[Corpora-List] About Part of Speech in English and Chinese

[Mike Scott]

> 1. We can say that '"through"' is a sort of shorthand for 'instance of 
> the word "through"'. Without the inverted commas or special intonation 
> it becomes difficult to interpret.
Maybe.
>  
> 2. Are you happy with "sooner" and "better" as nouns in "the sooner 
> the better"? Or "good" or "bad" or "ugly" in... well, you know. What 
> about "recently" as an adjective in (Pullum example again) "The winner 
> recently of [two prestigious awards]"? -- it modifies the noun 
> "winner", but it doesn't look like an adjective and doesn't even go in 
> the right place.
>  
I'm not saying there won't be difficulties or that recognising a noun is 
clear, simply by virtue of it being preceded by "the", but I do think 
that the assumption that a word has a "natural" in-built POS leads us 
into greater difficulties. But I would not want to set myself up as a 
grammarian or theoretical linguist. That was my twopenny worth. I'd be 
quite happy thinking of the good, the bad and the ugly as nouns, 
incidentally. Like the robbers, the bandits and the cowboys that they were.

Cheers -- Mike

-- 
Mike Scott

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