Summary: Identifying Open-Class Words

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Section 5.8 Summary: Identifying Open-Class Words

This chapter has covered a lot of ground. Here’s a quick reference to help you identify word classes and apply the dual-identification principle.

The Dual-Identification Principle.

Always ask both questions:

What IS this word? (form—its part of speech)
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What is this word DOING? (function—its role in this sentence)
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Quick Reference Tests.

Part of Speech	Key Morphological Tests	Key Syntactic Tests
Noun	Plural (-s) 🔗 🔗 Possessive (’s) 🔗 🔗 Noun suffixes (-tion, -ness) 🔗 🔗	Follows the/a 🔗 🔗 Takes adjective modifier 🔗 🔗 Can be replaced by pronoun 🔗 🔗
Verb	Past tense (-ed) 🔗 🔗 3rd singular (-s) 🔗 🔗 -ing form 🔗 🔗	Follows can/will/might 🔗 🔗 Follows to 🔗 🔗 Can be negated 🔗 🔗
Adjective	Comparative/superlative (-er/-est) 🔗 🔗 -ish suffix 🔗 🔗 Forms adverb with -ly 🔗 🔗	Between the and noun 🔗 🔗 After be/seem 🔗 🔗 Modified by very 🔗 🔗
Adverb	Often -ly 🔗 🔗 Some comparatives 🔗 🔗	Modifies verbs/adjectives/adverbs/sentences 🔗 🔗 Cannot go between the and noun 🔗 🔗

Phrase Types.

Each word class has an associated phrase type with the word as its head:

Phrase	Head	Example
Noun phrase (NP)	Noun	the tall student from Ohio
Verb phrase (VP)	Verb	read the book carefully
Adjective phrase (AdjP)	Adjective	very proud of her work
Adverb phrase (AdvP)	Adverb	very quickly

Analysis Process.

Identify form: What part of speech is this word typically? Apply morphological and syntactic tests.
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Identify function: What role is it playing in this sentence? Is it modifying something? Acting as subject or object?
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Note mismatches: If form and function differ, identify both. (“The poor” = adjective form, nominal function)
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