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A syntactic category is a type of syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume.〔For the general reasoning behind syntactic categories, see Bach (1974:70-71) and Haegeman (1994:36).〕 Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal categories'' (e.g. noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc.) are also syntactic categories. Dependency grammars, however, do not acknowledge phrasal categories (at least not in the traditional sense). Word classes considered as syntactic categories may be called ''lexical categories'', as distinct from phrasal categories. The terminology here is by no means consistent, however. Many grammars also draw a distinction between ''lexical categories'' (which tend to consist of content words, or phrases headed by them) and ''functional categories'' (which tend to consist of function words or abstract functional elements, or phrases headed by them). The term ''lexical category'' therefore has two distinct meanings. Moreover, syntactic categories should not be confused with grammatical categories (also known as grammatical features), which are properties such as tense, gender, etc. ==Defining criteria== At least three criteria are used in defining syntactic categories: ::#The type of meaning it expresses ::#The type of affixes it takes ::#The structure in which it occurs For instance, many nouns in English denote concrete entities, they are pluralized with the suffix ''-s'', and they occur as subjects and objects in clauses. Many verbs denote actions or states, they are conjugated with agreement suffixes (e.g. ''-s'' of the third person singular in English), and in English they tend to show up in medial positions of the clauses in which they appear. The third criterion is also known as ''distribution''. The distribution of a given syntactic unit determines the syntactic category to which it belongs. The distributional behavior of syntactic units is identified by substitution.〔See Culicover (1982:8ff.).〕 Like syntactic units can be substituted for each other. Additionally, there are also informal criteria one can use in order to determine syntactic categories. For example, one informal means of determining if an item is lexical, as opposed to functional, is to see if it is left behind in "telegraphic speech" (that is, the way a telegram would be written; e.g., ''Pants fire. Bring water, need help.'') 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Syntactic category」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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