Билеты по теор. грамматике
1. Grammatical category and its characteristic features.
M.Y. Blokh defines the grammatical category as "a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms". The forms united into a grammatical category possess a common general meaning that gives a name to the category and each form possesses its own specific meaning that presents a specification of the general meaning and differentiates the form from the other form/forms within the category. The forms lives - lived - will live are united on the basis of the common general grammatical meaning of tense and constitute the grammatical category of tense. Within this category each form has its own specific meaning of tense: present, past and future. The grammatical category of tense presents 'a specific lingual expression of objective (ontological) time, the grammatical category of case presents various relations between the action and its participants, the grammatical category of number in nouns reflects the quantitative relations between homogeneous objects of reality, the grammatical category of mood presents the relations between the action and reality as they are presented by the speaker etc. Such grammatical categories may also be called inherent. Conceptual grammatical categories are universal, they exist in most of the languages though their volume and their scope may vary considerably in various languages. The grammatical category of number is the most universal grammatical category, all speech communities have linguistic means of encoding number, though these means differ greatly in different languages.
A grammatical category is constituted on the basis of contrastive grammatical forms which share a certain grammatical meaning correlated to some general concept (time, number) and differ in more concrete meanings within the scope of the same concept. Such contrastive grammatical forms are called oppositions and all grammatical categories are based on oppositions. The method of oppositional analysis was introduced by Trubetskoy who applied it to the study of phonemes. Now the method of oppositional analysis is widely used in lexicology and grammar.
2. The subject. Means of expressing the subject.
The subject is the independent member of a two-member predication, containing the person component of predicativity. The subject is generally defined as a word or a group of words denoting the thing we speak about. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex. As a word it can belong to different parts of speech, but it is mostly a noun or a pronoun. A word used as a subject combines the lexical meaning with the structural meaning of “person”. So it is at the same time the structural and the notional subject. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. The syntactical word-morphemes there and it may also function as secondary subjects (It being cold, we put on our coats. I knew of there being no one to help them). The analysis of sentences like He was seen to enter the house, is a point at issue. Traditionally the infinitive is said to form part of the complex subject (He…to enter). Ilyish maintains that though satisfactory from the logical point of view, this interpretation seems to be artificial grammatically, this splitting of the subject being alien to English. He suggests that only HE should be treated as a subject, whereas was sees to enter represents a peculiar type of compound predicate. Some grammarians (Smirnitsky, Ganshina) speak of definite-personal, indefinite-personal, impersonal sentences, but it is a semantical classification of subjects, not sentences. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them. In Russian the subject is characterized by a distinct morphological feature – the nominative case, in English it is indicated by the position it occupies in the sentence. In Russian the subject is much less obligatory as a part of the sentence than in English. In English the subject may be a syntactical word-morpheme, a gerund, or a complex, which is alien to Russian.
3. Means of form-building in modern English.
The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form which is a means of expressing a grammatical meaning. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take - took, shine - shone) and suppletivity (go - went, be -was, good - better - best}. .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language. Thus, the habit of expressing lexical and grammatical meanings separately finds its reflection in the fact that very often speakers of English express adverbial meanings not with the help of adverbs but with the help of adverbial phrases Adj. - way where the component way serves as a marker of the adverbial meaning, i.e. fulfils the function of an adverbializer, Let's do it (in) a different way. Such structures are sometimes referred to as analytical adverbs.
4. The predicate as the main means of expressing predication. Types of predicates.
The Predicate is the
part of the sentence which expresses a predicative feature attributed to the
subject of the sentence. Like the subject, the predicate also carries out a triple function in the sentence:
structural, semantic and communicative. Its structural function consists in establishing the syntactic
relations with the subject and other parts of the sentence. The semantic
function of the predicate finds its expression
in attributing certain features to the subject. Its communicative function is
manifested in the fact that through the predicate and the expression of
predication the sentence becomes a minimal unit of communication. As we
have already mentioned the predicate is 'the structural and semantic centre of
the sentence. Sentences without a predicate (one member, nominative sentences
refer to the periphery of English syntax).
In the structure of a simple, two-member sentence the predicate usually
carries out the function of the rheme, He
disappeared. They arrived. According
to the form of expression predicates are divided into verbal and nominal, The
moon rose. The moon was pale. There exists one type of predicate which is
very frequent in English and which presents a combination of such verbs as have, get, give, take and a verbal noun (give a look, take a
bath, have a smoke). Traditionally such cases were referred to a third formal type of predicate, a phraseological predicate. However from the grammatical
point of view the most important characteristic of this type of predicate
is not so much its phraseological but its analytical
character (and all analytical structures are
characterized by a certain idiomaticity of their
components). The distribution of
functions between the components of this predicate is similar to those within an analytical form - the verb
expresses the grammatical meaning and the verbal noun serves to name the
action, i.e. to express a lexical meaning. It is noteworthy that the
verbal nouns which participate in these constructions can be derived from durative verbs only. The semantic
difference between the have a look (bite, say) construction and the
corresponding verb lies in the fact that it denotes a single episode, an
instance of the process whereas the corresponding verb denotes the whole ongoing process. Due to this semantic
property the constructions of the have
a look type specialize in
expressing aspective (iterative) characteristics of
the action. It becomes evident if we compare, smoked and had a
smoke; He looked at her and He had a look or two at her. The verb
just names an action whereas the combination
of the verb and a verbal noun points out either a single occurrence (Have a look) or at a number of
occurrences (He took several glances in her direction). In spite of the distribution of functions between the verb and the verbal
noun similar to analytical forms these structures cannot be treated as analytical forms proper because they do not have
the same regularity as analytical forms
(we can have a look, but cannot have a stare; we can have a
bite, but not an eat, one can take a nap, but cannot take a
slumber). Besides the regular verbs such as have, give, get and take some other verbs can
occur in these constructions, She flipped a curt nod at Havers; She flashed a look at me. For
these reasons such constructions must be treated as half-analytical forms, intermediate between analytical forms of
the verb and syntactic combinations of a verb and the so-called 'light'
object which corresponds to the general
analytical tendency of the English language. The two formal types of the
predicate correspond to the two main semantic types: process predicate which expresses the action, the state
or the existence of the subject and qualification
predicate which expresses the quality (property) of the subject. The
process predicate can be further subdivided into several types in accordance with the semantic types of verbs:
existential ( There was a tavern in the town), statal (He slept), locative (The elephant lives in
5. Synthetic means of form-building in modern English.
The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form which is a means of expressing a grammatical meaning. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take - took, shine - shone) and suppletivity (go - went, be -was, good - better - best}. .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language. Thus, the habit of expressing lexical and grammatical meanings separately finds its reflection in the fact that very often speakers of English express adverbial meanings not with the help of adverbs but with the help of adverbial phrases Adj. - way where the component way serves as a marker of the adverbial meaning, i.e. fulfils the function of an adverbializer, Let's do it (in) a different way. Such structures are sometimes referred to as analytical adverbs.
6. Secondary parts of sentence. Difficulties of their classification.
The theory of the secondary parts (SP) is one of the last developed sections of linguistics. The object is a SP of the sentence, referring to a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a substantival pronoun, an adj., a numeral, or an adv., and denoting a thing to which the action passes on, which is a result of the action, in reference to which an action is committed or a property is manifested, or denoting an action as object of another action. An object can refer to any part of speech capable of being a part of the sentence. Attribute is a SP of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, a substantival pronoun, a cardinal numeral, and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing named by these words as to its quality or property. The attribute, as distinct from the object, cannot modify a verb, an adj, an adv, the attribute expresses a property while the object expresses a thing, but they both can modify a noun, a pronoun, a numeral. Adv modifier is a SP of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a verbal noun, an adj, an adv, and serving to characterize an action or a property as to its quality or intensity, or to indicate the way an action is done, the time, the place, cause, purpose, condition, with which the action or the manifestation of the quality is connected.
7. Suffixation as a means of form-building in modern English.
The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form which is a means of expressing a grammatical meaning. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take - took, shine - shone) and suppletivity (go - went, be -was, good - better - best}. .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language. Thus, the habit of expressing lexical and grammatical meanings separately finds its reflection in the fact that very often speakers of English express adverbial meanings not with the help of adverbs but with the help of adverbial phrases Adj. - way where the component way serves as a marker of the adverbial meaning, i.e. fulfils the function of an adverbializer, Let's do it (in) a different way. Such structures are sometimes referred to as analytical adverbs. The number of inflectional suffixes in modern English is very small: ‘s’ – the plural forms of nouns, the Genitive case, used to build the 3 person singular; ‘ed’ – the past tense, Part II in regular verbs; ‘ing’ – Part I, the Gerund; ‘er’ – the comparative degree of the adj.; ‘ist’ – the superlative degree – they are fairly productive in modern English; ‘en’ – the plural form of the noun ox – oxen, the past participle in irregular verbs; ‘ren’ – the plural form of the noun child; ‘ne’ – mine; ‘m’ – to build the objective case of the personal pronouns – him, them – they are non-productive. The number of suffixes is small, but the frequency of their use is high.
8)Classific-n of subord. clauses:
2 approaches: (1) shows correlation of clauses with parts of the sentence => a) the subject clause, b) the predicative, c) object, d) adverbial, e) attributive.
(2) correlates clauses with parts of speech & distinguishes: a) substantive clause – corresponding to subj., predic. & object clauses, b) adverbial clauses, c) adjectival clauses – corresponding to attribute cl. These 2 classifications correlate!!!
9. The subject matter of theoretical grammar. The grammatical structure of the language.
The grammatical system of a language helps arrange lexical units into coherent utterance (членораздельное высказывание). A coherent utterance is a structure which expresses a certain complete thought and is marked at all the lingual levels: at the phonetic level, at the lexical level, at the level of combinability and at the grammatical level. The grammatical system is a set of devices and their application rules which are employed to produce a coherent utterance; the devices:
1.
2.
3.
As for the morphemes are concerned (the smallest unit capable of having a meaning). There may be lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes. Lexical morphemes: root and affixational morphemes. Gramm morphemes mark certain grammatical meaning. The variants of the morphemes are called allomorphs.
As for form words they are: prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary words.
The main unit of the grammatical system is the grammatical category. The grammatical category is an opposition of at least two forms of one and the same lexical unit based on a certain general meaning which is more abstract than the meaning of the members of the opposition. As to the structure of the Gramm category there are several opinions:
1.
2.
E.g. Бархударев: time: Past – non-Past
So some linguists clame that the structure of the gr. cat. is based on the opposition of as many members as there are there, based on the certain general meaning (time: the Past, the Present, the Future), others think that the main principle of the arrangement is the binary opposition/dichotomic opposition.
The grammatical form is the lexical nucleus + a grammatical marker. Sometimes they are referred to as word forms (словоформы)
The grammatical meaning is that which distinguishes one member of a paradigm from another.
Grammar in the systematic conception of language
Language - is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language incorporates 3 constituent parts which form a unity.
- Phonological
- Lexical
- Grammatical systems
The grammatical system is studied by Grammar.
It can be regarded from the theoretical or practical point of view. The aim of theoretical grammar is to give theoretical description of the grammatical system of a given language, to define its grammatical categories, to study the mechanisms of formation of utterances out of words. Theoretical grammar also considers various controversial (mute) points.
Main grammar schools
- the School of Classical Scientific Grammar: Henry Swift, Curme, Kruisinga.
- the
- the School of Transformational or Generative Grammar: Harris, Chomski.
- the
The systematic character of language
The special stress is laid on the systematic character of language. The systematic approach was worked down by Бодуэн де Куртене, Фердинанд де Соссюр (swiss, outlined the definition).
Outlined the difference between:
Language proper Speech proper
A system of means of expression The realization of the system of language
in the process of interaction
Two fundamental types of relations between linguistic units:
Syntagmatic Paradigmatic
Linear relations between units Intra-systemic relations. They find
In a segmental sequence their expression in the fact that each
(Morphemes in a word, ling. unit is included in a set of similar
words in a sentence ) units with common formal and
functional properties
(Paradigm of forms)
Another approach to the analysis of language as a kind of system, language can be looked upon as a hierarchy of levels:
Level of text, it's the main linguistic unit.
Level of SPU (It is made up of sentences, usually one sentence. SPU can coincide with paragraph in text, also exist in oral speech.)
Proposemic level (Sentences nominate situation or events and express predication. Their main function is that they show the relation of the denoted situation or event to reality (time or modality). Sentences are predicative units.)
Phrasemic level (Phrases are word combinations, they nominate complex phenomena)
Leximic level (Words are nominative units, because they nominate things and phenomena. They are built up by morphemes.)
morphemic level (Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units built up by phonemes or one phoneme.)
phonemic level (Phonemes are meaningless units, their function is differential.)
2 levels are central: words level and sentence level.
They are studied by morphology and syntax. Thus, morphology deals with morphemic structure and combinability, classification of words. Syntax - with sentences.
10. Syntax as part of Grammar. Main Units of English syntax.
There’s a debate about the precise (точный, определенный) status of syntax as a part of grammar.
1) Some linguists state that it should deal with the function and the formation of word-groups within the sent-s. This approach is characteristic of early English syntax (18-19th cent.), which was concerned only with analysis of word-groups, their structure and relations between their elements.
2) Other linguists think that syntax should study only the structure of sent-s.
3) There’s also a group of scholars who think that syntax should deal with the structure of both word-groups and sent-s. It is the most reasonable one and has actually prevailed in modern linguistics.
