Grammatical

Categories & Word

Classes
Grammatical
Categories
 Grammatical Category

• Latin or Greek, the grammatical categories are expressed almost

exclusively by inflectional endings, whereas in analytic languages, such as
Present-day English or French, the grammatical categories are expressed
primarily by word order (the position of a word in a sentence) and by
function words, as well as by a few inflections.
• A phrase containing a function word which is functionally equivalent to an
inflection is called a periphrasis, or periphrastic form. For example, in
English, we can express the possessive either by an inflection -’s (as in
Alicia’s cat) or by a periphrasis with of (as in the leg of the table).
 Grammatical Categories

1.1 Number
Number

Number is expressed by inflection in:

– count nouns, generally by -s (dog/dogs)

– demonstratives (this/these, that/those)
– the 1st and 3rd p (but not in the 2nd p) of pronouns
personal pronouns (I/we)
possessive determiners (my/our)
possessive pronouns (mine/ours)
reflexive pronouns (myself/ourselves)
Number

Number is also expressed by distinct forms of certain

pronouns and adjectives:

– singular: every, each, someone, anybody, a/an

– plural: all, many, few, several, most
Generic Number

The concept of generic number, which incorporates both singular and plural
and is used when one doesn’t want to specify number, is expressed in English
in three ways:

1. the definite article + singular noun (The tiger may be dangerous),

2. the indefinite article + singular noun (A tiger may be dangerous), and
3. Ø article + plural of count nouns or singular of mass nouns (Tigers may be
dangerous or Gold is valuable).
 Grammatical Categories

1.1 Number 1.2 Gender

Gender
• In English, gender is expressed by inflection only in personal pronouns, and
only in the 3rd person, singular he, she, it;
• the 1st and 2nd person forms I, we, and you are common gender,
• while the 3rd person plural form they is either common gender or neuter
(the people … they, the boats … they).
• Relative and interrogative pronouns and some other pronouns inflectionally
express a related category of “animacy” (animate/inanimate):
somebody/one vs. something, anybody/one vs. anything, who, whom vs.
what, which.
• Distinctions of animacy are variable, but commonly speakers distinguish
between human beings and higher animals (the {woman, dog} who …) and
lower animals and inanimate things (the {ant, stone} which …).
Gender
However, gender may also be expressed overtly on the English noun in a number
of limited ways:

1. by derivational suffixes, such as the feminine suffixes -ine (hero/heroine), -ess

(god/goddess), -rix (aviator/aviatrix), and -ette (suffragist/suffragette) or the
common gender suffixes -er (baker), -ist (artist), -ian (librarian), -ster (prankster),
and -ard (drunkard);
2. by compounds, such as lady-, woman-, girl-, female-, -woman (lady friend,
woman doctor, girl friend, female fire fighter, chairwoman) or boy-, male-,
gentleman-, -man (boy friend, male nurse, gentleman caller, chairman);
3. by separate forms for masculine, feminine, and common genders, such as
boy/girl/child or rooster/hen/chicken; and
4. by separate forms for masculine and feminine genders, such as uncle/aunt,
stallion/mare, bachelor/spinster and proper names such as Joseph/Josephine,
Henry/Henrietta.
 Grammatical Categories

1.1 Number 1.2 Gender

1.3 Person
Person

The category of person has three terms:

1st person: the speaker, person speaking;
2nd person: the addressee/hearer, person spoken to; and
3rd person: the person or thing spoken about.

Person distinctions are expressed by the inflected forms of the

pronouns, for example:
personal pronouns: I you he, they
personal possessive determiners: my your his, their
personal possessive pronouns mine yours his, theirs
personal reflexive pronouns myself yourself himself, themselves
Person

The form one expresses generic person (all persons) in English, but
since it is often considered rather formal, it coexists with other forms
that also express generic:
1st p pl we We're often misinformed by the media.
2nd p you You never can tell.
3rd p sg one One doesn’t do that in polite company.
3rd p pl they They’ ll find a cure for cancer soon.
Person

The generic you is the most common in informal usage. Finally, a few
apparently deviant uses of person are the following:
3rd p for 2nd p your excellency, your honor
3rd p for 1st p present company, the writer, your teacher, Caesar
(spoken by Caesar himself)
1st p for 2nd p we won’t do that anymore, will we (spoken by a
parent to a child)
 Grammatical Categories

1.1 Number 1.2 Gender

1.3 Person 1.4 Case

Case
• Case may be defined rather simply as an indication of the function of a
noun phrase, or the relationship of a noun phrase to a verb or to other
noun phrases in the sentence.
• Case is most fully expressed in the personal and interrogative/relative
pronouns, which distinguish nominative case (the function of subject),
genitive case (the function of possessor), and objective case (the function of
object) by different inflected forms:

nominative: I, we, you, he, she, it, they, who;

genitive: my/mine, our/ours, his, her/hers, its, their/theirs, whose;
and
objective: me, us, you, him, her, it, them, whom.
Case
Case
 Grammatical Categories

