class (n.)

An application in LINGUISTICS and PHONETICS of the general use of this term, to refer to a set of entities sharing certain FORMAL or SEMANTIC properties. Its most widespread use is in relation to the classification of MORPHEMES into form-classes and WORDS into word-classes (other syntactic UNITS being less likely to be referred to in terms of classes). A major distinction is sometimes drawn between OPEN and CLOSED classes of words. The term class cleavage is sometimes used where a word is analyzable into different classes, e.g. round in It’s your round, round the corner, etc. Some GRAMMARIANS refer to COUNTABLE NOUNS as ‘class nouns’.

‘Class’ has a special status in HALLIDAYAN LINGUISTICS, where it is one of the four main CATEGORIES recognized by that theory (the others being STRUCTURE, UNIT and SYSTEM). Here, classes are any set of ITEMS having the same possibilities of operation in structure, e.g. the class of ‘nominal groups’ can operate as SUBJECT, OBJECT, etc., in CLAUSE STRUCTURE.