Смирницкий: The analysis of the sentence structure must be regarded as the main problem of syntax; while the word-groups’ is secondary.
· Joining the words into word-groups is only the 1st step which precedes the formation of a sentence.
· A word-group is not complete either structurally or semantically => It can’t be used as a unit of communication.
· A sent. can function as an independent utterance, but a word-group functions only as an element of a sent.
Therefore, sent-s are units of speech, while word-groups are bricks in a sentence structure.
The fundamental feature that distinguishes a sent. from a word-group is that sent. is always associated with a certain intonation pattern (it’s either a statement, or request, etc.) A sent. without intonation can’t function as a unit of speech; it remains a mere combination of words.
Basic English sentence patterns contain a verb in its finite form.
The presence of a verb in a sent. is characteristic not only of English, but also of all other European lang-s.
Sent-s without verbs are short and convey only fragmentary information, the thought can’t be developed and elaborated unless there’s a verb in the sent.
When the noun and the verb in the finite form follow each other in the sent., they become the subject and the predicate – the 2 main parts of which basic sent-s are built. They can accompanied by other words, and usually are, but this doesn’t change their status as the main parts of the sent. For this reason the combination of subject & predicate is excluded by many linguists from the domain of word-groups. Some linguists suggested calling this combination a clause to distinguish it from a word-group.
In most general terms, a word-group is a logical and grammatical combination of 2 or more notional words which do not form a sent.
A sentence may be defined as the basic unit of communication, grammatically organized and expressing a complete thought. It is characterized by predication (correlation between the utterance & reality). The most universal means of expressing predication is intonation; under certain circumstances (a broader context) any word-gr. may become a sent. But in most cases predication is conveyed through the finite form of the verb (which expresses person, number, mood, tense, aspect, time correlation, voice).
Until recently, the sent. was considered the upper unit of investigation. Since the sent. is a unit of speech it is seldom used in isolation. It is usually a member of a sequence of sent-s, which form a larger unit. This larger unit appears under different names in publications of modern linguists: a paragraph, a discourse, a text. The new trend in linguistics, that studies units larger than a sent., is known under different names, too: hyposyntax, textgrammar, narrative grammar, discourse analysis, narrative analysis.
Narrative analysis studies lexical & grammatical means which help to organize the structure of a text. The part of narrative analysis, which is concerned with gram. means, is called text grammar.
So, these successive syntactic units form an hierarchy in the following order:
Word-groups => sentences => paragraphs
11. Correlation btw various means of form-building in ME.
There are two principal types of form-building means: synthetic and analytical.
The synthetic form-building means is the expression of the relation of words in the sentence by means of a change in the word itself. There are three types of the synthetic form-building means:
- affixation
- sound interchange (morphological alteration)
- suppletion (suppletive means)
Affixation is the most productive means of expressing a grammatical meaning. The number of grammatical suffixes is small (8). They are:
-s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -en, -m (him, them, whom), zero.
Sound interchange is a change of a sound in the root of the word. There exist two kinds of sound interchange – vowel and consonant ones (spend – spent). This type of form-building means is non-productive.
In suppletive forms there is a complete change of the phonetic shape of the root. Suppletive forms belonging to the paradigm of a certain word were borrowed from different sources.
Suppletive forms are found in the paradigm of such words as TO BE, TO GO, degrees of comparison of the adjectives GOOD, BAD and in case-forms of some pronouns.
Блох notes that suppletivity can be recognized in the paradigm of some modal verbs too: CAN – BE ABLE, MUST – HAVE TO, MAY – BE ALLOWED.
Moreover, he says that it can be observed in pronouns (ONE – SOME), NOUNS (INFORMATION – PIECES OF INFORMATION, MAN – PEOPLE).
Suppletive forms are few in number, non-productive, but very important, for they are frequently used
Analytical forms were described as a combination of an auxiliary and a notional word.
This definition is not precise enough and due to its ambiguity such word-combinations as TO THE CHILD, MORE INTERESTING were treated as analytical forms.
To define a true analytical form the theory of splitting of functions should be taken into account.
There must be a splitting of functions between the elements of an analytical form. The first (auxiliary) element is the bearer of a grammatical meaning only. It is completely devoid of lexical meaning, and it is the second (notional) element that is the bearer of lexical meaning.
This process can be complete (perfect form) or incomplete (continuous form). The idiomaticity of an analytical form is a characteristic of a true analytical form. An analytical form functions as a grammatical form of a word.
Бархударов notices that “analytical forms have a specific feature, a specific morpheme which is called a discontinuous morpheme which comprises an auxiliary word and a form-building signal of a notional word. The root of a notional word is not included in the discontinuous morpheme (HAVE + -en ; BE + -ing).
Analytical forms are much more typical of ME. Synthetic form-building means are few in number but widely used. Some grammatical suffixes are very productive.Analytical forms comprise synthetic forms. Although sound interchange is non-productive it is extensively used through the paradigm of the irregular verbs. Though suppletive forms are found through the paradigm of very few words they are very frequently used words.
So we should conclude that English cannot be called a purely analytical language. It is mainly analytical. The famous Danish linguist Jespersen called English an ideal language. He even developed the idea of superiority of analytical languages which reflects a more developed mentality.
12. Text grammar as part of linguistics. Basic units.
Text grammar is a rather new branch of linguistics. It deals with the text. It considers the text the highest unit of speech. If we consider isolated sentences in a discourse, we find that it’s very rare that one sentence expresses the complete idea, which is clear without any context.
Text is an ordered sequence of sentences combined of various types of logical, lexical and grammatical cohesion conveying structurally organized info. Text is a product of oral and written speech. Galperin recognizes the existence only of written text.
Those who studied the text as a unit came to the conclusion that a text as a linguistic unit has its own semantic and structural categories:
The main semantic categories:
- Information(Any text should carry complete information; it should express a certain communication.)
- Profundity(the text should have some depth, some food for thinking, some idea, which may either be expressed, or may be understood implicitly)
- Presupposition(there should be some level at which communicate otherwise there may be complete misunderstanding.)
- Completeness(The text should be complete in meaning, it shouldn’t be abrupt)
Structural Cathegories:
1) Integration (целостность)
- use certain logical connections and connectors, a certain composition, a certain word order.
2)
Cohesion (св
-
necessary property of any
text which differentiates it from disconnected utterances. There are various
means of text cohesion (когези
- BLOCH: gram.connectives. 1) Conjunction-like connectives – coordinative, subordinative conjunctions and adverbial and parenthetical sentence connectors such as: yet, then, however, moreover. 2) Substitutional connection – use of substitutes: pronouns.
3) Retrospection & Prospection
- (means of text cohesion). Retrospection refers the reader to the preceding events, prospection – to the following events
4) Continuum
-
the text should continue
without breaking, it shouldn’t be abrupt. Deictic (св
5) Polyphony
- a good text usually has more than one line of thinking, of reasoning, which is most of all important for fiction
13. Analtyical forms and their role in form-building.
It’s more productive in Modern Eng. Traditionally an analytical form is defined this way: it consists of an auxiliary word and the basic element, which is a notional word. This definition is ambiguous. And for that reason some strange forms are treated as analytical: Combinations of prepositions with nouns were treated as different analytical forms: to the child was treated as the Dative case of a noun. by the child was treated as the Instrumental case of a noun. Many linguists criticized this approach to defining analytical forms and certain theories have been worked out to differentiate analytical forms and free word-combinations.
1. The theory of the splitting of functions. According to this theory in a true analytical form the auxiliary element should be the bearer of the grammatical meaning only. It is devoid of lexical meaning. It is the notional word that is the bearer of lexical meaning. According to this approach there exist 2 types of analytical forms: complete and incomplete. In a complete analytical form the splitting process has completed and the aux.element is completely devoid of lex.meaning. e.g. In the form of the Perfect the verb to have has no meaning of possession. In an incomplete analyt.form the aux.element retains traces of its lex.meaning. e.g. The form of the Continuous where the auxiliary be retains traces of it's meaning of the state.
2.Acc. to the second approach a true analyt.form is idiomatic in characteràthe overall meaning of the form is not immediately dependent on the individual meaning of its constituents. It’s not a sum of meanings of its components. Besides an analyt.form also functions as a grammatical form of a single word. If we proceed from this approach we should conclude that such phrases as most interesting are not an analytical form, because it is not idiomatic enough.
3. Acc. to Бархударов a true analyt.form should posses a discontinuous
morpheme (расчлененна
14. Various classifications of sent-s.
(I) Structural
Sent-s are divided into simple & composite; composite sent-s are divided into compound & complex.
(II) Simple sent-s are divided into 4 major classes (their use correlates with different communicative functions).
1st class: declarative sent-s, or statements. The subject is always present and usually precedes the verb.
2nd class: interrogative sent-s, or questions. They are marked by one or more of the following criteria:
~ the aux. verb is placed in front of the subj.;
~ the initial position of an interrogative “wh”-element (what, who, which, etc.)
3rd class: imperative sent-s, or commands. Normally they have no grammatical subj., the verb is in the imperative mood.
4th class: exclamative sent-s, or exclamations. They are introduced by what / how & have no invertion of the subj. and predicate.
NB: The structure of a certain sent. may be used for other communicative purposes, than those which are characteristic of the sent. of this class.
Ex.: The form of the statement may be used in questions (You will speak to John?)
The rhetorical question which functions forceful statement (Is that a reason for despair?)
(III) extended / unextended
A sent. which consists only of subj. & predicate – unextended.
If it contains one or more secondary parts (attributes, obj., adv. modifiers), the sent. is extended.
(IV) complete / incomplete
Complete sent. contains all structurally necessary elements:
- the subject + the predicate (if it’s a 2-member sent.);
- the subject + the predicate + object (if the predicate is expressed by trans. verb);
1-member sent. can also be complete and incomplete; in the imperative sent. verb is a necessary element, e.g. “Stop!” vs. incomplete (usu. – in direct, coll. speech, make no sense outside their context, e.g. “Yours”).
Incomplete (elliptical) sent-s – structures in which one of the main parts (subj. or pred.) or both are omitted / ellipted.
Elliptical sent-s are divided into 2 types:
- 1st type: they are dependent on what has gone before (“John” may be a reply to 2 questions: “Who did it?” & “Who did you see?”). These sent-s are contextually conditioned. In other words, their incomplete structure can be restored from a previous sent. This kind of ellipsis is called contextual or syntagmatic.
- 2nd type: they don’t depend on what has gone before. Their structure can be restored from the paradigm of the analogous complete sent. This incompletence is purely grammatical as the structure doesn’t depend on the previous context. This kind of ellipsis is called grammatical or paradigmatic. Can be of 2 subtypes: 1) structures that can be completed in only 1 way; 2) structures which can be completed with the help of several paradigms (Cigarette?). Meaning depends on the situation or the situational context.
*1-member sent. can also be complete and incomplete; in the imperative sent. verb is a necessary element, e.g. “Stop!” vs. incomplete (usu. – in direct, coll. speech, make no sense outside their context, e.g. “Yours”).
15. Parts of speech and different principles of their classification.
The general definition of a part of speech: it is a lexical-grammatical word class which is characterized by a general abstract grammatical meaning, expressed in certain grammatical markers.
Within a part of speech similar grammatical features are common to all words belonging to this class.
A part of speech is a mixed lexical-grammatical phenomenon, because:
1) Words are characterized by individual lexical meanings.
2) Each generalized class of words (noun/verb/adj., etc) has a unifying abstract gram. meaning, for ex.: noun – substance, verb – process, adjective – quality of substance, adverb – quality of process.
3) Some parts of speech are capable of representing gram. meaning in a set of formal exponents; for ex.: the plural of nouns is expressed with suffix –s. *this feature is not universal in all languages; for ex.: in synthetic lang-s, adj-s, numerals, pronouns are inflected in the categories of case, number & gender; while in analytical lang-s (Eng.) these word classes are devoid of gram. markers with the exception of a few pronouns.
Parts of speech are classified within the domain of morphology.
Modern classification of parts of speech is traced back to ancient Greek. Later this classification was applied to Latin and thus it found its way in modern languages.
The present day classification of parts of speech is severely criticized, when it’s applied to languages the structure of which is different to the structure of the Latin language. So the criticism is easily justified.
On the other hand the traditional division of words into parts of speech seems quiet natural and easy to understand & remember from the logical point of view.
So it’s not the classification itself that is wrong but it must be the principles of classification that should be criticized and reviewed.
The existing principles:
The semantic approach (based on the meaning).
In many schools the semantic principle was used for p/of/sp classification. It is based on the universal forms of human thought which are reflected in 3 main categorial meanings of words:
1) substance (предметность)
2) process (процессуальность)
3) property (свойства, качества)
In Medieval linguistics (Пор-Ро
However, this principle is open to criticism; it doesn’t always work; it can be hard to define a categorial meaning of a word
e.g. whiteness - is it substance of a noun or property of an adjective?
action – it denotes process, but it isn’t a verb
The formal approach
Only form should be used as a criterion for the classification of the p/of/sp. (Henry Sweet, Cruisinga).
They distinguished between two classes of words:
declinable indeclinable (static forms)
(changeable forms) articles, prepositions, must
This criterion is also unreliable. It doesn’t take into account the way a word functions in the sentence. Must functions as many other verbs, for instance shall which has a declinable form.
This approach has limitations:
1) p/of/sp are morphological classes (Фортунатов), which means they are words with a similar paradigm. But this fact cannot be applied to the lang. such as Chinese, where morph. system is non-existent or poorly-developed.
