Chapter 1. Grammar in the systematic conception of language

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

ТАТАРСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ГУМАНИТАРНО-ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

Учебно-методическое пособие по курсу

«THEORETICAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR»

 

 

КАЗАНЬ 2008

 

 

ББК 81.2-2=432.11

УДК 802-5 С14

 

Составители: доктор филологических наук, профессор

А.Г. Садыкова

кандидат педагогических наук, доцент

Э.И. Биктемирова

кандидат филологических наук, ассистент

А.Р. Гильмутдинова

 

 

Научный редактор: доктор филологических наук, профессор

Е.Ф.Арсентьева (КГУ)

 

Рецензенты: доктор филологических наук, профессор

М.И.Солнышкина (ТГГПУ)

доктор филологических наук, профессор

М.Н.Закамулина (КГЭУ)

 

Данное учебное пособие предназначено для студентов факультетов иностранных языков и языковых вузов. Основная задача курса — развитие лингвистического мышления студентов, научного понимания грамматических и лексико-грамматических категорий современного английского языка. В центре внимания проблемные вопросы теории грамматики на современном этапе развития языкознания.

Учебное пособие состоит из двух частей. Часть 1 носит теоретический характер, включает в себя конспекты лекций и семинаров по основным темам курса. Часть 2 содержит практические задания на закрепление изученного теоретического материала.

Учебное пособие содержит также глоссарий, список рекомендуемой литературы по данной дисциплине для самостоятельного изучения и список вопросов, выносимых на зачет или экзамен.

 

 

CONTENTS

p.

Foreword Chapter 1. Grammar in the systematic conception of language Chapter 2. Categorial structure of the word. Chapter 3. Morphemic structure of the word. Chapter 4. Parts of Speech. Various Principles of Classification Chapter 5. Noun. 5. 1. The Noun and Its Categories 5.2. The category of gender. 5.3. The problem of the category of case of the noun. 5.4. The category of number of the noun 5.5. Article determination of the noun. Chapter 6. The adjective. Degrees of comparison. 6.1. General characteristics of theadjective. 6.2. The category of degrees of comparison. Chapter 7. Adverb Chapter 8. The verb. 8.1. The verb as a part of speech. Classification of verbs. 8.2. The category of aspect of the verb. 8.3. The categories of person and number of the verb. 8.4. The category of voice. 8.5. The category of mood of the verb. 8.6. The category of tense of the verb. 8.7. Non-finite verbs. Chapter 9. The sentence. 9.1. Sentence. General information. 9.2. General characteristics of the composite sentence. 9.3. The complex and the compound sentences. 9.4. Actual division of the sentence 9.5. Parts of the sentence 9.6. Word order in English. Chapter 10. Punctuation. Chapter 11. History of English grammatical theory. Main grammar schools Glossary Exercises Exam questions Bibliography

 

 

FOREWORD

 

The book is designed for the students of the University faculties of foreign languages and Teachers' Training Colleges. The aim of the book is to introduce the students into the problems of grammatical theory of English, new views of language as a system, applying the latest findings in the study of grammatical phenomena by Soviet and foreign scholars in recent times.

The main aim of the manual is to get students interested in the study of the language, to develop their linguistic abilities through independent study of works on grammatical language study, to arouse interest in the problems of grammar.

This manual presents a concise description of the general notions in the theory of grammar, the main theories in the development of its study.

Given material deals with two essential parts of grammar known as morphology and syntax. The light is thrown upon controversial points of such grammar issues as parts of speech, grammatical categories of various parts of speech, their classifications, based on different approaches, basic questions on characteristics and classification of sentences, some information about punctuation rules, etc.

Suggested exercises have been selected with a view to extend the practical knowledge of the language. The offered glossary gives the students the idea of the basic notions of theoretical grammar. The students can independently expand their knowledge by studying the books from Bibliography and trying to answer the exam questions.

Methods of scientific research used in linguistic studies have always been connected with the general trends in the science of language. That is why the book gives a brief survey of linguistic schools in the theory of English grammar so that the students could understand various theoretical approaches to the study of language structure.

 

Syntagmatic Paradigmatic

Linear relations between units in a segmental sequence (Morphemes in a word, words in a sentence)

Intra-systemic relations. They find their expression in the fact that each linguistic unit is included in a set of similar units with common formal and functional properties (Paradigm of forms)

 

 

Common differential

the basis of contrast immediately express a function in question

The notion of GC is central in Theoretical Grammar, it's very important to single out the GC of different types of speech. For that purpose the oppositional theory was worked out. It was originally formulated as a phonological theory.

 

According to the number of opposed members oppositions can be:

 

Binary More than binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.)

