luận văn ngôn ngữ anh SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Duy Tân

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI”
IN VIETNAMESE

MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020


VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Duy Tân

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI”
IN VIETNAMESE

Field: English Language
Code: 8.22.02.01
Supervisor: Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020


DECLARATION BY AUTHOR

Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains
no material previously published or written by another person.
I, Nguyễn Duy Tân, hereby state that this thesis is the result of my own
research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been
submitted for any degrees to any other universities or institutions.
Author’s Signature

Nguyễn Duy Tân

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D.
Date:……………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this thesis is credited to many people’s contributions
and support. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all most
sincerely, knowing that my thanks are never adequate.
First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep
appreciation to Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph. D., my supervisor, for his helpful and
warm encouragement as well as his insightful comments on my work from the
beginning to the end of the study.
In addition, I would like to thank all of the lecturers who gave me
interesting lessons, dedication and advice during my study at Graduate
Academy of Social Sciences.

I also offer my special thanks to my beloved pupils and friends whose
support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my family. It is their
endless love and expectations that have motivated me to complete this thesis. I
am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
DECLARATION BY AUTHOR…………………………………………. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………. ii
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………. vi
LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………... vii
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………….. 1
1.1. Rationale……………………………………………………………... 1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study…………………………………….. 2
1.3. Research questions…………………………………………………… 2
1.4. Scope of the study……………………………………………………. 3
1.5. Significance of the study……………………………………………... 3
1.6. Methodology…………………………………………………………. 4
1.6.1. Data collection……………………………………………………... 4
1.6.2. Research methods………………………………………………….. 4
1.6.3. Underlying theoretical frameworks………………………………... 5
1.7. Structure of the study………………………………………………… 9
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………….. 10
2.1. Words and word classes……………………………………………... 10
2.1.1. Polysemy of words…………………………………………………. 10

2.1.2. Word classes……………………………………………………….. 12
2.2. Review of the previous research works……………………………… 17
2.3. Chapter summary…………………………………………………….. 17
Chapter 3: SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH
AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE……………………………………… 19
3.1. Syntactic features of “play” in English………………………………. 19
3.1.1. “Play” as a verb…………………………………………………….. 19
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3.1.2. “Play” as a noun……………………………………………………. 27
3.2. Syntactic features of “chơi” in Vietnamese………………………….. 29
3.2.1. “Chơi” as a verb……………………………………………………. 29
3.2.2. “Chơi” as an adverb………………………………………………... 31
3.3. A comparison between “play” in English and “chơi” in Vietnamese
in terms of syntactic features……………………………………………... 31
3.3.1. Syntactic features found in both languages………………………... 31
3.3.2. Syntactic features unique to English……………………………….. 32
3.3.3. Syntactic features unique to Vietnamese…………………………... 33
3.4. Chapter summary…………………………………………………….. 34
Chapter 4: SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH
AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE……………………………………… 36
4.1. Semantic features of “play” in English………………………………. 36
4.1.1. “Play” as a verb…………………………………………………….. 36
4.1.2. “Play” as a noun……………………………………………………. 42
4.2. Semantic features of “chơi” in Vietnamese………………………….. 44
4.2.1. “Chơi” as a verb……………………………………………………. 44
4.2.2. “Chơi” as an adverb………………………………………………... 47
4.3. A comparison between “play” in English and “chơi” in Vietnamese
in terms of semantic features …………………………………………….. 47

4.3.1. Semantic features found in both languages………………………... 47
4.3.2. Semantic features unique to English……………………………….. 48
4.3.3. Semantic features unique to Vietnamese…………………………... 51
4.4. Chapter summary…………………………………………………….. 52
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION……………………………………………... 54
5.1. Recapitulation………………………………………………………... 54
5.2. Concluding remarks………………………………………………….. 57
5.3. Implications…………………………………………………………..
iv

58


5.3.1. For English teaching and learning………………………………… 58
5.3.2. For translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa.………. 59
5.4. Limitations and suggestions for further studies……………………… 59
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………... 61

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ABSTRACT
An investigation of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of
syntactic and semantic features is carried out in the present study. Description
and contrastive analysis are regarded as the main methods used in the present
thesis. The findings of the study are concerned with the similarities and
differences between play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of
syntactic and semantic features. In order to collect the data, a hand search
approach of the dictionaries in both languages has been conducted, which helps
to establish the number of meanings of each word.