2) p/of/sp are gr. word classes (Реформатский), he takes into account their morph an syntactical properties (form and function). This is the borderline between the second and the third approaches
The formal-semantic approach
Grammarians tried to take into consideration meaning, form & function.
It appears that in analytical, where English belong, it’s impossible to place a word without analyzing it in the sent. In addition to the analysis of the morphological features of this word.
This approach was developed by Russian linguists (Vinogradov, Smirnitsky, Ilyish).
There are three principles on which this classification is based:
1. meaning
the meaning common to all the words of a given class and constituting its essence.
e.g. thingness of nouns
process of verbs
2. form
the morphological characteristics of a type of word
e.g. noun is characterized by the category of number
prepositions, conjunctions and others are characterized by invariability
3. function
the syntactical properties of a type of word
a) the method of combining with other words (deals with phrases)
b) its function in the sentence (deals with sentences)
The syntactic (functional) approach
Only the syntactic function of a word should be taken into consideration as a criterion for p/of/sp classification.
* Charles Fries’ classification of words
Ch. F worked out the principles of syntactico-distributional (s-d) classification of English words. He was the follower of the famous linguist L. Bloomfield.
The s-d classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution testing. The testing results in developing the standard model of four main “positions” of notional words in the English sentence:
- noun (N)
- verb (V)
- adjective (A)
- adverb (D)
For his materials he chose tape recorded spontaneous conversation (250,000 word entries or 50 hours of talk). The words isolated from the records were tested on the three typical sentences (also taken from the tapes), which are used as substitution test-frames.
Frame A. The concert was good (always). [The thing and its quality at a given time]
Frame B. The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly). [“Actor-action-thing acted upon” –characteristic of the action]
Frame C. The team went there. [“Actor-action-direction of the action”]
As a result of those tests the following lists of words were established:
Class 1. (A) concert, coffee, taste, container, difference, etc. (B) clerk, husband, supervisor, etc.; tax, food, coffee, etc. (C) team, husband, woman, etc.
Class 2. (A) was, seemed, became, etc. (B) remembered, wanted, saw, suggested etc. (C) went, came, ran, lived, worked, etc.
Class 3. (A) good, large, necessary, foreign, new empty, etc.
Class 4. (A) there, here, always, then, sometimes, etc. (B) clearly, sufficiently, especially, repeatedly, soon, etc. (C) there, back, out, etc.; rapidly, eagerly, confidently, etc.
All these words can fill in the positions of the frames without affection their general structural meaning. Repeated interchanges in the substitutions of the primarily identified positional (notional) words in diff. collocations determine their morphological characteristics.
Functional words are exposed in the cited process as being unable to fill in the positions of the frames without destroying their structural meaning. These words form limited groups totaling 154 units. They can be distributed among the three main sets:
1) specifiers of notional words (determiners of nouns, modal verbs, functional modifiers and intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs)
2) interpositional elements, determining the relation of notional words to one another (prepositions and conjunctions)
3) refer to the sentence as a whole (question words, attention-getting words, words of affirmation and negation, sentence introducers (it, there))
**The Parts of Speech in English:
Traditionally:
1. The Noun (categories of number, case and def./indef.)
2. The Adj (the category of degrees of comparison)
3. The verb (the tense, the aspect, the voice, the time-correlation, the mood, the person, the number)
4. The Adverb (the d of comp)
5. The Pronoun (the notional parts of speech (declinable))
6. The Numeral Form (Function) Words
7. The prepositions
8. The Conjunctions
9. The Particles
10. The Interjection
11. The Modal Verbs
12. The Sentence Words (Yes! No!)
Some disputable problems:
1) The Adj – s which begin with “a” (afraid…) and “ill” – where to refer them? Sometimes they are included in the group of adj as a special kind of predicative adj – s. Another point of view: they constitute a special PoS which is called the category of state.
2) Where to refer pronouns? notional or form words. But they’re somehow in between. They are more notional than functional because they are very important text building elements mostly anaphoric but sometimes cataphoric
3) The Article. In some grammars we find that the A is considered to be a part of speech and + in some modern grammars.
15. Parts of speech and different principles of their classification.
The general definition of a part of speech: it is a lexical-grammatical word class which is characterized by a general abstract grammatical meaning, expressed in certain grammatical markers.
Within a part of speech similar grammatical features are common to all words belonging to this class.
A part of speech is a mixed lexical-grammatical phenomenon, because:
1) Words are characterized by individual lexical meanings.
2) Each generalized class of words (noun/verb/adj., etc) has a unifying abstract gram. meaning, for ex.: noun – substance, verb – process, adjective – quality of substance, adverb – quality of process.
3) Some parts of speech are capable of representing gram. meaning in a set of formal exponents; for ex.: the plural of nouns is expressed with suffix –s. *this feature is not universal in all languages; for ex.: in synthetic lang-s, adj-s, numerals, pronouns are inflected in the categories of case, number & gender; while in analytical lang-s (Eng.) these word classes are devoid of gram. markers with the exception of a few pronouns.
Parts of speech are classified within the domain of morphology.
Modern classification of parts of speech is traced back to ancient Greek. Later this classification was applied to Latin and thus it found its way in modern languages.
The present day classification of parts of speech is severely criticized, when it’s applied to languages the structure of which is different to the structure of the Latin language. So the criticism is easily justified.
On the other hand the traditional division of words into parts of speech seems quiet natural and easy to understand & remember from the logical point of view.
So it’s not the classification itself that is wrong but it must be the principles of classification that should be criticized and reviewed.
The existing principles:
The semantic approach (based on the meaning).
In many schools the semantic principle was used for p/of/sp classification. It is based on the universal forms of human thought which are reflected in 3 main categorial meanings of words:
4) substance (предметность)
5) process (процессуальность)
6) property (свойства, качества)
In Medieval linguistics (Пор-Ро
However, this principle is open to criticism; it doesn’t always work; it can be hard to define a categorial meaning of a word
e.g. whiteness - is it substance of a noun or property of an adjective?
action – it denotes process, but it isn’t a verb
The formal approach
Only form should be used as a criterion for the classification of the p/of/sp. (Henry Sweet, Cruisinga).
They distinguished between two classes of words:
declinable indeclinable (static forms)
(changeable forms) articles, prepositions, must
This criterion is also unreliable. It doesn’t take into account the way a word functions in the sentence. Must functions as many other verbs, for instance shall which has a declinable form.
This approach has limitations:
3) p/of/sp are morphological classes (Фортунатов), which means they are words with a similar paradigm. But this fact cannot be applied to the lang. such as Chinese, where morph. system is non-existent or poorly-developed.
4) p/of/sp are gr. word classes (Реформатский), he takes into account their morph an syntactical properties (form and function). This is the borderline between the second and the third approaches
The formal-semantic approach
Grammarians tried to take into consideration meaning, form & function.
It appears that in analytical, where English belong, it’s impossible to place a word without analyzing it in the sent. In addition to the analysis of the morphological features of this word.
This approach was developed by Russian linguists (Vinogradov, Smirnitsky, Ilyish).
There are three principles on which this classification is based:
4. meaning
the meaning common to all the words of a given class and constituting its essence.
e.g. thingness of nouns
process of verbs
5. form
the morphological characteristics of a type of word
e.g. noun is characterized by the category of number
prepositions, conjunctions and others are characterized by invariability
6. function
the syntactical properties of a type of word
a) the method of combining with other words (deals with phrases)
b) its function in the sentence (deals with sentences)
The syntactic (functional) approach
Only the syntactic function of a word should be taken into consideration as a criterion for p/of/sp classification.
* Charles Fries’ classification of words
Ch. F worked out the principles of syntactico-distributional (s-d) classification of English words. He was the follower of the famous linguist L. Bloomfield.
The s-d classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution testing. The testing results in developing the standard model of four main “positions” of notional words in the English sentence:
- noun (N)
- verb (V)
- adjective (A)
- adverb (D)
For his materials he chose tape recorded spontaneous conversation (250,000 word entries or 50 hours of talk). The words isolated from the records were tested on the three typical sentences (also taken from the tapes), which are used as substitution test-frames.
Frame A. The concert was good (always). [The thing and its quality at a given time]
Frame B. The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly). [“Actor-action-thing acted upon” –characteristic of the action]
Frame C. The team went there. [“Actor-action-direction of the action”]
As a result of those tests the following lists of words were established:
Class 1. (A) concert, coffee, taste, container, difference, etc. (B) clerk, husband, supervisor, etc.; tax, food, coffee, etc. (C) team, husband, woman, etc.
Class 2. (A) was, seemed, became, etc. (B) remembered, wanted, saw, suggested etc. (C) went, came, ran, lived, worked, etc.
Class 3. (A) good, large, necessary, foreign, new empty, etc.
Class 4. (A) there, here, always, then, sometimes, etc. (B) clearly, sufficiently, especially, repeatedly, soon, etc. (C) there, back, out, etc.; rapidly, eagerly, confidently, etc.
All these words can fill in the positions of the frames without affection their general structural meaning. Repeated interchanges in the substitutions of the primarily identified positional (notional) words in diff. collocations determine their morphological characteristics.
Functional words are exposed in the cited process as being unable to fill in the positions of the frames without destroying their structural meaning. These words form limited groups totaling 154 units. They can be distributed among the three main sets:
4) specifiers of notional words (determiners of nouns, modal verbs, functional modifiers and intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs)
5) interpositional elements, determining the relation of notional words to one another (prepositions and conjunctions)
6) refer to the sentence as a whole (question words, attention-getting words, words of affirmation and negation, sentence introducers (it, there))
**The Parts of Speech in English:
Traditionally:
13. The Noun (categories of number, case and def./indef.)
14. The Adj (the category of degrees of comparison)
15. The verb (the tense, the aspect, the voice, the time-correlation, the mood, the person, the number)
16. The Adverb (the d of comp)
17. The Pronoun (the notional parts of speech (declinable))
18. The Numeral Form (Function) Words
19. The prepositions
20. The Conjunctions
21. The Particles
22. The Interjection
23. The Modal Verbs
24. The Sentence Words (Yes! No!)
Some disputable problems:
4) The Adj – s which begin with “a” (afraid…) and “ill” – where to refer them? Sometimes they are included in the group of adj as a special kind of predicative adj – s. Another point of view: they constitute a special PoS which is called the category of state.
5) Where to refer pronouns? notional or form words. But they’re somehow in between. They are more notional than functional because they are very important text building elements mostly anaphoric but sometimes cataphoric
6) The Article. In some grammars we find that the A is considered to be a part of speech and + in some modern grammars.
17. Controversial problems of part of speech classification: pronouns.
A part of speech (PS) is a lexical gram word class which is characterized by a general abstract gram meaning expressed in certain gram markers. This definition stresses the fact that within a part of speech similar gram features are common to all words belonging to this class. All PS fall into 2 classes: notional (noun, verb, adj, adv, pronoun, numeral – cover 93% of the English vocabulary, they fill all positions in the sentence, they possess an independent notional meaning of their own) and functional (prep, conj – express relations, they never indicate objects or notions, their use is obligatory). Speaking about pronouns, we shall answer 2 questions at least: is the pronoun a separate PS? Notional or functional? Pronouns are not a separate PS, they distribute them between nouns and adj: we, he, smb – noun pronouns, my, some – adj pronouns (Henry Sweet). Щерба – the term pronoun can be applied to noun pronouns only – the word pronoun means ‘instead of a noun’. Jespersen – syntactically pronouns function in the same way as nouns or adj, but they do not name objects or properties, they only point to them. The categorical meaning of a pronoun is that of indication, while the categorical meaning of nouns is substance and adj – is quality. Pronouns can be characterized by other features, which make them different from nouns: they cannot be used with articles or other determiners; personal, possessive and reflective pronouns have personal distinctions while nouns and adj do not have them; personal pronouns have a case system different from that of a noun; in the 3 person singular personal, possessive and reflective pronouns distinguish in gender; relative and interrogative pronouns distinguish between personal and non-personal gender (that – which, who – whom). Thus, the pronoun is the separate PS. Pronoun is a notional PS. Majority believe that pronouns should be treated as function words: the meaning of the pronoun as a separate class of words is extremely abstract, such as cope of abstraction is typical of function words: like other function word pronouns form a closed system – the number of a pronoun cannot be extended by the creation of additional members. Бархударов – pronouns form a special type of words – structural words – the idea is that str words in his theory occupy an intermediate position between notional and function words.
