Given a class C, we may append it with the literal «group» to obtain a class of sets whose elements are instances of C, and which are related in some way.
If you’re not super familiar with object oriented ontology, using the class «car» as an example, a «car group» is a set of related cars. The 2018 Toyota Camry is a car. The set of all cars designed in 2018 is a car group.
Some more examples are:
- An operating system group. The set of UNIX-like operating systems is an operating system group.
- A food group. The grains are a food group.
The question is: what part of speech, linguistically, is played by the word ‘group’? It is not a modifier, as it cannot be removed and have the sentence remain syntactically valid. However, it also can be appended to any class and will «act on» the class in some way.
asked Aug 22, 2018 at 4:35
3
Short answer: it’s a noun, plain and simple.
In certain cases, English allows a noun to modify a following noun, like an adjective would: «grocery store», «radio station», «guitar music», «laundry basket». That’s what’s happening here.
Note that the modifier remains a noun and not an adjective, syntactically: you can’t have a *very grocery store or some *extremely guitar music.
In many cases, the two nouns end up merging together into a single one over time: department stores are fairly recent, but bookstores are older.
answered Aug 22, 2018 at 16:31
Draconis♦Draconis
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MODERN ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY Problems of Collocability. Word-groups in English.
Problems for discussion The notion of “collocability” (valency); The notion of “word-group”; The role of lexical and grammatical valency in uniting words into word-groups; The norm of lexical and grammatical valency; Linguistic properties of word-groups: — structure; — meaning; — motivation;
Valency and word-group studies in Linguistics The problems of valency and collocability: С. Д. Кацнельсон Л. Теньер Г. Хельбиг The « word-group theory » : А. А. Шахматов Л. В. Щерба Ф. Ф. Фортунатов Н. С. Трубецкой Дж. Лайонз Ш. Балли В. В. Виноградов В. Г. Гак
What is collocability? Collocability (also valency, distributional characteristics, colligation, collocation ) is the ability of the units of the language — phonemes, morphemes, words — to form units of higher level.
В. Г. Гак: «Сочетаемость – свойство языковых единиц сочетаться при образовании единиц более высокого уровня; одно из фундаментальных свойств языковых единиц, отражающее синтагматические отношения между ними» [ БЭС «Языкознание» , стр. 483 ]
What is a word-group? A word group is the largest two facet lexical unit comprising more than one word. red tape beautiful girl to walk slowly
Words are united into word-groups thanks to the following linguistic factors Lexical valency (collocability) Grammatical valency (collocability)
Lexical valency is the ability of a word to appear in various combinations: vital pressing question urgent But not: sweet question green question
The norm of lexical valency The range (norm) of lexical valency is determined by the semantic agreement – the semes of the combining words should not disagree (violate the logical norms). For example, a verb, denoting an action characteristic of a living being agrees only with an animate noun.
Example 1: a dog barks Dog — an animal kept as a pet, for guarding buildings, or for hunting. to bark — to make the short loud sound that a dog makes
Example 2: a pen barks Pen — an object that you use for writing or drawing with ink Object — a thing that you can see and touch that is not alive and is usually solid an inanimate object can’t produce sounds.
Grammatical valency is the aptness of a word to appear in specific grammatical (syntactic) structures.
The norm of grammatical valency is determined by the part of speech of the word: The property of the object Adj. + N a green apple
The structure of the word-group influences on its meaning: keen + N — keen sight, hearing «острый“ keen + on + N — keen on sports «увлеченный“ keen + inf. — keen to know «сильно желающий“.
Linguistic properties of the word-group structure meaning motivation lexical grammatical lexical structural
Structure of word-groups (1) the order of the components: • a verbal — nominal group : to sew a dress , to read a book ; • a verbal — prepositional — nominal group to look at something ;
Structure of word-groups (2) the criterion of distribution : ( distribution — the sum of contexts of the language unit): • endocentric — hav e one central member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group, while all other members of the group are subordinated to it : I saw a red flower – I saw a flower ; • exocentric — having no central member : become older, side by side ;
Structure of word-groups (3) according to the part of speech of the headword: • nominal ( beautiful garden ); • verbal ( to fly high ); • adjectival ( lucky from birth );
Structure of word-groups (4) according to the syntactic pattern: • predicative — have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence ( he went ); • non-predicative are subdivided according to the type of syntactic relations between the components into: (a) subordinative ( modern technology ); (b) coordinative (husband wife).