In the present study, the theoretical fameworks (theory of contrastive
analysis; theory of syntax and semantics) are applied to both English and
Vietnamese. Additionally, an overview of some theoretical background dealing
with the general concepts of syntax, semantics, words, polysemy of words and
word classification is presented for the background of analyzing the syntactic
and semantic features of the two words, play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.
Our investigation reveals that play in English and chơi in Vietnamese may
function as verbs. The biggest difference between play in English and chơi in
Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features lies in the verbal forms and the coordinate possibility of each in the clauses. In terms of semantic features, the
findings of the study reveals that there are 11 meanings in common conveyed by
the two verbs, play in English and chơi in Vietnamese. When working as a verb,
play in English has more meanings than chơi in Vietnamese. There are 21
meanings conveyed by play, unique to English whereas chơi has 7 meanings
which are unique to Vietnamese. Play in English may be a noun which has five
main meanings, and chơi in Vietnamese can function as an adverb and has only
one meanings. The thesis also presents the implications for English teaching and
learning as well as translation.

vi


LIST OF TABLES

Page
Table 3.1. Forms and functions of the verb “play” in English (adapted
from Quirk & Greenbaum (1987))……………………………………...… 20

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
It is a fact that language is an essential form of communication. It allows
people to convey and elaborate their perspective. It means that language is the
bridge to connect people all over the world. Therefore, language is a subtle and
complex instrument used to communicate an incredible number of different
things. Bloomfield (1933) states that “we could not understand the form of a
language if we merely reduced all the complex forms to their ultimate
constituents”. By this, he means that in order to account for the meaning of a
sentence, it is necessary to recognize how individual constituents (such words
and morphemes) constitute more complex forms.
Wilkins (1972, p.11) emphasizes the importance of vocabulary, and he
writes: “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary,
nothing can be conveyed”. Furthermore, Pyles and Algeo (1970) suppose that
“when we first think about language, we think about words. It is words that we
arrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds”. In
fact, vocabulary is the decisive element that links the four skills of speaking,
reading, listening and writing all together. In order to communicate well in a
foreign language, we should acquire a great number of words and know how to
use them accurately. Nevertheless, vocabulary of both English and Vietnamese
has its own features that could raise difficulties for language teachers and
learners and makes both teaching and learning English still far from being
satisfaction. In the process of teaching English, it is recognized that even a
simple word like play also makes students confused much due to its syntactic
and semantic features and its Vietnamese equivalent. In English, the word play
can combined with other words to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a
language. Therefore, it is necessary that the teachers of English acquire adequate
knowledge of the word order and the relationships between words. In term of
semantic features, it has both denotaion and connotaion meanings that learners

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of English have to base on the context. In Vietnamese, the word chơi is not only
a verb which indicates a physical activity only but also other kinds of word
implying different meanings in real life communication.
As a teacher of English, I find that learners may know a lot of English
lexical items by learning vocabulary word-lists by heart but they do not know
how to use them in appropriate contexts. The difficulties that Vietnamese
learners may meet are not only in semantic features but also in syntactic forms
as well.
For the reasons above, the thesis entitled “Syntactic and Semantic
Features of "Play" in English and "Chơi" in Vietnamese” is chosen for my
study. The study is carried out in the hope to have a good knowledge of the two
words, to deal with specific teaching and learning predicaments, and to help the
author successfully accomplish the challenging tasks. Moreover, the author also
hopes that this attempt will help Vietnamese learners of English have a better
understanding of the word play in English and then use it in daily learning and
communication effectively.
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
The aim of the study is clarifying the features of play in English and chơi
in Vietnamese to help the learners to learn and use these words corectly and
effectively.
In order to achieve the aim, the study is expected to reach the following
objectives:
- To investigate the syntactic features of play in English and chơi in
Vietnamese;
- To investigate the semantic features of the play in English and chơi in
Vietnamese;
- To uncover the similarities and differences between play in English and

