In comparing prepositions with co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions we cannot fail to notice that while prepositions have nothing in common with co-ordinating conjunctions, some prepositions are very close in meaning to subordinating conjunctions, and in some cases a preposition and a subordinating conjunction sound exactly the same. As examples of similarity in meaning we may give, for instance, such phrases and clauses: during his illness = while he was ill', examples of complete identity in meaning and sound are the words before, after, since.

Taking up the definition of a conjunction given above in cur general survey of parts of speech, we must first of all, just as we have done with prepositions, consider the question of the meaning of conjunctions. Many authors, in defining a conjunction, limit themselves to indicating that they serve to connect words (or parts of the sentence) and clauses. 1 This would seem to imply that conjunctions have no meaning of their own, that is, that they do not themselves express any phenomena of the extralinguistic world. This is untenable, as may be very easily shown by the simplest examples. Compare, for instance, the two sentences, He came because it was late, and He came though it was late. The different conjunctions obviously express different real relations between two extralinguistic phenomena: his coming and its being late. The causal connection between them exists outside the language, and so does the concessive relation expressed in the latter of the two sentences. There is no difference whatever in the grammatical structure of the two sentences: the difference lies only in the meanings of the two conjunctions. The same observation can be made on comparing the two sentences, We will come to see you before he comes back, and We will come to see you after he comes back, and also in a number of other cases.

It is common knowledge that prepositions are a most important element of the structure of many languages, particularly those which, like Modern English, have no developed case system in their nominal parts of speech.

Special attention has been paid by many scholars to groups of the type come in, go out, set up, put down, bring up, etc., i. e. groups consisting of a verb and an adverb so closely united in meaning that the adverb does not indicate a property of the action or a circumstance under which the action takes place. This is especially true of such groups as bring up, meaning 'educate', which certainly does not name an action denoted by the verb bring, performed under circumstances denoted by the adverb up. This also applies to such groups as put up (with something), in which nothing remains either of the meaning of the verb put or of that of the adverb up.

In giving a general review of parts of speech, we have already mentioned some general problems connected with the adverbs. It will be our task now to look at these problems more closely. We will accept that definition of the meaning of adverbs which, though not quite satisfactory, enables us to distinguish what is an adverb from what is not. The adverb, then, expresses either the degree of a property, or the property of an action, or the circumstances under which an action takes place.

The question of verbal classes in Modern English has given rise to conflicting statements. Various systems have been proposed both in the way of theoretical investigation and in the way of practical language teaching. The terms "weak and strong verbs", "regular and irregular verbs", "living and dead conjugation", and some others have been used, and a given verb included into one class or another as the case might be.

Modern lexicology has in many cases to solve the problem whether we have to deal with two or more meanings of one word or with two or more different words sounding the same. Such questions have arisen concerning, for example, the nouns hand, head, board, the verbs draw, bear, and a number of other words.

So far we have spoken of the ing-forms as of two different sets of homonymous forms: the gerund (with its distinctions of correlation and voice) and the participle (with its distinctions of correlation and voice).

The second participle, that is, forms like invited, liked, written, taken, etc., presents many peculiar difficulties for analysis. In analysing the category of correlation and that of voice in the participle and in stating that the participle has no category of tense, we have so far not mentioned these forms at all.

Like the finite forms of the verb, the verbals have a distinction between active and passive, as will readily be seen from the following oppositions