The problem of notional and formal parts of speech

The Semantic Approach In many schools this principle was used for PS classification. It is based on the universal forms of human thought which are reflected in 3 main categorial meanings of words:

substance (предметность),

process (процессуальность),

property (свойства, качества).

It doesn’t always work; it can be hard to define a categorial meaning of a word e.g.whiteness - is it substance of a noun or property of an adjective? action – it denotes process, but it isn’t a verb.

The Formal Approach- Only form should be used as a criterion for the classification of the PS. (Henry Sweet, Cruisinga). They distinguished btw two classes of wds: declinable (changeable forms) and indeclinable (static forms- articles, prepositions, must). But it doesn’t take into account the way a word functions in the sentence. Must functions as many other verbs, but for instance shall which has a declinable form.

The Syntactic (Functional) Approach - Only the syntactic function of a word should be taken into consideration as a criterion for PS classification.

Some notional PS are not easily to define. – pron.

Blokh- notional ps are NANumPronVD, formal- article, prep, conj, particle, modal w, inteject.

Wds are divided into n/fml ps on the principle: some wds denote things/actions and other extraling phenomena (notional), other wds denote relations btw the notional wds and thus we have nothing extralinguistic (formal).

But fml wds also express smth extralinguistic – prep exp relations bwn things (the letter is on the table/in the table), conj denote connections btw extraling things and phenomena (the match was postponed because it was raining=casual connection; it was raining but the match took place all the same- contradiction).

The term fml wd would seem to imply that wd thus denoted has some function in building up a phrase or a sentence (prep/conj). We can’t classify fml PS as such if we consider the same criteria- prep- their lex mg is rather vague they are used to denote relations btw notional wds in the sentence- no gram categories; fml PS have neither gram functions nor can be member of the sentence

Criticism of the theory of PS.

2 reasons- not all notional PS are characterized as PS. Fml PS do not follow the criteria. Sweet Frieze Jesperson, Barhudarov- critisized tradit definition of ps as they are based on semantic criteria. There are such wds in the rus l-ge (pryzok, begstvo) which do not define any things – expresses neither action nor state.

Notional parts of speech have both lexical & grammatical meanings (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, statives, pronouns, modal words). Functional parts of speech are characterized mainly by the grammatical meaning while their lexical meaning is either lost completely or has survived in a very weakened form.

a thingness

A table

a piece of furniture (meant for working etc.)

no lexical meaning

of (functional word)

to express relations between 2 nouns

Functional parts of speech—the article, the preposition, the conjunction.

Notional parts of speech are characterized by word-building & word-changing properties & functional words have no formal features & they should be memorized as ready-made units (but, since, till, until) & another most important difference between functional & notional parts of speech is revealed on the level of sentence. Where every notional word performs a certain synthetic function while functional words have no synthetic function at all. They serve as indicators of a certain part of speech (to + verb; a, the + noun). Prepositions are used to connect 2 words & conjunctions to connect 2 clauses or sentences.