chơi in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features.
1.3. Research questions
The objectives of the study can be elaborated into the research questions as
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follows:
What are the syntactic features of play in English and chơi in
Vietnamese?
What are the semantic features of play in English and chơi in
Vietnamese?
What are the similarites and differences between play in English and chơi
in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features?
1.4. Scope of the study
The present study investigates the syntactic and semantic features of play
in English and chơi in Vietnamese. The description and the analysis of the
features of the two words are from recently published dictionaries. All the
authors of these works affirm that all the forms and meanings of these words are
current and used, or undersood by most native speakers.
1.5. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the findings of the study, to some extent, prove that the
theoretical frameworks (the theory of contrastive analysis and the theory of
syntax and sematics) are effective in studying languages in general and words in
particular. The two words are quite popular; therefore, the investigation is highly
reliable in terms of theoretical frameworks suggested.
Practically, for language teaching (both English and Vietnamese), the study
facilitates learners’ communication because language is for communication, and
words are an indispensable part of expressions. The work will provide assistance
to English-speaking learners of Vietnamese and Vietnamese learners of English
to distinguish the uses of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese. The work will

also enable learners to tell when the two words are similar and different, which
is likely to be useful for their study. Language teachers will be aided to help
their learners reach this communicative goal. For translation, knowledge of
words from this work will help translators find closest equivalents to the
expressions in the source language.

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1.6. Methodology
1.6.1. Data Collection
It is a matter of fact that we can make comparison of languages in various
ways. We may start from categories of traditional grammar, phrases, a whole
vocabulary or a collection of texts (Dirven & Verspoor, 2004, p. 250) with any
appropriate database and procedures. The usage-based or empirically based
(Bybee, 2009) foundation of cognitive grammar suggests that real linguistic
examples taken from genuine usage-data should form the basis for linguistic
analysis and theory construction (Langlotz, 2006; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, &
Svartvik, 1985).
Accordingly, the recent development of linguistics has witnessed the rise
of corpus-linguistics, which bases linguistic analyses on large computer-aided
corpora of both spoken and written language (Kemmer & Barlow, 2000). Crosslinguistic corpus studies require comparable corpora. While there is a wide
range of corpora, such as the Bank of English (owned by Collins COBUILD) or
the British National Corpus for English (BNC), for the analysis of English, no
such corpora are readily available for Vietnamese. We deliberately use standard
reference works; granted, this choice limits the scope of this study, the
dictionaries are a significant part of public discourse and dictionary entries are,
by their nature, extracted from their natural context (Deignan, 2005). They are
thus representative of the way in which a speech community constructs its
cultural models through language – in this case the way in which the English

and Vietnamese cultures conceptualize or encode the emotions in question.
The data for the present study comes from standard current
dictionaries in both English and Vietnamese, which are valuable tools for the
scientific study of languages due to their “objective and readily verifiable
reference”.
1.6.2. Research Methods
Due to the main aims and objectives of the study, description and
contrastive exploitation would be mainly carried out throughout the process.
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Also, the thesis makes use of the English language as the target and the
Vietnamese one as the source language (the base language).
Descriptive method is used to describe in details the syntactic and
semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.
Contrastive analysis will be used to identify the similarities and
differences between play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of
syntactic and semantic features.
1.6.3. Underlying theoretical frameworks
We will apply a select range of theories to the investigation of the
syntactic and semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese: the
theory of contrastive analysis and the theory of syntax and semantics.
i) Theory of contrastive analysis
According to Krzeszowski (1990. p. 35), ‘No exact or reliable exploration
of facts can be conducted without a theoretical background, providing concepts,
hypotheses, and theories which enable the investigator to describe the relevant
facts and to account for them in terms of significant generalizations’ (cited in
Nguyễn Văn Trào, 2009, p. 12).
In the present inquiry, the theories of contrastive linguistics of König and
Gast (2008) and Chaturvedi (1973) are applied to the investigation of the

syntactic and semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.
König and Gast (2008) suppose that contrastive linguistics is a branch of
comparative linguistics that is concerned with pairs of languages which are
‘socio-culturally linked’. According to these authors, two languages can be said
to be socio-culturally linked when (i) they are used by a considerable number of
bi- or multilingual speakers, and/or (ii) a substantial amount of ‘linguistic
output’ (text, discourse) is translated from one language into the other. English
and Vietnamese are socio-cultural linked because they satisfy both criteria given
above.
Contrastive linguistics invariably requires a socio-cultural link between
the languages investigated, but that it is not restricted to pair wise language
5


