3.1 Parts of speech
3.1.1 Recap: Open and Closed Word Classes
The idea of open and closed word classes is the first we can quantify very easily with the help of corpus data. As opposed to a closed word class, an open word class should have a lot more members. Let’s first recap what types of word classes we know.
- Open word classes
- Nouns: time, book, love, kind
- Verbs: find, try, look, consider
- Adjectives: green, high, nice, considerate
- Adverbs: really, nicely, well
- Closed word classes
- Pronouns: I, you, she, they, mine, …
- Determiners: the, a(n), this, that, some, any, no, …
- Prepositions: to, in, at, behind, after, …
- Conjunctions: and, or, so, that, because, …
- …
Closed word classes rarely accept new members. One rather recent addition to the class of pronouns might be considered singular they. Closed word classes are also mostly invariant in that they do not take inflection. Neither of these properties are logically necessary. You could imagine more pronouns. Some languages have a dual in addition to singular and plural (e.g. Classical Arabic), or a distinction between inclusive and exclusive we (several Polynesian languages). Yet the class of pronouns is rather fixed.
- Lexical vs. Function word
- Auxiliary verbs: be, have, (get, keep)
- Lexical verbs: eat, sleep, repeat, …
These first observations about word classes lead us to our core hypothesis for this week. Closed word classes have fewer members than open word classes.
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