17. Controversial problems of part of speech classification: pronouns.
A part of speech (PS) is a lexical gram word class which is characterized by a general abstract gram meaning expressed in certain gram markers. This definition stresses the fact that within a part of speech similar gram features are common to all words belonging to this class. All PS fall into 2 classes: notional (noun, verb, adj, adv, pronoun, numeral – cover 93% of the English vocabulary, they fill all positions in the sentence, they possess an independent notional meaning of their own) and functional (prep, conj – express relations, they never indicate objects or notions, their use is obligatory). Speaking about pronouns, we shall answer 2 questions at least: is the pronoun a separate PS? Notional or functional? Pronouns are not a separate PS, they distribute them between nouns and adj: we, he, smb – noun pronouns, my, some – adj pronouns (Henry Sweet). Щерба – the term pronoun can be applied to noun pronouns only – the word pronoun means ‘instead of a noun’. Jespersen – syntactically pronouns function in the same way as nouns or adj, but they do not name objects or properties, they only point to them. The categorical meaning of a pronoun is that of indication, while the categorical meaning of nouns is substance and adj – is quality. Pronouns can be characterized by other features, which make them different from nouns: they cannot be used with articles or other determiners; personal, possessive and reflective pronouns have personal distinctions while nouns and adj do not have them; personal pronouns have a case system different from that of a noun; in the 3 person singular personal, possessive and reflective pronouns distinguish in gender; relative and interrogative pronouns distinguish between personal and non-personal gender (that – which, who – whom). Thus, the pronoun is the separate PS. Pronoun is a notional PS. Majority believe that pronouns should be treated as function words: the meaning of the pronoun as a separate class of words is extremely abstract, such as cope of abstraction is typical of function words: like other function word pronouns form a closed system – the number of a pronoun cannot be extended by the creation of additional members. Бархударов – pronouns form a special type of words – structural words – the idea is that str words in his theory occupy an intermediate position between notional and function words.
18. Word-combination (WC) and their basic types.
The word 'syntax' is derived from the Greek 'syntaxis' which literally means 'composition', or 'order'. It is a part of grammar which studies ways of arranging words into phrases and sentences in order to produce speech. We communicate only with the help of sentences and it brings many linguists to a conclusion that syntax is the core, or the heart of grammar and morphology is subordinated to it as it serves the needs of syntax. The main units of the syntactic level of the language are: 1) the word in its syntactic position in the sentence (a part of the sentence); 2) the phrase which is a combination of two or more notional words arranged according to the rules of a particular language; 3) the simple sentence as the minimum unit of communication; 4) the composite sentence which is a combination of two or more clauses based either on coordinate (a compound sentence) or subordinate (a complex sentence) relations; 5) the text as the highest unit of language.
The type ‘noun+noun’ is a most usual type of WC in modern English. The type ‘noun in the common case+noun’ may be used to denote 1 idea as modified by another, in the widest sense (silver watch, army unit). The type ‘noun in the genitive case+noun’ has a more restricted meaning and use. The type ‘adj+noun’ is used to express all possible kinds of things with their properties. The type ‘verb+noun’ may correspond to 2 different types of relation between an action and a thing. There are also types, such as ‘verb+adv’, ‘adv+adj’, ‘adv+adv’, ‘noun+prep_noun’, ‘adj+prep+noun’, verb+prep+noun. WC consisting of 2 components may be enlarged by addition of a third component, and so forth: adj+noun (high houses) may be enlarged by the addition of the adj in front – adj+adj+noun (new high houses). The limit of the possible growth of a WC is hard to define.
19. Controversial problems of part of speech classification: adverbs.
A part of speech (PS) is a lexical gram word class which is characterized by a general abstract gram meaning expressed in certain gram markers. This definition stresses the fact that within a part of speech similar gram features are common to all words belonging to this class. All PS fall into 2 classes: notional (noun, verb, adj, adv, pronoun, numeral – cover 93% of the English vocabulary, they fill all positions in the sentence, they possess an independent notional meaning of their own) and functional (prep, conj – express relations, they never indicate objects or notions, their use is obligatory). The meaning of the adv as a PS is hard to define. Some adv indicate time or place of an action (yesterday, here), others indicate its property (quickly), others - the degree of a property (very). Adv are invariable. Some of them have degrees of comparison (fast, faster, fastest). Adv combine with a verb (run quickly), with an adj (very long), with a noun (the then president), with a phrase (so out of things). Adv can follow a prep (from there). In a sentence they are almost always adv modifiers, or parts of it, but they may occasionally be attributes.
20. The grammatical meaning, the gram form, the gram paradigm.
Gram meaning (GM) is a general abstract meaning which unites classes of forms or words and finds its expression through formal markers thus placing a linguistic unit in a grammatical category or a grammatical class of words (a part of speech). Grammatical meanings are more general and abstract whereas lexical meanings are usually more concrete and specific. In the process of real communication the grammatical expression of the time of action by the speaker may appear to be not sufficient for the hearer from the informative point of view and needs specification by lexical means. For example, if your friend tells you that he is leaving today and you want to see him off you need to know the exact time, because the grammatical expression of futurity is not sufficient and you ask: "At what time today?". The typological analysis of grammatical meanings reveals that they reflect not the fragments of reality but rather the structure of such fragments. Being limited in their number grammatical meanings have a regular and an obligatory character in the language. We cannot use a notional word without expressing its grammatical meaning/meanings. For example, when we say: It has been raining for hours, the verb rain expresses one lexical meaning and seven grammatical meanings (person, number, tense, aspect, time correlation, voice, and mood).
The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form which is a means of expressing a grammatical meaning. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetical and analytical. In a synthetical type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetical types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take - took, shine - shone) and suppletivity (go - went, be -was, good - better - best}. .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language. Thus, the habit of expressing lexical and grammatical meanings separately finds its reflection in the fact that very often speakers of English express adverbial meanings not with the help of adverbs but with the help of adverbial phrases Adj. - way where the component way serves as a marker of the adverbial meaning, i.e. fulfils the function of an adverbializer, Let's do it (in) a different way. Such structures are sometimes referred to as analytical adverbs.
21. Controversial problems of part of speech classification: numerals.
A part of speech (PS) is a lexical gram word class which is characterized by a general abstract gram meaning expressed in certain gram markers. This definition stresses the fact that within a part of speech similar gram features are common to all words belonging to this class. All PS fall into 2 classes: notional (noun, verb, adj, adv, pronoun, numeral – cover 93% of the English vocabulary, they fill all positions in the sentence, they possess an independent notional meaning of their own) and functional (prep, conj – express relations, they never indicate objects or notions, their use is obligatory). The treatment of numerals presents some difficulties. The so-called cardinal numerals (one, two) are somewhat different from the so-called ordinal numerals (first. Second). Numerals denote either number or place in a series, numerals are invariable, as far as phrases go, numerals combine with a following noun (three rooms, third room), occasionally a numeral follows a noun (Peter the First). In a sentence a numeral most usually is an attribute, but it can also be subject – three of them came in time, predicative – we are seven, object – I found only four.
22. Syntactic relations between words in the word-combinations (WC).
The word 'syntax' is derived from the Greek 'syntaxis' which literally means 'composition', or 'order'. It is a part of grammar which studies ways of arranging words into phrases and sentences in order to produce speech. We communicate only with the help of sentences and it brings many linguists to a conclusion that syntax is the core, or the heart of grammar and morphology is subordinated to it as it serves the needs of syntax. The main units of the syntactic level of the language are: 1) the word in its syntactic position in the sentence (a part of the sentence); 2) the phrase which is a combination of two or more notional words arranged according to the rules of a particular language; 3) the simple sentence as the minimum unit of communication; 4) the composite sentence which is a combination of two or more clauses based either on coordinate (a compound sentence) or subordinate (a complex sentence) relations; 5) the text as the highest unit of language.
WC – every combination of 2 or more words which is a gram unit but is not an analytical form of some word. The constituent elements of WC may belong to any part of speech. Syntactic relations between words in the word-combinations fall under 2 main heads: agreement and government. A – a method of expressing a syntactical relationship, which consists in making the subordinate word take a form similar to that of the word to which it is subordinate (only the category of number). G – the use of a certain form of the subordinate word required by its head word, but not coinciding with the form of the head word itself.
23. Different interpretations of the meaning of the English articles. The main functions of the English articles.
Nouns are preceded by atr,
though much has been written about art, the theory of it is still problematic.
The meaning of the art is extremely abstract and hard to define, but the main
meanings can be summarized as follows: the ind art –
with count nouns – the nominating meaning, to name an object; with uncount nouns – aspective meaning
(asp with abstract nouns – a dull anger, after a long silence), to bring out a
special abstract of the notion, expressed by a noun. The definite art: with
count nouns (sing, pl)– individualizing meaning – it singles out an object or a
group of objects from all the other objects of the same class; with count nouns
(sing)– the generic meaning (The cat is the domestic animal) – the noun becomes
a composite image of the all class of objects; with uncount
nouns – the restricting meaning – may restrict the abstract notion, expressed
by a noun to a specific instance (I didn’t want to show the joy I felt),
restricts the material denoted to a definite quality or locality (The water in
the glass was too cold to drink – quality, The water in the lake was too cold
to bathe in – location). The absence of the art always has the nominating
meaning, as it is parallel to the use of the
The art have morph and syntactical functions. MF is to serve as a formal indicator of the noun. The presence of the art signals that what follows is a noun. The art has 2 SF: the art separates the noun from other parts of the sentence; the art is one of the means that serve to connect sentences within a text (I’ve bought a book – correlates – The book is interesting). If we apply the theory of communication we can see that the art has a communicating function (new and old info, theme and rhyme).
24. The number of moods in Modern English.
The grammatical category of mood has the reputation of being one of the most controversial categories. Mood is traditionally defined as a grammatical category which expresses the relation of the action to reality as stated by the speaker. As follows from the definition mood seems to be the only morphological category which includes the category of the speaker in its definition. It means that it is one of the most speaker-oriented categories. The forms of the moods serve the needs of the speaker to present the action as real, unreal (contradicting the state of things in reality) or hypothetical. The category of mood presents the interpretation of the action by the speaker from the point of view of its relation to reality. Scholars differ greatly in the understanding of this category, its scope and, consequently, in the number of grammatical forms of the mood they find in English. This number- varies from two (in Barkhudarov's interpretation) to sixteeen (in Deutchbein's interpretation). There is no space and no need to enumerate all the possible classifications of moods. In our interpretation and classification of moods we shall follow the classification system of moods presented by Smirnitsky. It appears to be the most consistent because it is meaning-oriented and it also takes into consideration the difference between an analytical form and a free syntactic combination. His system of moods includes six moods: the Indicative, the Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional mood. The opposition constituting the category of mood in English can be characterized as privative polynominal - each form has a formal and a semantic marker of its own. The Indicative mood presents the action as real from the speaker's point of view. It is the most frequently used type of mood and it has the greatest number of forms. The forms of the Indicative mood are used in two communicative types of sentences: declarative and interrogative. The borderline between the Indicative mood and other moods is not absolutely rigid. The forms of the Future tense contain the meaning of prediction which brings them close to the Suppositional mood which specializes in the expression of hypothetical actions. The comparison of such sentences as "If he turns up tell him to -wait for me" and "Should he turn up tell him to wait for me" shows that both the verbal forms present the action as hypothetical but differ in the degree of certainty which is higher in the case of Present Indefinite Indicative. The Imperative mood is used to express inducement to action, which means that the speaker considers the action as desirable. Yet the action is not yet real because inducement refers to the future even if this future is just a blink away from the present moment. The use of the Imperative mood is restricted to only one communicative type of sentences - imperative sentences. This restriction gave grounds for some scholars to suppose that it is a syntactic rather than a morphological phenomenon - they speak about the imperative communicative type of the sentence. The forms of the Imperative mood do not vary as much as the forms of the Indicative - the usual form of the Imperative coincides with the forms of the Simple Infinitive without 'to', the negative forms are built with the help of the auxiliary do. The Conditional mood is built with the help of the auxiliary verbs should/would and the Infinitive of the notional verb. As in the case of Subjunctive II, the non-perfect and perfect forms of the Infinitive have a temporal meaning rather than the meaning of priority. The Conditional mood expresses an unreal action which is the consequence of an unreal condition. Therefore it is usually used in the principal clause of a complex sentence with the subordinate clause of unreal condition or concession which has the predicate' in the form of Subjunctive II, e.g. If she could have been compressed to about three quarters of her real width, she would have been very attractive (K. Amis). The Conditional mood also occurs in the structure of simple sentences with implied condition, e.g. // would be a mistake to do so.
Nowadays, much under the pressure of the American variant of the language, the forms of Subjunctive I undergo the process of reintroduction into the British variant of English and occur quite frequently. The language purists call such cases Americanisms but then there are quite a lot of such 'Americanisms' in the language of Shakespeare.
26. Principal parts of the sentence. Their general characteristics.
The subject and the predicate constitute the backbone of the sentence: without them the sentence would not exist at all, whereas all other parts may or may not be there, and if they are there, they serve to define or modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other.
The subject is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence:
1) It denotes the thing whose action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate.
2) It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence.
It may be expressed by different parts of speech, the most frequent ones being: a noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund. It may also be expressed by a phrase.
The predicate is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence:
1) It denotes the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject
2) It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence.
* Types of predicate:
Predicates may be classified in 2 ways, one of which is based on their structure (simple or compound), and the other on their morphological characteristics (verbal or nominal).
Structural classification:
1. simple predicate (verbal and nominal)
2. compound predicate (verbal and nominal)
Morphological classification:
1. verbal predicate (simple and compound)
2. nominal predicate(simple and compound)
** The simple nominal predicate – a predicate consisting merely of a noun or an adjective, without a link verb, is rare in English, but it is nevertheless a living type and must be recognized as such.
Only 2 spheres of its use:
1. The sentences where the immediate neighborhood of the subject noun and the predicate noun or adjective is used to suggest the impossibility or absurdity of the idea that they might be connected. Sentences with this kind of simple nominal predicate are always exclamatory, e.g. My ideas obsolete!!!!!!! It would not do to call such sentences elliptical since the link verb cannot be added without completely changing the meaning of the sentence.
2. The sentences in which the predicative comes first, the subject next, and no link verb is either used or possible. Such sentences seem to occur chiefly in colloquial style, e.g. “Splendid game, cricket”, remarked MR Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one in particular; “so thoroughly English”.