comparison. Contrastive linguistics thus aims to arrive at results that carry the
potential of being used for practical purposes, e.g. in foreign language teaching
and translation. As it provides the descriptive basis for such applications, its
research programme can also be summarized as ‘comparison with a purpose’.
‘Comparison’ in the present study is understood as the identification of
similarities and differences between two or more categories along a specific (set
of) dimension(s) (König and Gast 2008). We mean that the categories compared
must be of the same type, i.e. there has to be a set of properties that they have in
common in both languages.
In order to carry out a contrastive study, Chaturvedi (1973) suggests some
guiding principles as follows:
(i) to analyse the mother tongue and the target language independently
and completely; (ii) to compare the two languages item-wise-item at all
levels of their structure; (iii) to arrive at the categories of a) similar
features, b) partially similar features, c) dissimilar features - for the target
language; and (iv) to arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing

and target language teaching in general.
The contrastive analysis emphasises the influence of the mother tongue in
learning a second language and translation. This type of study will provide an
objective and scientific base for second language teaching as well as translation.
For knowing the significantly similar structural and semantic properties in both
languages, the first step to be adopted is that both languages should be analysed
independently. After the independent analysis, to sort out the different features
of the two languages, comparison of the two languages is necessary. From this
analysis it is easy to make out that at different levels of structural and semantic
properties of these two languages there are some features quite similar and some
quite dissimilar.

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ii) Theory of syntax and semantics
Theory of syntax
Syntax is a set of rules in language. It dictates how words from different
parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought.
According to Dixon (1991), syntax deals with the way in which words are
combined together. Syntax is understood to be the 7 theory of the structure of
sentences in a language. This view has its direct antecedents in the theory of
immediate constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate between
the observed forms of a sentence and its meaning. Bloomfield (1933), he states
“we could not understand the form of a language if we merely reduced all the
complex forms to their ultimate constituents”. He argued that in order to account
for the meaning of a sentence, it is necessary to recognize how individual
constituents such words and morphemes constitute more complex forms.
Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in
which words are combined to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a language.

Syntax, which is a subfield of grammar, focuses on the word order of a language
and the relationships between words. In other words, morphology deals with
word formation out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase and
sentence formation out of words. Syntax structures are analyzable into
sequences of syntactic categories or syntactic classes, these being established on
the basic of the syntactic relationships and linguistic items have with other items
in a construction. Every language has a limited number of syntactic relations.
Subject and object are probably universal of syntactic relations, which apply to
every language. However, just as the criteria for the major words class noun and
verb differ from language to language, so do the ways in which syntactic
relations are marked.
Theory of semantics
Semantics is a branch of linguistics which relates with meaning.
Semanticsis considered as a study of meaning in language. It deals with the
expression oflinguistic objects such as word, phrases and sentences. It does not
7


pay attention tothe syntactical arrangement or pronounciation of linguistic
object. As states by Katz (1972, p. 1), “Semantics is the study of linguistic
meaning. It is concered withwhat sentence and other linguistics object express,
not with the arrangement withtheir syntactic parts or with their pronounciation.”
Semantics has long been an object of study within the philosophy. It
issaid that the term semantics itself was introduced into English at the end of
the19th century. There are some term semantics in various defenition by some
expert, they are: Palmer (1976, p. 1) states “Semantics is the technical term used
to refer to study of meaning.” Hornby (1972, p. 789) has defined “Semantics is
branch of linguistics concerned with studying the meaning of words and
sentences.”
Lyons (1977, p. 1) defines “Semantics is generally defined as the study

ofmeaning.” Siregar (1992, p. 2) states “Semantics is the study of the meaning
of words, phrases, or sentences in the language or semantics is the study of
meaning inlanguage.”Semantics has developed and becaome worthy study.
There are two factors that make semantics become important and worthy study.
First, meaning is strictlyconnected with communication. A certain meaning can
be delivered throughcommuncation plays an important role in human life.
Second, the process ofhuman attempts to comprehend the nature of meaning
involves the mental ability by the use of reasoning and perception. As stated by
Leech (1989, p. ix), “Semantics is central to the study of communication; and as
communication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization,
the need tounderstand it becomes more and more pressing. Semantics is also at
the centre ofthe study of the himan mind-thought process, cognition and
conceptualization.” Ridwan (1997, p. 45) in Saleh (2008) states that there are
some terms ofsemantics, such as semasiology, semology, semiotics, sememis,
and semics.Beside having some terms, semantics also has some close relations
with somedisciplines, such as philosophy, psychology, anthropology and
sosiology.Philosophy is closely related to semantics because the nature of the
worldand truth which become the contemplation of philosophy is represented
8


