13. Parts of Speech (a General Overview)

All traditional grammars deal extensively with parts of speech. Though grammarians have been studying parts of speech for over two millennia, the criteria used for classifying them are not yet agreed upon. Hence there is much ambiguity in defining parts of speech and consequently there exist numerous classifications.

H.Sweet divides all parts of speech in English dichotomically into the following two groups:

1. declinable parts of speech, i.e. those capable of inflexion, which include noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, parti­ciples), verb (finite verb, verbals: infinitive, gerund. participles), and 2. indeclinable parts of speech (parti­cles), i.e. those incapable of inflexion, which include adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections.

O.Jespersen, names five parts of speech: substantives (including proper names), adjectives, pronouns (including numerals and pronominal adverbs), verbs and particles (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, inter­jections). He maintains that in distinguishing parts of speech everything should be kept in view, form, function and meaning, though, in his opinion, form is the fundamental criterion.

As a matter of fact, most grammars of English published abroad give eight parts of speech in number: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The current conventional classification of words into the particular eight parts of speech now common seems to go back to Joseph Priestley and his ‘The Rudiment of English Grammar’ (published 1761) and to have been generally accepted in grammars since 1850. Dealing with words under eight parts of speech J.Priestley made the significant innovation of excluding the participle and including the adjective.

It is only natural that in connection with the different classifications of parts of speech the question arises what accounts for such a great variety of systems of classification? In classifying words into parts of speech the linguist may take into account the following criteria:

1. the mean­ing of a word (the semantic characteristics),

2. The form of a word (the morphological characteristics) and

3. The function of a word (the syntactic characteristics).

In classifying words into parts of speech most Russian/Soviet linguists have taken into account all the three criteria mentioned above and this is why they differentiate many more parts of speech as compared with foreign grammarians. Though a number of foreign linguists also keep in mind the three criteria they very often regard form as the dominant feature and neglect the semantic and syntactic criteria.

The traditional classification of words into parts of speech has been under a severe attack by structural linguists who criticize it mainly from two points. In their opinion, one trouble with the traditional grammar is that it relies heavily on the most subjective element in language, meaning. Another is that it shifts the ground of its classification and produces the elementary logical error of cross-division.