Meaning of word-groups T he meaning of a word group is derived (a) from the combined lexical meanings of its components – lexical meaning , (b) from the meaning of the pattern of their arrangement – grammaticalstructural meaning , (c) from the extra-linguistic situation in which word-groups are habitually used by native speakers
Lexical meaning The Lexical meaning of the word-group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component words. Blind man Blind type
Grammatical meaning Grammatical structural meaning is conveyed by the order and arrangement of member words: grammar school grammar
The most frequent patterns of word-groups in English Adj. + N nice cap V + N to built houses V + N + V (Inf. ) to make somebody work V + Prep. + N to rely on somebody V + N +Prep. + N to hold something against somebody V + V (Inf. ) to get to know
Lexical motivation Word-groups are lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the groups is deducible from the meaning of their components : red flower tall boy beautiful carpet
Structural motivation Word-groups are structurally motivated if the meaning of the pattern is deducible from the order and arrangement of the member-words of the group The word-group : yellow bag The pattern : Adj + N The meaning: «quality — substance»
Degree of motivation Complete motivation : Black dress – dress of black colour Partial motivation : Black market – illegal market Non motivated : Black death — a disease that killed millions of people in Europe and Asia in the 14 th century. Its medical name is bubonic plague.
Non-motivated word-groups (set-expressions) Lexically non-motivated word-groups are word-groups in which the constituents do not possess any individual lexical meaning of their own: heavy father — serious or solemn part in a theatrical play.
1.
Definition and general characteristics of the word-group.
There
are a lot of definitions concerning the word-group. The most adequate
one seems to be the following: the word-group is a combination of at
least two notional words which do not constitute the sentence but are
syntactically connected. According to some other scholars (the
majority of Western scholars and professors B.Ilyish and V.Burlakova
– in Russia), a combination of a notional word with a function word
(on
the table)
may be treated as a word-group as well. The problem is disputable as
the role of function words is to show some abstract relations and
they are devoid of nominative power. On the other hand, such
combinations are syntactically bound and they should belong
somewhere.
General
characteristics of the word-group are:
1)
As a naming unit it differs from a compound word because the number
of constituents in a word-group corresponds to the number of
different denotates:
a
black bird – чорний
птах
(2), a blackbird – дрізд
(1);
a loud speaker (2), a loudspeaker (1).
2)
Each component of the word-group can undergo grammatical changes
without destroying the identity of the whole unit: to
see a house — to see houses.
3)
A word-group is a dependent syntactic unit, it is not a communicative
unit and has no intonation of its own.
2.
Classification of word-groups.
Word-groups
can be classified on the basis of several principles:
-
According
to the type of syntagmatic relations: coordinate
(you
and
me),
subordinate
(to
see a house, a nice dress),
predicative
(him
coming, for him to come), -
According
to the structure: simple
(all elements are obligatory), expanded
(to
read and translate the text
– expanded elements are equal in rank), extended
(a word takes a dependent element and this dependent element becomes
the head for another word: a
beautiful
flower
– a very beautiful flower).
3.
Subordinate word-groups.
Subordinate
word-groups are based on the relations of dependence between the
constituents. This presupposes the existence of a governing
Element
which is called the
head and
the dependent element which is called the
adjunct
(in noun-phrases) or the
complement
(in verb-phrases).
According
to the nature of their heads, subordinate word-groups fall into
noun-phrases
(NP) – a
cup of tea,
verb-phrases
(VP) – to
run fast,
to
see
a house,
adjective
phrases
(AP) – good
for you,
adverbial
phrases
(DP) – so
quickly,
pronoun
phrases
(IP) – something
strange, nothing to
do.
The
formation of the subordinate word-group depends on the valency of its
constituents. Valency
is
a potential ability of words to combine. Actual realization of
valency in speech is called combinability.
4.
The noun-phrase (NP).
Noun
word-groups are widely spread in English. This may be explained by a
potential ability of the noun to go into combinations with
practically all parts of speech. The NP consists of a noun-head and
an adjunct or adjuncts with relations of modification between them.
Three
types of modification are distinguished here:
-
Premodification
that comprises all the units placed before the head:
two
smart hard-working
students. Adjuncts
used in pre-head position are called pre-posed
adjuncts. -
Postmodification
that comprises all the units all the units placed after the head:
students
from
Boston.
