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Chapter 1
— Word Classes —

Every word in the English language carries with it a purpose. Contextualized with the other words of that sentence, that book, that train of thought, we create meaning as complex and as simple as the writer of these words wishes to achieve.

To appreciate the interplay between these different elements of meaning, we first need to break down language into these ‘functions’, these word classes. An easy way of categorizing our language: each word class comes with its own nuanced definitions.

For instance, many of us may know the difference between a noun and a verb, but what about between nouns and pronouns? What about interrogative and demonstrative pronouns?

1.1 – Verbs.

The ‘actions’ of language, verbs are used to bring motion into light, describing a physical action, a state of being or an occurrence. Verbs can be defined as either stative, when they describe the state of something, or one thing’s relation to another. Or they can be dynamic when they express a physical action.

Within stative and dynamic verbs, there are deeper levels of definition.

Stative verbs: To be, I am, you are, it was, etc. Dynamic verbs: Express actions, not states.
of perception: believe, know, realize physical: jump, run, drive
of relation: own, contain, have mental: think, wonder, listen
of command (rare): be quiet! be still! perpetual: see, heard, smelt

As an added level of detail, a verb can be either finite or non-finite. A finite verb is used when an action has already happened or is yet to happen. Meanwhile, non-finite verbs are used for actions which are still going on and end with an “-ing”.

Compare “I will walk” and “I am walking”. In the first example the action of walking is yet to occur, so it is finite. In the second example the act of walking is currently taking place and is still going on, so the “walk” becomes “walking”.

Do note that being finite or non-finite is not decided by if the action is in the past or present. The phrase “I was walking yesterday” is talking about something that has already happened, but in that moment of the past, which the phrase is referring to, the act of ‘walking’ was still happening.

1.2 – Nouns.

Nouns can easily be defined as the names of physical objects. If the object physically exists, the noun is known as concrete, since the object it describes is as real as concrete. Nouns also have the ability to name things which do not physically exist, such as emotions. In these cases the noun is abstract.

Abstract: Wish, luck, desire Regular -s plural: Dog to dogs
Concrete Common: Wall, pen, cat Regular -es plural: Fish to fishes
Concrete Proper: Smith, Johnson, Wilde Irregular plural: Ox to oxen
Concrete Collective: Scholes, skulk, bury

Objects that do not exist physically can still, in a sense, have a physical existence. It’s complicated to define, but nouns defining imaginary objects are still counted as ‘concrete’ nouns, since even if the object might not exist in real life it is still a ‘physical object’ in concept.

A noun can be pluralized if there are more than one of that object. A regular pluralis created by simply adding an ‘-s’ or ‘-es’ to the end of the word, but there are some irregular plurals which follow a seemingly arbitrary pattern.

Alongside having a plural, a noun can also be countable or uncountable. A countable noun can be made plural by the way stated above, but an uncountable noun is implied to already be plural.

‘Water’, ‘sugar’ and ‘dust’ have no plural form, since it is already implied there would be ‘multiple’ of them. A single grain of sand or a cup of water have to be additionally defined for someone to understand that a plural is not implied.

As an additional note, there are times when verbs can be used like nouns. For example, “Swimming is healthy.” Swimming is a verb, since it is a physical action. But in this context it is used like a noun, since the “is healthy” part is describing it (using an adjective) as though it were a noun.

An Adverb used as a noun is called a gerund.

1.3 – Auxiliary Verbs, Modals and Tenses.

We come to the first of the lesser known word classes. Auxiliary verbs work alongside the main verbs and add to the meaning the main verb can provide.

Auxiliary Verbs give tense and greater context to the main verb:
do, does, did
has, have, had
am, are, was, were

Modal Auxiliaries present doubt or politeness, in the sense of saying “something might happen” or “may we go”:

may, might; will, would
can, could; must
shall, should; ought to

Modal auxiliary verbs can be epistemic, meaning they can show degrees of probability, or deontic, to give politeness or obligation.

A verb can be followed by an auxiliary verb, which tells you more about the subject of the verb. “It became late” and “he looks tall” are two examples.

Tenses are one of the main things which auxiliary verbs can be used to create. Each verb has its own set of ‘forms’ the word can take to show each tense.

Verb Class	Examples	Meaning
infinitive	to be, to call , to dream	the verb in its base form
present simple	I am, I call, I dream	the action is happening in this moment
present continuous	I am/you are/he is being, I am calling, I am dreaming	the action is happening in this moment and will keep happening
past simple	I was/you were, I called, I dreamed	the action has happened and has stopped happening
past continuous	I was being/you were being, I was calling, I was dreaming	the action happened in the past, but was still going on
past participle	I have been/you have been, I have called, I have dreamed	same as past continuous but used in the passive voice, not active
future simple	I will be/I shall, I will call, I will dream	the action is going to happen
zero participle	be, call, dream	the verb without anything else

Note that modal auxiliary verbs do not have an infinitive form. There is no “to shall”.

