Part of speech

Part of speech, word class or lexical category refers to the class of words in a language based on their classification according to common grammatical features. Word type theory attempts to classify the lexical-grammatical units of a language.

The word type is to be distinguished from the syntactic function (sentence function) of a word, such as subject, object, adverbial, attribute, and so on.

Words can be classified in particular according to their meaning (semantic), according to their form (morphological) or according to their use in the sentence (syntactic) (grammatical category). The criteria are used individually or in combination with each other. Accordingly, there are very different doctrines of word types. Which word types there are depends on the theory used as a basis and on the language to be described. Whether there are universal language word types at all is disputed. Partly, only/at least "the distinction into verbs and nouns" is regarded as essential.

According to its position within a sentence, a word can be assigned to a syntactic category: Adjectives in German come before the noun and after an article. Morphology distinguishes words in terms of the way they can be inflected: verbs are conjugated in German, so they have different tenses, infinitive, imperative, subjunctive, participles, and so on. The meaning of words is also used in word type classification, often merely for subclassification. For example, prepositions are divided into local, temporal and modal prepositions.

In computational linguistics, methods are developed to automatically assign words of a text to part-of-speech tagging.

Word type classification of classical German (school) grammar

Overview

Standard form: ten-word doctrine

A common word type classification of the German language names 10 word types. The ten-word doctrine originated in the Latin and Greek grammatical tradition (see above) and was used for a very long time. It names the following word types:

1. Noun (main or thing word)
2. Verb (tense or action word)
3. Adjective (adjective or epithet)
4. Adverb (circumstantial or subordinate word)
5. Pronoun (pronoun)
6. Preposition (ratio or preface)
7. Conjunction (connective)
8. Numerals (number word)
9. Article (gender word, companion)
10. Interjection (exclamation or sensation word)

Minor variants

The above list is also called the ten-word doctrine. This can be contrasted with a nine-, eight-, etc. -word type doctrine.

Task of the article part of speech

A variant of the ten-word doctrine is the view according to which the article is not regarded as an independent part of speech, but as a special form of the numeral (indefinite article) or the pronoun (definite article). It is also referred to as the nine-word doctrine.

Task of the word type Numeralia

Sometimes the independence of a category numeralia is denied and these are then added to the adjectives. If this remains the case, one has another nine-word type doctrine, and if the article is also omitted, an eight-word type doctrine:

Arguments against: A comma is placed between two adjectives of equal rank. However, numerals must necessarily precede the attributive adjective, which is why they cannot be called adjectives of the same rank and why no comma can go there. Consequently, they are not adjectives.

Replacement of the word type numeralia by a word type particle

In some cases, the part of speech numeralia is negated and instead the part of speech particles is introduced as an independent part of speech. This ten-word doctrine, however, does not correspond to the classical doctrine of parts of speech.

Task of the part of speech interjection

The part of speech interjection is partly (additionally) faded out as an unimportant special case. If the category of the numeral word is also omitted, one has an eight-word type doctrine.

Word types according to the classical classification in detail

Inflectable

Noun (noun, thing word)

Noun (noun, thing word; partly also noun, name word, nominal word): Hanna, Rhine, house, garden, pig, computer, woman, milk, iron, reason, context. According to the nature of the objects of reference can be distinguished:

• concrete nouns (things that can be perceived with the senses, things that can be touched)
• abstract nouns (only mentally perceptible things)
• Proper noun (nomen proprium): presupposes knowledge of the subject and assignment of the name.
• Generic name (nomen appellativum): refers to the kind, genus of things.
• Collective name (nomen collectivum):
• Substance name (nomen materiale): denotes a substance, in this meaning it cannot be counted and is not plural (at most, it denotes types: steels).

Grammatically determinable special types are:

• Singularetant or singular word: occurs only in the singular (for example, snow, milk, wrath).
• Dualetantum: occurs in some Semitic languages, e.g. Hebrew מים, majim: water.
• Plural noun or plural word: occurs only in the plural (for example, alps, canaries, people).

Verb (activity word, time word)

Verb (activity word, time word): laugh, run, talk, love, shout, hate. Verbs can denote processes, states or abstract facts.

Grammatical properties in German:

• finite (conjugated) or infinite (unconjugated)
• to be used in six different tenses: present, past/imperfect, perfect, past perfect, future tense I and future tense II
• Genera verbi: active (action form) or passive (suffering form)
• transitive or intransitive
• Modes: Indicative, subjunctive or imperative.

Adjective (adjective)

Examples: red, beautiful, disabled, tall, large. Adjectives can modify nouns to restrict a subject area (restrictive use) or give additional information (appositive use):

• attributive use (adjective immediately before noun): primary use
• predicative use (adjective especially with the verbs to be, to become, to seem, to remain)
• adverbial use (adjective as a separate clause; in German, adjectives usually do not have a special ending to mark adverbial use)
• substantive use (adjective is used as a noun, in German then capitalized accordingly)

Many adjectives have the comparative form (intensification, comparison): big, bigger, biggest; some are formally, but not semantically meaningfully intensifiable, for example: single, pregnant, dead.

Expressions that can be combined only with a verb such as to be, to become or to remain are called "adkopula": broke, guilty, even. However, they have some similarities with adjectives, so perhaps fall into this class.

