  We describe the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), and the current status
of the observations. In this exploratory paper, we apply a Principal Component
Analysis to a preliminary sample of 5869 galaxy spectra and use the two most
significant components to split the sample into five spectral classes. These
classes are defined by considering visual classifications of a subset of the
2dF spectra, and also by comparing to high quality spectra of local galaxies.
We calculate a luminosity function for each of the different classes and find
that later-type galaxies have a fainter characteristic magnitude, and a steeper
faint-end slope. For the whole sample we find M*=-19.7 (for Omega=1, H_0=100
km/sec/Mpc), alpha=-1.3, phi*=0.017. For class 1 (`early-type') we find
M*=-19.6, alpha=-0.7, while for class 5 (`late-type') we find M*=-19.0,
alpha=-1.7. The derived 2dF luminosity functions agree well with other recent
luminosity function estimates.
