1

To decide what class a word belongs to, it is useful to apply tests of three kinds:

Morphological: what forms does a word have (e.g. in terms of stems and
affixes)?
Syntactic: what syntactic roles does a word play in phrases or other
higher units?
Semantic: what type(s) of meaning does a word convey?

NOUNS

1. Book, girl, gold, information = common nouns.
2. Sarah, Oslo, Microsoft = proper nouns

Characteristics of nouns:

M
MMO
OOR
RRP
PPH
HHO
OOL
LLO
OOG
GGI
IIC
CCA
AAL
LL

Nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number, and for genitive case:
one book -> two books; Sarahs book

Many nouns are uncountable, and cannot have a plural form (e.g. gold, information).
Nouns quite often contain more than one morpheme:

Compound nouns: bomb + shell, bridge + head, clothes + line
Nouns with derivational suffixes: sing + er, bright + ness, friend + ship

S
SSY
YYN
NNT
TTA
AAC
CCT
TTI
IIC
CC

Nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase (a new book about the cold war, the ugliest
person youve ever seen). Common nouns such as book and person can be modified by
many kinds of words both before and after them.

Proper nouns like Sarah rarely have any modifiers.

S
SSE
EEM
MMA
AAN
NNT
TTI
IIC
CC

Nouns commonly refer to concrete, physical entities (people, objects, substances): e.g.
book, friend, iron.
They can also denote abstract entities, such as qualities and states: e.g. freedom, wish,
friendship.











2

ADJECTIVES

Dark, heavy, eager, guilty = adjectives. Adjectives are identified as follows:

M
MMO
OOR
RRP
PPH
HHO
OOL
LLO
OOG
GGI
IIC
CCA
AAL
LL

Many adjectives can take the inflectional suffixes

er (comparative) dark - darker
-est (superlative) dark darkest

Adjectives can be complex in morphology:

Derived adjectives (suffixes in bold): acceptable, forgetful, influential
Compound adjectives: color-blind, home-made, ice-cold

S
SSY
YYN
NNT
TTA
AAC
CCT
TTI
IIC
CC

Adjectives can occur as the head of an adjective phrase: very dark, eager to help, guilty
of a serious crime.
Adjectives and adjective phrases are most commonly used as modifiers preceding the
head of a noun phrase, or as predicatives following the verb in clauses:

Modifier: Tomorrow could be [a sunny day]
Predicative: Its nice and warm in here. Its sunny.

S
SSE
EEM
MMA
AAN
NNT
TTI
IIC
CC

Adjectives describe the qualities of people, things and abstractions:

A heavy box, he is guilty, the situation is serious

Many adjectives are gradable = they can be compared and modified for the degree or
level of the quality:
Heavier, very heavy, extremely serious
















3

ADVERBS

Now, there, usually, finally = adverbs.

Characteristics:

M
MMO
OOR
RRP
PPH
HHO
OOL
LLO
OOG
GGI
IIC
CCA
AAL
LL

Many adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix ly:
clearly, eagerly.
Others have no such ending: however, just.
A few adverbs allow comparative and superlative forms like those for
adjectives: soon sooner soonest // fast faster fastest

S
SSY
YYN
NNT
TTA
AAC
CCT
TTI
IIC
CC

Adverbs occur as head of adverb phrases: very noisily, more slowly than I had expected.

Adverbs, with or without their own modifiers, are often used as modifiers of an
adjective or another adverb: really old, very soon.

They can act as adverbials in the clause: Ill see you again soon.

See 3.5.5 on adverbials

S
SSE
EEM
MMA
AAN
NNT
TTI
IIC
CC

As modifiers, adverbs most often express the degree of a following adjective or
adverb: totally wrong, right now.

As elements of clauses (adverbials), adverbs and adverb phrases have a wide range of
meanings:

They can modify an action, process, or state, by expressing such notions
as time, place, and manner:

So I learned German quite quickly
She was here earlier today

They can convey the speakers or writers attitude towards the
information in the rest of the clause:

Surely that childs not mine? (CONV)

They can express a connection with what was said earlier:

It must be beautiful, though (CONV)




4

BORDERLINE CASES IN CLASSIFYING WORDS

The categories people operate with in the real world are not clear-cut.
Example: furniture. Includes:

Clear cases: tables and chairs
Borderline cases: television sets, cookers, electric heaters

The same is true of word classes in grammar. For example, nouns can be more or less
nouny.
A typical noun (boy, car) has:

Singular - boy
Plural - boys
Genitive forms boys

It can be preceded by a/the, and it refers to a class of people, things or other entities.

We found many words which have only some of these nouny features: e.g. research,
which has no plural or genitive, cannot be preceded by a, and refers to something
abstract and intangible.
The boundaries between two word classes may be unclear.

Example of borderline cases: words ending in ing Almost all of these words have
a verb base, so it is easy to assume that all words ending in ing are verbs. However,
this conclusion is not correct. These words can belong to any of three different classes:

Verb (sometimes called ing participle),
Noun, or
Adjective (sometimes called participial adjective).

Normally the following tests can be applied to determine the word class:

Verbs ending in ing can act as the main verb of a verb phrase, and may be
followed by a noun or an adjective (underlined): is eating lunch; becoming misty
overnight

Nouns ending in ing can sometimes have a plural form (e.g. paintings),
and can usually be a head noun after a/the/other determiner. Example: the banning of
some chemicals; her dancing.

Adjectives ending in ing can appear before a noun, and can also occur
after verbs such as be/become. Example: the travelling public; it was (very) confusing.
They are very often gradable, and can be preceded by degree adverbs such as
very/so/too: very forgiving, so interesting, too boring.





5

But these criteria cannot always be clearly applied. Typical borderline cases include the
following:

NOUNS AND VERBS

The biggest problem is the so-called naked ing-form occurring after a main verb:

The matter needed checking (NEWS ).

The final word checking could be a verb, if one added an adverb:

The matter needed checking carefully

This form could function as a noun. If it were preceded by a modifying adjective:

The matter needed careful checking.

Since neither of these clues is present in the original example, the word class of checking
is left unclear.


NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES

The biggest problem here is where the ing-form modifies a following noun. Compare:


NOUN + NOUN
Living standards
Dancing classes
Working conditions

ADJECTIVE + NOUN
Living creatures
The dancing children
A working mother

Both nouns and adjectives can modify a noun, so the only way to tell the difference
here is to apply a paraphrase test: to try to express the same idea in different ways.

If a paraphrase can be found where the ing-form clearly has a noun-like
character, the construction consists of NOUN + NOUN. For example, if a paraphrase
which uses a prepositional phrase is appropriate, the construction must consist of an
ing-NOUN + NOUN: living standards = standards of living; dancing classes = classes for
dancing.

A paraphrase with a relative clause (using that, which, or who) shows that the
construction consists of ing-ADJECTIVE + NOUN: living creatures = creatures which are (still)
living; dancing children = children who are dancing.



6


VERBS AND ADJECTIVES

Borderline cases between these categories occur where the ing-form follows the verb
be without other modifiers. Example:
It was embarrassing (CONV)

If the ing-word can take an object (i.e. a following noun phrase), then it is a verb:

It was embarrassing (me)

If the ing-word is gradable and can be modified by very, it is an adjective:

It was (very) embarrassing

In some cases (like embarrassing), both tests apply, and there is no single correct
analysis. But the second analysis (adjective) is more likely.