04. Word Classes: Nouns, Pronouns

Review of Morphology

Any questions about the homework quizzes?

A Game (Family Feud-ish)

This game is based on the GUM Corpus (Georgetown University Multilayer Corpus).

Question: What are the top 10 most commonly used words in English?

Answer:

Rank    Word              Percentage    
1       the               5.24%    
2       BE (of any form)  2.90%    
3       of                2.53%     
4       and               2.50%    
5       a                 1.86%    
6       in                1.75%     
7       to                1.27%    
8       for               0.73%    
9       you               0.72%    
10      it                0.65%

What word class is each of these top 10 words?

What do you think is the most frequently used word class in English?

Objectives for this lesson

  • Understand what word class is
  • Use morphological and syntactic features to identify the word classes of nouns and pronouns
  • Understand the distinction between common and proper nouns, count and non-count nouns, abstract and concrete nouns
  • Distinguish sub-classes of pronouns

Identifying word class

Word class = Part of Speech (POS)

  • Traditional means of teaching word class: using semantic features
    • Noun = person, place, or thing
    • Verb = action word
  • We will use morphological and syntactic features to identify word classes
    • The builder’s plan was to lay the foundations in a fortnight.
    • They plan to visit Paris next spring.

“Major” and ”Minor” word classes

  • Major class words: Content words
    • Noun (castle)
    • Verb (decide)
    • Adjective (happy)
    • Adverb (beautifully)
  • Minor class words: Function words
    • Pronoun (their)
    • Determiner (the)
    • Auxiliary (will)
    • Preposition (across)
    • Conjunction (and)
    • Particle (break up)

Nouns: What do we already know?

  • A person, place, thing, idea, event, etc.

But we can also identify content words by their forms (morphology) and where they are in the phrase or sentence structure (syntax).

ID tests of “noun-ness”

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Basically…

  • A noun is a word that can be made plural and/or possessive; it is signaled by determiners

Common/Proper nouns

  • Common nouns are general names.
  • Proper nouns are specific people, places, or things.
  • Proper nouns are capitalized.
    • The singer was excited to take the stage.
    • Taylor Swift released her new album today.

Concrete/Abstract nouns

  • Concrete: tangible (people, objects, events)
  • Abstract: intangible (ideas, values, emotions)

Collective and non-count nouns

  • Collective nouns
    • Can be followed by singular or plural verb form depending on meaning
      • The team is here on vacation.
      • The team have chosen different restaurants.
  • Non-count nouns
    • Do not take a/an
      • The car needed oil.
    • Some can be both
      • Example: water, experience

Pronouns

Pronouns help us avoid repetition!

  • Michael bought the cheesecake for Michael, and Michael ate it all.
  • Michael bought the cheesecake for himself, and he ate it all.

What are pronouns

  • They stand in for
    • Nouns
    • Noun phrases
    • Nominals
  • A pronoun’s antecedent is the name for what the pronoun stands in for.

Pronoun subclasses

Personal pronouns

  • Subject and Object forms

Possessive pronouns

  • Take the place of a noun and show possession.
    • I want yours.
    • They left theirs at home.

“My car is expensive.” Is “my” a possessive pronoun?

Demonstrative Pronouns

  • Convey information about the position of something.
    • this/that/these/those
      • The girl wants this.
      • That is unbelievable.

“That car is expensive.” Is “that” a demonstrative pronoun?

Reflexive Pronouns

Formed by added –self or –selves to the personal pronouns

  • Must have their antecedent in the same clause.

Emphatic Reflexive Pronouns

  • Also known as intensive pronoun.
  • Serve as appositive to emphasize a noun, but movable
    • I myself checked the locks before leaving the house.
    • The oncologist himself confirmed the patient’s diagnosis.

Reciprocal pronouns

Each other and one another

  • Used as objects to refer to previously named nouns
    • The children borrow from each other.
    • Juan and Claudia help each other.
    • The sisters never wrote to one another.

Indefinite pronouns

There are a lot of them!

  • Express quantities, definiteness
  • Often unidentifiable antecedent

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Interrogative Pronouns

  • Used to ask questions Includes some Wh- words (who/whose/whom/which)

Relative Pronouns

who, whom, whose, which, that

  • Occur in relative clauses (clauses that modify their antecedents)

Homework