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It seems WordData isn't complete:

In[508]:= WordData["Alice", "ConceptWeight"]    
Out[508]= WordData["Alice", "ConceptWeight"]    
In[507]:= WordData["Michael", "ConceptWeight"]
Out[507]= {{"Michael", "Noun"} -> 0.462007}

and is sometimes case-sensitive:

In[1]:= # -> WordData[#, "PartsOfSpeech"] & /@ {"French"}
Out[1]= {"French" -> {"Noun", "Adjective", "Verb"}}
In[2]:= # -> WordData[#, "PartsOfSpeech"] & /@ {"french"}    
Out[2]= {"french" -> WordData["french", "PartsOfSpeech"]}

Can anyone write a function to find out if a word W is a verb or a pronoun or whatever, for all correctly spelled english words?

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    $\begingroup$ "french" (uncapitalized) is not a proper English spelling and hence should not be in the dictionary. $\endgroup$
    – bill s
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 22:47
  • $\begingroup$ @bill - according to Merriam-Webster, "french" used a a transitive verb although often -- is not necessarily -- capitalized. $\endgroup$
    – Bob Hanlon
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 1:12

1 Answer 1

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Determine the potential "PartsOfSpeech"

WordData["cat", "PartsOfSpeech"]

{"Noun", "Verb"}

then test for the type

! FreeQ[WordData["cat", "PartsOfSpeech"], "Noun"]
! FreeQ[WordData["cat", "PartsOfSpeech"], "Adjective"]
! FreeQ[WordData["cat", "PartsOfSpeech"], "Verb"]

True False True

Also see documentation for FreeQ. These tests may be integrated into a simple function, select or case structure.

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  • $\begingroup$ There are many English words not in word data, you'll need to use another source. $\endgroup$
    – M.R.
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 23:11

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