Chapter 5
Grammatical Categories and Word Classes
Exercise 5.6Subcategorization and Recategorization
Using inflectional and distributional tests, determine the word class of the underlined words in each set (a)–(d). How do you account for the fact that the same lexical items can meet the tests for membership in more than one word class, as shown by the more usual word-class usage in (a′)–(d′):
The car idles too fast.
She emptied the trash.
They are bettering us.
The work has wearied her.
My time is idle.
Here is an empty box.
Here is a better answer
She is very weary.
a newspaper reporter
a seaside resort
an office building
a concrete building
the Sunday newspaper
the beautiful seaside
the home office
the wet concrete
(Note: One can say a concrete office building but not *an office concrete building. Why might this be?)
You must up the ante.
Down your drink!
The gangster was offed.
The audience stood up.
The child fell down.
The handle fell off.
a juvenile
a private
a natural
a daily
a juvenile offender
a private ceremony
a natural product
a daily paper
What do the following acceptable and unacceptable forms show you about the subcategorization of adjectives in English?
| A | smaller | the small plate | the plate is small |
| B |
*rounder |
the round plate | the plate is round |
| C |
*aliver |
*the alive cat |
the cat is alive |
| D |
*mainer |
the main problem |
*the problem is main |
What do the following acceptable and unacceptable forms show you about the subcategorization of nouns in English?
| a pencil | the pencil | two pencils |
|
*a wheat |
the wheat |
*two wheats |
|
*a goodness |
the goodness |
*two goodnesses |
|
*a New York |
*the New York |
*two New Yorks |
|
*a trousers |
the trousers |
? two trousers |
| a herd |
*the herd |
two herds |
|
*a cosmetics |
the cosmetics |
*two cosmetics |
Given the following behavior, how would you subcategorize the noun pastry and the noun bread?
| pastry | pastries | bread | breads |
| the pastry | a pastry | the bread | ? a bread |
| more pastry | more pastries | more bread | ? more breads |
| a piece of pastry | five pastries | a piece of bread | ? five breads |
| a large amount ___of pastry | a large number ___of pastries | a large amount ___of bread | ? a large number ___of breads |
How do you pluralize the noun lettuce? Is it a count noun or a mass noun? Explain.
The words meet the inflectional test for verbs:
| 3rd p sg pres -s | idles, empties, betters, wearies |
| past -ed | idled, emptied, bettered, wearied |
| prsprt -ing | idling, emptying, bettering, wearying |
| pstprt -en | idled, emptied, bettered, wearied |
The words meet the distributional tests for verbs
| _____ NP | empty, better, weary |
| _____ # | idle |
| to _____ | (to) idle, empty, better, weary |
| Aux (not) _____ | (will not) idle, empty, better, weary |
These words, which are otherwise A, have been recategorized as V, assuming all of the inflectional and distributional characteristics of the class. Some may even take the agentive affix -er (idler, emptier, ? betterer, ? wearier).
These words do not meet the inflectional tests for adjectives because of their phonological shape. While they meet the test Det _____ N for adjectives, they also do not meet the other distributional tests for adjectives:
| very _____ | *very newspaper, *very concrete, *very office |
| more/most ______ | *more seaside, *most office |
| Vcop_____ | *the reporter is newspaper, ? the resort is seaside |
| *the building is office, but the building is concrete |
Additionally, they may not take the derivational affix -ly (*seasidely, *newspaperly, *officely, concretely). It is likely that the nouns in this case are functioning syntactically as adjectives, but have not been recategorized as adjectives, since they do not have the other requisite properties of adjectives other than the ability to precede nouns.
Office building seems to form a compound noun; thus, it is internally indivisible.
The words meet the inflectional tests for verbs:
| 3rd p sg pres -s | ups, downs, offs |
| past -ed | upped, downed, offed |
| prsprt -ing | upping, downing offing |
| pstprt -en | upped, downed, offed |
The words meet the distributional tests for verbs
| _____ NP | up, down, off |
| to _____ | (to) up, down, off |
| Aux (not) _____ | (will not) up, down, off |
These words, which are otherwise Prt, have been recategorized as V, assuming all of the inflectional and distributional characteristics of the class.
These words meet the inflectional tests for noun:
| plural -s | juveniles, privates, naturals, dailies |
| possessive -s | juvenile's, private's, natural's, daily's |
In addition, they appear to meet the other distributional tests for noun:
| A _____ | scared juveniles, happy privates, unknown naturals, bankrupt dailies |
| Det A _____ | the convicted juvenile, that discouraged private, which newly-discovered natural, the widely-circulating daily |
These words, which are originally A, appear to be recategorized as N. However, while they meet the inflectional and distributional tests for nouns, they do so rather awkwardly in some cases.
The inflectional and distributional tests suggest four separate subcategories:
meets All three tests
cannot take -er (for semantic, not phonological reasons)
cannot take -er, cannot be attributive
cannot take -er, cannot be predicative
The cooccurrence of the noun with a determiner as well as its ability to pluralize determines the following classes:
follows a/the, pluralizes: i.e., pencil (count), herd (collective)
follows the, does not follow a, does not pluralize: i.e., wheat (mass), goodness (abstract), cosmetics (collective)
does not follow a/the, does not pluralize: i.e., New York (proper)
follows the, does not follow a, awkwardly pluralizes: i.e., trousers (bipartite item)
The noun pastry is a mass noun (meaning 'dough') which has been recategorized as a count noun (meaning 'baked food made with pastry'). It behaves equally well as a mass noun – occurring with Ø article, with the, with more in the sense of 'greater quantity', and with the mass quantifier a large amount of – and as a count noun – pluralizing, occurring with a, with more in the sense of 'greater amount', with a numeral, and with the count quantifier a large number of. The noun bread can occur as a mass noun and as a count noun (in the plural meaning 'types of bread' or perhaps 'loaves of bread'). However, it is odd in most of the count constructions, suggesting that this is not a case of complete recategorization.