Adverbs might not constitute a universal word class. It is largely assumed that nouns, verbs, and probably also adjectives are universal parts of speech. While the minor classes are probably not universal, (most of) the major classes are. Under some approaches, pronouns are included in the class of nouns, as a subclass. The four parts of speech just mentioned-nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs-constitute the major word classes, while a number of others, for example, adpositions, pronouns, conjunctions, determiners, and interjections, make up the minor word classes. Most traditional and descriptive approaches to parts of speech draw a distinction between major and minor word classes. Syntactically, they modify nouns, while adverbs modify word classes that are not nouns-for example, verbs and adjectives. Adjectives typically co-occur with either bound or free morphemes that function as comparative and superlative markers. Verbs can bear morphology for tense, aspect, and mood, as well as voice morphemes such as passive, causative, or reflexive, that is, morphemes that alter the argument structure of the verbal root. A morphological test for nouns in English and many other languages is whether they can bear plural morphemes. Morphological similarity among members of a given word class can be illustrated by the many adverbs in English that are derived by attaching the suffix – ly, that is, a functional morpheme, to an adjective ( quick, quick-ly). Some examples for both criteria follow: The fact that in English, nouns can be preceded by a determiner such as an article (e.g., a book, the apple) illustrates syntactic distribution. By “morphological similarity,” reference is made to functional morphemes that are part of words belonging to the same word class. The term “part of speech” is a traditional one that has been in use since grammars of Classical Greek (e.g., Dionysius Thrax) and Latin were compiled for all practical purposes, it is synonymous with the term “word class.” The term refers to a system of word classes, whereby class membership depends on similar syntactic distribution and morphological similarity (as well as, in a limited fashion, on similarity in meaning-a point to which we shall return).
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