1.5 Degree
Degree

• Degree, unlike the nominal categories that we have been discussing, is a

category that relates to adjectives and adverbs.
• It has three terms, positive, comparative, and superlative degree.
• While positive degree expresses a quality, comparative degree expresses
a greater degree or intensity of the quality in one of two items, and
superlative degree expresses the greatest degree or intensity of the
quality in one of three or more items.
Degree
The positive degree is expressed by the root of the adjective (e.g. big,
beautiful) or adverb (e.g. fast, quickly) – that is, it is null-realized – while the
comparative and superlative degrees are expressed either by inflection (by
means of -er, -est) or by periphrasis (using more, most):
 Grammatical Categories

1.5 Degree 1.6 Definiteness

Definiteness
• The concepts of definiteness and indefiniteness are intuitively quite simple:
definite denotes a referent (a thing in the real world denoted by a noun)
which is known, familiar, or identified to the speaker and hearer, while
indefinite denotes a referent which is novel, unfamiliar, or not known.
• If we consider nouns on their own, definiteness is a covert category, obvious
only in the cooccurrence of an article with a noun, either the definite article
the or the indefinite article a/an, though all proper nouns and most
pronouns are intrinsically definite.
Definiteness
Definiteness
Definiteness
 Grammatical Categories

1.5 Degree 1.6 Definiteness

1.7 Tense
Tense
Tense establishes a relation: it indicates the time of an event in respect to the
moment of speaking (or some other reference point). If we consider the time
line below, for example, we see that a pastime statement, such as It rained, or
a future-time statement, such as It will rain, denotes a situation that did hold
before the present moment or will hold after the present moment, respectively:
 Grammatical Categories

1.5 Degree 1.6 Definiteness

1.7 Tense 1.8 Aspect

Aspect

• The so-called “compound tenses” – the perfect and the progressive – are
better treated as expressions of the category of aspect, which can be
defined as the view taken of an event, or the “aspect” under which it is
considered.
• Basically whether it is seen as complete and whole (perfective aspect) or
as incomplete and ongoing (imperfective aspect).
• The simple past tense in English is perfective in aspect since it views events
as complete and whole, e.g.

Yesterday, I drove to town, ran some errands, and visited with my

friends.
Aspect

• The progressive periphrasis, consisting of be + the present participle,

presents actions as in progress, ongoing, and incomplete (not yet ended). It
thus expresses imperfective aspect.
• It is the usual way to express a situation happening at the very moment of
speaking, which by definition is incomplete.
Aspect
• However, depending upon the temporal nature of the situation expressed
by the verb – whether it is punctual (e.g. flash, solve) or durative (e.g. swim,
clean) – the progressive may denote somewhat different situations:

–– a continuous activity: She is swimming. They were cleaning the

house when I called.
–– a repeated activity (“iterative aspect”): He is bouncing the ball.
The light was flashing when I entered the house. He is
washing dishes (*a dish). People (*a person) will be leaving
early.
–– a process leading up to an endpoint: The child is finishing the
puzzle. She was solving the problem when she was
interrupted.
Aspect
• The past event is relevant either by its continuation into the present or by
its results in the present.
• When a state or event that has duration that extends over a period of
time, is expressed in the perfect, it denotes a situation that began in the
past but continues to the present and possibly beyond. This is called a
“continuative perfect”.
• When an event that is punctual or has a necessary endpoint is expressed in
the perfect, it denotes a situation that is completed but has results in the
present. This is called the “resultative perfect”.
Aspect
Aspect
 Grammatical Categories

1.9 Mood
Mood
• Mood is an indication of the speaker’s attitude towards what he or she is
talking about, whether the event is considered fact or nonfact.
• The indicative is the mood of fact; it is expressed by the simple and
compound tenses of the verb.
• Nonfact encompasses a number of different degrees of reality, including
wishes, desires, requests, warnings, prohibitions, commands, predictions,
possibilities, and contrary-to-fact occurrences.
- It has two primary subcategories, the imperative and the
subjunctive.
Mood
Mood
 Grammatical Categories

1.9 Mood 1.10 Voice

Voice
• The category of voice, though usually considered a category of the verb, is
actually relevant to the entire sentence.
• Voice is an indication of whether the subject is performing the action of the
verb or being something (active voice) or whether the subject is being
affected by the action or being acted upon (passive voice).
• While the active is expressed by the simple forms of the verb, the passive
is expressed periphrastically:
–– by be + the past participle, as in The report was written (by the
committee); or
–– by get + the past participle, as in The criminal got caught (by
the police).
Voice
Voice
Voice
That is it for Grammatical
Categories ☺