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===Parts of speech=== | ===Parts of speech=== | ||
The most obvious material characteristic dividing words into functional classes in PU seems to have been the distinction according to the number of syllables in the word root. Basic deictic elements, used in pronominal and auxiliary functions, formed a class of monosyllables, whereas the bulk of the lexicon, the so called ”notation words” were disyllabic. In grammatical behaviour, however, no basic difference existed between two groups, except that in the paradigms of some pronouns there was suppletion. | The most obvious material characteristic dividing words into functional classes in PU seems to have been the distinction according to the number of syllables in the word root. Basic deictic elements, used in pronominal and auxiliary functions, formed a class of monosyllables, whereas the bulk of the lexicon, the so called ”notation words” were disyllabic. In grammatical behaviour, however, no basic difference existed between two groups, except that in the paradigms of some pronouns there was suppletion. | ||
Using morphological and syntactical criteria, two parts of speech, the noun and the verb, can be distinguished in PU. it is true that rather abundant evidence suggests that the distinction had been somewhat less strict in Pre-U. In fact, several PU derivative and inflectional suffixes could be affixed to both nominal and verbal stems. Also, there existed a small group of word roots, the so called nomenverba, which could morphologically and syntactically act both as nouns and verbs, in semantically closely related functions. However, in PU most of the lexicon was already unambiguously divided into nouns and verbs, and both parts of speech did have a range of morphological and syntactic characteristics of their own. | |||
As for further classification, morphological criteria are not sufficient to serve as a basis for distinguishing any subclasses (such as “adjectives” and “numerals”). Also, no evidence exists of any separable group of indeclinable words (“adverbs”). For instance, space relationships were expressed by regularly declined spatial nouns, used both independently and in postposition constructions (as nominal postpositions). Undoubtedly, however, there existed in PU some kind of extra-grammatical group of utterances (“interjections” and the like). | |||