Akadémia Kiadó

The study offers a survey of our word class system's changes, tendencies, and main types on the basis of data from 3000 years' history of Hungarian language. In the introduction it examines how old and new, descriptive and historical grammars of different languages treat the word class problem. It analyses which considerations determine the different word class systems, and through their history it arrives to the heterogeneity that characterises the present situation. It defines the substance of the word class system the author follows, including its components, relations among different word classes, their changing processes as well as strength, chronology, and connections of their changes.