LG105

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LG105

• Word Structure

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Classes of words

• Lexical words vs. function words
• cat, house, exercise Noun
• hit, sing, think Verb
• red, tall, difficult Adjective
• often, there, quickly Adverb
• on, through, for Preposition

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More abstract examples

• idea, disparity, running Noun
• to differ, to become, to paper Verb
• local, sufficient, occasional Adjective
• locally, sufficiently Adverb
• despite, notwithstanding Preposition

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Function words

• the, a, any, no, ...
• can, will, has (left), is (leaving), was (left)
• very, so, too, more
• if, or, and, but
• also, already, still, not
• why, how, who, when, what,
• that, because, whether

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Meaning (semantic properties)

• Noun Things
• Verb Actions
• Adjective Properties
• Adverb Manners,Times, Places, Reasons, ...
• Preposition Relations (cat on mat)

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Non-canonical meanings

• Non-things as nouns
• idea, singing (is fun), redness
• Non-actions as verbs
• remain, suffice, equal (2 2 4)
• Non-properties as adjectives
• alleged (the alleged attacker), former
  (president), the singing detective

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Morphological properties

• A given word may have several different forms,
  called inflected forms
• For nouns, verbs, adjectives the set of inflected
  forms often helps us identify the word class
• E.g. noun cat singular cat, plural cats

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Nouns

• Plural form (only for count nouns, i.e. nouns
  denoting things that can be counted like cats,
  not mass terms such as water)
• cats, criteria, knives, teeth, sheep
• How do we know that sheep is a plural form?

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Verbs

• Four (regular verbs) or five forms (some
  irregular verbs)
• walk sing
• walks sings
• walking singing
• walked sang
• sung

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Adjectives

• Comparative/Superlative forms
• Meanings
• more green Comparative
• the most green Superlative

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• Some (mainly single syllable) adjectives have
  special forms ending in -er/est
• green greener greenest
• happy happier happiest

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• Longer adjectives cant take these endings
• curious curiouser curiousest
• aquamarine aquamariner aquamarinest
• But more curious, most aquamarine etc.

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Adverbs and Prepositions

• Adverbs can often be recognized as being derived
  from adjectives by adding -ly
• But they dont have any other forms inflected
  themselves
• Prepositions dont take any special form and
  dont inflect

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Distributional criteria

• Jabberwocky (Lewis Carrol)
• Twas brillig and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe All
  mimsy were the borogroves And the mome
  raths outgabe

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Jabberwocky nouns

• the (slithy) toves
• the borogroves
• the wabe
• the (mome?) raths

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Jabberwocky verbs

• gyre
• gimble
• outgabe (cf outweigh etc.)

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Jabberwocky adjectives

• brillig
• slithy
• mimsy
• (mome?)

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Types of modification/cooccurrence

• Identify word classes by the company they keep

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• Words of a given major lexical class (N, V,
  Adj,) will often be accompanied by
• particular kinds of function words
• or lexical words
• or phrases

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Cooccurrence with nouns

• determiners (the, a, some, all, every, my, her,
  ...)
• adjectives
• relative clauses (the girl that/who is wearing a
  red coat)

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Cooccurrence with verbs

• auxiliary verbs (may be being checked, will have
  been checked)
• adverbs (now, here, fast, quickly, ...)
• adverbial clauses (left when Jill arrived/because
  she was bored...)

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Co-occurrence with adjectives

• modifiers too, very, more/most, (tall)
  enough
• comparative more intelligent than phrases
  her brother