 

Three main qualitative types of opposition:

 

privative (отрицательная) Based on a morph. differential feature which is present in its strong (marked) member (+) and absent in its weak (unmarked) member (–)   work (-) – worked (+) The differential feature is the suff. –(e)d

gradual   A contrastive pair or group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a feature but by the degree of it big – bigger – biggest (the GC of comparison)

equipollent (равноценный) A contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features.In morph. it is mostly confined to formal relations am – is – are (correlation of the person forms of the verb to be)

 

In various contextual conditions one member of the opposition can be used instead of the other, counter-member. This phenomenon is called “ oppositional reduction ” or oppositional substitution ”.

e.g. Man conquers nature. (“man” is used in the sg. but it stands for people in general. The weak member of the categorical opposition of number has replaced the stronger member.)

Tonight we start for London. (The opposition “present –future” has been reduced, the weaker member (present) replacing the strong one (future)).

Types of categories

· - notional (of quantity, agent);

· - semantic (of gender, modality);

· - morphological (number and case of nouns; degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs; tense, voice, aspect, correlation, mood of verbs);

· - syntactical (of predicativity, of agent).

 

Notion of the morpheme.

Morpheme – is one of the central notions of grammatical theory, without which no serious attempt at grammatical study can be made. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of the language.

There may be zero morphemes that is the absence of morpheme. It indicates certain meanings (book-books). Zero morphemes indicate singular form, s-morpheme - plurality.

In traditional grammar the study of the morpheme was conducted in the light of 2 criteria (positional and semantic). The combination of these criteria gives us a classification of morphemes.

According to their position morphemes can be prepositional (prefix), central (root)and postpositional (suffixes and inflexions).

Traditionally the following types of morphemes are distinguished:

Root morphemes Affixal morphemes (affixes)

- prefixes

- suffixes

- inflections (grammatical suffixes)

 

Prefixes, root-morphemes, lexical suffixes are lexical morphemes in English.

Only grammatical suffixes (inflections) are form-building means in English.

(Russian suffixes and prefixes are form-building)

It's necessary to distinguish between form-building and word-building means. Word-building means express notions.

e.g. work – worker –> -er – lexical suffix

workable –> -able – lex. suffix

 

They build new words, they're treated in Lexicology.

Form-building means are means of building up new forms of words. They are treated in grammar (morphology).

Both form-building and word-building affixes can be:

 

productive non-productive

-er; -or; -ent; -ness -dom; -hood (lex. suffixes)

-(e)s; -(e)d; -ing; -er, -est -en; -em (grammatical suffixes)

 

Both word-building and form-building suffixes can be polysemantic: e.g. -ly (lex. suff) can build adj, adv. => loudly – adv.; friendly – adj.

-s (es) (grammatical suff.) forms plural/singular of nouns + possessive case.

According to semantic criteria roots are the bearers of meaning. Prefix and suffixes-have lexico-semantic function. Inflexions have no lexical meaning or function, however an inflexion morpheme can get a lexical meaning in some special cases (colour-colours // custom-customs)-lexicalization.

There are some cases when one and the same morpheme may function as an inflexion and suffix (morpheme-ing-as a suffix deriving verbal nouns has inflexion forming gerund/non-finite verbal forms.

Suffix is a morpheme coming after the root, it may be applied to derivation post root morpheme. Inflexion is any morpheme deriving a form of a word and having no lexical meaning. Inflexion is a morpheme expressing case and number in nouns and person and number in verbs.

Morphemes can be:

-free and bound. Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words. On the contrary, free morphemes can build up words by themselves, i.e. can be used “freely”. e.g. handful – the root hand is a free morpheme, the suffix –ful is a bound morpheme.

-overt and covert. Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up words; the covert morpheme is identified as a contrastive absence of morpheme expressing a certain function. The notion of covert morpheme coincides with the notion of zero morpheme in the oppositional description of grammatical categories.

e.g. clock-s- 2 morphemes (a lexical morpheme and a grammatical one)

clock-Ø – 2 morphemes (the overt root and the covert (implicit) zero morpheme Ø)

-segmental and suprasegmental. Supra-segmental morphemes are intonation contours, accents, pauses.

-additive. Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, as they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation: e.g. look-ed; small-er.

On the basis of linear characteristics, “continuous (linear)” morphemes and “discontinuous” morphemes are distinguished.

The discontinuous morpheme is a 2-element grammatical unit, which is the analytical from comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix:

· e.g. be … ing – is going (continuous)

· have … en – has gone (perfect)

· be … en – is taken (passive)

Continuous morpheme is uninterruptedly expressed.

 

Morphemes

 

Planes of language.

For better understanding the nature of grammar it is important to discriminate the 2 planes of language: the plane of content and the plane of expression.

