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A grammatical category is a property of items within the grammar of a language; it has a number of possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive within a given category. Examples of frequently encountered grammatical categories include tense (which may take values such as present, past, etc.), number (with values such as singular, plural, and sometimes dual), and gender (with values such as masculine, feminine and neuter). Although terminology is not always consistent, a distinction should be made between these grammatical categories (tense, number, etc.) and lexical categories, which are closely synonymous with the traditional ''parts of speech'' (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), or more generally syntactic categories. Grammatical categories are also referred to as (grammatical) features. The name given to a grammatical category (as an uncountable noun) is generally also used (as a countable noun) to denote any of the possible values for that category. For example, the values available in a given language for the category "tense" are called "tenses", the values available for the category "gender" are called "genders", and so on. A phonological manifestation of a category value (for example, a word ending that marks plurality on a noun) is sometimes called an exponent. ==Assignment and meaning== A given constituent of an expression can normally take only one value from a particular category. For example, a noun or noun phrase cannot be both singular and plural, since these are both values of the category of number. It can, however, be both plural and feminine, since these represent different categories (number and gender). Categories may be described and named with regard to the type of meanings that they are used to express. For example, the category of tense is considered to serve to express time of occurrence (as in past, present or future). However, purely grammatical features do not always correspond simply or consistently to elements of meaning, and different authors may take significantly different approaches in their terminology and analysis. For example, the meanings associated with the categories of tense, aspect and mood are often bound in up verb conjugation patterns that do not have separate grammatical elements corresponding to each of the three categories; see Tense–aspect–mood. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grammatical category」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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