Purpose of the study. The article discusses a categorical approach to the study of grammatical structure, which has been actively used in recent years in Ukrainian linguistics. Categorical grammar has caused a new aspect of the analysis of word-formation affixes - as a means of categorizing the values of the non-predicate and predicate components of the basic syntactic structures, which allowed the division of the grammatical system into three subsystems - syntax, morphology and word-formation, which have their own units and categories. This contributed to the selection of categorical syntax, categorical morphology and categorical word formation. It was quite difficult to distinguish between the derivational categories of the accompanying predicate formed by the estimated noun affixes. In order to find out what is the basis of the word-formation categorization of a subjective assessment, in our study the notions of “estimated,” social and expressive within the limits of the rating scale are compared. Research methods: descriptive - to describe the main theories of categorical grammar, the processes of its formation, the reasons for the selection of categorical syntax, categorical morphology and categorical word-formation; comparisons - for the analysis, synthesis and generalization of the main linguistic theories, as well as the processes occurring within the allocation of the concepts of “evaluative”, “social and expressive”; methods of linguistic observation, classification and systematization - for the separation of forms, means and methods in interpreting the semantic structure of a word, etc. Scientific novelty. For the first time, an attempt has been made to systematize the concepts of “evaluation,” “social and expressiveness” within the emotional-expressive scale. Conclusions. Thus, the category of evaluation is an unequivocal category of the modern grammatical system. On the one hand, the researchers identify separate functional-semantic fields of diminution and diminution-expressiveness, as well as a functional-semantic field of increasing-expressiveness, on the other hand, they identify the notions of “national and expressive”. The definition of the rating scale (with the assessment types “+ and” -) is also debatable. In our opinion, one should adhere to the position on the identification of three independent, mainly semantic categories –evaluations (assessments), emotionality (emotive) and expressiveness, which reflect the neutral use of language. Among them, the most vague is the category of expressiveness, because it intersects with two others or with the category of emotive nosti (emotionality), because emotionality and expressiveness as properties of lexical and other units are closely related.