THE CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS

A. Juilland (Outline of a General Theory of Structural Relations. Mon­ton, 1961) uses the terms lexeme, grammeme for 'roots' and 'non-roots'.

§ 20. From the previous paragraph it is clear that a word like runs containing a lexical and a grammatical morpheme is at the same time a member of a certain lexeme and of a certain grammeme. In a lexeme the lexical morpheme may be regarded as invariable (at least in content) and the grammat­ical morphemes as variables. In a grammeme, on the con­trary, the grammatical morpheme is invariable and the le­xical morphemes are variables. This can be seen from the following table.

	Lexeme 1	Lexeme 2	Lexeme 3
Grammeme 1	boy	girl	captain	common case, singular number
Grammeme 2	boy's	girl's	captain's	possessive case, singular number
Grammeme 3	boys	girls	captains	common case, plural number
Grammeme 4	boys'	girls'	captains'	possessive case, plural number
	male child, son, male servant, etc.	female child, daughter, maid servant, etc.	leader, chief, officer, etc.	meanings of grammemes   meanings of lexemes

As we see, each word of a lexeme represents a certain grammeme, and each word of a grammeme represents a certain lexeme. The set of grammemes represented by all the words of a lexeme is its paradigm. The set of lexemes represented by all the words of a grammeme is usually so large that it is almost of no practical value and has therefore got no name. The paradigms of the three lexemes in the table above are identical and characterize the lexemes as belonging to a class called nouns. The paradigm of the lexeme want, wants, wanted, shall want, etc. is quite different and stamps it as belonging to another class called verbs.

§ 21. There is an essential difference in the way lexical and grammatical meanings exist in the language and occur in speech. Lexical meanings can be found in a bunch only in a dictionary or in the memory of a man, or, scientifically, in the lexical system of a language. In actual speech a lexical morpheme displays only one meaning of the bunch in each ease, and that meaning is singled out by the context or the situation of speech (in grammar parlance, syntagmatically). As seen already (§ 19), words of the same lexeme convey different meanings in different surroundings. In the sentence The boy runs fast the word runs has meaning 1. In Л tear runs down her cheek it has meaning 2. In runs dry it conveys mean­ing 3. In runs a car — meaning 5, and so on.

The meanings of a grammatical morpheme always-come together in the word. In accordance with their relative nature (§ 10) they can be singled out only relatively in contrast to the meanings of other grammatical morphemes (in grammar parlance, paradigmatically). Supposing we want to single out the meaning of 'non-continuous aspect' in the word runs. We have then to find another word which has all the meanings of the word runs but that of 'non-continuous aspect'. The only word that meets these requirements is the analytical word is running. Runs and is running belong to the same lexeme, and their lexical meanings are identical. As to the grammatical meanings the two words do not differ in tense ('present'), number ('singular'), person ('third'), mood ('indicative'), etc. They differ only in aspect. The word runs has the meaning of 'non-continuous aspect' and is running — that of 'contin­uous aspect'. Thus all the difference in the forms of the two contrasted words serves to distinguish only these aspect meanings which are thus singled out from the whole bunch.

§ 22. When opposed, the two words, runs — is running, form a peculiar language unit. All their meanings but those of aspect counterbalance one another and do not count. Only the two particular meanings of 'non-continuous' and 'con­tinuous' aspect united by the general meaning of 'aspect' are revealed in this opposition or opposeme, to use an -eme word (Cf. phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, grammeme). The general meaning of this opposeme ('aspect') manifests itself in the two particular meanings ('non-continuous aspect' and 'continuous aspect') of the opposite members (or opposites).

Now we may regard the word runs as representing the whole grammeme runs, walks, stands, sleeps, skates, lives, etc. Likewise, the word is running represents the grammeme is running, is walking, is standing, is sleeping, is skating, is living, etc. When contrasted the two grammemes can also be regarded as an aspect opposeme since they show the partic­ular meanings of 'continuous' and 'non-continuous' aspects united by the general meaning of 'aspect'.

The pairs ran — was running, shall run — shall be run­ning, to run — to be running, etc. and the corresponding grammemes are ail aspect opposemes with the same general meaning and identical particular meanings.

