, and
developed on the basis of languages ​such as Classical Latin and Classical Greek.
We saw the Russian example above because Russians are not only very fond of
Latin and Greek in their riches inflectional suffixes but is also a living language. It will
help to pick up look further into Russian before returning to English. Example (1a–c)
shows that nouns in Russian have different endings which signifies the relationship
between a noun and a verb in a clause.

4.2.3 Syntactic criteria

The syntactic criteria for word classes are based on what word is given
word occurs with and the type of phrase in which a particular word occurs.
The syntactic criteria are the most important. They are important for
English with a relative poverty of morpho-syntactic criteria, and they very
important for the analysis of word classes in general because there are
languages ​like Mandarin Chinese which practically don't have suffixes
(such as plural endings); on the other hand, all languages ​have syntax.
4.2.4 Semantic criteria: what does the word . mean
There are nostril criteria, different aspects of meaning word
class, which will allow us to decide whether a given word is a
noun, adjective, verb, adverb or preposition. We have to
receive properly here it means that it cannot be exploited in this
way. Definition of nouns as words that indicate people, places
or not explain why words such as anger, idea or death are
classified as nouns. Racing the noun and race the verb both
denote an event, as do the verb transmit at They transmit the
concert live and there is no transmission on The live concert
transmission.
02.
The lexicon
 Syntax and lexical items
Why have bab on dictionaries in book syntax? The answer is simple and in
disputable: syntax can not be separated from other areas language; and
individual lexical items, especially the verb, exercisestrong control over
syntactic structure. Information about the interaction between lexical and
syntactic items structure is always available in all dictionaries except the smallest
dictionary.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (1983), for example, includes the followinging
information about the entry for knife. knife [ nı¯f ]; instrument cutting; verb
transitive: cut without knife; stabbing the act of sticking a knife into someone
war to the knife have one's knife in
The entry provides some information about the syntax; explained orally as
transitive, which means basically ACTIVE DECLARATIVE construction
requires a noun to the right of it. There's a rough guide for pronunciations that do
not use International Phonetics Alphabet, definition of noun meaning, those two
words comes from a basic friend and two idiomatic phrases.
Individual verbs, complements and adjuncts

Complements are modifiers which typically occur next to the head (but not always) and
which are required or excluded by particular lexical items.
Adjuncts are not necessarily next to the head; indeed, they are typically at a distance from
the verb. They are not obligatory. Whereas complements ‘complete’ the meaning of
the verb, giving it both syntactic and semantic completion, adjuncts merely provide
additional information that could be dispensed with.

Example : Sarah devoured the cakes in the kitchen last night.

A given lexical verb controls various properties of its complements. Most obviously, it
controls how many complements occur and what type of complements – noun phrases,
adjective phrases, prepositional phrases or complement clauses.

Example : Sarah pushed the pram and Sarah pushed the pram into the kitchen.
Even where a verb merely allows a directional adverb, the latter is a complement,
because there are verbs that exclude them – *Sarah was cooking into the kitchen.
Classes of verbs and subcategorisation restrictions

Some of these classes of verbs have traditional labels as listed in (6). These labels
are convenient for talking about classes of verbs rather than individual verbs.
A given lexical item controls ‘lexical insertion’, the inserting of lexical items into its
complements.
As well as controlling the number and general type of complements, lexical verbs
control the choice of preposition.

For example, blame occurs in the constructions in (7).

a. Eleanor blamed Willoughby for Marianne’s unhappiness.
b. Eleanor blamed Marianne’s unhappiness on Willoughby.

Depending on which way the event is presented, blame requires for or on ; no other
prepositions are possible. Similarly, accuse requires the preposition of, as in
Eleanor accused Willoughby of unprincipled behaviour.
The constraints that lexical verbs place on number and type of constituents, choice
of preposition and choice of case are known as subcategorisation
Selectional restrictions
Lexical entries also contain information about the roles assigned to the
nouns in a clause. For instance, build and calculate assign Agent role to their
subject noun and Patient role to their direct object noun. In (8), Romans is
Agent and aqueduct is Patient, and in (9) computer is Agent and value is
Patient.

Example : The Romans built this aqueduct.

The computer will calculate the value of the variable.

Lexical verbs impose restrictions on the type of noun that can occur to their
left or right. A verb such as blame requires a human noun to its left, while a
verb such as kill requires an animate noun to its right.

Example : The dog blamed us for her stay at the vet’s.

These objections killed the proposal.
 CLASSES of nouns
Selectional restrictions, as hinted above, lead us to employ large subclasses of
nouns that are familiar from traditional grammar. The subclasses are set out in 13.
a. concrete vs abstract
b. common vs proper
c. count vs mass
d. animate vs inanimate
e. human vs non-human

These subclasses were established in traditional grammar not just for the analysis of
English but for the analysis of all the languages of Europe. They have been
extended to the analysis of languages all over the world. We have brought in these
subclasses in connection with selectional restrictions, which are closely connected
with semantics. A very important point, however, is that the distinctions set out in
(13) are relevant to the grammar of many languages. We are not suggesting that all
the distinctions are relevant to the grammar of every language, but any sample of
languages from different language families and different areas of the world will show
that each distinction affects the grammar of some languages.
For example, English proper nouns such as Ethel typically exclude
the and a, as discussed in Chapter 1 using the examples reproduced
below as (14). Common nouns, which are not the names of people,
towns and so on, typically allow or require the or a, for example
lecturer in (14b), gritter and salt in (15a).
(14) a. Ethel was sitting at her desk. *The Ethel was sitting at her desk.
b. *Lecturer was sitting at her The lecturer was sitting at her desk.
desk.

