Grammatical Features of Definiteness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Grammatical Features of Definiteness - Essay Example Secondly, numbers which occur in plural and singular. Lastly, the gender Category, They usually take values such as the masculine, feminine and the neuter (Smith, Teschner and Evans, 1994). Frequently grammatical categories are usually misunderstood with lexical categories. This Are nearly the same as parts of speech like the nouns, verbs and the adjectives. Categories may be brought about and referred to according to meanings they portray. For example the category of tense(s) usually show time in which activities took place for example, did a certain action occur in the present (now), past (a time before) or future (a time to come).They may be structured in words by use of inflection (a change in the number of words a word that reflects a change in grammatical function, Oxford Dictionary.) In the English grammar, the number noun is always leaving the noun without inflicting it, this is if it’s singular. For words which are in plural, the suffix-s is added. This not the case w ith all plurals, because some nouns have irregular plurals. On the other hand, a category may not be marked on the item to which it pertains. They are shown only through other features in grammar of a sentence. Always they are shown through agreements in grammar. A good example to illustrate the above point would be: The number of nouns may not be marked on the noun itself if the noun does not inflect as in the regular pattern. Instead they are shown in the agreement between the noun and the verb. Singular nouns usually use ‘is’ while plural nouns take are. For example: In this case the noun sheep does not inflect according to regular patterns. In other cases the number can be reflected both in the noun and also by the agreement of the verb (Smith, Teschner and Evans, 1994). For example; However, where a number of nouns or verbs are not manifested anywhere in the surface form of a sentence.