Grammatical category

A grammatical category is a semantic distinction which is reflected in a morphological paradigm. Grammatical categories can have one or more exponents. For instance, the feature [number] has the exponents [singular] and [plural]. The members of one category are mutually exclusive; a noun cannot be marked for singular and plural at the same time, nor can a verb be marked for present and past at the same time. Exponents of grammatical categories are often expressed in the same position or 'slot' (prefix, suffix, enclitic, etc.). An examples for this are the Latin cases, which are all suffixal: rosa, rosae, rosae, rosam, rosā. ("rose", in nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative)

For example, in English, the grammatical number of a noun such as bird in:

• The bird is singing.
• The bird-s are singing.

is either singular or plural, which is expressed overtly by the absence or presence of the suffix -s. Furthermore, the grammatical number is reflected in verb agreement, where the singular number triggers is, and the plural number, are.

Grammatical categories are often expressed by affixes, but clitics and particles are also common.

References

• What is a grammatical category? - SIL.org

See also

• Grammatical function
• Inflection
• Lexical category (part of speech)
• Syntax