(15) a. The gritter spread salt. The gritter spread the salt.
b. The gritter spread salts.
c. Too much salt damages *Too many salt damages vehicles. vehicles.
d. *Too much vehicles are *Too many vehicles are damaged damaged
by salt. by salt.
The distinction between common and proper nouns does have a semantic component; proper
nouns are the names of people, places, organisations and institutions. The distinction is
also very important for the grammar of English noun phrases; proper nouns such as Ethel
in (14a) exclude the, and singular common nouns such as lecturer in (14b) require the.
(The plural does not – Lecturers all wear food-stained pullovers and sandals is impeccable
in its grammar even if not in its content.) The distinction between count and mass nouns is
involved in important grammatical choices but likewise has a meaning component. With
respect to grammar, mass nouns require much, as in (15c), and exclude many; count nouns
require many and exclude much. With respect to meaning, count nouns refer to entities
that are thought of as individuals, that can be counted – boy, plant, idea. Mass nouns
denote entities that are conceived of as a mass of stuff that cannot be split into countable
individuals – water, flour, wine, salt. Mass nouns typically occur in the singular; when
they occur in the plural, they change their meaning. Wines has the interpretation ‘kinds of
wine’

Lecturer and wine are examples of concrete nouns, while truth and amazement are abstract
nouns. We are using the traditional labels, but the key distinction is whether a given noun
denotes an entity that is abstract or not abstract. The difficulty is that ‘concrete’ evokes an
entity made of the substance called ‘concrete’, or at least an entity that is hard and solid.
Lecturers are not made of the substance we call ‘concrete’ and wine is not solid, but
neither wine nor lecturers are abstract. They can be physically seen, touched and
manipulated, whereas truth and amazement cannot.
Subcategorisation, selection and constructions

The last comment in connection with subclasses of nouns is that labels such as ‘concrete’,
‘count’ and ‘human’ represent properties of nouns; these properties are known as inherent
properties, and features such as ‘concrete’ are known as inherent features.
All the examples in this chapter have been of the ACTIVE DECLARATIVE construction, that
is, of the basic constructionas defined in Chapter 3. As discussed there, the construction of an
example such as (2c) is related to a number of other constructions, as shown in (17). (17) a.
Frank Churchill gave a piano to Jane Fairfax. b. Frank Churchill gave Jane Fairfax a piano. c.
A piano was given to Jane Fairfax by Frank Churchill. Let us say for the sake of the
argument that in the ACTIVE DECLARATIVE construction give requires an animate noun
to its left referring to the giver, Frank Churchill, and a prepositional phrase to its right, also
containing an animate noun but referring to the recipient, to Jane Fairfax. Example (17b) is
an example of the ditransitive construction; the same lexical items occur, but the animate
noun Jane Fairfax is a noun phrase immediately following the verb and not preceded by a
preposition. In (17c), an example of the passive construction, the animate noun Frank
Churchill is not to the left of the verb but to its right, inside a prepositional phrase, by Frank
Churchill. We could write separate dictionary entries for give for all three constructions, but
this has two drawbacks. We would have to write separate entries for each construction that a
given verb occurs in, and there aremany different constructions.
More seriously, we would not capture in our account the system of constructions,
the fact that paths lead from the basic ACTIVE DECLARATIVE positive
construction out to the other constructions, some directly, some via intervening
constructions.The way round this problem is to state the subcategorisation and
selectional restrictions once for the basic ACTIVE DECLARATIVE positive
construction and to have the information about the restrictions carried from one
construction to the next. (The details of the transfer from one construction to
another differ from one model to another, and it is no easy task to state the
details explicitly; nonetheless, what has been stated above is the goal shared by
all the models of syntax.
Fixed phrases
We round off this brief visit to the dictionary by pointing out that we began with
the stereotypical view that there are rules that specify syntactic constructions
and that words are listed in the dictionary or lexicon, taken out of the
dictionary and inserted into syntactic constructions. It turned out that the
connection between syntax and lexical items is closer than we might have
imagined, not only with respect to the number of connections but also with
respect to the powerful role played by individual lexical items, especially
verbs. Over the past fifteen years or so, analysts have come to realise that in
any language there is a large set of phrases and even whole clauses that are not
freely built up but fixed. Following the discussion by Crystal in The
Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language (pp. 162–3), we can
distinguish various types of fixed phrase, as set out in (18)–(21).
(18) POLYWORDS: in a nutshell; once and for all
(19) INSTITUTIONALISED EXPRESSIONS: Give me a break; How do you do?; Long time no
see; Pleased to meet you; See you soon; come to think of it; it doesn’t bear thinking about
(20) HIGHLY CONSTRAINED PHRASES: as I was __ (saying/ mentioning); as far as I __ (can
see/can make out/know); I (just) can’t think straight; I thought I told you not to do that
(21) SENTENCE BUILDERS: my point is that __; let me begin by ___; not only … but also

Crystal also discusses collocations, restricted sequences of words; examples are in (22). Heavy
smoker and heavy drinker qualify as collocations because heavy and light combine with a
limited set of nouns – smoker, drinker, eater and sleeper
(22) COLLOCATIONS: staple food/diet/industry; wouldn’t/won’t/ couldn’t budge; a heavy
smoker; a heavy drinker
The above five types of phrase and clause do not always conform to the syntax of written
English and may have idiosyncratic meanings; a heavy smoker is not a smoker with a weight
problem. It looks as though these phrases and clauses must be listed as single items in the
dictionary, although at the time of writing there are no explicit descriptions of English or
other languages that handle fixed phrases in an adequate way. What analysts are more and
more certain of is that the number of fixed expressions in English (and other languages) and
the frequency with which they are used by speakers and writers is much greater than anyone
supposed forty years ago
Thank you

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