Verb Phrases are a special collection of words (both a verb and an auxiliary) used to create or change the tense:
• Ran (past simple) can become ‘was running’ (past continuous);
• Sit (present simple) can become ‘has been sitting’ (past perfect continuous);
• Called (zero participle, past simple) to ‘will have been called’ (future perfect simple).

1.4 – Prepositions, Conjunctions and Determiners.

These word classes are used to attach different things together, to make their relation to one another more clear. The most commonly seen conjunction is ‘and’, which has the simple task of attaching an additional piece of information onto the previous piece.

Prepositions: Express time, reason, direction or position. They are relative to a noun which is included with them. Some examples are “under the table”, “with the wine” and “before the exercise.” Prepositions give one object relation to another object, may it be a physical location, or a relation of time.

Coordinating Conjunctions: ‘For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so’. There are only seven ‘co-conjunctions’ and these are it. The function of a conjunction, such as ‘and’, is simply to attach one part of the language to another part. A co-conjunction gives equal weight to both sides (this will be later explained in 3.7, Sentences and Clauses).

Co-conjunctions usually go between two clauses; however, they can go at the start for creative reasons, but note this isn’t grammatically correct.

Subordinating Conjunctions: Other connecting words which go at the start or middle of a sentence, such as ‘however’, ‘although’ and ‘on the other hand’. These forms of conjunction introduce the supporting clause.

Again, this will be covered better in (3.7), but if a sentence reads “However hard he tried, Tom could not drive” the ‘however’ introduces the secondary clause, since “Tom could not drive” is the main clause.

We can tell the main clause from the secondary clause by checking if the specific clause would make sense on its own. “However hard he tried” is not a grammatically complete sentence, while “Tom could not drive” is grammatically complete. The secondary clause needs the context of the main clause to make sense and exist in the sentence.

Determiners: They present a specific noun, with the noun following immediately after the determiner. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are called indefinite articles, since they don’t refer to a specific object, while ‘the’ is a definite article, as it refers to something specific.

To give an example, “A car” can be any of a number of cars. “The car” implies a single, specific vehicle.

This, that, these and those are four more determiners, each with a specific meaning as given by the following table.

	Singular	Plural
Over here (in this location)	This	These
Over there (elsewhere)	That	Those

Note that these words are only determiners if they directly relate to a noun, but do not replace the noun. If they replace a noun, they are a relative pronoun, as described below.

1.5 – Pronouns.

When a noun would usually be required, but is not a noun, it is a pronoun. You can easily check if the word is a pronoun by seeing if the sentence would make sense if that word was replaced by a noun.

For example replacing the ‘thing’ in “Put that thing down.” with a noun, it creates “Put that pen down.” The ‘thing’ is a pronoun. However, replacing ‘that’ creates “Put pen thing down.” While it might still make sense, it makes you sound fully caveman.

There are four types of pronouns to describe what purpose that pronoun is fulfilling. If it’s directly replacing a noun, it’s simply a pronoun, but if its purpose is more complex, it may be one of the following.

Indefinite Pronouns: Refer to nothing definite: something, anything, nothing, everything.
Relative Pronouns: Links the subordinate clause to the main (noun): that, those, this, these.
Interrogative Pronouns: Used to question: who, whose, which, what?
Demonstrative Pronouns: Directional: this, that, these, those. As mentioned in the section above, these become a determiner if they’re used with a noun, rather when replacing one.
Personal Pronouns:

Personal Pronouns:	Subject	Object	Possessive	Reflexive
Singular	First	I	me	mine	myself
Second	you	you	yours	yourself
Third	he/she/it	him/her/it	his/hers	itself
Plural	First	we	us	ours	ourselves
Second	you	you	yours	yourselves
Third	they	you	theirs	themselves
Archaic	Single informal	thou	thee	thy or thine
Plural formal	ye	you	your

1.6 – Adjectives.

Back to the better known word classes, adjectives are used to add extra description to a noun, and they come in three forms.

Form	Examples	Purpose
base form	big, tall, loud, red, expensive	just gives description
comparative	bigger, taller, louder, redder, more or less expensive	compares a specific descriptive element to another object
superlative	biggest, tallest, loudest, reddest, most or least expensive	shows this object’s descriptive element to be greater than any other object’s

A gaming console released in the 90s is not powerful (base), but it is more powerful (comparative) than a console released in the 80s. However, the new quantum computing game console will be the most powerful (superlative) of all.

