(1) | a. | Open-class categories: | noun, verb, adjective, adverb |
b. | Closed-class categories: | determiner, pronoun, auxiliary verb, preposition, conjunction, (interjection) |
I've divided the list up into closed-class and open-class
categories. As Johnston and Schembri mention, closed-class categories
contain a relatively small number of items; by definition, they are
listable and not ordinarily open to new members. By contrast,
open-class categories easily welcome new members, whether by borrowing,
compounding, neologism, or other means. The status of interjections is
somewhat murky; on the whole, they probably belong with closed-class
items, as in (1). For the remainder of the discussion, I'll omit them,
as they are not a major category.
Johnston and Schembri's list extends straightforwardly to ASL, and in
fact it corresponds closely to what traditional school grammar would
propose for spoken languages. For instance, the list corresponds almost
exactly to the lexical classes used in the Oxford English Dictionary
(OED).1
What is the basis for distinguishing among the various lexical
categories? Fundamentally, any word or sign in human language has two
components:
For this reason, lexical categories can be distinguished on the basis of
meaning-based (semantic) or form-based (morphosyntactic) considerations,
or both. Semantic considerations concern the conceptual underpinning of
a word class. They are largely independent of language and even
modality, and they are the ones ordinarily invoked by traditional school
grammar in adages like "A noun is the name of a person, place, or
thing." Morphosyntactic considerations concern the way that the various
words or signs combine with each other, and in particular how they
combine with inflectional morphemes. For instance, in English, verbs
inflect for tense (present play, past played,
future will play) and aspect (punctual played,
progressive were playing), whereas nouns don't. Conversely, in
many languages, nouns (and other categories) inflect for case and
gender, whereas verbs don't. (English preserves vestiges of case
inflection in the distinction between subject pronoun forms
like I or we vs. object pronoun forms like me
or us.)
Some languages have hardly any morphology. Chinese is a well-known case
of this type. In such languages, lexical classes can still be
distinguished, but only (or at least mostly) on the basis of semantic
considerations. Conversely, it is not easy to come up with shared
semantic criteria for some lexical classes (especially closed-class
categories). For instance, it is clear that English prepositions
like in, over, under, and so on refer to spatial
relations. But it is not clear at all what semantic feature they share
with other prepositions like of or despite. Instead, what
makes English prepositions (and closed-class items more generally) a
lexical class is their formal ability to combine with other forms. In
particular, the members of the closed class of English prepositions
combines with noun phrases to form prepositional phrases. Noun phrases
in turn consist of nouns and (optional) determiners; the closed-class
determiners
(a(n), the, this, that, some, and so
on) are defined by their formal ability to combine with open-class
nouns (which are defined both formally and semantically).
Table 1 gives the lexical categories in (1), with some of the cells
for "Semantic basis" filled in, and all of the cells for
"Morphosyntactic basis" filled in for English. How might you fill in
the missing information?
Table 1: Evidence for distinguishing lexical classes | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lexical class | Semantic basis | Morphosyntactic basis | |||
English | ASL | ||||
Noun | Describes classes of objects, concepts, phenomena | Inflects for number (at least for pluralizable nouns) | ? | ||
Verb | Describes states, activities, events | Inflects for person/number (3rd person singular present), tense, aspect | ? | Inflects for comparative (-er/more) and superlative (-est/most) (at least for gradable adjectives). Restricted to modifying nouns. | ? |
Adverb | ? | -ly (in many cases); restricted to modifying any category except nouns | ? | ||
Determiner | ? | Some inflection for number (as in this vs. these). Combines with nouns. | ? | ||
Pronoun | Picks out individual discourse referent(s) | Inflects for number, case (but unlike many other spoken languages, not gender in the linguistic sense) | ? | ||
Auxiliary verb | Modifies verbs with respect to time, modality, evidentiality (first-hand vs. second-hand evidence), and the like | Does not inflect like ordinary verbs, but combines with them | ? | ||
Preposition | No common semantic basis | Combines with noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adverb phrases | ? | ||
Subordinating conjunction | ? | Combines with sentences | ? | ||
Coordinating conjunction | Expresses Boolean operators AND, OR | Links two phrases or sentences | ? |
Table 1: Evidence for distinguishing lexical classes | |||
---|---|---|---|
Lexical class | Semantic basis | Morphosyntactic basis | |
English | ASL | ||
noun | describes classes of objects, concepts, phenomena | inflection for number (at least for pluralizable nouns) | ? |
verb | describes states, activities, events | inflection for person/number (3rd person singular present), tense, aspect | ? |
adjective | ? | inflection for comparative (-er/more) and superlative (-est/most) (at least for gradable adjectives); restricted to modifying nouns | ? |
adverb | ? | -ly (in many cases); restricted to modifying any category except nouns | ? |
determiner | ? | some inflection for number (as in this vs. these); combines with nouns | ? |
pronoun | picks out individual discourse referent(s) | inflection for number, case (but unlike many other spoken languages, not gender in the linguistic sense) | ? |
auxiliary verb | modifies verb with respect to time, modality, evidentiality (first-hand vs. second-hand evidence), and the like | does not inflect like ordinary verbs, but combines with them | ? |
preposition | no common semantic basis | combines with noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adverb phrases | ? |
subordinating conjunction | ? | combines with sentences | ? |
coordinating conjunction | expresses Boolean operators AND, OR | links two phrases or sentences | ? |
Recall that in one of the first weeks of class, we introduced a distinction between three different types of signs (where I'm using the term in a broad sense to cover sign language signs, spoken language words, and even traffic signs) and of constructing meaning. The distinction is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Three different types of signs and constructing meaning | |||
---|---|---|---|
all signs | |||
arbitrary | non-arbitrary | ||
symbol (describing) | icon (depicting, demonstrating) | point (deictic, indicating) |
In face-to-face communication, all three sign types are available to speakers and signers, and they use them all (recall the pointing journal exercise). But it is also true that spoken and signed languages rely on the different types of signs to a very different extent. To a first approximation, spoken languages use arbitrary symbols almost exclusively, with a nod to icons (onomatopoeia) and pointing (in face-to-face communication). By contrast, signed languages use iconic and pointing signs to a much greater extent since that is the original source for their basic vocabulary. As a result, ASL languages and all other sign languages that we know of have three verb classes:
Given the heavier reliance of sign languages on non-arbitrary signs, the question arises of how the various lexical categories fit into this extended semiotic space. In other words, how might we fill in the cells in Table 3 that I haven't yet filled in?
Here are some comments and questions to take into consideration:
Table 3: Lexical classes and expression by semiotic type | |||
---|---|---|---|
Lexical class | Semiotic type | ||
Symbol | Icon | Point | |
Noun | ? | WINTER | — |
Verb | Plain verb | Depicting verb or verb root | Indicating verb (at least, the points represent the verb's arguments) |
Adjective | CUTE | ? | — |
Adverb | ? | ? | ? |
Determiner | ALL | — | ? |
Pronoun | — | ? | Personal pronouns (with some arbitrariness for non-singular forms); possessive pronouns |
Auxiliary verb | ? | ? | — |
Preposition | ? | ? | — |
Conjunction | ? | arguably BUT | — |