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The grammatical categories of words and their inflections

The grammatical categories of words and their inflections. Kuiper and Allan Chapter 2.1. Word and lexeme. Examine the following simple dictionary entry. sept , n. Clan, esp. in Ireland. Word and lexeme A lexeme is a three part symbol: form (or a number of forms) syntactic category

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The grammatical categories of words and their inflections

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  1. The grammatical categories of words and their inflections Kuiper and Allan Chapter 2.1

  2. Word and lexeme • Examine the following simple dictionary entry. • sept , n. Clan, esp. in Ireland. • Word and lexeme • A lexeme is a three part symbol: • form (or a number of forms) • syntactic category • meaning • Lexemes also have non linguistic properties, usage.

  3. Grammatical/syntactic categories • determine where in a sentence a word can fit. • Two ways to identify the category • looking at the structure of phrases and sentences • done in chapter 7 • looking at the inflection of words • done next because it is part of looking at word structure

  4. Inflection & stem • inflected forms of TRY • try, tries, tried, trying, as in the following sentences: The horse must try, The horse tries, The horse tried, The horse is trying. • Each is a grammatical word form. The grammatical endings which create these different grammatical word forms are termed inflections. • stem • is the form of the lexeme to which they are attached.

  5. Morphological processes • The processes whereby words come to have internal structure such as a stem and inflection are morphological processes. • The categories for which words inflect are often called morphosyntactic categories. e.g. tense which accounts for the past tense inflection -ed in tri-ed is an example of a morphosyntactic category. • Properties such a present tense or past tense are therefore morphosyntactic properties.

  6. Grammatical categories and inflection • Not all grammatical categories of words inflect. • When they do, the inflection tells you what the category of the word is. • i.e. If a word can take a plural inflection, then it is a noun. • The converse is not always the case. • ie. Not all nouns inflect for plural. • Some grammatical categories do not inflect at all.

  7. Major grammatical categories • To begin with we will look only at four grammatical categories: • noun • adjective • verb • preposition • They make up the skeletal, telegraphic structure of sentences. • e.g. young boy sits in chair

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