*** The compound nominal predicate always consists of a link verb and a predicative, which may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a noun, an adjective, also a stative, or an adverb. Link verb – the idea of link suggests that its function is to connect the predicative with the subject. It is not correct. The true function of a link verb is not a connecting function. It expresses the tense and the mod in the predicate (to be also expresses number and person).
**** There are sentences in which the finite verb is a predicate itself, i.e. it contains some information about the subject which may be taken separately, but at the same time the verb is followed by a predicative and is in so far a link verb. He came home tired - the finite verb in such sentences conveys a meaning of its own, but the main point of the sentence lies in the information conveyed by the predicative noun or adjective. The finite verb performs the function of a link verb.Since such sentences have both a simple verbal predicate and a compound nominal predicate, they form a special or mixed type: double predicates.
27. Various interpretations of the continuous forms.
3 stages can be distinguished in the evolution of views on the continuous.
1st approach – of traditional grammar. It places the continuous forms among the tense forms of the verb. That’s why – “continuous tenses” => “the tense view of the continuous” and the meaning of the continuous was defined as that of simultaneity with some other action. Those who oppose this point of view analyze the form of the perfect cont. They point out that perfect is quite alien to simultaneity, it expresses priority but as the continuous is usually used with perf. It cannot express simultaneity, it expresses only aspectuality – an action in progress.
2nd approach was put forward by prof. Ivanova – she says the continuous renders a blend of temporal and aspective meanings => “the tense-aspect blend view”. The merits: Иванова pointed out the aspective meaning of the cont. & showed the actual connection of aspect & tense in the semantics of the verb.
3rd approach – the oppositional theory was applied by linguists Смирницкий, Ярцева, Ильиш, Бархударов – if we analyze it in terms of oppositional theory we should note the opposition between continuous and non-continuous forms.
30. Notional words and function words in Modern English.
Parts of speech are traditionally subdivided into notional & functional ones. Notional parts of speech have both lexical & grammatical meanings (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, statives, pronouns, modal words). Functional parts of speech are characterized mainly by the grammatical meaning while their lexical meaning is either lost completely or has survived in a very weakened form.
a thingness
A table
a piece of furniture (meant for working etc.)
no lexical meaning
of (functional word)
to express relations between 2 nouns
Functional parts of speech—the article, the preposition, the conjunction. Notional parts of speech are characterized by word-building & word-changing properties; functional words have no formal features & they should be memorized as ready-made units (but, since, till, until). Another most important difference between functional & notional parts of speech is revealed on the level of sentence. Where every notional word performs a certain synthetic function while functional words have no synthetic function at all. They serve as indicators of a certain part of speech (to + verb; a, the + noun). Prepositions are used to connect 2 words & conjunctions to connect 2 clauses or sentences.
Ilyish => Some grammarians think that words should be divided into two categories on the following principle:
notional words denote things, actions and other extra-linguistic phenomena
functional words denote relations and connections between the notional words
This view is shaky, because functional words can also express smth extra-linguistic:
e.g. The letter is on the table.
The letter is in the table. (diff. prepositions express different relations between objects)
The match was called off because it was raining. (the conjunction because denotes the causal connection between two processes).
Some words belonging to a particular part of speech may perform a function differing from that which characterizes the p/of/sp as a whole.
e.g. I have some money left. (have – a notional word)
I have found a dog. (have – an auxiliary verb used to form a certain analytical form of the verb to find, i.e. it is a functional verb)
*Functional words
Here belong:
- the article
expresses the specific limitation of the substantive functions
- the preposition
expresses the dependencies and interdependencies of substantive referents
- the conjunction
expresses connections of phenomena
- the particle
unites the functional words of specifying and limiting meaning. To this series, alongside other specifying words, should be referred verbal postpositions as functional modifiers of verbs, etc.
- the modal word
expresses the attitude of the speaker to the reflected situation and its parts. Here belong the functional words of probability (probably, perhaps, etc.), of qualitative evaluation (fortunately, unfortunately, luckily, etc.), and also of affirmation and negation
- the interjection
is a signal of emotions
31. Theories suggesting more than 2 cases of English nouns. The problem of analytical cases.
Case can be defined in the
following way: it is a category of the noun that expresses relations between
the thing denoted by the noun and other objects and phenomena and that is
manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This category is based on
the opposition of 2 cases: (the limited
case theory) the Common case – the Possessive case (Genitive – preferable
because not all mean-s of this case are possessive). The general mean of
possession has other modifications. It can denote the subject of a quality,
state of action: the child's intelligence
(quality), the child's sleep (state),
the child's answer (action).
Occasionally it can denote the object of an action: Clyde
The opposition in form. The Genitive case is a marked member, the nominative is unmarked. The marker of the Genetive Case is the 's-sign which also has 3 allomorphs which are [s], [z] and [iz].
Various views on the category of case. The number of cases and the recognition of the category as such depends on whether case is treated as a morphological form or as a grammatical mean that can be rendered by various means (by an inflection, preposition and word order).
Different theories.
1. The 3-case theory / the substitutional theory. Was prompted by the fact that in Old English there existed one common case system for both nouns and personal pronouns. Some grammarians try to introduce a uniform case system in Modern English. Accordingly there are 3 cases recognized in the noun: Nominative, Objective and Genitive. The GC is inflected by the 's-sign. As to the NC and OC they are identified by substituting a personal pronoun for the noun. E.g.: The boy's playing in the garden. – The noun boy is in the NC because it can be replaced by the personal pronoun he. Look at the boy. – The noun boy is in the OC because it can be replaced by him. This theory was criticized and rejected by many grammarians because you cannot attribute the properties of one part of speech to another.
2. The theory of positional cases. It is connected with the old grammatical tradition and we find it in the works of German scholars (Дойчбайн, Несфилд, Брайант). According to that view the case of the noun is determined by its position in the sent by analogy with classical Latin grammar. The English noun will distinguish the following cases of the noun: Nominative, Vocative, Dative, Accusative. They are not inflectional. They exist along with the inflectional genitive. The noun in the function of the position of the subject is in the NC. The noun in the position of a direct address is believed to be in the VC. The noun in the position of an indirect object to a verb is believed to be in the DC. The noun in the position of a direct object is in the AC. The theory was bitterly criticized. The main weakness of it is that it substitutes the functional characteristics of parts of the sent for the morphological characteristics of the part of speech, that is the noun.
3. The theory of prepositional cases (Curmy, also connected with the old school grammar teaching). Acc. to this theory, combinations of nouns and pronouns should be considered as case form: 1. the combination to + noun (to the child) is treated as the DC. 2. the combination of + noun is treated as the GC which exists along with the Inflectional Genitive. 3. the combination by + N is treated as the Instrumental Case. Curmy treats prepositions in these combinations as inflexional prepositions. They are gram elements that are equivalent to case inflexions. Other grammarians treat these combinations as analytical cases. This approach is unconvincing and cannot be accepted for the following reasons: 1. Prep-s are not devoid of their lexical mean and they cannot be treated as gram auxiliaries of an analytical form. 2. The number of prepositional phrases is too numerous to be regarded members of the opposition of the category of case. 3. There are no discontinous morphemes. They cannot be treated as analytical forms.
4. The theory of the possessive postposition.The theory was advanced by Prof. Воронцова and is shared by Мухин, Ильиш, Маслова. Acc to this view the Eng noun has lost the category of case in the historic development. All cases, including genitive, are considered extinct. The following arguments are given to substantiate this theory: 1. the use of the s-sign is optional because it can be replaced by an of-phrase. 2. it is used with a limited group of nouns (animate nouns and some other nouns, denoting distance, time and money). 3. it occurs with very few plurals, only with such plurals as men (men's). As to the other it is impossible to distinguish the sg genitive from the pl genitive by ear. 4. The s-signs is only loosely connected with the noun. It can be used not only with sg nouns but also with whole phrases, e.g.: John and Tom's room. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech. The man I saw yesterday's son. (the s-signs belongs to the whole phrase, not to a single word). So Воронцова makes the following conclusion: the s-signs is not a case inflexion, it is a syntactical element, resembling a preposition. She calls it a postposition or a format. This is why Блох calls this theory the Possessive Postposition Theory. The strong points of this theory is that it is based on careful observation of linguistic data. Yet, it can hardly be accepted, because it disregards the fact that the genitive form of the noun is systematically contrasted to the unmarked form of the noun. The oppositional nature of this correlation cannot be denied. So, if there is an opposition, there is a category. For that reason most linguists stick to the theory which is called the Limited Case Theory. Блох gives other arguments in favor of the LCT. 1. He emphasizes the fact that the phrasal uses of s-sign are stylistically colored. For that reason these cases can hardly be used as arguments against the existence of the category of case. 2. The s-sign differs from ordinary functional words, like prepositions, because it is morpheme-like in its phonetic properties and also because it is strictly postpositional unlike prepositions and it is far more bound element than a preposition. So Блох suggests that the s-sign has a particle nature and he compares it with the Russian particle бы. Блох believes that the solution of the problem of the category of case is to be sought by combining the LCT with the Possessive Postposition Theory. His conclusion is that a peculiar case system has developed instead of the former inflectional case of nouns. It is based on the particle expression of the Genitive and falls into 2 subtypes, which are the word-genitive and the phrase-genitive
32. The category of time-correlation. Various interpretations of the Perfect forms.
The gramm. category of phase or time-correlation built on opposition of perf. and non-perf. forms.
Non-Perfect – unmarked member. Perfect – marked (strong) member, is built with aux. “to have” and the Past Part. of the verb. the meaning: it expresses priority to a certain moment & correlates the action with that moment => the name of the category – time-correlation.
The problem of the perfect forms is most controversial.
To what gram. category do perf. forms belong? There are 4 different ways of interpreting the Perf.:
1) Perfect form as tense
This view
originates from works by Henry Sweet, Curme, Bryant, Иртеньева, Ганшина, Василевска
The perf. denotes a secondary temporal characteristic of an action; it doesn’t refer an action to a certain point of time but expresses priority to the present, past or future. The weak point of this approach – it overlooks the aspective function of the perfect.
Non-perfect forms primary tenses; perfect forms – secondary tenses.
Primary tenses refer an action to a certain point of time in the past or in the future, or they refer actions t the moment of speaking.
Secondary tenses don’t refer actions to the moments of time, but they express priority to the moments of time in the past/future, or denote actions prior to the moment of speaking.
Thus, the pres. perf. may be regarded as a form which denotes an action that occurs before the moment of speaking.
The past perf. expresses an action which took place before a certain moment.
The future perf. – an action that will take place before the certain moment of speaking.
*Later: absolute (=primary) & relative (=secondary) tenses. The treatment is the same.
2) Perfect form as aspect form
Prof. Ильиш: past & future perfect forms should be regarded as relative tenses, because they express priority, but the pres. perfect should be treated as a form of special aspect (the resultative aspect).
Prof. Вoронцова also treats perfect forms within the frame work of aspect (transmissive aspect forms – вид преемственности). Since the pres. perf. shows the action in the past connected with the present, then the most important feature of this form to show continuity (преемственность) between past & present.
3) *the tense-aspect blend view of the perfect.
Иванова is the author. She treats the perf. as a form of double temporal aspective character. It overcomes the one-sidedness of 2 previous approaches. E.g. I haven’t met Charlie for years. A) the temporal meaning of the perfect can be brought forth by time-test question: For how long haven’t you met Charlie? B) The aspective meaning of the perfect can be brought forth by an aspect-test function: What’s the result of your not having met Charlie for years? Drawback: it doesn’t disclose the oppositional nature of the perfect.
4) Perfect form as a representative of a certain category
Prof. Смирницкий speaks about the category of time correlation.
It’s represented by the opposition of perf. and non-perf. forms.
Perf. forms have noting to do with the notion of tense. Obviously the difference between “took” & “had taken” is not temporal, since both forms denote past actions.
The difference is not aspectual either. He argued with Ильиш & Воронцова: they recognize the continuous aspect, then if the pres. perf. is a special aspect form, we must admit that the form has been going denotes 2 different aspects at the same time. It’s highly illogical & makes the problem more complicated.
From the view point of a special categorical meaning , the difference between perf. & non-perf. forms is that non-perf. forms denote actions taking place at a certain moment or period of time, while perf. forms denote actions prior to certain moments or periods of time. From this point of view the opposition represents the grammatical meaning of priority found in perf. forms & non-priority found in non-perf. forms.
Non-perf. forms in both aspects (cont. & non-cont.) are opposed to perf. forms in both aspects (cont. & non-cont.).
This theory was favourably accepted by grammarians, but some of them said that there’s a weak point in it. The past perf. & the future perf. on the one hand, and the pres. perf. on the other. The meanings are not the same. The past & future perf. forms denote priority, but th meaning of the pres. pref. is not limited to priority. In the meaning of the pres. perf. there’s always some connection with the present.
So they think he simplifies the problem intentionally. However, he said that it’s not the only case when a gram. form has an additional shade of meaning. His basic standpoint was that priority is typical of all the 3 forms.
*The category of phase.
The origin of this term is connected with physics, in particular with the theory of electrical current (эл. ток). This theory shows that there’s a special relation between an action & its effect.
The verb in the current phase denotes an action simultaneous with its effect. In other words, an action is in phase with its effect.
