View source for Grammatical category

{{Short description|Property of items within the grammar of a language}}
{{Grammatical categories}}

In [[linguistics]], a '''grammatical category''' or '''grammatical feature''' is a property of items within the [[grammar]] of a [[language]]. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called [[grammeme]]s), which are normally mutually exclusive.  Frequently encountered grammatical categories include:
* [[Grammatical case|Case]], varying according to function.
* [[Grammatical gender|Gender]], with values like male, female, animate, inanimate, neuter, and more general classes.
* [[Grammatical number|Number]], varying according to the number of things.
* [[Grammatical tense|Tense]], varying according to when an action takes place, whether in the present, past or future.
* [[Grammatical aspect|Aspect]], varying according to how much time an action will take, whether finished, repeated or habitual.
* [[Grammatical mood|Mood]], varying according to modality, or the speaker's attitude towards the action.

Although the use of terms varies from author to author, a distinction should be made between grammatical categories and lexical categories. '''Lexical categories''' (considered [[Syntactic category|syntactic categories]]) largely correspond to the [[part of speech|parts of speech]] of traditional grammar, and refer to nouns, adjectives, etc.

A [[phonology|phonological]] manifestation of a category value (for example, a word ending that marks "number" on a noun) is sometimes called an [[exponent (linguistics)|exponent]].

[[Grammatical relation]]s define relationships between words and phrases with certain parts of speech, depending on their position in the syntactic tree. Traditional relations include [[subject (grammar)|subject]], [[object (grammar)|object]], and [[indirect object]].

==Assignment and meaning==
A given [[Constituent (linguistics)|constituent]] of an expression can normally take only one value in each category. For example, a noun or [[noun phrase]] cannot be both singular and plural, since these are both values of the "number" category. It can, however, be both plural and feminine, since these represent different categories (number and gender).

Categories may be described and named with regard to the type of [[semantics|meaning]]s that they are used to express. For example, the category of [[grammatical tense|tense]] usually expresses the time of occurrence (e.g. past, present or future). However, purely grammatical features do not always correspond simply or consistently to elements of meaning, and different authors may take significantly different approaches in their terminology and analysis. For example, the meanings associated with the categories of tense, [[grammatical aspect|aspect]] and [[grammatical mood|mood]] are often bound up in verb [[conjugation (grammar)|conjugation]] patterns that do not have separate grammatical elements corresponding to each of the three categories; see [[Tense–aspect–mood]].

==Manifestation of categories==
Categories may be marked on [[word]]s by means of [[inflection]]. In [[English grammar|English]], for example, the number of a [[noun]] is usually marked by leaving the noun uninflected if it is singular, and by adding the suffix ''-s'' if it is plural (although some nouns have [[English plural|irregular plural forms]]). On other occasions, a category may not be marked overtly on the item to which it pertains, being manifested only through other grammatical features of the sentence, often by way of grammatical [[Agreement (linguistics)|agreement]].

For example:
<blockquote><poem>The bird can sing.
The bird'''s''' can sing.</poem></blockquote>
In the above sentences, the number of the noun is marked by the absence or presence of the ending ''-s''.
<blockquote><poem>The sheep '''is''' running.
The sheep '''are''' running.</poem></blockquote>
In the above, the number of the noun is not marked on the noun itself (''sheep'' does not inflect according to the regular pattern), but it is reflected in agreement between the noun and verb: singular number triggers ''is'', and plural number ''are''.
<blockquote><poem>The bird '''is''' singing.
The bird'''s''' '''are''' singing.</poem></blockquote>
In this case the number is marked overtly on the noun, and is also reflected by verb agreement.

However:
<blockquote>The sheep can run.</blockquote>
In this case the number of the noun (or of the verb) is not manifested at all in the [[surface form]] of the sentence, and thus ambiguity is introduced (at least, when the sentence is viewed in isolation).

Exponents of grammatical categories often appear in the same position or "slot" in the word (such as [[prefix]], [[suffix]] or [[enclitic]]). An example of this is the [[Latin declension|Latin cases]], which are all suffixal: ''ros'''a''', ros'''ae''', ros'''ae''', ros'''am''', ros'''a''', ros'''ā''''' ("rose", in the [[nominative]], [[genitive]], [[dative]], [[accusative]], [[vocative]] and [[ablative]]).

Categories can also pertain to sentence constituents that are larger than a single word ([[phrase (grammar)|phrase]]s, or sometimes [[clause (grammar)|clause]]s). A phrase often inherits category values from its [[head (linguistics)|head]] word; for example, in the above sentences, the [[noun phrase]] ''the birds'' inherits plural number from the noun ''birds''. In other cases such values are associated with the way in which the phrase is constructed; for example, in the [[coordination (linguistics)|coordinated]] noun phrase ''Tom and Mary'', the phrase has plural number (it would take a plural verb), even though both the nouns from which it is built up are singular.

== Grammatical category of noun ==

In traditional structural grammar, grammatical categories are semantic distinctions; this is reflected in a morphological or syntactic paradigm. But in [[generative grammar]], which sees meaning as separate from grammar, they are categories that define the distribution of syntactic elements.<ref>[[Joan Bybee]] "Irrealis" as a Grammatical Category. Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 257-271</ref> For structuralists such as [[Roman Jakobson]] grammatical categories were lexemes that were based on binary oppositions of "a single feature of meaning that is equally present in all contexts of use". Another way to define a grammatical category is as a category that expresses meanings from a single conceptual domain,  contrasts with other such categories, and is expressed through formally similar expressions.<ref>[http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAGrammaticalCategory.htm What is a grammatical category?] - SIL.org</ref> Another definition distinguishes grammatical categories from lexical categories, such that the elements in a grammatical category have a common grammatical meaning – that is, they are part of the language's grammatical structure.<ref>"grammatical category"  The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. P. H. Matthews. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Brown University.  31 March 2012  <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t36.e1391></ref>

== See also ==
* [[Grammatical relation]]
* [[Grammeme]]
* [[Syntax]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Commonscatinline|Grammatical categories}}

{{Authority control}}
{{Grammatical moods}}
{{Formal semantics}}

[[Category:Grammatical categories| ]]