A Critique of Contemporary Classification of English Words into Lexical (Grammatical) Categories

Abstract

There may be no any meaningful spoken or written discourse in any human language without words because words are used to express thoughts, ideas and feelings. For one to use any word correctly, one requires among other things, the knowledge of its lexical or grammatical category. Several contemporary scholars of English grammar have identified certain criteria for classifying English words into grammatical categories. But some of these criteria are somewhat controversial. Hence this paper is a critique of the criteria identified by these contemporary English grammarians. However, it considers briefly traditional grammar approach to the classification of English words. The paper discusses both open set and closed set words which are randomly selected and analyzed. The study discovered that virtually all the grammatical categories have homophonous usage with one another. That is, their features tend to overlap. It also discovered that no single criterion is satisfactory enough for use in classifying English words into grammatical categories. The paper therefore posits that in classifying English words into lexical categories, we need to consider both the morphology and distribution (syntax) of words because none of them is self-sufficient in this regard.