Fries on Word Classes

Abstract

Examination of “The Structure of English” (Fries, 1952) has led to the following conclusions. The attempt by Fries to handle parts of speech as structural meaning units into which word classes enter, shows an attempt to deal with too many features of English at one time. Although it may be seen that he was aiming to present the diversity of free form patternings in which words with certain bound form ranges can occur, the result has provided suggestions for future research, rather than a clear statement of the formal characteristics of English words. The definitive criteria for the parts of speech are not precise, and there is also a tendency to proceed from meaning assumptions to form, instead of from form to meaning by way of strict descriptive analysis. Some ideas about the nature of syntactic classes (and constants) are introduced and related to Fries's views.