Would a Notional Definition Be Useful to Classify Verbs? Why (not)?

[pic 1]

[pic 2][pic 3]

Outline

Introduction        1

Exercise 1        2

Solution on Exercise 1        3

Exercise 2        7

Solution on Exercise 2        8

Conclusion        10

Bibliography and webgraphy        11

Exercise 1

Solution on Exercise 1

1. Would a notional definition be useful to classify verbs? Why (not)?

A notional definition is a brief explanation which focuses it proposes in the lexical meaning. For example, a noun is a denote word; a verb is an action word; an adverb is a modal word… and more examples could be said with any other word class.

All those definitions are quite useful in matters of getting a general idea but some problems burst when we are a little more accurate because there are a large number of verbs which are not lexical verbs even though they are verbs.

For example, smoking^[1] is a verb that represents the action of drawing into the mouth and puffing out the smoke of a pipe or a cigarette. This verb evolved from the noun, it has a clear parallelism.

Notice that the verb has suffered an inflection. The ending “–ing” has been added to the infinitive form of the verb so it encodes grammatical properties. This process usually indicates that this action is happening at the moment of speaking (Present participle) or it will happen in a close future and this lexical verb is usually accompanied with an auxiliary verb (am, is or are) depending on the person:  

• I am smoking Winston.
• We aren’t smoking any longer.
• Is she smoking cannabis?^[2] 

In these three cases we can see that smoking is fulfilling the function of a lexical verb, but what if we change the sentence?

• Smoking is not allowed here.

In this sentence, smoking is not working as a lexical verb; in fact, it is the subject of the sentence. It is a non-finite clause filling the subject position. The lexical verb is (not to be) allow(ed).

Sometimes, verbs can realize this function when the emitter wants to give importance to the action. In this case, it is not a verb any more but it is a noun and the notional definition says that verbs are action words and nouns are denoting words.

Now, analyze an example the other way round.

The notional definition of a noun would say that smoke is a noun that represents the visible vapor and gasses that we can see when we burn any substance.  For example:

• The black smoke that went out of the car worried the driver.

But what if we change the sentence again?

• I smoke one cigarette every day.

Again, even though it is the same word, in both sentences smoke is fulfilling a different action.

These two examples can provide that a notional definition is not useful to classify verbs.

1. Why does the author say that lists have “no explanatory value”?

A list is a series of items which are written following an order so they make up a record. Our daily life is full of list because we can do a list of whatever.

You can do a list of your entire family member, you can do a list of your friends, or you can do a list of the products you are going to buy in the supermarket, for example. Dictionaries and grammar books usually do lists with examples of nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions. Can you remember the irregular verb list?

According to the author of the text, lists have no explanatory value because the idea of creating a list with all the possible items will be impossible. Some words would fill different list or some words may be forgotten.

What’s more, the list will be constantly “alive” because some words will be created and some will be evolved.

And according to all this facts, there will be no perfect list which explains or deals with everything.

1. What are “formal” and “distributional ” criteria? Illustrate with examples of nouns.

In one hand, formal criteria is based on what you wrote referring to the alterations that words in a particular word classes take in order to convey meaning.

For example, write a verb:

• WORK.

Now, add “-ED”.

• WORKED.

In this process, we did the past tense inflection just by adding a suffix. We had an infinitive verb and now we have a verb in the past so the action has already been done.

Another example but with a noun:

• TABLE

Now, add “-S”.

• TABLES.

In this process, we did the number inflection just by adding a different suffix. At the beginning we only have one but now we have more even though it can be two, three or more.

On the other hand, functional criterion is based on the form because it is about the syntactic rules (morphological characteristic) that words follow to make logical but nonsensical phrases and sentences.

For example, English adjectives are usually between determinators and demonstrators and the noun. In a sentence you will usually find a Noun Phrase as a subject.

1)  The red car         

2) My red car.

Exercise 2

Consider the following sentence:

• She has a lovely voice.

The word 'lovely' must be classified as an adjective although it has a typical adverb ending (-ly). Explain why it must be considered an adjective and provide at least 5 examples of words ending in -ly. Place these words in a sentence and for each example you provide say whether it is an adjective or an adverb and why.