What is a grammatical category?

Definition
	A grammatical category is a set of syntactic features that
	express meanings from the same conceptual domain occur in contrast to each other, and are typically expressed in the same fashion.

Discussion
	The term ‘grammatical category’ has been used to cover a wide variety of things, including what traditional grammars call "parts of speech."

Examples (English)
	A set of verb affixes that express aspect A set of auxiliary verbs that express modality

Kinds
	What is aspect? What is case? What is definiteness? What is mood and modality? What is a noun class? What is number? What is polarity? What is tense? What is transitivity? What is voice?

Sources
	Crystal 1985 43–44
	Hopper, P. 1992 81
	Bybee 1985 191

Context for this page:

Concept module: grammatical category
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): G
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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