The plane of content comprises the purely semantic elements contained in language. The plane of expression comprises the material (formal) units of language taken by themselves, without their meaning. The 2 planes are inseparably connected, so that no meaning can be realized without some material means of expression. On the other hand the correspondence between the planes of content and expression is very complex. This complexity is clearly illustrated by the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.

In case of polysemy (спинка-спинка) and homonymy (ключ-ключ) two or more units of plane of content correspond to one unit of plane of expression. In case of synonymy two or more plane of expression correlate to one plane of content.

Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. Syntagmatic relations are linear relations between units in a segmental sequence. Morphemes in the words are connected syntagmatically.

Syntagma is a combination of 2 words. There are 4 main types of notional syntagmas:

· predicative (subject and predicate)

· objective (verb and it’s object)

· attributive (noun and it’s attribute)

· adverbial (modified notional words as a verb, adjective or adverb with it’s adverbial modifiers).

The other type of relations is called paradigmatic. They exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur.

Chapter 4. Parts of Speech. Various Principles of Classification

 

The words of the language are divided into grammatical classes which differ in formal and semantic features. Traditionally they are called parts of speech (p/of/sp). This term is purely conventional and was introduced in the grammatical teaching of Ancient Greece.

The problem of the parts of speech is the most controversial one.

The first principle is called the Semantic Approach.

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-Рояль, 1660) p/of/sp are defined as invariants of the substance-logical plane. 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 second principle, the Formal Approach states that 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

(changeable forms) (static 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 language such as Chinese, where morphological system is non-existent or poorly-developed.

2) p/of/sp are grammatical word classes (Реформатский), he takes into account their morphological an syntactical properties (form and function). This is the borderline between the second and the third approaches

According to the third principle, 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’ has also 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 affecting their general structural meaning. Repeated interchanges in the substitutions of the primarily identified positional (notional) words in different 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 classification of p/of/sp suggested by Russian grammarians is based on three principles on which the classification is based:

Meaning

the meaning common to all the words of a given class and constituting its essence.

e.g. thingness of nouns

process of verbs

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

Function

the syntactical properties of a type of word

the method of combining with other words (deals with phrases)

its function in the sentence (deals with sentences)

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 something extra-linguistic:

e.g. The match was called off because it was raining. (the conjunction because denotes the connection between two processes).

Some words belonging to a particular p/of/sp 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)

Notional

Here belong:

· the noun

1) the categorial meaning of substance

2) the forms of number and case; the specific suffixal forms of derivation

3) the substantive functions in the sentence (subject, object, substantival predicative); prepositional connections, modification by an adjective.

· the adjective

1) the categorial meaning of property

2) the forms of degrees of comparison, the specific suffixal forms of derivation

3) adjectival functions in the sentence (attribute to a noun, adjectival predicative)

· the numeral

1) the categorial meaning of number (cardinal and ordinal)

2) the narrow set of simple numerals; the specific forms of composition for compound numerals; the specific suffixal forms of derivation for ordinal numerals

3) the functions of numerical attribute and numerical substantive

· the pronoun

1) the categorial meaning of indication (deixis)

2) the narrow sets of various status with the corresponding formal properties of categorial changeability and word-building

3) the substantival and adjectival functions for different sets

· the verb

1) the categorial meaning of process (presented in the two upper series of forms, respectively, as finite process and non-finite process)

2) the forms of the verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood; the opposition of the finite and non-finite forms

3) the function of the finite predicate for the finite verb; the mixed verbal - other than verbal functions for the non-finite verb

· the adverb

1) the calegorial meaning of the secondary property, i.e. the property of process or another property

2) the forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs; the specific suffixal forms of derivation

3) the functions of various adverbial modifiers

The unity of notional lexemes can be demonstrated by the following four-stage series reflected in regular phrase correlations:

a recognizing note – a notable recognition – to note recognizingly – to recognize notably

This can be symbolically expressed by the formula:

 

St (n.v.a.d) St – morphemic stem, n – noun, v – verb, a – adjective, d - adverb

e.g. nation – to nationalize – national – nationally

friend – to befriend- friendly – friendly

The general order of classes in the series evidently corresponds to the logic of mental perception of reality.

It is possible to speak of lexemes with a complete paradigm of nomination and lexemes with an incomplete paradigm of nomination. Some words may even stand apart from this paradigm (to be nominatively isolated, e.g. some simple adverbs). On the other hand, the universal character of the nomination paradigm is sustained by suppletive completion, both lexemic and phrasemic.

e.g. an end – to end – final – finally

good – goodness – well – to better

Pronouns are traditionally recognized on the basis of indicatory (deictic) and substitutional semantic functions. The two types of meanings form a unity, in which the deictic semantics is primary. As a matter of fact, indication is the semantic foundation of substitution.

