Editing Part of speech (section)

===India===
In the ''[[Nirukta]]'', written in the 6th or 5th century BCE, the [[Sanskrit]] grammarian [[Yāska]] defined four main categories of words:<ref name=Matilal>
{{cite book
|author = Bimal Krishna Matilal
|title = The word and the world: India's contribution to the study of language (Chapter 3)
|year = 1990
|author-link = Bimal Krishna Matilal
}}</ref>

* नाम ''nāma'' – [[noun]] (including adjective)
* आख्यात ''ākhyāta'' – [[verb]]
* उपसर्ग ''upasarga'' – pre-verb or [[prefix]]
* निपात ''nipāta'' – [[Grammatical particle|particle]], invariant word (perhaps [[preposition]])
These four were grouped into two larger classes: [[inflection|inflectable]] (nouns and verbs) and uninflectable (pre-verbs and particles).

The ancient work on the grammar of the [[Tamil language]], ''[[Tolkāppiyam]]'', argued to have been written around 2nd century CE,<ref name="Mahadevan">{{cite book |last=Mahadevan |first=I. |title=Early Tamil Epigraphy - From the Earliest Times to the Sixth century C.E., 2nd Edition |date=2014 |pages=271}}</ref> classifies Tamil words as ''peyar'' (பெயர்; noun), ''vinai'' (வினை; verb), ''idai'' (part of speech which modifies the relationships between verbs and nouns), and ''uri'' (word that further qualifies a noun or verb).<ref name=Ilakkuvan>
{{cite book
|author =Ilakkuvanar S
|title = Tholkappiyam in English with critical studies |edition=2nd
|publisher = Educational Publisher
|year = 1994
}}</ref>