week 4 words Open classes

week 4: words Open classes • • • We can readily coin new words to add it (i. e. books Their membership is fairly open-ended (word/s having different meaning i. e mean) A member of one class may be identical in spelling and/ pronunciation with a member of another class (i. e We Vwater the plants with rain Nwater)

closed classes • have a fairl fixed membership

‘fuzzy edges’ • Words have members which are identical in form to members of other classes (i. e. ‘this’ can be either pronoun or determiner) Example: - I love this (pronoun) - This flower is for you (determiner) • The same word is shared by an open and a closed class Example: - I have a round ball (adjective) - Many children are playing soccer round the field (preposition) • Idioms which behave like a single preposition Example: Instead of, away from, with reference to

the open classes – using three types of criterion/test 1. q q q 2. 3. FORM Certain suffixes are characteristics of certain word classes (i. e. Electric-ITY (noun), electric-FY (verb), electric-Al or electr-IC (adjective) Certain suffixes can be added to change the form of a word (i. e. Box-ES (noun), work-ED (verb), tall-ER (adjective). These pureley grammatical endings are called INFLECTIONS - -s/es, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -’s. In some less regularcases, English words have inflections which involve some other change in the form of a word (i. e. man/men, go/went, good/better/best) FUNCTION We can tell the class of a word by the way it behaves (i. e. The cook does not actually cook the meal) MEANING This is a supportive criterion (i. e. Word type classified accroding to meaning)

Noun (N) 1. FUNCTION Nouns can function as the head (H) of a noun phrase (NP) 2. FORM (1) Many nouns have characteristic suffixes (i. e. –Er (singer), -ist (hypnotist), -ism (fascism), -tion (caution, station), -ity(divinity), -hood (falshood), -ence (preference), -ness (goodness) (2) Most nouns can change their form from SINGULAR into PLURAL 3. MEANING Nouns typically refer to physical phenomena: people, objects, places, substances, etc. (Concrete Noun). Other nouns refer to events, states, activities, processes, times, occasions, etc. (Abstract Nouns such as happiness, meeting, health, etc. )

three subclasses of nouns based on form, function and meaning • COUNT/MASS NOUNS. Coun nouns refer to countable things and they have plural forms. Mass nouns refer to substances & qualities and they have no plural form such as happiness, gold, etc. • PROPER/COMMON NOUNS. Proper nouns denote to an individual person, place, etc. It begins with a capital letter such as John. Common nouns classify things into type. All count and mass nouns are common nouns. • COLLECTIVE NOUNS. They are generally count nouns, but even in the singular form they refer to groups of people, animals and things. Example: family, government, committee.

Verb (V) • FUNCTION. Verbs here refer to FULL-VERB as the main element in a verb phrase. They can stand on their own as a predicator or the can follow others (operator). • FORM. (i) some verbs have characteristics suffixes like -ise (realise), and -ify (clarify), (ii) each verb has different forms (regular and 200 irregular verbs). • MEANING. Verbs can express action, events, process, activities, states, etc. Such actions can be physical (eat), mental (think), perceptual (see), social (buy), etc.

Adjective (Aj) • FUNCTION. (i) as a head in an adjective phrase, (ii) as a modifier in a noun phrase • FORM. Most adjectives are GRADABLE • MEANING. typically denote some quality or property attributed to nouns Types of adjective meanings: (i) physical qualities of colour, shape, etc. (ii)pschological qualities of emotion such as funny, brave, etc. (iii) evaluative qualities: good, wrong,

Adverb (Av) l FUNCTION. as a head of an adverb phrase or as a modifier in an adjective phrase l FORM. (i) mostly are formed by the additon of -ly to an adjective, (ii) a few adverbs resemble adjectives l MEANING Adverb Type manner place direction time - when duration frequency degree Eliciting Question how? where to/from? when? how long? how often? to what degree? Examples well, nicely here, there up, back, forward then, once long, briefly, always, weekly rather, quite, much

Exercise: • do some exercise (3 a, 3 b, 3 c, 3 e, 3 f) • do another given exercise in the classroom