The Three Major Word Classes

Words can be broadly grouped into three classes according to their main functions and their grammatical behaviour: lexical words, function words, and inserts.

Lexical words. Lexical words are the main carriers of meaning in a text. In speech they are generally stressed. They are characteristically the words that remain in the information-dense language of telegrams, lecture notes, headlines, etc.:

Arriving tomorrow (telegram)

Family killed in fire (newspaper headline)

Lexical words are numerous and are members of open classes. They often have a complex internal structure, and they can be the heads of phrases. There are four classes of lexical words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Function words. While lexical words are the main building blocks of texts, function words provide the mortar which binds the text together. Function words often have a wide range of meanings and serve two major roles: indicating relationships between lexical words or larger units, or indicating the way in which a lexical word or larger unit is to be interpreted.

Function words are members of closed systems. They are characteristically short and lack internal structure. In speech they are generally unstressed. They are frequent and tend to occur in any text, whereas the occurrence of individual nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs varies greatly in frequency and is bound to the topic of the text. As we shall see later, however, there is also a great deal of variation in the frequency of function words depending upon the type of text. The most important differences between function words and lexical words are summarized in Figure 7.6.

Figure 7.6 – Typical differences between lexical words and function words

Features lexical words function words

frequency low high

head of phrase yes no

length long short

lexical meaning yes no

morphology variable invariable

openness open closed

number large small

stress strong weak

____________________________________________________________

Inserts. Inserts are a relatively newly recognized category of word. They do not form an integral part of a syntactic structure, but are inserted rather freely in the text. They are often marked off by intonation, pauses, or by punctuation marks of writing/ They characteristically carry emotional and interactional meanings and are especially frequent in spoken texts. Some examples are:

Hm hm, very good. (CONV) Yeah, I will. Bye. (CONVƗ)

Cheers man. (CONV)

Inserts are generally simple in form, though they often have a deviant phonological structure (e.g. hm, uhhuh, ugh, yeah).

Inserts are more marginal than lexical words and function words. It can indeed be debated whether some of the forms in our conversation passage should be recognized as words at all. But there is no doubt that they play an important role in communication. If we are to describe spoken language adequately, we need to pay more attention to them than has traditionally been done.

Traditionally, interejctions are the only type of insert that has been described in most grammars. Inspection of the examples in our conversation texts shows, however, that there is a variety of forms and that the traditional term ‘interjection’ (LDOCE: ‘a phrase, word, or set of sounds used as a sudden remark usu. expressing feeling’) is inappropriate, except perhaps in the etymological sense of ‘something thrown in between.’ Hence, the new term ‘insert’.

Discussion Questions/Professional Development Activities

1. Is it adequate to single out three groups of words establishing inserts as a special category of words?

2. How would M.A.K. Halliday interpret inserts?

3. Which groups of inserts are definitely open and allow free formation of new items?

4. Do freely created inserts really belong to the same group as greetings and response words?

5. Are inserts regular constituents of written texts?

VI. Case Study

Select two or three written texts and study them for density of nominal elements in them. Then present texts:

a) with nominals only

and

b) with the nominals eliminated.

Compare the two variants of texts to decide upon which of them can give more clues as to what the text is about.

What is your density ratio indicative of?

VII. Test Yourself

False or True

1) Lexical items of rather low frequency in the language contribute a great deal to the meaning of the specific text in which they come up.

2) When evaluating density of information, all the members of a morphological paradigm can be interpreted as the same lexical item.

3) It is wise to recognize three categories of words rather than two: high frequency items, low frequency items and inserts.

4) Elasticity is one of the basic characteristics of the clause.

5) The Theme is actually the message.

VIII. References

1. Biber D. Spoken and written textual dimensions in English: resolving the contradictory findings // Language, 62, 1986. – P. 384–414.

2. Halliday M.A.K. Spoken and Written Language. Basic Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. – P. 29–45, 61–75.

3. Francis G. Nominal Groups and clause Structure. Word, 42, 1991. – P. 145–156.

4. Leech, G., Svartvik, J. A Communicative Grammar of English. L.: Longman, 1994. – 386 p.

IX. Recommended Reading for Further Study

1. Halliday M.A.K. Grammar and daily life: Concurrence and complementarity // Functional approach to language, culture and cognition / Ed. D. Lockwood, et all. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000. – P. 221-237.

2. Johansson S. Overview of Nominals in Discourse//Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. L. Longman, 1999. – P. 230 – 232.

3. Leech G, Li, L. Indeterminacy between noun phrases and adjective phrases as complements of the English verb//The Verb in Contemporary English. Eds A., Aarts B., Meyer C.F. Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 183 – 202.

4. Земская Е.А. Язык как деятельность. М.: Языки славянской культуры, 2004.

Unit 8: Interpreting Spoken Communication

I. Outline

1. Traditional account of speech.

2. Speech act as no less structured entity than writing.

3. Lexical sparsity in spoken language.

4. Representing experience in talk.

5. The clause complex in spoken language.

6. Longer fragments of speech.

7. Two kinds of complexity.

8. Transcribing spoken texts.

II. Objectives

After you have completed the unit you should be able to

- outline traditional interpretations of spoken language;

- prove the existence of a specific organization in any conversation;

- describe lexical sparsity in spoken language and explain the reasons for it;

- provide evidence for the claim that experience has several ways of showing itself in talking;

- reveal peculiarities of the spoken clause complex;

- compare two kinds of complexity: spoken and written ones;

- bring examples of existing transcriptions for representing spoken texts.

III. Key Words and Expressions: dense, code, product, object, process, dynamic, intricate, complex, sparse, organized, nuance, medium, context, transcription, low in content, unstructured, spur-of-the-moment, tentative, clause complex, hesitations, silences, false starts, repetitions, filled pauses, parenthetic remarks, grammatical reduction.

IV. Spoken Language: Grammatical Intricacy

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