1. 1 The grammatical categories of words and their inflections Kuiper and Allan Chapter 2.1

2. 2 Word and lexeme Examine the following simple dictionary entry. sept, n. Clan, esp. in Ireland. Word and lexeme –A lexeme is a three part symbol: form (or a number of forms) syntactic category meaning Lexemes also have non linguistic properties, usage.

3. 3 Grammatical/syntactic categories determine where in a sentence a word can fit. Two ways to identify the category –looking at the structure of phrases and sentences done in chapter 7 –looking at the inflection of words done next because it is part of looking at word structure

4. 4 Inflection & stem inflected forms of TRY –try, tries, tried, trying, as in the following sentences: The horse must try, The horse tries, The horse tried, The horse is trying. –Each is a grammatical word form. The grammatical endings which create these different grammatical word forms are termed inflections. stem –is the form of the lexeme to which they are attached.

5. 5 Morphological processes The processes whereby words come to have internal structure such as a stem and inflection are morphological processes. The categories for which words inflect are often called morphosyntactic categories. e.g. tense which accounts for the past tense inflection -ed in tri-ed is an example of a morphosyntactic category. Properties such a present tense or past tense are therefore morphosyntactic properties.

6. 6 Grammatical categories and inflection Not all grammatical categories of words inflect. When they do, the inflection tells you what the category of the word is. –i.e. If a word can take a plural inflection, then it is a noun. The converse is not always the case. –ie. Not all nouns inflect for plural. –Some grammatical categories do not inflect at all.

7. 7 Major grammatical categories To begin with we will look only at four grammatical categories: –noun –adjective –verb –preposition They make up the skeletal, telegraphic structure of sentences. –e.g. young boy sits in chair