Adjuncts used in post-head position are called post-posed
adjuncts. -
Mixed
modification
that comprises all the units in both pre-head and post-head
position: two
smart hard-working
students from
Boston.
|
Pre-posed |
|
Post-posed |
|
Pronoun |
Adj. |
|
|
Adj. |
Ven |
|
|
N2 |
Ving |
|
|
N`s |
prep.N2 |
|
|
Ven |
prepVing |
|
|
Ving |
D |
|
|
Num |
Num |
|
|
D |
wh-clause, |
X
5.
Noun-phrases with pre-posed adjuncts.
In
noun-phrases with pre-posed modifiers we generally find adjectives,
pronouns, numerals, participles, gerunds, nouns, nouns in the
genitive case (see the table). According to their position all
pre-posed adjuncts may be divided into pre-adjectivals
and adjectiavals.
The position of adjectivals is usually right before the noun-head.
Pre-adjectivals occupy the position before adjectivals. They fall
into two groups: a) lim
iters (to
this
group belong mostly particles): just,
only, even, etc.
and b) determiners
(articles, possessive pronouns, quantifiers – the
first, the last).
Premodification
of nouns by nouns (N+N) is one of the most striking features about
the grammatical organization of English. It is one of devices to make
our speech both laconic and expressive at the same time. Noun-adjunct
groups result from different kinds of transformational shifts. NPs
with pre-posed adjuncts can signal a striking variety of meanings:
world
peace – peace all over the world
silver box – a box made of
silver
table lamp – lamp for tables
table legs – the legs
of the table
river sand – sand from the river
school child
– a child who goes to school
The
grammatical relations observed in NPs with pre-posed adjuncts may
convey the following meanings:
-
subject-predicate
relations: weather
change; -
object
relations: health
service, women hater; -
adverbial
relations:
a)
of time: morning
star,
b) place: world
peace, country house,
c) comparison: button
eyes,
d)
purpose: tooth
brush.
It
is important to remember that the noun-adjunct is usually marked by a
stronger stress than the head.
Of
special interest is a kind of ‘grammatical idiom’ where the
modifier is reinterpreted into the head: a
devil of a man, an angel of a girl.
6.
Noun-phrases with post-posed adjuncts.
NPs
with post-posed may be classified according to the way of connection
into prepositionless
and prepositional.
The basic prepositionless NPs with post-posed adjuncts are: Nadj. –
tea
strong,
NVen – the
shape unknown,
NVing – the
girl smiling,
ND – the
man
downstairs,
NVinf – a
book to read,
NNum – room
ten.
The
pattern of basic prepositional NPs is N1 prep. N2. The most common
preposition here is ‘of’ – a
cup of tea,
a
man of courage.
It may have quite different meanings: qualitative
—
a
woman of sense,
predicative
– the
pleasure of the company,
objective
– the
reading of the newspaper,
partitive
–
the
roof of the house.
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The word “THE” is a Definite Article and an Adverb.Take a look at the definitions and examples below and you will see how this little word can be used as different parts of speech.
1. Definite Article
This word “The” is considered as a definite article because it is used to refer to something specific. It is also placed before a noun, if the audience already knows what is being referred to (there is only one or the subject has already been mentioned). For example, let’s look at the sentence below:
“The pope will visit the Philippines in 2015.”
“The” is used because there is only one pope in the whole world.
Definition:
a. used to indicate a person or thing that has already been mentioned or seen or is clearly understood from the situation
- Joe is the tallest boy in class.
b. used to refer to things or people that are common in daily life
- The moon is aligned between the Sun and the Earth.
c. used to refer to things that occur in nature
- The inner planets of the solar system are denser compared to the outer planets.
2. Adverb
Aside from acting as a definite article, “The” can also be used as an adverb. Take for example the sentence below:
“Since getting a new computer, he was able to produce outputs all the quicker.”
In that sentence, “the” serves as an adverb because it modifies the adjective quicker. Take note that the word can only be used as an adverb if it is used together with an adjective or another adverb which is in the comparative degree.
Definition:
a. than before: than otherwise —used before a comparative
- The sooner the better.
b. to what extent
- Mercury is the most cratered planet in our Solar System.
c. beyond all others
- The more the merrier.