All the aspect opposemes make up a system which is called the category of aspect. Each opposeme represents the catego­ry as a molecule represents a certain substance, but the extent of the category is shown by the whole system of opposemes.

§ 23. The category of tense is the system of tense oppose­mes in a given language. A tense opposeme in English con­sists not of two but of three members (writes — wrote — will write; is writing — was writing — will be writing) because the general meaning of 'tense' manifests itself in three partic­ular meanings: 'present', 'past' and 'future'. The pair is writing — was writing cannot be regarded as a tense opposeme because one particular manifestation of 'tense' (the 'future tense') is missing: will be writing. Neither can the group writes — wrote — was writing — will write be looked upon as a tense opposeme since the 'past tense' is manifested twice: in wrote and was writing. Besides, was writing intro­duces the 'continuous' meaning which the other members of the group do not possess.

In general, an opposeme of any grammatical category consists of as many members (or opposites) as there are partic­ular manifestations of the general meaning. Thus, a morpho­logical opposeme is a minimum set of words revealing (by the difference in their forms) only (and all) the particular mani­festations of some general grammatical meaning. Any morpho­logical category is the system of such opposemes whose members differ in form to express only (and all) the particular manifesta­tions of the general meaning of the category.

§ 24. The structure of a lexeme is defined by the opposeme it contains. The lexeme represented by the word long, for instance, contains the opposeme of but one category, the 'degrees of comparison'. Its structure, therefore, is, so to say, of one dimension: long — longer — longest. The lexeme represented by the word boy contains opposemes of two cat­egories, 'number' and 'case'. As a result, its structure is a two-dimension one:

Each category is represented here by two opposemes. In English there are no lexemes of three-dimension structure. If the infinitive were regarded as a separate lexeme, it could be a model of this kind:

To be being led and to have been being led are rarely used (see John Millington-Ward. Pecularities in English. L., 1957, p. 250)

Here each category is represented by four opposemes.

The structure of an English verb lexeme containing oppo­semes of seven categories is so complicated that it is next to impossible to present it on paper.

§ 25. All the words of a lexeme, both synthetic and ana­lytical, are, as defined (§ 19), united by the same lexical meanings.

Historically the analytical words have developed from combinations of two (or more) words. But the lexical meaning of only one word has been preserved, so that instead of be­longing to two (or more) different lexemes the combination functions as a word of one lexeme.

We cannot agree with A. I. Smirnitsky that is and has in the analytical words is written, has written contain some weak lexical meanings. If it were so, writes — is written, writes — has written could not be regarded as grammatical opposemes, or as words of the same lexeme: they would differ lexically.

§ 26. Analytical words are closely connected with synthet­ic ones.

a) The very existence of analytical words depends on their correlation with synthetic words of the same lexeme. This makes all the difference between the analytical word is written and the combination is afraid. The opposeme writes — is written stamps is written as a word of the same lexeme to which the synthetic word writes belongs. Is afraid, am afraid, are afraid, was afraid, etc. have no synthetic opposites. Hence they are not analytical words, but combinations of words.

b) Analytical words comprise synthetic words. Thus, the analytical form has prepared consists of two synthetic forms: has (cf. had) and prepared (cf. prepare).

Hence it is clear that synthetic words play a very important role in the language.

§ 27. The means employed in English to distinguish the words of a lexeme are similar to those used to distinguish the stems of different lexemes. The chief of them are: affixation, sound interchangeand suppletivity.

The words play and plays are related by affixation: the word plays differs from the word play in having the affix, more exactly suffix, -s added to the stem of the lexeme. The stems speak- and speaker- are also related by affixation.

The words foot and feet are related by sound interchange, more exactly by vowel interchange (or internal inflection, see § 11). The stems full- and fill- are also related by vowel interchange. The stems speech- and speak- are related by con­sonant interchange. Different stems may contain the same root, e. g. compose, dispose, oppose, propose. Usually, however, there are different roots in different stems, e. g. replace, discover, forgive. But it is unusual for words of the same lexeme to have different roots, e. g. / — me, go — went. This unusual phenomenon is called suppletivity.