Lad taken aback about French article and other parts of speech (5)
I believe the answer is:
nouns
'parts of speech' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'lad taken aback about french article' is the wordplay.
'lad' becomes 'son'.
'taken aback' is a reversal indicator.
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'french article' becomes 'un' (French for 'a' - the indefinite article).
'son' in reverse letter order is 'nos'.
'nos' going around 'un' is 'NOUNS'.
'and other' is the link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
(Other definitions for nouns that I've seen before include "Words referring to people, places or things" , "Identifying words" , "Some of them are proper" , "Words used as names of person, place or thing" , "Substantives" .)