The generalizing substitutional function of pronouns makes them into syntactic representatives of all the notional classes of words, so that a pronominal positional part of the sentence serves as a catcgorial projection of the corresponding notional subclass identified as the filler set of the position in question.

Symbolically the correlation of the nominal and pronominal paradigmatic schemes is stated as follows:

N – V – A – D – Npro – Vpro – Apro – Dpro.

 

Functional

These are words of incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence.

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

The essence of the paradigmatic status of the functional words in the light of syntactic interpretation consists in the fact that the lists of functional words may be regarded as paradigmatic series themselves - which, in their turn, are grammatical constituents of higher paradigmatic series at the level of phrases and especially sentences.

As a matter of fact, functional words, considered by their role in the structure of the sentence, are proved to be exposers of various syntactic categories, i.e. they render structural meanings referring to phrases and sentences in constructional forms similar to derivational (word-building) and relational (grammatical) morphemes in the composition of separate words.

e.g. The words were obscure, but she understood the uneasiness that produced them. –> The words were obscure, weren't they? How then could she understand the uneasiness that produced them? –> Or perhaps the words were not too obscure, after all? Or, conversely, she didn't understand the uneasiness that produced them?

The functional words are identified not by their morphemic composition, but by their semantico-syntactic features in reference to the embedding constructions.

Chapter 5. Noun.

The Noun and Its Categories

· One of the largest classes of words.

· An open class.

· As a part of speech it has the categorial meaning of ‘thingness’, ‘substance’ (e.g. a table, a man, a book – music, paleness, beauty). Field theory: the nucleus – concrete nouns which denote living beings, then nouns denoting objects, further in the periphery – abstract nouns, verbal nouns, gerunds.

· Morphemic structure (typical stem-building elements – suffixes –er, -ist, -ess, -ee; -ness, -ion,- ity, -ance, -ment; conversion to love - love). Practically any word can be substantivised: must – a must; to export – export.

· Functional properties: the most characteristic substantive functions of the noun are that of the subject and that of the object. Other syntactic functions: attribute, adverbial, predicative.

· Combinability: with articles, other determinants (demonstrative, possessive, indefinite pronouns), with nouns (prepositional combinability – an entrance to the house, casal combinability – the president’s speech, sheer contact – a sports event, film festivals), with adjectives (prepositive and postpositive), with verbs.

The category of gender.

According to Ilyish noun has not got the category of grammatical gender.

Blokh states that the category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the 3rd person. It’s strictly oppositional, formed by 2 oppositions hierarchically related.1.Personal noun (strong). 2.Non-person (weak).

The other oppositions function in the subject of person nouns only. The cases of reductions:

1. Non-person and their substitute are used in the positions of neutralization.

2. Great number of nouns is capable for expressing both female and masculine person genders.

Ex: person, parent, friend have a common gender. In plural all genders-neutralized.

Nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically ex: boy-friend, girl-friend or woth the help of suffixes –ess (mistress).

The category of gender in English is semantic because it reflects the actual features of the named objects, but the semantic of the category doesn’t in the least make it into non-grammatical.

Chapter 7. Adverb

The research which was made by the group of scientists (Douglas Biber, Geofrey Leech, Susan Conrad and some others) showed that adjectives and adverbs are extremely common to all spheres of English namely: newspaper language, academic prose, conversation and fiction. But adjectives like nouns are more frequent in news and academic prose while adverbs are most frequent in conversation and fiction. According to David Crystal the adverb is the most heterogeneous of all the word classes in English. In a clause they can either be integrated into an element of the clause or function themselves.In the first case they function as modifiers in the second case they are adverbials. M. Blokh defines the adverb as a word expressing either property of an action, or property of another property, or circumstances in which an action occurs. He elaborates on the actual correlation between the adverb and the adjective. Thus the adverb is defined as the notional word, expressing a non substantive property, that is the property of non-substantive referent. According to W.Francis (The structure of American English) adverbs make rather complicated group of words, varying widely in form and distribution. Their primary identifying characteristic is: their ability to fill certain positions in utterances. He clarifies his view point by the following sentence:

The man told (us) his story [hopefully…]. Any word that fits the position of [hopefully] is an adverb. This “utterance-final following a noun” position becomes a primary structural criterion for adverbs. He exemplifies his outlook with eight “illustrative adverbs” (hopefully, eagerly, aloud, actor -wise, backwards, somehow, over and here) which become formal markers that identify eight subgroups into which the whole class of adverbs may be divided on the basis of their form. He singles out homophonous adverbs (identical with prepositions which appear in the characteristic adverb position) Ex. he brought the cat in, I left my hat and coat inside

those, that have no formal markers to distinguish them in isolation (here belong such words as here, still, downstairs)which are found in adverb position.