trough themeaning of language. Philosophy has a close relation with semantics
namely philosophical semantics. Philosophical semantics examines the relation
betweenlinguistic expressions and phenomena in the world to which they refer
and considers the conditions under which such expressions can be said to be true
orfalse and the factors which affect the interpretation of language used. Hornby
(1995, p. 935) said that psychology is the science or study the maindand how it
function. It is closely related with semantics because such psychologyelement as
cognition, thought and reason cannot be separated in the process of planning,
organizing and uderstanding the meaning through linguistic codes.The other

terms which also have a close relation with semantics aresosiology and
anthropology. Hornby (1995, p. 1128) says “Sosiology is thescientific study of
the nature and development of the society and social behaviour.” It has
something to with semantics to identify a certain expressions orutterances which
indicates the identities or characteristics of particular group or person of
community. And at the last anthropology is the study of human raceespecially of
its origin, development, customs and beliefs. It needs semantics because analysis
of meanig in a language can provide the cultural classification ofthe language
users.
1.7. Structure of the study
In addition to the references, the thesis is composed of five chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature review;
Chapter 3: Syntactic features of “play” in English and “chơi” in
Vietnamese;
Chapter 4: Semantic features of “play” in English and “chơi” in
Vietnamese;
Chapter 5: Conclusion

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Words and word classes
We think of words as the basic units of language. When a baby begins to
speak, the way the excited mother reports what has happened is: ‘Tommy has
said his first word!’ We would be surprised at a mother who described little
Tommy’s first utterance as a sentence. Sentences come later, we are inclined to
feel, when words are strung together meaningfully. That is not to say that a

sentence must always consist of more than one word. One-word commands such
as ‘Go!’ or ‘Sit!’, although they crop up relatively seldom in everyday
conversation or reading, are not in any way odd or un-English. Nevertheless,
learning to talk in early childhood seems to be a matter of putting words
together, not of taking sentences apart. The following sections will discuss the
the polysemy of words and their classes
2.1.1. Polysemy of words
Semantics is traditionally described as the study of meaning
communicated through language (Saeed, 2009), in simpler terms, it is the branch
of linguistics that deals with the meaning of words and sentences. It is true that
meaning can be studied through different linguistic views, but it is undeniable
that semantics is an indispensable linguistic branch which deals with this matter.
“To understand a sentence we must know much more than the analysis of this
sentence on each linguistic level. We must also know the reference and meaning
of the morphemes and words of which it is composed, naturally, grammar
cannot be expected to be of much help here. These notions form the subject
matter for semantics” (Chomsky, 2002).
According to Cruse (2000), within the study of meaning there are many
areas of interest, the main ones are the following:
(1) Grammatical semantics: studies aspects of meaning closely related to
syntax;

10


(2) Logical semantics: studies the “relations between natural language and
formal logical systems such as the propositional and predicate calculi”;
(3) Linguistic pragmatics: which (for present purposes) can be simply
defined as the branch of linguistics that studies the way that context influences
meaning;

(4) Lexical semantics: studies the meaning of ‘content’ words.
The idea of a word containing multiple meanings dates back to the stoics,
who observed that “a single concept can be expressed by several different words
(synonymy) and that conversely, one word can carry different meanings
(polysemy)” (Ravin and Leacock, 2000). But the first time the term “polysemy”
appeared was in Michel Bréal’s Essai de Sémantique (1897), later on translated
into English under the name of Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning
(1900), from which the following excerpt, containing the newly coined term, is
taken:
“The new meaning of a word, whatever it may be, does not make an end
of the old. They exist alongside of one another. The same term can be
employed alternately in the strict or in the metaphorical sense, in the
restricted or in the expanded sense, in the abstract or in the concrete sense.
In proportion as a new signification is given to a word, it appears to
multiply and produce fresh examples, similar in form, but differing in
value. We shall call this phenomenon of multiplication Polysemia1”
This definition could nowadays be thought of as obsolete, but it was of a
vital importance in order to set the principles that govern the study of polysemy
in present days. From 1900 onwards, many studies have been carried out
concerning lexical ambiguity, but it seems that decades of psycholinguistic
research have focused on homonymy comprehension rather than polysemy
comprehension (Klepousniotou et al., 2008). This fact is curious as polysemy is
much more frequent in language than homonymy, in fact, according to Lee
(1990), 93 of the 100 most frequent words in English text are polysemous. This
little attention towards polysemy, in terms of research, could have been due to
11


