Concept
Grammatical category
Overview
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 grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive. Frequently encountered grammatical categories include:
Case, varying according to the relations between the participants in an action (e.g. subject, object, possession, direction, accompaniment etc.).
Noun classes, such as gender, animacy, and so on.
Number, varying according to the number of things (e.g. singular or plural).
Tense, varying according to when an action takes place (e.g. present, past or future).
Aspect, varying according to the state of an action in relation to time (e.g. completed, ongoing, repeated, habitual etc.).
Mood and modality, varying according to the speaker's attitude towards an action and its relation to reality (e.g. statement of fact, hypothetical, questioning, ordering, suggesting etc.).
Voice, varying according to the role taken by each participant in an action (e.g. active or passive).
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 categories) largely correspond to the parts of speech of traditional grammar, and refer to nouns, adjectives, etc.
A phonological manifestation of a category value (for example, a word ending that marks "number" on a noun) is sometimes called an exponent.
Grammatical relations define relationships between words and phrases with certain parts of speech, depending on their position in the syntactic tree. Traditional relations include subject, object, and indirect object.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In the Latin word _fero, fer_, meaning 'to bear,' is the root from which all modifications of the verb _ferre_ (to carry) are formed by means of suffixal elements. If, therefore, a language consists of sound complexes having the nature of roots, it is called a root-language. As a matter of fact, however, the languages under discussion consist purely of detached, monosyllabic _words_; the conception 'root,' which…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
States what Grammatical category is; names Grammatical category.
Then follows in the second stage of expression in speech, an analysis of that total idea into its parts, in which these parts are always put into close relations with each other. Such relations are called by grammarians subject and predicate, noun and adjective, verb and adverb, &c. The grammatical meaning of these categories shows clearly that this analysis consists of a system of primary and secondary relations…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Grammatical category is.
In the English language this is commonly done, by prefixing, what are called the personal pronouns, to the general word which expresses the event affirmed. _I came_, _you came_, _he_ or _it came_; in these phrases the event of having come is, in the first, affirmed of the speaker; in the second, of the person spoken to; in the third, of some other person, or object. The first formers of language, it may be imagined…
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
States what Grammatical category is.
Related ideas
- Grammar
- Grammatical tense
- Word
- Language
- Linguistics
- Phonology
- Grammatical mood
- Prefix
- Roman Jakobson
- Semantics
- Noun
- Part of speech
- Suffix
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Language.