The most common characteristic of the adverb is morphological:the majority of adverbs have the derivational suffix -ly. Ex. weekly, wisely, beautifully.

While it’s true of some the whole class is far more diverse in form. There are four major categories of adverbs and each contains variations within it:

ü simple adverbs (single words such as well, rather, quite);

ü compound adverbs(anyway, heretofore);

ü adverbs, derived by suffixation (suffixes -wise, -wards are used to form adverbs afterwards, homewards);

ü fixed phrases. There are some fixed phrases which are used as adverbs. They are invariant in form and the component words rarely retain their independent meaning. Ex. of course, kind of, at last.

There are two types of syntactic function that characterize ad­verbs. One of the primary functions of adverbs is to modify adjectives. This is slightly larger than the calculated value.

They also serve as modifiers of other adverbs. They will figure it out really fast.

 

According to R.Quirck, S.Greenbaum and G.Leech an adverb may function as adverbial, a constituent distinct from subject, verb, object, and complement.

Three classes of adverbials are established [...] adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts.

Adjuncts are integrated within the structure of the clause to at least some extent. E.g.: They are waiting outside. I can now under­stand. it.

Disjuncts and conjuncts, on the other hand, are not integrated within the clause, Semantically, disjuncts express an evaluation of what is being said either with respect to the form of the communica­tion or to its content. E.g.: Frankly, I am tired.

Semantically, conjuncts have a connective function. They indicate (he connection between what is being said and what was said before. E.g.; We have complained several times about the noise, awlyet he does nothing about it. If they open ail the windows, then I'm leaving.

M. Blokh divides the whole class of adverbs into qualitative (express immediate, non graded qualities of actions),quantitative (include words of degree) and circumstantional adverbs(subdivided into functional and notional)of

 

nominal and pronominal nature.

Qualitative orientative

(including genuine, qualitative adverbs, degree adverbs)

(temporal and local adverbs)

to this group belong adverbs of time,place, maner, cause which function as syntactic connectors and question forming functionals.

Kinds of adverbs.

The three kinds of Adverbs are:

I. Simple.

II. Interrogative.

III. Relative or Conjunctive.

Simple Adverbs

These are distinguished from one another according to their meaning. The chief meanings expressed by Adverbs are shown below.

(a) Quality or Manner. – He acted thus. He did his work slowly, but surely. He behaved foolishly.

(b) Quantity or Degree. – He is almost, but not quite, the cleverest boy in the class. He is very clever, but rather or somewhat indolent. He is clever enough for me. He is too clever for me (= cleverer than what I require or desire). A. is more clever than В. He is the most industrious boy in the class.

Note. – The word “the”, when it is placed before an adjective or adverb of the Comparative degree, is not the definite article, but an adverb of Quantity (formed from Anglo-Saxon “thy”). “The sooner, the better” = by how much sooner, by so much better.

(c) Number. – He seldom failed, and always did his best. Try again. He has already tried twice. He often failed.

(d) Time. – He did this before, and you have done it since. He will soon be here. He has already come. Some time ago.

(e) Place. – We must rest here, and not there. South-ward, home-ward, on-ward. In-side, outside. Hither, thither, whither.

Note. – The adverb “there” is used with Intransitive verbs when the verb is placed before its Nominative instead of “after it”; “There stood a man at the gate”. In such positions “there” is merely introductory, and has no signification of place.

(f) Affirming or Denying. – He will probably return to-day. We shall certainly succeed. He did not come. Perhaps he will come.

(g) Emphasizing. – He too or he also was absent. Even he was dismissed. Only one man was caught.

The Interrogative Adverbs

 

The Interrogative adverbs are those used for asking questions. Many of these adverbs are compounds, i.e. are expressed by two words, not merely by one.

(a) Quality or Manner. – How (in what manner) did he do this? How (in what state of health) is he to-day?

(b) Quantity or Degree. – How far (to what extent) is this report true?

(c) Number. – How often did he come? How many persons came?

(d) Time. – When did he come? How long will he remain here? How soon will he go?

(e) Place. – Where did he go? How far (to what distance) did he go? Whence has he come?

(f) Cause. – Why (for what reason or cause) did he say this? Wherefore does she weep?

The forms of adverbs

 

Some Adverbs have the same form as the corresponding adjectives. In this case the one must be distinguished from the other by the work that it does in the sentence. Both are qualifying words, but an adjective qualifies a noun or pronoun, while an adverb qualifies any part of speech except a noun or pronoun.

Adverb Adjective

He was much pleased. There is much sickness here.

He stayed long. He went on a long journey.

He spoke loud. There is a sound of loud voices.