Ex.: By seen he came. (We indicate that he was seen the moment he came)
A verb in the perf, phase denotes an action the effect of which is delayed (the action is out of phase with its effect).
So, when we use the perf. phase we shift our attention from the action itself & relocate it on the effect of the action.
Ex.: He has opened the book. ( The action of opening is a limited duration, it was completed in the past. But the effect of the action is felt in pres.: The book is opened now. So the effect is delayed.)
Билет 33. Predicativity. Means of expressing.
The main categories of the sentence are predicativity, modality and negation.
Predicativity is a category which refers the nominative contents of the sentence to reality
V.G.Gak points out three main approaches to the understanding of predicativity: logical, denotational (semantic) and formal (syntactic) [FaK 2000, 550]. In the logic-oriented syntactic theories predicativity is defined as an act of attributing certain features to the subject. In the light of this approach predicativity presents a combination of two components of thought: the subject of thought and the predicate of thought which denotes a property, attributed to the subject by the predicate. In the denotational (semantic) approach predicativity expresses the relation of the sentence to the concrete situation of reality. From the syntactic point of view predicativity is defined as an establishment of syntactic relation between the subject and the predicate of the sentence carried out with the help of certain morphological categories. It is important to understand that these three approaches are not contradictory, they just reflect the manysided nature of the phenomenon and the possibility to analyze its essence from different aspects.
Predicativity involves establishing subject-predicate relations which, in its turn, is accomplished through the
grammatical categories of tense, mood, number and person. (It is true however
that once we use the English verb in the
position of the predicate, not only these three categories but the other four (number,
aspect, time correlation and mood) will also be expressed by the grammatical form of the predicate, but they are
not directly related to the expression of predicativity).
And as we can see from the analysis this understanding of predicativity
takes into consideration two aspects of the sentence: semantic, or denotational (the nominative contents, or the situation of
reality expressed by the sentence) and syntactic (the establishment of
subject-predicate relations carried out with the help of certain grammatical
categories). In peripheral structural types of sentences, such as one-member
nominative sentences predicativity is expressed by the intonation (Early spring.
Predication expressed by the finite form of the verb and by the structures of secondary predication is explicitly expressed in the sentence. Implicit predication is contained in sentences which are structurally simple and yet name not one but two events of reality. This is usually found in sentences which contain event-nouns, e.g. / was late because of the rain.
Билет 34 The category of voice
The category of voice (which is found both with finite and non-finite forms) is one of the most formal grammatical categories, because this category doesn’t refer to any fragment of reality, doesn’t reflect any fragment of reality – it’s a way of describing a certain fragment of reality. The category of voice deals with the participants of a happening (doer, action, object) and how they are represented in the sentence (subject, predicate, object). The Active Voice shows that the grammatical subject of the sentence or the subjectival is the doer of the action, denoted by the verb, the Passive Voice shows that the subject or the subjectival is an object of the action. The frequency of occurrence of the English Passive Voice is very great, greater than in Russian. One of the reasons is that the number of verbs capable of forming the Passive Voice is greater in English than in Russian. In many languages: PV – transitive verbs, in English: PV – any object verb.
What the Russian sentences, types of sentences, which correspond to the English, sentence with the PV:
1) Indefinite – personal (Ему сказали).
2) The Russian
sentence with the analytical or the synthetic passive: Дом был построен. Дом строитс
3) Russian sentences with the AV, with the subject-predicate inversion: Это сделал мой брат (It was done by my brother)
4) Russian impersonal sentences: Крышу унесло ветром.
Other voices: it’s a matter of approach if the idea of the Voice depends on the meaning – I wash myself – the reflexive Voice; but if we consider Voices as a grammatical category with special markers, we can’t say that it is a voice. There is no special way of expressing the RV and the R pronoun is not obligatory – it’s not a special category.
- с
- возвратное значение
- безличное значение (подумалось)
-
синтетический
страдательный залог (строитс
-
взаимное
(подратьс
-
средневозвратное
(апельсин легко чиститс
-
никакое значение
(улыбатьс
The idea of the Passive voice is expressed not only by means of “to be + P2”, but by means of “get”, “come”, “go” + P2 and “get” + passive infinitive (ingressive meaning - He got involved; He got to be respected).
The existence of various means of expressing voice distinctions makes it possible «to consider voice as a functional-semantic category with the grammatical category of voice as its center and other means of expressing voice as a periphery.
Билет 35 theoretical and practical diffic of the study of the articles
The article is a determiner of the noun.it-s function is to define the object or phenomenon in the most general way.The peculisrity of the art, is that in the absence of other determiners.The use of the art.With the noun is obligatory.One of the main theoretical difficulties of the study of the art.its status in the system of morphology/The problem is wheather the art is a separate word.That’s the lexical unity,one of the noun determiners.the meaning of the articles:The defin.article expr the indification or individualization of the noun.The use of this art shows that the object is taken in it’s concrete individual quality.The art can be replaced by a demonstrative pronoun(look at the tree=look at this tree).The indef art refers the object to a certain clas of similar objects(we saw a house=we saw a certain house).The absence of the art is also a disputable point.Some grammarians single out the so called zero article.Thus saying that there are 3 articles.In generaldiff uses of nouns without an art from the semantic point of view should bedividedinto 2 types:1)the art.is deliberately ommited out of stylistic considerations: in titles and headlines,various notices,in telegraphic speech(Coference starts Monday). In this cases the omitted articles can be easily restored.2)cases of traditionally fixedabsense of the art a)prepositions phrases(to bed) b)verbalphrases (to take place) c)repletion groups (day by day) d)with uncountable nouns(what awful weather).the choice of the art is closely connected with 2 types of attribute. The limiting attribute requires the defin art. The descriptive attribute requires indefinite art or the absence of the art with uncountable nouns and nouns in the plur.
Билет 36 THE CATEGORY OF MOOD
The general meaning: a grammatical category which expresses the relation of the action to reality as stated by the speaker 2 groups of Moods (generally):
- the real or fact Moods
- the unreal, non-fact, oblique Moods.
The Indefinite Mood is the only real mood in the English language. It represents an action as a real fact. The forms of the Ind. Mood are the tense-aspect forms of the verb.
There are 2 non-fact Moods in English: the Imperative Mood and the Subjunctive Mood. The hypothetic desirable in the form of advice, request, recommendation, order and so on. There is another point of view on the imperative Mood: (we don’t mark the action as real or unreal!) – Stelling (Штелинг) considers the Imperative form Mood the grammatical idiom.
The Subjunctive Mood represents an action as unreal: 2 degrees of reality: not quite real (Present, Future), quite unreal (for the Past).
Unlike Russian and some other languages, in which there’s a limited group os special means of marking the action as unreal, in English we have quite a number of forms, which mark unreality.
Though thus are formally different it seems advisable to group them together under the name of the Subjunctive Mood as marking the action as unreal.
The choice of the form to mark the action as unreal depends on:
- the type of the sentence and type of clause
- the word or the phrase which requires this particular form or construction
- on the time reference: present, Future – non-perfect forms, Past – perfect forms.
Some linguists think that the past indefinite and the Past Perfect used to denote an unreal action are not mood forms at all, but tense forms.
The classification system of moods presented by A.I.Smirnitsky. It appears to be the most consistent because it is meaning-oriented and it also takes into consideration the difference between an analytical form and a free syntactic combination. His system of moods includes six moods: the Indicative, the Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional mood. Since the forms of mood differ semantically in the way
they present the action (as real, unreal or hypothetical) it is possible to place the forms of moods in accordance with this scale.
|
The action is presented as: |
|||
|
real |
hypothetical |
unreal |
|
|
The type of mood |
|||
|
Indicative |
Imperative |
Subjunctive I Suppositional |
Subjunctive II Conditional |
The position of the Imperative mood on the one hand and Subjunctive I and Suppositional on the other show that they occupy different points on the reality/ unreality scale: the Imperative Mood is closer to the Indicative whereas Subjunctive I and Suppositional - to unreality.
Билет 37 Various passive constructions in ME
Passive voice.Accord. to a commonly accepted definition the passive voice shows that the subject of the sentence is not the agent but the object of the action exp-ed by the verb. The subject doesn’t act but but its acted upon.(She was asked a question).Passive V is widely used in Eng.Its use is extensive not only in comparison with Russian but also with other languages.The Pass V in Eng is rich in various constructions.Certain restrictions in thhe use of the passive voice.In most cases the P.V is formed with transitive verbs so the subject of the Passive constructions corresponds to the direct object of the verb- the Direct Passive.(they gave him an apple/An apple was given to him).Some verbs in Eng take 2 objects: direct,indirect(to tell,promise,show,pay,give,offer,send). 1) the direct passive-A story was told to me2)indirect- I was told a story.3) Prepositional obj may also become the subject of a passive constr(the doctor was send for)40Adverbial passive- the subj of a passive constr may correspond to an adverbial modifier of place(the bed wasn’t slept in)5)the complex subj- a compound verbial predicate a)with an inf- the subjenctive infin construct or the nominative with the infin(he is said to be a talanded musician) b) with the particle-the subjenctive const(he was seen crossing the street)c) with the noun(he was elected President)d)with an adject(he was found ill) e)with the introductory ‘it’(it was arranged that they should come at five)The pass Voice const.is used when the agent of the action is not mentioned.Gram-ns say that the PV contains no mention of the doer of the action-when the agent is unknown or can’t be easily stated.(his fathe was killed in the war)The fact that “no mention of the agent’ is of great importance.It proves that the pass constr is not parallel to the act const and they serve diff perpose.Historically the pass.const.didn’t originate from the active construction. The P.V is widely used because 1) a great number of transitive verb 2)polisimy of he eng verbs,some verbs are transitive and intransitive.A great variety of passive constrs in Eng.The gram meaning of the combin of to be+Part2. It has 3 distinctive meanings: 1)he is respected by all his friends-denotes an action 2)the article is written by John- denotes a state which is the result of a previously accomplished action- a resultant state 3)he is very much obliged to you- denotes a state, not action.
Билет 38. The grammatical category of number
Presents a specific linguistic reflection of quantitative relations between homogeneous objects of reality conceptualized by the human mind. It is constituted by the binary privative opposition of singular and plural forms. The formal marker of the opposition is represented by several phonetically and historically conditioned allomorphs, such as [-z] (boys), [-s] (cats), [-iz] (classes), [0] (, sheep), [-en] (oxen), [ ae ] (antennae), [ ai] (radii) etc. There are quite a few doublets among the plural forms which differ either lexically (a penny - pennies (coins), pence ( a sum of money)
Semantically the forms of the plural are not homogeneous either. The paradigmatic meaning of plurality is represented by a number of syntagmatic variants, such as: discrete plurality (books, houses), indiscrete plurality (hours, miles), partitive plurality (spectacles), variety plurality (wines, cheeses, fruits,), space plurality (snows, sands, waters), family, or clan plurality {the Browns, the Smiths).
From the point of view of their number characteristics the English nouns fall into two classes: countable and uncountable. This feature of the noun determines its choice of the article, the quantitative pronoun and the form of the predicate (singular or plural). Uncountable nouns are further subdivided into two groups: Singularia Tantum and Pluralia Tantum. The group of Singularia Tantum includes:.
1. names of abstract notions (love, friendship etc.);
2. names of mass materials ( bread, butter, sugar etc.);
3. names of some collective inanimate objects (foliage, machinery etc.);
4. names of sciences and professional activities ( medicine, architecture etc.);
5. nouns of heterogeneous semantics. This is a limited group and includes such nouns as: hair, advice; knowledge, money, information, news.
The first four groups of nouns of Singularia Tantum denote concepts which are incompatible with the idea of countability.
Singularia Tantum nouns, when used in the plural form, always acquire additional meanings. Tax moneys means considerable sums o.f money coming from various taxes (this explanation was suggested by an English speaker who used this noun in the plural).
The group of Pluralia Tantum nouns includes:
1. nouns denoting objects consisting of two parts ( trousers, spectacles etc.);
2. nouns denoting results of repeated processes (savings, labours, belongings etc.);
3. nouns of multitude (police, gentry, poultry, cattle)',
4. nouns of various semantics ( oats, outskirts, clothes etc.).
Билет 39. Classification of sentences based of their structure.
The structural aspect of the sentence deals with the structural organization of the sentence, it reveals the mechanisms of deriving sentences and structural types of sentences.
According to their structure sentences are classified into simple (monopredicative structures) and composite (polypredicative structures) which are further subdivided into complex (based on subordination) and compound (based on coordination). Clauses within the structure of a composite sentence may be connected with the help of formal markers (conjunctions and connectives: relative pronouns and relative adverbs - syndetically) and without any formal markers -asyndetically. Thus we should differentiate between two structural varieties of composite sentences: syndetic and asyndetic types. This traditional view on the nature of asyndetic composite sentence was challenged by some scholars who suggested that asyndetic composite sentences should not be differentiated into complex and compound and should be treated as special type of a composite sentence and only syndetic composite sentences should be further subdivided into complex and compound.
Though the difference between the complex and compound sentences is based on the two different types of semantic relations: subordination and coordination, the borderline between complex and compound sentences is not always hard and fast. Here, as everywhere in the system of language, we come across marginal types. Sentences may have formal markers of subordination but the semantic relations between the clauses appear to be more coordinate than subordinate. Thus, the meaning of subordination is largely weakened in attributive continuative clauses introduced by the relative pronoun 'which', e.g. She said 'no' which was exactly what I had expected to hear (J. Fowles). The relations between the two clauses are closer to coordinate, which can be verified by the possibility to replace the subordinate connective ''which' by the coordinate conjunction 'and' without changing essentially the meaning of the sentence. Compare: She said 'no' and that was exactly what I had expected to hear. Another example of weakened subordination is observed in sentences introduced by the conjunction 'whereas'. E.g. She was very tall whereas her husband hardly reached her shoulder. The meaning of this formally complex sentence can be rendered by a compound sentence: She was very tall and her husband hardly reached her shoulder.