Adjectives can share a direct function with adverbs, making an Adverbial, which tells us about the action with relation to something else, such as time, place or manner. These are defined below, but some simple examples are “last June”, “in London” and “without warning”.

1.7 – Adverbs.

Just as an adjective gives additional description to a noun, so too can adverbs give additional description to a verb. Adverbs come in multiple different forms, depending on what information is added onto the verb to describe it.

Adverbs: how, when or where an action is done:

• of place: southwards, anywhere, elsewhere, nowhere, yon;
• of time: yesterday, tomorrow, now, last night, currently;
• of manner: quickly, reluctantly, breathlessly, quietly;
• of frequency: always, never, seldom, sometimes, annually;
• of degree (intensifiers): quite, almost, too, very, indeed;
• of connection: however, subsequently, moreover, ergo, so.

Like everything, an element of context comes into play in many cases. Saying something is ‘quite perfect’ (very nice) has an almost opposite meaning to saying something is ‘quite nice’ (not great, not terrible).

This depends on if the verb was scalable or non-scalable. A scalable verb can be ‘very’ something. ‘Very fast’, ‘very bright’ and ‘very strong’ are all scalable. A non-scalable verb does not make sense with a ‘very’, such as is the case with ‘very pure’.

Non-scalable verbs are generally used in extremes, and are considered non-scalable because saying something is ‘very pure’ is redundant (in relation to the example above). You can’t have more pure than pure, otherwise what you started with wasn’t pure.

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Chapter 2
— Lexis and Semantics —

Now that the basic terms are understood, it’s time to examine the context by which these words can acquire meaning. Meaning isn’t set in stone, as there are always factors which can change its interpretation.

Lexis: the total stock of words in a language; the breath of the language.
Semantics: the meaning of ‘lexical items’ in context with the rest of the text or speech.

To measure the factors which change the contextual meaning of language, some further terms need to be understood. Just as words can be classified into a number of word classes, using their function in language to determine in which class they belong, so can they all be broken down in a different way, into two overall functions: grammatical and semantic.

The ‘connotations’ (implied meaning) and ‘denotations’ (intended meaning) of both lexis and semantics change with social variation: the different social groups people identify with, such as regional affiliation, age, occupation and ethnic identity; historical variation, such as the outlawing of slavery, and various other factors.

Words can either serve a grammatical function, meaning they give the text its structure, or can serve a semantic function and therefore carry the context and meaning. Words such as ‘of’, ‘to’, ‘that’, they bring no direct meaning but are required to allow sense to be made of the semantic parts, those being the nouns, verbs and so on we’ve covered before.

2.2 – Textual Analysis and Context.

Breaking down the context of the text helps understand its deeper meaning. This process of breaking down the context can be achieved with the following methods:

Term		Meaning
GAP	Genre, Audience, Purpose	The genre is the type of text or speech itself, such as a legal document or a note left on a fridge. The audience stands for the demographics of the reader (age, identity, personality, etc), while the purpose is what the text was made for, be it for entertainment or information.
COP	Context of Production	The language, medium and distribution of the text, when it was made, who made it (actual writer), who are people supposed to think had made it (the intended writer) and who the text implies to have made it (implied writer).
COR	Context of Reception	When it was received, how it was received, the demographics of the readers. These can be the ‘intended’ readers who the document was written for; the ‘actual’ readers who read it, or the ‘implied’ readers which the text creates.
SHEP	Social, Historical, Economic and Political factors
FMM	Field Mode Manner	Field-Specific Lexis of the text is jargon and specialized vocabulary, such as a medical journal might have. Mode is howthe text is delivered, such as spoken or written, multimodal (brail or morse code) and graphology (the visuals like font, color and composition). Manner isthe formality of the text, more information below.

The difference between the COP and COR elements are as important to be compared with one another as they are to be considered on their own. The difference between the two becomes more pronounced as time goes on. This can be easily observed by looking at classic comedy TV shows, which often make jokes about topics that society finds unacceptable to be made today.

The terms implied, intended and actuarial reader and writer of the text are not obvious, but are simple to explain.

Take the example of a cheerfully written and overall friendly letter from the government addressed to the occupancy of a housing state, informing them the local nature park will be replaced by parking spaces.

The implied writer is a caring and considerate member of society who cares about the people who live there and wants to inform them of this good news. However, the actuarial writer is likely to be just a secretary who doesn’t have even the smallest say in what happens, following the instructions of a governing body of officials who have no care for the people who live there.

On the other side, we have the implied audience of this text (the person the text was supposedly written for): a cheerful, complacent, average member of society who trusts the local government and doesn’t know much about how it’s run, hence, the lack of specific details, the admittance of the real reason for the construction and the unnecessarily friendly tone.