Numerals (number word)

Numeralia are words that indicate a quantity or rank. Some numeral words might constitute a separate part of speech, provided they have properties not shared by other parts of speech. However, many of the words designated as numeral words (in the broadest sense) fall into other parts of speech:

• Cardinalia (basic number words): one, two, three ...
• Ordinalia (ordinal number words): first, second, third ...
• Iteratives: once, twice, three times ... (adverbs)
• Multiplicatives: simple, double, triple ... (adjectives)
• Partitiva (fraction words): thirds, fourths, eighths ...
• Spezialia (generic number words): one of a kind, two of a kind, three of a kind ...
• Indefinite numeralia: all, many, some few ... (see also under: quantifiers)

Article (companion, gender word)

An article (in traditional grammar also gender word, companion) is a grammatical word that always accompanies a noun (noun or substantivized adjective).

• definite article (definite gender word): der, die, das (genitive: des, der)
• indefinite article (indefinite gender word): one, one (genitive: one, one)

Pronoun (pronoun)

The pronoun (also: pronoun) is a grouping of words that do not describe properties, but can refer directly to an object. They form a heterogeneous group.

• Personal pronoun (personal pronoun): deictic/indicative: I, you, we, you; anaphoric: he, she, it
• Reflexive pronoun (back-referring pronoun): yourself, you (with subject "you"), me (with subject "I")
• Relative pronoun (referring pronoun): the, what, where
• Possessive pronoun (possessive pronoun): my, your
• Demonstrative pronoun (indicative pronoun): this, that
• Indefinite pronoun (indefinite pronoun): one, any
• interrogative pronoun (interrogative pronoun): who, what

Quantifiers (set word)

Quantifiers are words used to represent quantities, such as: none, all, little, much. According to IDS grammar, they can have both determinative and pronominal functions.

Non inflectable

Non-inflections are those words which remain invariable in all sentences or positions. They are also called particles (in the broad sense) or particles of speech.

Adverb (circumstantial word)

Adverbs such as here, there, today, therefore, therefore are single words that usually occur in the function of adverbial determination. Common types of meaning are e.g.

• Adverb of place (local adverb): here, there, down, there, nowhere, over, here.
• Adverb of time (temporal adverb): tomorrow, then, already, already, often, soon, always
• Adverb of manner (modal adverb): gladly, differently, vainly, almost, indeed, very much.
• Adverb of reason (causal adverb): therefore, therefore, therefore, consequently, for this, for that.

Adverbs can also contribute to the determination of sentence types and

• Introduce interrogative sentences: Interrogative adverbs such as Where? When? How? Why?
• Introduce relative clauses: Relative Adverbs

preposition (relative word)

Prepositions determine the case of the group of words to which they belong (rection). They allow only one of the oblique case. In German these are: genitive, dative, accusative. According to this criterion, als and wie, which can occur with any case, are excluded as prepositions.

Prepositions can be semantically subclassified: Thus because of is a preposition referring to the cause, the reason; by means of is a preposition referring to a means employed. The classes of meaning that can also be given for adverbial determinations result, e.g.:

• local
• directional
• temporal
• causal
• modal

Conjunction (connective)

Classically, conjunctions are divided into:

• associative (paratactic)
• subordinating (hypotactic, subjunctions)

Interjection (exclamation or sentiment words)

Interjections like oh, no, na, ja or hm are oral, have tones and unusual sound combinations (brr), steer from the listener position. Their affiliation to the word types is controversial (onomatopoeic expressions, for example, are partly classified as onomatopoeia), but they are also counted among the particles in the narrow sense.

Particle (in the narrow sense)

Particles in the narrow sense are uninflected expressions that cannot be extended to form word groups:

• Tinting particles operate on the knowledge: yes, halt, eh, well
• Connect and divide connective particles: firstly, however, otherwise, though, nevertheless
• Grade particles grade on the background of a grading scale in the sentence Weighted: even, calculated, already
• Modal particles determine the validity of a fact and evaluate: regrettably, unfortunately, certainly, perhaps
• Intensity particles mark the expression of adjectival properties: very, quite, exceedingly.
• Negation particles such as not, not at all negate the validity of the facts.

The affiliation of a word to different parts of speech

In a word paradigm, a word always belongs to exactly one part of speech. This requirement cannot always be upheld, as the following examples show:

• Example:
• I knocked, /but/ no one opened (doch in the sense of but as a conjunction);
• Actually, Eva was sick, /but/ she went to work (but as an adverb in the sense of nevertheless);
• You knew that /yet/! (but as a (tinting) particle).

Many prepositions are also adverbs

• Example:
• on the table / from the time (stand before the actual contents → prepositions).
• The door is open / The beard is off. (non-declinable properties → adverbs)

Critique of the traditional doctrine of part of speech

Traditional part-of-speech theory is criticized for not fulfilling some basic properties of classification systems. It is unclear what it classifies at all: lexemes, syntactic words or word forms. The classical classification of word types is not made according to a "unified point of view", but according to "conflicting or overlapping criteria". "It is "too vague for an exact structure of grammar" and the classification is also not disjunctive, since the same word can belong to different categories.

From a comparative linguistic point of view, the traditional morphological criterion of classification appears to be accidental. The criterion of morphology applies only to synthetic languages such as German, ancient Indian Sanskrit, Latin or Turkish. In English it is already problematic, for Chinese, which has no inflection, it is not applicable.