He came early. He woke up at an early hour.

He hit him hard. This is a hard piece of wood.

Stand near while I speak. He is my near relation.

He was a little tired. There is a little hope now

He came only once. This is my only son,

He has slept enough. He has had enough sleep.

He rode fast. He rode at a fast gallop.

He arrived late. He arrived at a late hour.

Adverbs in “-ly”:

Most Adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding -ly:

Adjective Adverb

Wise wisely (Adverb of Quality or Manner)

Whole wholly (Adverb of Quantity)

First firstly (Adverb of Number or Order)

Former formerly (Adverb of Time)

Distant distantly (Adverb of Place)

Certain certainly (Adverb of Affirming)

But this form of the Adverb occurs most frequently in Simple adverbs of Quality or Manner; and there is generally an Abstract noun which can be placed between the Adjective and Adverb:

The Adverb-Clause

 

An Adverb-clause does the work of an adverb to some verb, adjective, or adverb belonging to some other clause.

Those conjunction which are used for introducing an adverb-clause are called Subordinating.

 

Chapter 8. The verb.

Blokh’s classification

He consistently proceeds from form and meaning.

The category of Mood is based on a 2-member opposition: the Indicative Mood is opposed to the Subjunctive. The distinctive feature is the time-retrospect shift in the Subjunctive.

The Subjunctive Mood in Bлox's classification is described as an integral mood of unreality but it comprises 2 subsystems (or 2 sets of forms):

· The 1^st comprises the forms of the present plane of the verb. That set of forms is called The Spective mood or the Mood of Attitudes.

· The 2^stset of forms comprises the forms of the past plane of the verb and it is called the Conditional Mood or the mood of Appraising Casual-Conditional Relations of Process.

Each of these of 2 sets falls into 2 subsets, so that all in all we have 4 Subjunctive form types in Blokh's classification:

The Spective Mood falls into the Pure Spective and the Modal Spective.

(The Spective Mood expresses such attitudes as desire, supposition, speculation, suggestion, inducement and others.)

As to the Pure Spective. Ex.: So be it. Happen what may.

The imperative form also belongs to the Pure Spective.

As to the Modal Spective, here belong such forms as

may/might or should + Infinitive Ex.:.... Let us do smth.

The Spective is opposed to the Conditional which falls into 2 subsystems:

1) The Stipulative Conditional. It is described as past unposterior in structure by Блох. Here belong such constructions as:

Ex.: Oh, that he were here! should/would structures

It is contrasted to the

2) Consecutive Conditional as past posterior in structure.

We can find it in the principal clause of a complex sentence expressing a situation of unreal condition where the principal clause expresses the idea of its imagining consequence.

Ex.: If the peace-loving forces had not been on the alert, the civil war in that area would have resumed anew.

3. Henry Sweet's classification.

He uses the term 'Thought Mood" for Oblique Moods and broke this Thought Mood into subtypes depending on whether the forms synthetic or analytical.

The analytical form with the auxiliaries should/would is called the Conditional Mood. The combination of may/might with the Infinitive is called the Permissive Mood.

As for the forms of the Past Indefinite and Past Perfect he called them Tense Mood, because they are tense forms from the point of view of their structure and mood form from the point of view of their meaning.

Deutschbein proceeded from mostly meaning and has 16 moods.

Ilyish called this approach arbitrary and indefensible.

Barkhudarov does not recognize the existence of oblique Moods. In his reasoning he proceeds from form only. He rejects the idea that should/would + Infinitive is an analytical form because the second element, that is the Infinitive, can function independently. Besides there is no discontinuous morpheme.

As to the form of the Past Indefinite and the Past Perfect used to express unreality, he considers them forms of the indicative Mood used in specific syntactical environment.

 

Non-finite verbs.

As the verbals (infinitive, gerund, and participle) make up a part of the English verb system, they have some features in common with the finite forms, and in so far as they are singled out of the forms of the verb, they must have some peculiarities of their own.

Verbals have no category of number,mood and person.

The infinitive possesses the category of aspect, i.e. the distinction between the common and the continuous aspect.

· To speak – to be speaking

· To have spoken – to have been speaking

He seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot – the continuous infinitive gives more prominence to the idea of the continuity, which is obviously much stringer than the mere statement.

With the gerund andthe participle things are different. They exhibit no such distinction (no continuous forms). Occasionally, a continuous participle is found: The younger Miss Thorpes being also dancing, Catherine was left to the mercy of Mrs Thorpe and Mrs Allen, between whom she now remained а a continuous Participle I is at least potentially a part of the morphological system of the English verb. But this use appears to be obsolete (archaic).

Chapter 9. The sentence.