“the predominance of generative grammar with its focus on the sentence as the
central unit of meaning. However, with the emergence of the cognitive grammar

during the 1980s polysemy emerged on the research agenda as a key topic in
lexical semantics” (Falkum & Vicente, 2015).
According to Cruse (2000) polysemy can be divided into two different
types: linear and non-linear. Linear polysemy accounts for a specializationgeneralization relation between senses and, in turn, is divided into four types:
autohyponymy,

automeronymy,

autosuperordination

and

autoholonymy.

Metaphorical and metonymous polysemy are thought to belong to the non-linear
category. In order to obtain a more in-depth description of these terms, a full
description will be given below.
Even though Cruse’s theory on Polysemy types is the most accepted one,
there are many other linguists who have made their own hypothesis. Among
these linguists we find Andreas Blank, who gives an alternative to Cruse’s
classification, in his article Polysemy in the Lexicon, providing seven different
polysemy types based on the origins of polysemous words. Blank agrees with
Cruse in that he also considers metonymic and metaphorical polysemy but, in
his theory, there are five more types: co-hyponymous, taxonomic, autoconverse, antiphrastic and auto-antonymic.
2.1.2. Word classes
Word classes are among the very few grammatical concepts that have
continuously played a central role in grammatical theory and grammar writing
throughout the two and a half millenia of documented linguistic enquiry in the
Western world. Their critical position is due to the fact that they provide central
building blocks for the architecture of grammars and of lexical entries in

dictionaries. Grammatical rules are stated in terms of word classes and there is a
mutual dependency between the grammatical rule system and the word class
system. Word classes are thus a typical interface phenomenon and their pivotal
role is reflected in the fact that there are a number of different terms used to
refer to them. These include, in particular, syntactic or grammatical categories,
12


lexical categories, and the traditional term parts of speech. These terms
highlight different aspects of grammatical word classification (morphology,
syntax, semantics, pragmatics/discourse). Some authors hold that they refer to
substantially different classifications, while others consider them largely
synonymous. It is common to distinguish between major word classes
(comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sometimes also adverbs and
adpositions) and minor word classes. The latter include, on the one hand, some
smallish, closed word classes which are internally tightly structured such as
pronouns, demonstratives and articles, and conjunctions. On the other hand, they
include interjections and ideophones, which are often seen to be at the
boundaries of the language system. Items that do not fit any of the other
categories are often lumped together under the term particles. Other large-scale
classifications are open versus closed classes and content versus function words
(lexical versus functional categories in some contemporary frameworks). These
roughly match the major/minor divide, but they draw the boundary somewhat
differently. Major controversies pertain to the ways word classes can and should
be identified and to their universality and variability.
Classifications can be based on syntactic (distributional), morphological,
semantic, or pragmatic criteria. The resulting classifications often fail to
correlate, with authors being divided as to how to deal with the incongruities.
Some opt for a single (type of) criterion, others make use of a combination of
criteria, and a third group argues that classifications on each level (or at least the

morphological and syntactic levels) have to be considered separately and that
the question of how the classifications fit across levels is subject to crosslinguistic variation. A further issue pertains to the further subclassification of
major word classes, an issue not covered in this entry, as there is practically no
literature that discusses it specifically from the point of view of word
classification. Nouns, for example, may belong to different declension classes,
may obey different number-marking regularities in accordance with their
semantics (mass, count, collections, etc.), and so on.
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Traditionally, words can be classified as follows:
(1) The verb
A group of words cannot be described as a sentence or a clause unless at
least one of the words is a verb. In some ways, we can describe it as the most
important part of speech because it is the 'action' word that tells the listener or
reader what is happening in the sentence. Verbs can be “action” words
like run, initiate, judge, throw, but they can also denote less active notions and
have

