Name

: Fitri Ernawati

NPM

: 11.1.01.08.0081
UNIT X
WORD CLASSES

There are two kinds of word-classification:

1. Traditional Grammar
Crystal (2001, 138) states that Traditional Grammar refers to the range of attitudes
and methods found in the prelinguistic era of grammatical study, and especially in the
European school grammars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Most traditional grammarians
classified words into 10 parts of speech.
1. Nouns: tree, duck, mammal, water, poverty, etc.
2. Verbs: write, think, fly, are, shall, etc.
3. Adjectives: red, sweet, bright, my, your, etc.
4. Adverbs: slowly, softly, anew, (to work) hard, (to run) fast, etc.
5. Pronouns: I, me, mine, you, yours, etc.
6. Numbers: one, two, three, first, second, third, etc.
7. Prepositions: from, by, in, below, under, etc.
8. Conjunctions:
a. Coordinators: and, or, but, yet, either . . . or, neither . . . nor.
b. Subordinators: because, since, although, because of, despite.
9. Articles:
a. Definite: the
b. Indefinite: a/an
10. Interjection: Oh, alas, bravo, oh my God, etc.
Traditional Grammar is said to have some weaknesses by Structural Linguists based
on some reasons:
a. Words are classified based on meanings rather than on functions.
b. The definitions of words are sometimes circular in nature, since some types of words
are defined based on the definitions of other words.
2. Structural Linguistics

Structural Linguistics refers to the emphasis on the processes of segmenting and

classifying utterances promoted by Leonard Bloomfield in the 1930s.
The structural linguists classify words into two groups:
I. Content Words:
The content words are the words which carry lexical meanings in themselves, such
as house, to write, dangerous, and slowly.
There are four classes of them.
1. Nouns are a class of content words marked by their appearance following certain
noun-determining function word, by certain derivational suffixes, and occasionally
by certain superfixes of stress.
Example: lion, boy, truth, she, me, etc.
2. Verbs are a class of content words marked by their use of four inflections,
appearance in verb phrases with certain auxiliaries, by a small groups of derivational
suffixes, and occasionally by the superfix of stress.
Example: walk, think, grow, divide, copy, etc.
3. Adjectives are a class of content words identified by their ability to fill the position
between noun-determiner and noun and the position after a linking verb.
Example: cheap, bright, small, expensive, successful, etc.
4. Adverbs are a class of content words identified by their ability to appear in
utterance-final position following a noun or nouns functioning as complement.
Example: slowly, skillfully, successfully, quickly, etc.
II. Function Words:
Function words are the words which have little or no lexical meaning, but they serve
chiefly to indicate grammatical relationships.
There are nine types of them:
1. Noun determiners: They are words that regularly occur before nouns. Examples: a,
the, my, this, many, and your, etc.
2. Auxiliaries or helping verbs: am, do, have, must, will, etc.
3. Qualifiers: words that qualify adjectives or adverbs, limiting or intensifying their
meanings. Examples: very, quite, rather, somewhat, most, etc.
4. Prepositions which can be classified into:
1) Simple: in, at, with, after,on, etc.
2) Compound: due to, together with, out of, inside, etc.
3) Phrasal: by means of, in front of, on account of, in line with, etc.

5. Coordinators are the words which join two grammatically parallel structures.
Examples: and, or, and but.
6. Interrogators which can be classified into two groups.
1) Simple interrogators: when, what, how, where, why.
2) Interrogative pronouns: who, whom, whose, whoever.
7. Includers or subordinators: because, although, since, either . . . or, neither . . . nor.
8. Sentence linkers: consequently, in fact, at least, last but not least, on the other hand.
9. Miscellaneous types which can be divided into:
a) Attention claimers: oh, hey.
b) Attention signals: yes, yeah, uh-huh, unh-unh.
c) Responses: yes, no, maybe, O.K.
d) Infinitive marker: to.
e) Negator: not.
f) Hesitators: well, uh-h, um-m.