Classification of sentences

1) According to structural features there are simple and composite; two-member and one- member sentences. Elliptical and one-member sentences: e.g. Marvelous! Horrible! How very interesting! e.g. No birds singing at the dawn (Strong resemblance to 2 member sentences). e.g. I saw him there. Yesterday (parselation).

2) According to the purpose of the utterance: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, optative. Ilyish thinks that before dividing sentences into 3 classes we should divide them into emotional and non-emotional and within emotional we can establish 4 classes.

The strictly declarative sentence immediately expresses a certain proposition, that is why the actual division of the declarative sentence presents itself in the most developed and complete form. The rheme of the declarative sentence makes up the center of some statement as such.

The strictly imperative sentence does not express any statement or fact, i.e. any proposition proper. It is only based on a proposition, without formulating it directly. Namely, the proposition underlying the imperative sentence is reversely contrasted against the content of the expressed inducement. It is so because an urge to do something (i.e. affirmative inducement) is based on a supposition that something is not done. An urge not to do something (i.e. negative inducement) is founded on the supposition that something is done or may be done. E.g. Show him into the room (He is not in the room). Don’t talk about them (They talk about them). Thus, the rheme of the imperative sentence expresses the informative nucleus not of an explicit proposition, but of an inducement – a wanted or unwanted action.

The actual division of the strictly interrogative sentences is uniquely different from declarative and imperative sentences. It expresses an inquiry about information which the speaker does not possess. Therefore the rheme of the interrogative sentence, as the nucleus of the inquiry, is informationally open (gaping). Its function consists only in marking the rhematic position in the response sentence and programming the content of the rheme in accord with the nature of the inquiry. The thematic part of the answer is usually zeroed since it’s already expressed in the question:

· e.g. How are you? – Fine, thanks.

There can be also mixed types:

e.g. You must all help dear Edward.

· e.g. You saw a good deal of him in London, I believe?

· e.g. Live and learn! e.g. Tell me about John, Mary.

· e.g. Can leopard change his spots?

· e.g. Will you do something very kind, boy?

9.2. General characteristics of the composite sentence.

 

Main features of the sentence: 1) expresses predication => is called a predicative unit. It’s the main characteristic of the sentence. The sentence reflects connection between the denoted situational event and reality shows whether the action is real or unreal, desirable or not + expresses the time of the action. 2) nominates a situation or a situational event, so can be called a nominative unit (but it’s not main feature – word’s feature). 3) can be called a communicative unit as it carries this/that communicative intention which determines the communicative type of the sentence.

Traditional grammar defines the Sentence in the following way: it’s a word or a group of words capable of expressing a complete thought. Modern linguistics (e.g. semantic syntax) defines the sentence as a linguistic sign that nominates a situational event => a nominative unit. “The Sentence is a word or a group of words that nominate a situational event, express predication, and carry a communicative intention” – most comprehensive, all 3 features are comprised.

The problem of the Composite Sentence is how to define it, how to know it from simple sentence. (1) the simple sentence is monopredicative, so it has only 1 predicative line (center). The predicative line includes the subject + predicate. (2) the composite sentence is polypredicative, so it has > than 1 predicative lines or centers, reflects 2 or > situational events, and each predicative center makes up a clause of its own. Semi-composite sentence. How to distinguish? “He waved his hand and went away”. – the sentence nominates 2 situational events but we can’t find 2 predicative centers in it as there is 1 subject and 1 clause so semi-composite (Blokh’s term) are intermediate between simple and composite.

Main features of the composite sentence: 1) a polypredicative unit, 2) is characterized by a communicative wholeness, i.e. it has 1 communicative intention, 3) is characterized by intonational wholeness, all are interconnected, 4) characteristic of literary written style, rarely used in oral speech, in conversations.

Parts of the sentence

 

Parts of the sentence are a syntactic category constituted by the organic interaction of different linguistic units in speech.

It is important to observe that the division into parts of speech and the division into parts of the sentence are organically related. This does not call for much to explain. The part of speech classification is known to be based not only on the morphological and word-making characteristics of words but their semantic and syntactic features as well. The latter are particularly important for such parts of speech as have no morphological distinctions at all. A word (or a phrase) as a part of sentence may enter into various relations with the other parts of a given sentence. These mutual relationships are sometimes very complicated as being conditioned by different factors: lexical, morphological and syntactic proper.

Important observations in the theory of the parts of the sentence based on the interrelation of types of syntactic bond and types of syntactic content were made by A. I. Smirnitsky. A part of the sentence is defined as a typical combination of the given type of syntactic content and the given type of syntactic bond as regularly reproduced in speech. Different types of syntactic bond form a hierarchy where distinction should be made between predicative bond and non-predicative bond. On the level of the sentence elements this results in the opposition of principal parts and secondary parts.