In the sphere of the compound sentence we have one type of sentences which semantically are close to a complex sentence. This is the type based on causative-consecutive relations between the clauses. E.g. / missed my bus therefore 1 was late. The same type of relations is expressed by a complex sentence, e.g. As I I missed my bus I was late. The difference between the two types of composite sentence appears to be more formal than semantic: the conjunction 'therefore' is conventionally referred to coordinative conjunctions, though the causative-consecutive relations are much closer to subordination than coordination: the consequence always depends on the cause.
Besides these pure types there are also peripheral types: semicomplex and semicompound sentences which contain structures of secondary predication: infinitival, participial and gerundial constructions, absolute constructions with or without a participle and structures with the so-called double predicate. These structures of secondary predication establish the relations of functional synonymy with the corresponding subordinate clauses or, in the case of semicompound sentences, with the corresponding clause of a compound sentence. E.g. There is so much work to be done — There is so much work that has to be done.
The structural classification of sentences can be presented by the following scheme:
Sentence Simple Semi-composite Composite
Compound Complex
Билет 40. The category of aspect.
Aspect is a grammatically category that expresses the speaker's interpretation of the internal character of the action in its relation to such features as internal limit, result, duration, iteration etc. These features may find both a grammatical and a lexical expression in languages. The grammatical category of aspect also displays an idioethnic character as different languages may choose different features of action for the basis of the grammatical category of aspect.
The grammatical category of aspect in English has at its basis a different feature of action, that of duration and is constituted on the basis of the opposition of Indefinite and Continuous forms of the verb. This opposition embraces the whole class of English verbs both the finite forms and the forms of the Infinitive.
The formal marker of the Continuous form is the discontinuous morpheme be ----- ing (one of the few morphemes which has no allomorphs). The semantic marker, i.e. the meaning of the Continuous form is limited duration, or process. ,e.g.
1)What are you doing here?
-1 work here (M. Dickens).
The analysis of the difference between the semantics of the opposed forms of the aspect shows that the forms of the Continuous aspect often denote actions which are directly perceived by the speaker (they are perceived in the process of their happening, this is why this meaning is called 'limited duration') whereas the Indefinite forms are used to denote actions /events/states which may not be directly perceived but rather known to the speaker.
The meaning of duration, under the influence of various contextual and pragmatic factors may be modified and presented by a number of syntagmatic meanings, or variants. The most common syntagmatic meanings are:
1) Simultaneity to another action. This meaning is actualized in the structure of a composite sentence or a sequence of sentences, e.g. Ivory was still straining to get behind the cyst, still calm, incisive, unruffled...
2) A temporary character of a state or a quality, e.g. Rennie decided that she -was being silly and possibly neurotic as well (M.Atwood);
3) Intensity. This meaning is usually found with verbs of sense perception, desirability and liking/disliking.
4) Recurrence of action. This meaning is realized with terminative verbs, e.g. All through supper I was lifting up the white tablecloth to look at my feet under the. table (E. O'Brien).
5) Tentativeness, lack of assertiveness. This use of the Continuous form is conditioned by pragmatic factors. The difference between the two phrases / hope that and / am hoping that lies in the degree of assertiveness. In this pragmatic function the Continuous form is often combined with the attitudinal past - both are used to make a statement less assertive and a request more tentative. E.g.
The Continuous forms carry out a specific function in the text. This function is best seen when we compare the use of the Past Indefinite as the main form of the narration with the Past Continuous used in the narration. The forms of the Past Indefinite express a succession of past actions thus carrying out the function of the text progression in the narration and the forms of the Past Continuous, suspend the narration as the writer focuses on details, particulars, descriptions.
This function of the Continuous form can be defined as descriptive. The picture created by the use of the Past Continuous is not static, however, but dynamic, like a picture in a movie
The forms of the Common aspect as the weak member of the opposition have a wide and abstract meaning which is best defined negatively as non-continuous, they may denote repeated actions and single occurrences. Due to the abstract and wide character of their grammatical meaning the Indefinite forms have a greater frequency of use as compared to the Continuous forms .The opposition 'Common Aspect :: Continuous Aspect' is often neutralized and the Common aspect is used in the sphere of the Continuous aspect. It becomes possible when the meaning of duration is expressed by such elements of context as: the durative character of the verb, adverbial phrases, prepositions and conjunctions with durative semantics.
Neutralization does not take place when the verb is used not in its primary, but in its secondary meaning.
41) The category of ASPECT in modern English
Aspect – a gram.category which characterizes the way in which the action expressed by the verb is carries out
In Russian – 2 aspects: imperfective (несов.), perfective (сов.)
Imperfective expresses an
action or a state without indicating a limit beyond which this act/state can
not continue - eq.
Perfective denotes actions
that have a limit beyond which this action can’t continue
eq.
In Russian aspect is a gram.cat. As each aspect has a certain meaning and form to express this meaning. There are certain markers of each aspect – eq. делать-сделать
As the Eng.language grammarians of the past didn’t find aspective distinction of the v., instead they spoke about 4 groups of tenses: indefinite, continuous, perfect, perfect-continuous
The majority of grammarians believe the Eng.verb has aspect. They admit that this gram.category may be expressed:
· lexically aspect is expressed by the lex.character of the v. The verb falls into 2 groups:
1) terminative: apply a limit beyond which the action can’t continue (to break, to open)
2) non-terminative: the action may go on indefinitely (to love, to sit)
Most English verbs are polysemantic and may be terminative in one meaning and non-terminative in another
It’s never shown formally. There is no marker of belonging to this aspect. The meaning is clear from the context.
· grammatically an opposition of corresponding forms (take – be taken)
1) common – the form of the common aspect isn’t marked
2) continuous – is marked by the discont.morpheme be + ing
The terms used to describe aspect are not stable (progressive - perfective; generic – temporalry)
The difference bw the aspect forms isn’t temporal. The tense is the same with both forms
The cont.aspect has a specific meaning – it’s used for incomplete actions that are in progress at the moment under consideration or at a certain period
eq He was studying at 5 o’clock
The common aspect shows the action in a general way, may denote a complete/incomplete action but the form doesn’t state it
Prof.Barhudarov: common aspect = non-continuous.
Common aspect may denote:
1)a momentary action (eq she dropped the plate)
2)a recurrent/repeated action (eq.I get up at 7 o’clock every day)
3)an action occupying a long period of time (eq.he lived in St.-Pb from 1940 to 1965)
4)an action of unlimited duration (eq.The
Volga flows into the
42) Classification of sentences based on their communicative function
Aspects of the sentence:
- the structural aspect – the form of the sentence, the way words are organized into it
- the semantic aspect – the meaning of the sent.
- the actual aspect – determines which part of the sent conveys the most imp.info
- the pragmatic aspect – the use of the sent.as a unit of communication: a statement, a question, an order, a request, a promise
Types of communication:
declarative, interrogative, imperative (incl.emotional) and exclamatory
Declarative – the subj precedes the verb
Interrogative – aux.v in front of the subj.special w-order, very few modal words – modal w-s expressing full certainty (certainly, surely…) can’t appear in a sent, expressing a question
Semi-interrogative sent-s – “oh, you’ve seen him?”
Imperative – no gram.subj, the v – in the imperative mood; modal words, expressing possibility (perhaps,maybe) are incompatible with orders and requests
The notion of exclamatory sent-s and their relation to the other 3 types presents some difficulty: every sent, whether narrative, interrogative or imperative, may be exclamatory, i.e. it may convey the speaker’s feelings and be characterized by emphatic intonation and by an exclamation mark
Eq. But he can’t do anything to you! What can he possibly do to you! Scarlett, spare me!
Purely exclamatory sentence: “Oh, for God’s sake, Henry!”
The structure of a certain sent.may be used for other communicative purposes than those that are characteristics of the sent-s of this class
eq. Yes/No questions – You will speak to him? – declarative
Rhetorical questions – Is that the reason for despair? (of course not)
43) The problem of the Future Indefinite and the Future-in-the-Past in Modern English
The category of tense – verbal cat, which reflects the objective category of time and expresses on this background the relations bw the time of the action and the time of the utterance (высказывание)
The future tense form is analytical – made up by the auxiliary verbs shall, will and the infinitive which is the lexical part.
The reasons the fut.tense is analytical:
1) traditionally anal.form is to contain an aux.part which carries the gram.info and a lex.part which is responsible for the meaning – shall/will + inf
2) verbs shall/will used to be modal, nowadays partially lost their modal meaning. But retained modal colouring: eq. Will you join us – a request; Who shall answer the phone – obligation
3) the combination shall/will +inf on the whole may have some modal meaning – of uncertainty – but the meaning of uncertainty is always present when we speak about the future. Future tense has a special king of modality – a modality of futurality
Reasons shall/will + inf should be treated as a modal combination:
1) formally shall/will+inf is no way different from can/may+inf, etc. It presents a free combination of a modal verb+inf. It’s easily combined with dif.types of inf. A future action is never real, it’s possible, probable, planned… there is close similarity bw all modal structures
2) shall/will + inf doesn’t answer the requirements for an anal.form – doesn’t contain a discontinuous morpheme found in all other anal.forms
3) shall/will + inf isn’t the only construction that expresses future actions. English is rich in means of expressing futurality: to be going to, to be about to, to be to do smth… Purely anal.forms are usually the only means of expressing a certain gram.meaning
4) shall/will like all other modal verbs have their past forms – and they also combine with dif.types of the inf.
2 groups of linguists:
- there are 3 tense forms
- there are 2 tense forms – there is no special gram.form to express fut.actions. But fut.actons can be expressed by a modal combination shall/will+inf and a number of other lex., gram., lex-gram and contextual means
the Future-in-the-past and the Fut.cont-in-the-past:
-are used chiefly in subordinate clauses depending on a main clause having its predicate verb in one of the past tenses eq. It didn’t mean she was content to live
- do not easily fit into a system of tenses represented by a straight line running out of the past into the future
- starting point isn’t in the present, from which the past and the fut are reckoned, but the past itself – the past is the new centre of system
- in many sentences the relation bw the action denoted by the verb and the time of the utterance(высказывание) is uncertain – the action may or may not have taken place already
- what is certain is that it was future from the point of view of the time when the action denoted by the verb took place
44) The structural, semantic and pragmatic aspects of the English sentence
Aspects of the sentence:
- the structural aspect – the form of the sentence, the way words are organized into it
- the semantic aspect – the meaning of the sent.
- the actual aspect – determines which part of the sent conveys the most imp.info
- the pragmatic aspect – the use of the sent.as a unit of communication: a statement, a question, an order, a request, a promise
Structural division:
I.
-simple
-composite: compound and complex
II. extended – unextended, complete – incomplete (because of interruptions or changes of mind on the part of speaker
-elliptical sent-s: 1) contextual/syntagmatic ellipsis – depend.on what has been before (eq. Who did it? – John) an incomplete form for complete sent-s. The incomp.structure of the sent can be known from the previous sent
2) grammatical/paradigmatic ellipsis – eq. Can’t hear you. – do not depend on what has gone before. The structure can be completed – from the paradigm of the analogous complete sent. The incompleteness is purely grammatical, the structure doesn’t depend on the previous context
46) The imperative Mood – represented by one form only, without any suffix or ending
Has no person, number, tense, aspect, it’s limited to one type of sentence only – imperative sent.
Usually a verb in the imperative sent has no pronoun, but may be used in emotional speech – eq. You leave me alone!
The Imp.Mood expresses a command or a request to perform an action addressed to smb, but not the action itself. As it doesn’t actually denote a specific action it has no tense category; the action always refers to the future. Aspect distinctions and voice distinctions aren’t characteristic of the imp.mood, although forms such as eq. be writing, be warned sometimes occur.
The Imood form coincides with the plain stem of the verb, for example – Come here! Sit down
The negative form is built by means of the aux. DO
Eq Don’t be a fool. Don’t worry.
Emphatic requests\commands: eq. Do come and stay with us. Do be quiet.
In commands and requests addressed to a third person or persons the analytical form let…+inf is used. When a person addressed is denoted by a personal pronoun, it’s used in the objective case
Eq. Let us go together
Let him finish his dinner first
In negative sent-s the anal.forms take the particle not without an auxiliary
The anal.forms differ in meaning from the synthetic forms, because their meaning is closely connected with the meaning of the pronoun included in the form.
