Bemba, and Luganda. By contrast, Japanese pronouns are an open class and nouns become used as pronouns with some frequency; a recent example is , now used by some young men as a first-person pronoun. The status of Japanese pronouns as a distinct class is disputed, however, with some considering it only a use of nouns, not a distinct class. The case is similar in languages of Southeast Asia, including Thai and Lao, in which, like Japanese, pronouns and terms of address vary significantly based on relative social standing and respect. Some word classes are universally closed, however, including demonstratives and interrogative words. See also Part-of-speech tagging Sliding window based part-of-speech tagging Notes References External links The parts of speech Guide to Grammar and Writing Martin Haspelmath. 2001. "Word Classes and Parts of Speech." In: Baltes, Paul B. & Smelser, Neil J. (eds.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Amsterdam: Pergamon, 16538–16545. (PDF) Grammar