Liubov M. Khacheresova
Ph.D., Associate professor
Pyatigorsk State Linguistic
University
(Russia)
ON THE PREPOSITION IN PART OF SPEECH PARADIGM
Abstract: The present paper is a try to attract the attention of the young
scholars to investigate this part of speech, using a set of new instruments in
the main stream of cognitive linguistics
Key words: preposition, classification, part of speech, function, semantics,
distribution, grammaticalization.
INTRODUCTION.
The traditional approach to word-stock classification is under discussion in
modern British and American linguistics. The definitions presented in
traditional grammar vary from author to author but they share vagueness and inconsistency
of the approaches: According to the New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language (1975), part of speech is a category referring to a group of words that have common syntactic and
morphological characteristics. M. Volkova proposes another definition of the part of speech. She
regards them as classes of words all the members of which have certain
characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other
classes [15, 256]. The definition suggested by B. A. Ilyish says, that a part of speech is a type of word differing from other types in some grammatical
points [6, 153-154].
Each view contributes to the
clarification of the term “part of speech”. But still it causes much difficulty
both in general and English linguistics. The criteria for defining parts of
speech have not been worked out yet [c.f.: 2, 287-289] Traditionally the prescriptive grammar gives a semantic definition of
parts of speech, taking into account meaning only [9,
159]. However,
meaning cannot be a reliable criterion for defining parts of speech because
different parts of speech may have the same meaning and vice versa, e.g. the
nouns books, tables, students denote
objects and there are nouns as flight,
movement, arrival, which do not denote objects though belong to nouns.
The
structural school of linguistics does not take into account meaning, it takes
form only [3, 78-79]. However, the form also
cannot be a reliable criterion either because many parts of speech especially
in English may have the same form, e.g. water
(n) – to water (v), silk (n) – silk
(adj), but they don’t belong to one part of speech [see: 1, 161-162]. Moreover, if we take into account the form only, then such unchangeable
words as articles and particles should be referred to one part of speech.
The major objective of the present
paper is to study the parts of speech classification in evolution to reveal the
main features of preposition.
POINTS FOR DISCUSSION. As you
understand there is no one definite approach to parts of speech classification.
The attitude of grammarians to parts of speech and the basis of their
classification always varied a good deal. The number of parts of speech varies
from 3 to 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:
1. Classical, or
logical-inflectional (prescriptive)
2. Functional (descriptive)
3. Distributional (structural)
4. Complex approach.
Prescriptive grammarians described English in terms of
Latin forms and Latin grammatical constraints [14, 145-147]. For instance, Robert Lowth [10, considered that parts of speech were divided into declinable (nouns,
adjectives, pronouns, verbs, participles) and indeclinable (adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, articles). The underlying principle
of this classification was the form which was not only morphological but
syntactic also, i.e. the English form must correspond to the Latin form [8, 64-67].
Non-structural descriptive grammarians adopted a system of
parts of speech suggested by prescriptivists and elaborated it further. Henry
Sweet (1892), similar to his predecessors, divided words into declinable and
indeclinable [13, 84]. To the declinable parts of speech he attributed
noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund),
adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participle),
verb (finite verb), verbals (infinitive, gerund, participle) and to
indeclinable (particles), adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Henry
Sweet underlines three main principles of classification: form, meaning, and
function [13. 84-89].However, the results of his classification reveal a considerable
divergence between theory and practice: the division of the parts of speech
into declinable and indeclinable is a division based on the formal principle, though
the first four classes are marked by all the three features. Otto Jespersen
also refers to three principles of classification: “In my opinion everything
should be kept in view, form, function and meaning...” [5, 83]. On the basis of these three criteria, the
scholar distinguishes the following parts of speech: substantives, adjectives,
pronouns, verbs, and particles (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions,
interjections).
The traditional classification of words into the parts of
speech was rejected by structural grammarians who criticized it from two
points: first, in their opinion, traditional grammar relies heavily on the most
subjective element in language, meaning; second, it uses different criteria of
the classification. The fact is that it distinguishes the noun, the verb and
the interjection on the basis of meaning; the adjective, the adverb, the
pronoun, and the conjunction on the basis of function, and the preposition on
the basis of both function and form.
Charles Carpenter Fries, an American structuralist, in his
book “The Structure of English”
(1952) presented a careful development of a system of parts of speech via
distributional analysis. There he rejected the traditional principle of
classification of words into parts of speech replacing it with the methods of
distributional analysis and substitution [4, 9-15] The Fries system has four major syntactic categories, called "parts
of speech", in "classes" numbered 1 through 4 plus fifteen minor
categories of "function words", in "groups" lettered A
through O. Some of the groups have only one member (Group C, not;
Group H, expletive there), and several gather together words that are
largely ignored in traditional English grammar (Group K, comprising
utterance-initial well, oh, now, and exclamatory why;
Group M, comprising the discourse markers look, say, and listen).
Charles Fries does not use the traditional terminology. To understand his
function words better, we shall employ, where possible, their traditional
names: Group A words (determiners); Group B (modal verbs); Group C (the
negative particle “not”); Group D (adverbs of degree); Group E (coordinating
conjunctions); Group F (prepositions); Group G (the auxiliary verb “to”); Group
H (the introductory “there”); Group I (interrogative pronouns and adverbs);
Group J (subordinating conjunctions); Group K (interjections); Group L (the
words “yes” and “no”); Group M (the so-called attention-giving signals: look,
say, listen); Group N (the word “please”); Group O (the forms “let us”, “lets”
in request sentences). It is obvious that classifying words into word-classes
and functional groups Charles Fries in fact used the principle of function, or
distribution (the position of a word in the sentence is the syntactic function
of word). [4, 14].
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are
discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional.
This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion presupposes the
grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning).
The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical
categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational
features. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in
the sentence and their combinability [11, 41]. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we must describe: a) its
semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities. In
accordance with the mentioned criteria, we can classify the words of the
English language into notional and functional. Notional words are defined as
follows: they have full lexical meaning and independent syntactical functions
in the sentence. To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong
the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, and the adverb.
Functional parts of speech differ from notional ones semantically, they are
words of incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, their lexical
meaning is more general. Formal parts of speech serve either to express
different relations between notional words, they have mediatory functions in
the sentence, or they specify the meaning of the word. To the functional parts
of speech belong the article, the pronoun, the preposition, the conjunction,
the particle, the modal words, and the interjection [13, 125].
CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES. It is obvious that the
system of English parts of speech as presented
here has been
developing for many a century. All depends upon which feature we want to define
as a basic one. So, for instance, if the classifying criterion is the variability::
invariability of form, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and particles must
constitute the subparadigm of formal, functional, unchangeable units. If the criterion of meaning is
defined as the dominant then the will be a subparadigm of four notional word-classes:
nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Besides, the number of differential features
is not definite varying from semantic, formal, functional to semantic,
formal, llogical, inflectional,functional,istributional, wordbuilding, etc. The preposition is treated as an indeclinable,
formal, functional, structural, close word-class .
However the present
investigation is the foundation of a further preposition study: preposition can
transform into adverb, an independent part of speech, into prefix as a part of
a word stem, and postposition as a constituent of a verb phrase - the issues
which will be in the focus of our next research.
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