Notional words and function words in Modern English.

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Parts of speech are traditionally subdivided into notional & functional ones. Notional parts of speech have both lexical & grammatical meanings (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, statives, pronouns, modal words). Functional parts of speech are characterized mainly by the grammatical meaning while their lexical meaning is either lost completely or has survived in a very weakened form.

Functional parts of speech—the article, the preposition, the conjunction. Notional parts of speech are characterized by word-building & word-changing properties; functional words have no formal features & they should be memorized as ready-made units (but, since, till, until). Another most important difference between functional & notional parts of speech is revealed on the level of sentence. Where every notional word performs a certain synthetic function while functional words have no synthetic function at all. They serve as indicators of a certain part of speech (to + verb; a, the + noun). Prepositions are used to connect 2 words & conjunctions to connect 2 clauses or sentences.

Ilyish => Some grammarians think that words should be divided into two categories on the following principle:

notional words denote things, actions and other extra-linguistic phenomena

functional words denote relations and connections between the notional words

This view is shaky, because functional words can also express smth extra-linguistic:

e.g. The letter is on the table.

The letter is in the table. (diff. prepositions express different relations between objects)

The match was called off because it was raining. (the conjunction because denotes the causal connection between two processes).

Some words belonging to a particular part of speech may perform a function differing from that which characterizes the p/of/sp as a whole.

e.g. I have some money left. (have – a notional word)

I have found a dog. (have – an auxiliary verb used to form a certain analytical form of the verb to find, i.e. it is a functional verb)

The characteristic features of the form-building affixes.

1. They express/change gr.meaning unlike word-building suffixes which change lex.meaning.

2. The number of grammatical affixes is small and fixed. (the number of word-building suffixes is much larger).

3. Like lexical suffixes they can be productive and non-productive. The ZERO mrph. is the most productive.

Affixation is the most productive means of expressing a grammatical meaning. The number of grammatical suffixes is small (8). They are:-s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -en, -m (him, them, whom), zero.

1). –s/-es 2). –ed 3). –ing + 6). –er (comparative degree) 7). –est 8). the ZERO morpheme. – productive

4). –en/-n 5). –m - non-productive.

4. They can be polysemantic like lexical suffixes. 0 is the most polysemantic.

1). –s/-es 2). –ed 3). –ing 4). –en/-n 6). –er (comparative degree) 7). –est 8). the ZERO morpheme – polysemantic

5). –m - monosemantic.

There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetical and analytical. In a synthetical type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetical types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take - took, shine - shone) and suppletivity (go - went, be -was, good - better - best}. .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language.

Analtyical forms and their role in form-building.

It’s more productive in Modern Eng. Traditionally an analytical form is defined this way: it consists of an auxiliary word and the basic element, which is a notional word. This definition is ambiguous. And for that reason some strange forms are treated as analytical: Combinations of prepositions with nouns were treated as different analytical forms: to the child was treated as the Dative case of a noun. by the child was treated as the Instrumental case of a noun. Many linguists criticized this approach to defining analytical forms and certain theories have been worked out to differentiate analytical forms and free word-combinations. 1. The theory of the splitting of functions. According to this theory in a true analytical form the auxiliary element should be the bearer of the grammatical meaning only. It is devoid of lexical meaning. It is the notional word that is the bearer of lexical meaning. According to this approach there exist 2 types of analytical forms: complete and incomplete. In a complete analytical form the splitting process has completed and the aux.element is completely devoid of lex.meaning. e.g. In the form of the Perfect the verb to have has no meaning of possession. In an incomplete analyt.form the aux.element retains traces of its lex.meaning. e.g. The form of the Continuous where the auxiliary be retains traces of it's meaning of the state. 2.Acc. to the second approach a true ananlty.form is idiomatic in character àthe overall meaning of the form is not immediately dependent on the individual meaning of its constituents. It’s not a sum of meanings of its components. Besides an analyt.form also functions as a grammatical form of a single word. If we proceed from this approach we should conclude that such phrases as most interesting are not an analytical form, because it is not idiomatic enough. 3. Acc. to Бархударов a true analyt.form should posses a discontinuous morpheme (расчлененная морфема) which is a main distinguishing feature of an analyt.form (Блох doesn’t share this view). A discontinuous mrph. Consists of 2 elements – an auxiliary word and the f.-b. sign of a notional word. The root-mrph of the notional word. is not included. According to Бархударов there are only 3 analytical forms (Perfect, Passive, Continuous): Have+en (insymbolic denotation) in form of the Perfect. Ex. have arrived Be+en in form of the Passive Be+ing in form of the Continuous. And from this point of view such phrases as shall take most interesting, by the child are not analytical forms. They are free word-combination.

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