WORDS The term word is much more difficult to define in a technical sense, and like many other linguistic terms, there are often arguments about what exactly it is. It has been suggested, though, that a word is a unit of linguistic analysis which has the following three characteristics: 1. Isolability This means that boundaries between words corresponds to places with the strongest potential for pause in speech. Words can also be pronounced in isolation from other words, which is not usually the case for units smaller than the word.

WORDS (Cont’d) 2. Mobility This means that words are items that can be moved around within a sentence to form new sentence. For example the word happy can be placed in a variety of location in an English sentence. - She is a happy girl - That girl looks very happy, etc. Word cannot be placed within other words, but only between them. We can say It is very unlikely but we cannot say It is unverylikely. 3. Phonological independence Words generally correspond to the minimal units of phonological analysis. Typically this means that stress assignment rules apply in terms of the number of syllables away from the beginning or the end of a word.

INFORMATION ENCODED IN A WORD Phonetic/Phonological information For every word we know, we have learned a pronunciation. Lexical structure information For every word we have learned, we intuitively know something about its internal structure. Syntactic information For every word we learn, we learn how it fits into the overall structure of sentences in which it can be used. Semantic information For every word we know, we have learned meaning/several meanings. Pragmatic information For every word we learn, we know not only its meaning (s) but also how to use it in the context of discourse or conversation.

WORD CLASSES In English grammar, these different kinds of words such as noun, verbs, adjective, prepositions etc. were called Parts of speech. But here we use the same idea, but we will refer to different kinds of words belonging to different Word Classes. In classifying these word classes, they are three ways: 1. Semantic definition That is, they are based on the meaning of the words which belong to each class. For example: a noun is the name of any person, place, animal or thing, a verb is a doing word or word which refers to an action. 2. Formal definition Words are classified based on their behaviour. For example: Noun are words that can be added by the suffix – s to show plural or that can occur immediately after the, and a, or an. Verbs are the words that can be added the suffix –ed or –ing, and they can occur after will or should.

Word Classes ( cont’d) 3. Functional definitions These criteria are often close to those that are traditionally taught in schools. That is words are classified based on their function in a sentence. For example: words which function as describers of nouns and answer the question “which?”, “what kind of?”, or “how many” are included into adjectives, such as good, red, blue, big, etc. A different class consisting of words which function to describe verbs or adjective are called adverbs.

Word Classes (cont’d) Who bought these drinks? What’s the score? I want a horse for Christmas. They threw stones at the police car. You need a good wash. That wall needs re-painting. His father drinks too much. Who scored that last goal. I want to horse around! They stoned the police car. Can you wash the dishes? They wall up the entrance.

OPEN AND CLOSED CLASSES Open Class: A class of word that contains an unlimited – or at least a very large – number of members, and new words can always be created and added to this class. They are noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Open class of words is also called content words. Closed class (sometimes referred to as closed set): A word class which consists of relatively few words, and one to which it is rare (though not impossible) few new words to be added. They are pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunction. Closed class of words is also called function words.