more

to

do

with

mental

processes

and

perceptions,

like see, know, think and so on.
(2) The noun
A noun is a word which is used to denote a person (traffic warden,
woman, Prime Minister, pianist etc.), a concrete or abstract entity (binoculars,
fork, field, truth, incoherence etc.) or a place (office, garden, railway station).
These are all common nouns; there are also proper nouns which are the names
of a specific person, place, event etc., usually starting with a capital letter, for
example, York , John, Christmas, Saturday.
A noun can be extended to a noun phrase. In the example phrases given
below, the noun (in the first example) and the noun phrase (in the remaining
examples) is in bold. Note how much the noun phrase can be extended by
adding extra information each time.
Dogs can be vicious.
Some dogs can be vicious.
Some of the dogs can be vicious.
Some of the bigger dogs can be vicious.
Some of the bigger dogs in the dog pound can be vicious.
(3) The adverb
The traditional approach to adverbs has been to assign mainly those words
which are made from adjectives by the addition of the ending –
ly (quickly, hopelessly), plus certain other words which are difficult to classify,
like not, just and soon. Their main function is to qualify the action of the verb in
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the clause in some way, but they can also be used to add more information to an
adjective or other adverb e.g. awfully good, incredibly slowly. The class of
adverbs is very wide-ranging in form and is used to add comments to many of
the other word classes.
(4) The preposition
Prepositions allow us to talk about the way in which two parts of a
sentence are related to each other. They include words like in, on, under, beside,
through, inside, before, opposite. More often than not, these relationships are to
do with either time or space, but other types of relationship, such as possession,
cause and effect and method can be expressed by using prepositions. The words
themselves are generally short and simple but some prepositions are multi-word
units; for example, out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of, up to etc. Unless
they are part of a verb (get in, pick up, switch off), prepositions are always
followed by a phrase containing a noun – at school, in the summer, over the
moon and so on.
(5) The adjective
An adjective gives the reader or speaker extra information about a noun or
delimits it in some way. It can occur in two positions in a phrase:
- before the noun as in clear water, beautiful beaches, a terrible
decision. The adjectives in these examples are said to be attributive,
- following any form of the verb be (e.g. am, is, was, been) and similar
verbs (seem, appear, become) as in the water became clear, the
beaches are beautiful. These adjectives are in predicative position.
(6) The pronoun
Pronouns are usually treated as a special sub-class of nouns. This is
because they stand in for a noun or group of nouns. They are limited in number
and belong to what is called a closed set, that is, a group of words to which new
members are, for practical purposes, not allowed. Some examples of pronouns
are: I, you, he, she, our, its, something, anyone and so on. Thus, instead of
saying, Bill’s arrived. Bill’s in the lounge, we prefer Bill’s arrived. He’s in the

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lounge. Or a person called for you; better would be someone called for you.
There are several other words which fall into this class; for example (the) one(s),
when used to replace dishes in the example: pass me the dishes - the ones on the
top shelf.
(7) The conjunction
It would be very unusual for anyone to either speak or write completely in
simple sentences; instead we tend to use a mixture of simple, compound and
complex sentences. One way to create longer, more complicated sentences is to
use conjunctions. As we have already noted in the section on types of clause,
conjunctions serve to connect two or more clauses, phrases or words together to
make longer constructions. In the following examples, the conjunction is in
bold:
The coffee was strong, but sweet.
We can go to the match or watch it on TV.
She has a dog and two cats.
When I arrived home, they had already eaten.
I had to stop driving because the rain was so bad.
Can I have a word with you, if you’ve got the time?
Although he can’t swim, he goes sailing.
There are two types of conjunction. The first is the coordinating
conjunction. This type is always used to connect elements that share the same
grammatical status, that is, main clause to main clause, verb to verb, noun to
noun,

adjective

to

adjective

and

so

on.

The

second

type

is

the subordinating conjunction, which most often joins two or more unequal
clauses to one another. Typically a main clause will be connected to a
subordinate clause as we saw in the section on clause types. the subordinate
clause (which you will remember cannot stand on its own, but needs another
more important clause to complete the meaning) begins with a conjunction,
here when, because, if and although.

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