SILGLOBALGlossary of
Linguistic Terms

Glossary term L

Lexical Category

Also known as Part of speech, Word class, Grammatical category, Grammatical class

Definition

A lexical category is a syntactic category for elements that are part of the lexicon of a language. These elements are at the word level.

Discussion

Lexical categories may be defined in terms of core notions or 'prototypes'. Given forms may or may not fit neatly in one of the categories (see Analyzing lexical categories). The category membership of a form can vary according to how that form is used in discourse.

Examples

There are major and minor lexical categories.

Major categories:

Every language has at least two major lexical categories:

Many languages also have two other major categories:

Minor categories:

Many languages have minor lexical categories such as:

Note:

Grammatical categories are distinct from formal relational categories such as subject, object and predicate, or functional categories such as agent, topic or definite.

Kinds

More specific concepts within lexical category.

Adjective Adverb (Linguistics) Conjunction Particle Adposition Verb (Linguistics) Noun

See also

Syntactic Category Prototype

Sources 1

  1. Payne, T. 1997a, 32
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