Let us do smth – an invitation to a joint action
Let him do it – the meaning of permission
The imp.mood is used only in imperative sentences and can’t be used in questions
47) The number of voices in Modern English
The category of Voice expresses the relations bw the subject and the action, but according to other view Voice expresses the relations bw the subj and the obj of the action
Opposition: active – passive. Passive – marked -> pattern “be + II participle”, active –unmarked
Forms of Fut.Cont, Present Perf.Cont, Past Perf.Cont, Future Perf.Cont – no parallel forms in passive
Any other voices??? -> doubts and controversy
- the reflexive voice (eq.He dressed himself) – the agent and the object of the action simultaneously
- the reciprocal voice (They greeted each other) – not 1 person; action aimed at the other member of the same group
- the middle voice (The door opened) – the form of the v is act, but the meaning is passive
48) Functional sentence perspective - actual division of the sentence
one unit contains given information (supplied by the context), the other – new info for the sake of which the sentence has been uttered or written
The theory of the division into 2 units, in accordance with the message they convey, is known as the actual division of the sentence \ funct.sent.perspective
Ian Firbas (Czech):
the info known from the context – theme
new info – rheme
Michael Halliday: given <-> new
Charles Pocket: topic<-> comment
In European languages – new info – at the end of the sentence
The group of the subj.(together with abbr-s) generally, but not always coincides with the theme, and the group of the predicate coincides with the rheme
The most important piece of new info occupies the end position of the sent
Eq. The girl told him everything
↑Theme Rheme ↑ ↑ (the most important part)
But English has a strict word-order, it has special means of expressing the rhemes
- Logical stress (only in oral speech)
- The passive voice helps to reverse w-order and makes it possible to place new info at the end of the sentence
- The indef.article / no article with certain nouns: eq. The door opened and an old man came into the room She bought an unusual old ring
- Construction with an emphatic
“it”
eq. It was to
- There is / there are
- W-order within certain parts of the sentence eq. give smb smth give smth to smb
- In adj-s: young, old, little – form one sense-group with the noun. If some adj-s are before these 3 words you want to emphasize these adj-s eq. ambitious young man He is a young ambitious man (though young but ambitious)
- Particles only,even
There are other means of expressing the rheme, lexical or grammatical. During the past few years the theory of the actual division of the sentence has been criticized for its binary character. It isn’t always possible to divide a sentence exactly into 2 parts. It’s enough only to establish the center/focus of info
The means of expressing theme/rheme depend on the gram.structure of the given language
49. Cohesion as the main text property and means of expressing cohesion in English
Cohesion is the main property of a text. The concept of it was first developed by Michael Halliday. It’s the relations existing among the sentences & clauses of a text. They are signaled by certain gram.& lex. means that are called cohesive. They mark which sentences are related & in what manner. It’s not a sufficient condition for the creation of the text.
Cohesion is characterized by 2 types of relation: 1) logical-semantic, 2) anaphoric. Each of them have various gram.& lex.-gram.means of expressing these relations.
1) between sent-s in a paragraph can be of different types: of cause & consequence condition, time, concession… They may be implied or explicitly expressed. Ex. She didn’t go to school. She had been ill for 2 days. The can be expressed with the help of conjunctions (because,etc.)
2) between 2 or more items in cohesive sent-s, which refer to the same thing. These items often form cohesive chains.
Text cohesion & its relations may be realized through dif. means:
- Lexical: the repetition of the item, the use of synonyms, words of the same root.
- Lexical-grammatical: a) pronouns of dif. classes (he, she, they…); b) articles (“a\an” points to the center of communication; “the” – anaphorically used)
- Grammatical (the order is connected with actual division of the sent. The rheme of the previous sent. becomes the theme of the following one: ex. I saw a man. The man was tall.) Word-order as a syntactic means of sent. connection shows that the structure of the sent. depends on the structure of another.
- Conjunctions/ conjunct. words ( join not only composite sent., but also utterances within a text. Ex. Then, there…)
- Incomplete sent-s of the sintagmatic type can be understood with the help of the context.
50. Means of expressing gender in Modern English
It’s doubtful whether the grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English. Gender doesn’t find regular morphological expression. The distinction of male, female and neuter may correspond to the lexical meaning of the noun:
Masculine (names of male beings) - boy, man, husband, cock, bachelor
Feminine (names of female beings) – girl, woman, wife, cow, hen
Neuter (names of inanimate objects) – table, house.
Gender may be expressed by word-formation:
a) feminine suffixes –ess ( actress, hostess, tigress), -ine (heroine), -ette (usherette)
b) compounds of dif.patterns: 1. N+N stem (boy-friend-girl-friend; a Tom-cat- a Tabby-cat; a doctor-a woman-doctor; a landlord- a landlady); 2. Pronoun+ N (a he-wolf- a she-wolf; a he-cousin-a she-cousin); 3. oppositions of lexemes ( niece-nephew, bull-cow, girl-boy).
From the point of view of gender distinctions English nouns can be divided into 2 groups: person-nouns(neuter) & non-person nouns ( which are subdivided into feminine & masculine), but this opposition is not absolute and doesn’t embrace the whole class of nouns. There are a lot of nouns in English, that belong to the so-called “common gender” (person, cousin, parent, president, friend, doctor).
There are also some traditional associations of certain nouns with gender:
a) moon and earth are referred as feminine, sun- as masculine.
b) the names of vessels (ship, boat, ice-breaker, steamer) are referred to as feminine.
c) the names of vehicles (car, carriage, coach) may also be referred to as feminine, especially by their owners.
d) the names of countries, if the country is not considered as a mere geographical territory, are referred to as feminine.
All these arguments speak in favour of treating the category of gender in English nouns as not a purely grammatical, but a lexico-gram. category, because gender finds a lexical (special suffixes & lexemes) and a gram. expression in the language ( replacing nouns by personal pronouns)
51. The problem of homonymity in the system of English moods
The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions and has been treated in so many ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less acceptable conclusion. The only points in the sphere of mood which haven’t been disputed are the following: 1) there is a category of mood in Modern English ( Mood- is the grammatical category of the verb, which expresses the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker’s point of view); 2) there are at least 2 moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the indicative. (The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it’s the most developed system including all the categories of the verb. Semantically it’s a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It’s the most objective of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact: Ex. Water consists of oxygen.)
Linguists differ greatly in the understanding of this category, especially in the number of grammatical forms of the mood they find in English. Thus, Smirnitsky, Vasilevskaya, Akhmanova find 6 moods (‘indicative’, ‘imperative’, ‘subjunctive1’, ‘subjunctive2’, ‘conditional’ and ‘suppositional’), Ilyish, Ivanova find only 3 moods ( indicative, imperative, subjunctive), Barkhudarov and Shteling distinguish only the ‘indicative’ and the ‘subjunctive’ moods. Max Deutschbein finds 16 moods.
Such a variety of opinions lies in the complexity of the category itself and also 2 other phenomena. The first is the problem of drawing a borderline between polysemy and homonymy. Both permeate (пронизывают) the structure of the English language at all levels and sometimes the borderline between them is hard to draw. Ex. He stopped doing it. – He wish he stopped doing it. (here me can’t say clearly, if it’s one polysemantic form or two morphological homonyms). The other reason for the controversy of opinions about the scope of the category of mood is the fact that the grammatical category of the mood is a component of the functional-semantic category of modality- a complex & heterogeneous category, which includes other means of expressing various modal meanings. Some linguists include the combination of modal verbs with Infinitive into the system of grammatical moods and in this case the number of moods grows considerably.
52. The theory of speech acts
Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, and so on. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising.
The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic (классифицированна
SPEECH-ACT THEORY AND RHETORIC
In
his famous work, "How to do Things with Words," J. L. Austin outlined
his theory of speech acts and the concept of performative
language, in which to say something is to do something. To make the statement
“I promise that p” (in which p is the propositional content of the utterance)
is to perform the act of promising as opposed to making a statement that may be
judged true or false. Performatives cannot be true or
false, only felicitous or infelicitous.
53. Controversial problems of the part of speech classification: VERBALS
The verb has finite & non-finite forms, the latter are called verbals. They have some features in common with the finite forms, but also some peculiarities of their own. They don’t express person, number or mood. But like the finite forms the verbals have aspect (infinitive), correlation and voice distinctions. There is a present & a past tense in the system of verbals.
There are 3 verbals in English: the participle, the gerund and the infinitive. In Russian we also have three non-finite forms (причастие, деепричастие, инфинитив), but they don’t fully coincide with those in the English language.
Lexically non-finites don’t differ from finite forms. Grammatically the difference between them lies in the fact that they denote a secondary action, a process related to that expressed by the finite form.
The characteristic traits of the verbals are as follows:
1) They have a double nature, nominal & verbal. The participle combines the characteristics of a verb with those of an adjective; the gerund & the infinitive combine the characteristics of a verb with those of a noun. The verbal meaning of “action, process” is presented as some kind of “substance” (gerund, infinitive), or “quality” (participle).
2) They have some peculiar morphemes: -ing (gerund & participle I); -(e)d, -(e)n (participle II), to (infinitive).
3) Syntactically the verbal character of the non-finites is manifested mainly in their combinability. They form connections with adverbs, nouns, pronouns (denoting objects of action) like finite verbs, and they connect with finite verbs, like nouns or adverbs. They are very seldom used as predicates, but they are used in almost any other function in the sent.
54. Modality. Means of expressing modality.
The main categories of the sent. are predicativity, negation & modality. The category of modality is one of the most complicated linguistic categories which has various forms of its expression in the language. It has also a lot of various definitions & interpretations. In the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary modality is defined as a functional-semantic category which expresses different types of relations between the utterance and reality as well as dif. types of subjective evaluation (оценка) of the information contained in the utterance. Modality expresses 2 types of relations and includes 2 levels. That’s why the linguists usually differentiate between 2 types of modality: objective (or primary) and subjective (or secondary). These two types of modality were first introduced on the material of the Russian language by Vinogradov. The consistent differentiation of the two types of modality was also stimulated by the studies of Ch. Bally who considered that each utterance consists of two parts, the part which presents information ( he called it 'dictum') and the part which presents the speaker's evaluation of this information (he called it 'modus').
The primary modality expresses the relation of the contents of the sentence to reality as established by the speaker who, choosing the appropriate form of the mood presents the event as real, unreal or desirable. It is expressed by the grammatical form of mood and thus it is a component of predicativity and as such it always finds a grammatical expression in the sentence. E.g. You are my wife. Be my wife. I wish you were my wife. Thus, primary modality as a component of predicativity is an obligatory feature of the sentence - we cannot make a sentence without expressing primary modality.
Secondary modality presents another layer of modality, built over the primary modality. It' does not always find an explicit expression in the sentence. Secondary modality is not homogeneous. It contains two layers and we can differentiate between two types of secondary modality. The first type expresses the relations between the subject of the sentence and the action. The action may be presented as possible, permissive, obligatory, necessary, desirable or unnecessary for the subject. It is expressed by the modal verbs in their verb-oriented meanings: ability, possibility, permission, necessity, obligation etc. E.g. Children must be seen but not heard. I can jump puddles. You may be free for today. The second type of secondary modality expresses the attitude of the speaker to the contents of the utterance or the speaker's evaluation of the event presented in the utterance. This type of modality can be expressed by: 1)modal words and modal adverbs and modal particles: maybe, probably, certainly, of course, perhaps, sure, evidently, supposedly, luckily, fortunately etc. ( E.g. This is probably the best chance you have ever had); 2) by modal verbs in their sentence-oriented meanings: probability, doubt, supposition, certainty, disbelief (E.g. She couldn't have done it alone) ;3) by modalized verbs seem, to appear, happen, chance (She appeared to be holding something back from him); 4) by the so called performative verbs and phrases which name speech and mental acts: think, suppose, guess, doubt, be certain, be sure etc. (e.g. I guess you are right; I am afraid this is true); 5) by special syntactic structures like 'tag questions' (This is true, isn't it?), as well as 6) by intonation and word order. As we can see the modal verbs participate in the expression of two kinds of secondary modality.
56. The problem of analytical forms in the system of English Moods
Most analytical forms of the subjunctive mood are built by means of the auxiliaries which developed from the modal verbs should and would, plus the infinitive of the notional verb(indefinite or perfect). The auxiliaries, generally called mood auxiliaries, have lost their lexical meaning and are used in accordance with strict rules in certain patterns of sent-s or clauses. Ex. I wish you would stay with us some days more.; If he had known, he would have come.
Some linguist think that besides
these 2 mood auxiliaries, analytical forms of the subjunctive mood may be built
up with the help of mood auxiliaries may,
might and less frequently shall and will. Ex. I went to
But it should be noted that not any combination of should and would with the infinitive is the subjunctive mood. When the verbs should and would preserve their lexico-modal meaning (should- obligation, would- volition) they form modal phases (compound verbal predicate): Ex. You should consult a doctor (= you ought to); He would come and sit with us for hours (repetition of the action).
Analytical forms may be divided into 3 groups, according to their use and function.
1) the forms should+infinitive (for the first person singular & plural) and would+infinitive (for the other persons). This system coincides in firm with the future in the past and is parallel to the future indef.tense in the indicative mood. There is a strong tendency in Modern English to use would for all persons. These forms denote hypothetical actions, either imagined as resulting from hypothetical conditions, or presented as a real possibility. Ex. I shouldn’t praise the boy so much, he may get spoiled.; Would you help me if I need your help?
2) The form would+infinitive for all persons, both singular & plural. This form is highly specialized in meaning; it expresses a desirable action in the future. Ex. I wish you would go there too.
3) The form should+infinitive for all persons. This form stands apart in the system of the verb, as contrary to the general tendency to use either 2 forms –shall/should and will/would, or else to use 1 form- will/would for all persons.
Some linguists (prof. Vorontsova) are of opinion that Modern English possesses analytical forms of the imperative mood for the first and the third persons build up with the help of the semantically weakened unstressed let, as in Let us go, Let him come…Prof. Ilyish emphasizes that the “let-constructions” are therefore not in an way morphological phenomena. They belong to syntax.