Editing Syntactic category (section)

==Defining criteria==
At least three criteria are used in defining syntactic categories:

::#The type of meaning it expresses
::#The type of [[affix]]es it takes
::#The structure in which it occurs

For instance, many nouns in English denote concrete entities, they are pluralized with the suffix ''-s'', and they occur as subjects and objects in clauses. Many verbs denote actions or states, they are conjugated with agreement suffixes (e.g. ''-s'' of the third person singular in English), and in English they tend to show up in medial positions of the clauses in which they appear.

The third criterion is also known as ''distribution''. The distribution of a given syntactic unit determines the syntactic category to which it belongs. The distributional behavior of syntactic units is identified by substitution.<ref>See Culicover (1982:8ff.).</ref> Like syntactic units can be substituted for each other.

Additionally, there are also informal criteria one can use in order to determine syntactic categories. For example, one informal means of determining if an item is lexical, as opposed to functional, is to see if it is left behind in "telegraphic speech" (that is, the way a telegram would be written; e.g., ''Pants fire. Bring water, need help.'')<ref>{{cite book|last=Carnie|first=Andrew|title=Syntax A Generative Introduction|year=2013|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|location=MA, US|page=52|isbn=9781118321874|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MFZ1UV3YGtgC&q=%22syntactic%20categories%22}}</ref>