>The modernish notion that parts of speech are "givens" rather than a dynamic product of categorization is partly an artifact of a market-driven consensus (maybe due to the popularity, and hence influence, of Reed and Kellogg's texts in the early twentieth century) and partly because of what always happens when you try to introduce complex material to beginning learners: you leave out the messy bits.
>


This actually is not accurate.  The parts of speech are better seen as discoveries rather than creations.  The parts of speech existed long before there were grammarians.  As long as plurals went on nouns and tenses went on verbs there have been the parts of speec.  The grammarians didn't force nounness and verbness and so on on to language, they merely found those notions there.  

Phil Bralich

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/