Linguistic Categories: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Prepositions, Determiners, and Adverbs - , Study notes of Linguistics

Download Linguistic Categories: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Prepositions, Determiners, and Adverbs - and more Study notes Linguistics in PDF only on Docsity! Introduction to Syntax, LINGUIST 401 Feb 10, 2005 Categories 1 Major lexical categories of English  N(oun): dog, book, jelly, sincerity, chaos, . . .  P(reposition): in, on, among, away, atop, under, until, . . .  V(erb): run, play, contemplate, parse, . . .  A(djective): happy, tired, orange, crucial, scared, . . .  Det(erminer): the, every, all, a, most, many, few, . . .  Adv(erb): happily, tiredly, crucially, often, sometimes, . . . 2 The big questions 1. What distinguishes each of these categories from the others? 2. Does linguistic theory need to recognize each of these categories as primitives? 3. Are these categories universal? 4. Are there other categories than these? 5. How do these categories combine with each other to form phrases? 3 Exploring the big questions Below are a number of tests that purport to distinguish each of the above categories from the others. When using the tests, it is vital to ask:  Does this test uniquely identify the word class in question from all others?  If it does not uniquely identify the word class in question, then which classes does it distinguish among?  Do all the words in this word class pass the test, or do only some of them pass the test? 2