The actuarial audience depends on the individual, but they may well be less complacent in this matter than the writer of the text would hope.

2.3 – Martin Joos and the Levels of Formality.

Created by Martin Joos, these 5 levels are loose definitions of how formal a text is. It is just a spectrum, rather than a definite level, but it gives a rough idea of how to describe its formality. A text or speech’s formality links closely to its meaning.

Frozen	Written Language of a highly impersonal and formal nature. A book of laws is likely to be in Frozen formality.
Deliberative	Carefully planned language, oft with reading vocabulary words. A legal letter from a lawyer might be deliberative. It falls short from frozen because it is more personal, being addressed from one person to another.
Consultative	The language of general business and polite conversation with acquaintances, the language you ‘consult’ with.
Casual	More relaxed conversation for relaxed surroundings with a friendly atmosphere.
Intimate	The Language of family, close friends and lovers – the least formal form of language.

Informal language also consists of colloquialisms, which are established informal words and phrases, and slang, which tends to be more original and niche in examples like “wicked” for “excellent“. This type of language can also become vulgar or taboo, which includes swearing and expletives. More formal language can be distant and cold; informal is seen as unprofessional.

The act of moving between these levels of formality is code-switching. A simple example of code-switching might be an expletive curse in an otherwise formal document.

However, as a reminder that context always matters, if the swear word is a quote from somebody else, which this otherwise formal text is commenting on, it isn’t code-switching because it’s just reporting on what was said.

Elevated, educated, Latinate (from Latin) or polysyllabic (many syllabled) words are more formal than colloquial, demonic, vernacular, Anglo-Saxon, simple, monosyllabic or slang and taboo words.

2.4 – Idioms.

These are everyday sayings – usually metaphors – which cannot be easily translated into a foreign language and can be difficult to learn for outsiders. The connection between an idiom and its source has often been lost, but analysing groups of similar idioms can sometimes reveal an overall trend. “To get hold of the short end of the stick” and “it takes two to tango” are prime examples of idioms.

2.5 – Connotation, Denotation, Pun and Metaphors.

Every word will have multiple different meanings that can be implied (given) by the creator and inferred (taken) by the receiver. The standard dictionary definition of a word is its denotation, and it generally has a fixed meaning. The connotations of a word are the associations which can be created with the word on individual, personal or emotional connection.

For example, the denotations of the word ‘fox‘ is of a carnivorous and generally nocturnal mammal belonging to the Canidae family. Denotations depend on unbiased facts. Bear in mind even unbiased facts have the potential to change over time, as society’s understanding of a matter grows.

The connotations of a fox, however, is of a cunning and cruel hunter, cold and remorseless, wryly and fiendishly intelligent. Others see them as nothing more than stinking, troublesome vermin. Connotations depend on personal or social opinion, and such can change over time.

Most words have more than one meaning connected with them. These polysemies (words which are polysemic) can create ambiguity in a text (either mistakenly or in order to create a comic device or pun).

Literal and figurative word meanings can also create: personification (the giving of inanimate objects or animals humanesque qualities); metaphor, where one thing is described as being another, and similes which are like a metaphor but use ‘like’ or ‘as’, rather than ‘be’ or ‘become’.

2.6 – Relationships Between Meanings.

These are ways in which the difference between two words can be described, or to make a comparison with something else.

Synonym: Words with a similar meaning – happy, cheerful, elated, content.
Antonym: Words with opposite meanings – happy, sad; tall, short; strong, weak.
Oxymoron: A figure of speech with two contradictory terms together – happy sadness.
Hyperbole: An exaggeration of something.
Litotes: An ironical understatement.
Euphemism: A mild or indirect substitute for an unpleasant or embarrassing word.

2.7 – Neologisms.

When a new word is created, it is called a neologism.

Loans	When a word is taken from another language. The English language is full of loan words from various languages.
Composites	Two words combined together, either through affliction, such as transport (trans- port) or by compound, like in farmhouse (farm house).
Shortenings	An abbreviation or clipping of a word. A clipping is where part of the word is cut out, such as vet (veterinarian). An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or words into letters. This can be either an initialism where each letter is spoken individually, like CNN, or can be an acronym, which is said as a single word, such as SPAM.
Blends	When the word is shortened (usually through clipping) and also composited together. Examples are spork (spoon fork) and cyborg (cybernetic organism).
Shifts	When a word changes in meaning over time, sometimes drastically. Gay stopped meaning carefree and became homosexual. The brand name Google stopped being a brand name and became a verb (to google).
Creations	True, original inventions. These are fairly rare as they have to be intentionally created and don’t often occur naturally.

This links into the study of entomology, the study of the history of a word, its development, spread and origin. For instance, force is from the Latin word fortus (strong), which shares the same root word as fortress.