Lecture 7.Non-notional parts of speech.The article and other determiners.

SRS– class.

1. The present participle

Non-notional parts of speech express relations between words, and phenomena denoted by these words. They are different from notional parts: they do not have nominative meaning and do not have major syntactic positions. They are prepositions, conjunctions and articles.

The article determines or not the exact position or nature of something. The articles can express different meanings, but the major ones can be reduced to two of them: the interlocutors’ awareness unawareness of the referent in general and its number (money, the money, a book, the book, books). The articles express the category of determination / undetermination. The category is represented by the opposition ‘definite / indefinite or absence of the article’. The category of determination / undertermination can also be expressed by such determiners as possessive adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, a number, the pronouns like all, any, some; all words that determine the referent or referents of a noun or a noun phrase in relation to other phenomena. The discussions with pros and cons

The Definite Article

The definite is used with countable and uncountable nouns

1. The definite article identifies the denoted referent: the use of it shows the referent in its definite quality. The referent may have a definite position in relation to the speaker, hearer, and other participants of communication. In the sentence ‘I like the book’ the referent is determined as the one well-known to the speaker for its quality. In fact, the speaker makes reference to the object determining the relations between the book and himself. It is clear from the situation which referent the speaker means or it has already been mentioned. Other examples: ‘The information that you gave me was wrong (not just any information)’; ‘Can you pass me the salt please?’

2. The definite article individualizes (gives individuality) to the denoted referent: some words are only used with the definite article for it refers to the unique phenomenon (the USA, the moon). The position of the referent, in this case, is not of great importance; its specific nature makes it deferent and unique from other referents.

3. The definite denotes the whole class of referents ‘The elephant is a magnificent animal’, ‘He studies the elephant in its natural habitat’

4. The definite denotes the class of referents when used with the adjective to make it into a noun (the poor, the English, the impossible, the accused).

5. with some fixed expressions: on the telephone (on TV), on the matter, etc.

The Indefinite Article with countable nouns

1. The indefinite denotes one particular referent, one representative of the class, e.g. ‘I met a man in the street’; in this sentence the speaker is talking about one particular man (not all men in general) but we do not know exactly which man.The Indefinite denotes an indefinite referent for the interlocutors ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ or ‘She is an engineer’, both mean any, but one representative of the class. Plural countable nouns and uncountable nouns used with some or any, or sometimes with no article.

2. The indefinite denotes each representative of the class ‘$ 2 a dozen’, ‘A square has four sides’

3. The definite denotes a certain amount ‘You need a wash’; ‘She has a good knowledge of chemistry’

4. The definite denotes a kind of something ‘Medoc is a (very good) wine’

5. The definite denotes a feature / quality of the referent ‘I’ve never seen such a nice thing’.

6 with some fixed expressions: in a hurry, at a loss, etc

This is the life for me; You can’t be the Paul McCartney; This cloth is sold by the metre; We are paid by the hour, In the 30s there was a lot of unemployment; He plays the piano, He didn’t have the common sense to send for the doctor; He’s stolen my parking space, the bastard; She hit him on the ear; They made him President; A cup and saucer; I’d like a coffee, please; This painting is a Rembrandt, They say the actress is a new Marilyn Monroe!; A Mrs. Smith wishes to speak to you; I can’t remember a Christmas when it snowed so much.

No article

1. General statement ‘I like elephants’. There is no exact reference to the denoted situation. Life is a rat race,

2. With most names of diseases ‘He’s got smallpox’; change of state ‘They crowned him king’

3. Direct addressing ‘Come quickly, doctor’. There is no need to indicate the definiteness or indefiniteness of the referent, for it is clear from the situation.

4. With some fixed expressions: on fire, cast anchor, make use, on foot, go home, etc.

Syntax

The use of an article can be determined by the syntactic position of the noun: the typical syntactic position of the noun modified by the indefinite article is the rhematic predicative (comment) ‘There is a book on the table’ (new information), whereas the typical position of the noun with the definite article is thematic one (topic) ‘The book is on the table’ (known information).

Stylistic uses

The articles can be deliberately omitted ‘Money received, thanks’ (telegram), ‘Unwanted offspring’ (title of a newspaper article), ‘Aim: zero emissions’ (slogan of an advertisement)

Interjections denote emotional evaluation of the event expressed by speaker (gee – expression of surprise, ouch-a cry expressing sudden pain). Some of them have a definite meaning caused by usage. The meaning of other interjections is inferred from the text “Good Heavens”-pleasure or approval, etc.

Prepositions come from notional parts of speech (adverbs or participles) which have lost their nominative meaning. They might denote different relations: spatial (on, under, etc), temporal (after, before), instrumental (with, by), etc. They are dependant on a notional part of speech in the sense that they have functions in combination with a verb, noun and adjective. Postpositions (postpositives, adverbials, etc) are lexically connected with a verb making up one semantic unit.

The preposition expresses the relationships between the words, that is, between the objects denoted by them. These relationships can be spatial, temporal, or not obvious at the sight. In the example It depends on you we can hardly say that there are some relations between it and you, but if we go beyond the language into the extralinguistic world we will see that dependence between two participants of the situation. However, the relationships expressed by the on in on the table and on in depend on you are different. In the first case the preposition is not governed by the verb, in the second it is.

Syntactical functions of prepositions

1. to connect the words into phrases

The connection can be strong or loose. The connection results in prepositional phrases. The preposition can refer to the word with which it is strongly or loosely linked. In the title “Under the tree” the preposition lost its links with the word omitted but evidently implies it. So, the story is about this implied thing, but not about the tree. The compound prepositions expressed more complicated relations, e.g. from under the table (from expresses the direction, under shows the location). The prepositions out of, as to, as for, instead of, in spite of, etc express extralinguistic and grammatical relationships as well.

The prepositions have similar forms with adjectives (near). The function in the sentence determines the part of speech. The adjective can take an object, the preposition cannot. There are prepositions like adverbs or having the same functions, e.g. go up, which also expresses the spatial relations.

They can be followed by adverbs: from there, since then. The independence of prepositions makes it possible to separate them from the word they belong to. The relationships can be different depending on the word the preposition belongs to.