Part of speech

Revision as of 11:17, 14 January 2010

Part of speech (POS) is an attribute defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the Lexical Realisation Unit. In order to avoid redundancy and to be as comprehensive as possible, the UNLarium presents the part of speech as a hierarchy where lower values subsume the upper ones. LRUs are expected to be classified at the deepest (most specific) possible level of the hierarchy.

Adjective

Adjectives are open-class LRUs whose main syntactic role is to assign attributes to a noun. Adjectives are distinguished from determiners, which express references rather than qualities. The participle, a derivative of a non-finite verb, is considered to be and should be treated as a special case of adjective.

Adposition

Adpositions are closed-class LRUs whose main role is to designate a relation between LRUs. They are subclassified according to their position:

• prepositions precede the related LRU
• postpositions follow the related LRU
• circumpositions surround the related LRU

Adverb

Adverbs are open-class LRUs that modify any part of the language other than a noun. Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences and other adverbs.

Affix

Affix is a LRU that is attached to another to add grammatical information (such as number, gender, tense and case) or to form a new LRU. They are subclassified according to their position:

• prefixes precede the modified LRU
• suffixes follow the modified LRU
• circumfixes surround the modified LRU
• infixes modify the internal structure of the modified LRU

Classifier

A classifier is a LRU used to classify the referent of a noun according to its meaning.

Conjunction

Conjunctions are LRUs that connect two other LRUs, phrases or clauses. They can be coordinating, if they join two or more items of equal syntactic importance, or subordinating, if they introduce a dependent clause. Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that work together to coordinate two items (both … and, (n)either … (n)or, and not (only) … but (also)....). Complementizers are special subordinating conjunctions that introduce complement clauses (“whether”, “that”, “if”).

Determiner

Determiners are noun-modifiers that express the reference of a noun or noun-phrase in the context, including quantity, rather than attributes expressed by adjectives. This function is usually performed by articles (which express definiteness: “a”, “the”), demonstrative determiners (which express position: “this”, “that”), possessive determiners (which express property: “my”, “your”), or quantifiers (which express quantities: “a lot of”, “several”).

Interjection

Intejerjections are LRUs without a grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence and that simply express emotion on the part of the speaker.

Noun

Nouns are LRUs used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action and that can function as the subject or object of a verb, the object of a preposition, or an appositive. Proper nouns are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet or person).

Numeral

Numerals are LRUs that represent numbers. They can be cardinal (describe quantity: “two”, “three”), ordinal (describe position: “first”, “second”), partitive (describe division: “half”, “two thirds”), multiplicative (describe repetition: “once”, “twice”), collective (describe groups: “double”, “triple”) and distributive (describe distributions: “in pairs”, “by the dozen”)

Pronoun

Pronouns are LRUs that substitute other LRUs. They can be demonstrative (“this”, “that”), emphatic (“myself”, “himself”), indefinite (“somebody”, “nothing”), interrogative (“who”, “where”), possessive (“my”, “mine”), reflexive (“myself”, “himself”), reciprocal (“each other”, “one another”), relative (“who”, “where”) or