The Adverbial Modifier.

The term ‘adverbial modifier’ cannot be said to be a very lucky one, as it is apt to convey erroneous (wrong, incorrect) ideas about the essence of this secondary part. They have nothing to do with adverbs and they modify not only verbs.

There are several ways of classifying adverbial modifiers:

1. According to their meaning – not a grammatical classification. However it may acquire some grammatical significance.

2. According to their morphological peculiarities – according to the parts of speech and to the phrase patterns. It has also something to do with word order, and stands in a certain relation to the classification according to meaning.adverb,preposition + noun,a noun without a preposition,infinitive or an infinitive phrase

3. According to the type of their head-word – is the syntactic classification proper. The meaning of the word (phrase) acting as modifier should be compatible with the meaning of the head-word.

Adverbial modifier of:

· Time and frequency,

· Place and direction,

· Manner and attendant,

· Circumstances,

· Cause,

· Purpose,

· Result,

· Condition,

· Concession,

· Degree

The attribute

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, a substantivized pronoun, a cardinal numeral, and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing named by these words as to its quality or property. The attribute can either precede or follow the noun it modifies. Accordingly we use terms prepositive and postpositive attribute. The position of an attribute with respect to its head-word depends partly on the morphological peculiarities of the attribute itself, and partly on stylistic factors. The size of the prepositive attributive phrase can be large in ME. Whatever is included between the article and the noun, is apprehended as an attribute.

The paradigm of these linguistic means is rather manifold. We find here:

1) adjectives: the new house; a valuable thing; 2) nouns in the Possessive Case: my brother's book; 3) noun-adjunct groups (N + N): world peace, spring time; 4) prepositional noun-groups: the daughter of my friend 5) pronouns (possessive, demonstrative, indefinite): my joy, such flowers, every morning, a friend of his, little time; 6) infinitives and infinitival groups: an example to follow, a thing to do; 7) gerunds and participles: (a) walking distance, swimming suit; (b) a smiling face, a singing bird; 8) numerals: two friends, the first task; 9) words of the category of state: faces alight with happiness; 10) idiomatic phrases: a love of a child, a jewel of a nature, etc.

Apposition

Apposition – a word or a phrase referring to a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, and giving some other designation to the person or thing named by that noun, e.g. For a moment, Melanie thought how nice Captain Butler was.

Parenthesis

Parenthesis – words and phrases which have no syntactical ties with the sentence, and express the speaker’s attitude towards what he says, a general assessment of the statement, or an indication of its sources, its connection with other statements, or with a wider context in speech.

Extensions

Extensions – adjuncts of adjectives, adverbs and adlinks in a sentence. They differ from complements and attributes in being usually modifiers of modifiers, or tertiaries (Jespersen), e.g. The creature’s eyes were alight with a somber frenzy.

Connectives

Connectives are linking-words considered as a secondary part of the sentence. They are mostly prepositions and conjunctions, e.g. She played and sang to him. They usually connect 2 words both or neither of which might be regarded as their head-words. The words they connect belong to various parts of speech.

Specifiers

Specifiers are not adjuncts of definite parts of speech like complements, attributes or extensions. They do not link any part of the sentence like connectives. They are not parenthetical elements. So they make a distinct secondary part of the sentence. The name just indicates the function, e.g. I was only brilliant once.

Word order in English.

The term ''word order” is a singularly unhappy one, as it is based on a confusion of two distinct levels of language structure: the level of phrases and that of the sentence. To approach this problem from a viewpoint doing justice to modern linguistic theory, we should carefully distinguish between two sets of phenomena: the order of words within a phrase and the order of parts of the sentence within a sentence. Here we are again confronted with the problem of the attribute: if the attribute is a secondary part of the sentence, its place falls under the heading "order of the parts of the sentence”; if, on the other hand the attribute is part, not of a sentence, but of a phrase, its place with reference to its head word must be considered within the theory of the phrase and its parts. Since this question has not been settled yet, we may consider the place of the attribute in this chapter.

All other questions ought to be discussed under the heading "order of sentence parts", but as it is hardly possible to introduce-a change and to dismiss a term so firmly established, we will keep the term "word order", bearing in mind that it is quite conventional: what we shall discuss is the order of the parts of the sentence.

The English language is characterized by a rigid word order in accordance with which the subject of declarative sentences, as a rule, precedes the predicate. This is the so-called direct word order ,e.g. The assistant greeted the professor.

Any deviation from the rigid word order is termed inversion, e.g. Often has he recollected the glorious days of the Civil War.

The direct object is usually placed after the verb unless the indirect object precedes it, e.g. He offered me his help. Sometimes the object is pushed to the front of the sentence, it occurs when:

1. The direct object