Grammatical Classes of Words.

The words of language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. The tra­ditional grammatical classes of words are called "parts of speech". Since the word is distinguished not only by grammatical, but also by semanti-co-lexemic properties, some scholars refer to parts of speech as "lexico-grammatical" series of words, or as "lexico-grammatical categories".
It should be noted that the term "part of speech" is purely traditional and conventional, it cannot be taken as in any way defining or explana­tory. This name was introduced in the grammatical teaching of Ancient Greece, where the concept of the sentence was not yet explicitly identi­fied in distinction to the general idea of speech, and where, consequently, no strict differentiation was drawn between the word as a vocabulary unit and the word as a functional element of the sentence.
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of the three criteria: "semantic", "formal", and "functional".
The se­mantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized meaning, which is characteristic of all the subsets of words constituting a given part of speech. This meaning is understood as the "categorial meaning of the part of speech".
The formal criterion provides for the exposition of the specific inflexional and derivational (word-building) features of all the lexemic subsets of a part of speech.
The functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of a part of speech. The said three factors of categorial characterization of words are conven­tionally referred to as, respectively, "meaning", "form", and "function".

In accord with the described criteria, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional, which reflects their division in the earlier grammatical tradition into changeable and un­changeable.
To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.

The features of the noun within the identificational triad "meaning -form - function" are, correspondingly, the following:
1) the categorial meaning of substance ("thingness");
2) the changeable forms of number and case; the specific suffixal forms of derivation (prefixes in English do not discriminate parts of speech as such); 3) the substantive functions in the sentence (subject, object, substantival predicative); prepositional con­nections; modification by an adjective.
The features of the adjective:
1) the categorial meaning of property (qualitative and relative);
2) the forms of the degrees of comparison (for qualitative adjectives); the specific suffixal forms of derivation;
3) adjec­tival functions in the sentence (attribute to a noun, adjectival predica­tive).

The features of 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 features of 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 features of 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 features of the adverb:
1) the categorial 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.

We have surveyed the identifying properties of the notional parts of speech that unite the words of complete nominative meaning character­ized by self-dependent functions in the sentence.
Contrasted against the notional parts of speech are words of incom­plete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence. These are functional parts of speech.

On the principle of "generalized form" only unchangeable words are traditionally treated under the heading of functional parts of speech. As for their individual forms as such, they are simply presented by the list, since the number of these words is limited, so that they needn't be iden­tified on any general, operational scheme.
To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the inter­jection.
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, occupying in the sentence a more pronounced or less pronounced detached position, 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, occupying a detached position in the sentence, is a signal of emotions.

Verb as a part of speech.

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. It performs the central role in realizing predication - connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance. It possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories. Within the class of verb various subclass divisions based on different principles of classification can be found.
Semantic features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of verbality - the ability to denote a process developing in time. This meaning is inherent not only in the verbs denoting processes, but also in those denoting states, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.
Morphological features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and phase. The common categories for finite and non-finite forms are voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the English verb find their expression in synthetical and analytical forms. The formative elements expressing these categories are grammatical affixes, inner inflexion and function words. Some categories have only synthetical forms (person, number), others - only analytical (voice). There are also categories expressed by both synthetical and analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect).
Syntactic features. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can perform this function while non-finite forms can be used in any function but predicate. And finally, any verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.
The category of tense: is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being 'now ' or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition):

The Category of Aspect: The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous:: Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs.
The category of voice: The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action (John broke the vase - the vase was broken). The objective relations between the action and the subject or object of the action find their expression in language as the grammatical category of voice. Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective relations between the action itself and the subject or object of the action. The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:
1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;
2. Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;
3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;
4. Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;
5. Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;
6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.
The Category of Mood: The category of Mood is the most controversial category of the verb. It expresses the relations between the action, denoted by the verb, and the actual reality from the point of view of the speaker. The speaker may treat the action/event as real, unreal or problematic or as fact that really happened, happens or will happen, or as an imaginary phenomenon.
Mood relates the verbal action to such conditions as certainty, obligation, necessity, possibility.
The Category of Person: It serves to associate the process with three deictic categories in a communicative act: the speaker, the addressee and the one not participating in a communicative act. The speaker is first person (I, we); the addressee is second person and the one not participating in the act is third person
The category of person is represented in English by two member oppositions: third person singular vs. non-third person singular. The marked member of the opposition is third person; the unmarked member is non-third person.
The Category of Number: The category of number shows whether the process is associated with one doer or with more than one doer, e.g. He eats three times a day. The sentence indicates a single eater; the verb is in the singular despite the fact than more than one process is meant. The category of number is a two-member opposition: singular and plural. An interesting feature of this category is the fact that it is blended with person: number and person make use of the same morpheme. As person is a feature of the present tense, number is also restricted to the present tense. Some verbs - modals - do not distinguish number at all. Still others are only used in the plural because the meaning of 'oneness' is hardly compatible with their lexical meaning:

According to their functional significance verbs can be notional (with the full lexical meaning), semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries.
Semi-notional verbs serve as markers of predication in the proper sense, since they show the connection between the nominative content of the sentence and reality in a strictly specialised way. These "predicators" include auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, and link-verbs.
Auxiliary verbs constitute grammatical elements of the categorial forms of the verb. These are the verbs be, have, do, shall, will, should, would, may, might.
Modal verbs are used with the infinitive as predicative markers expressing relational meanings of the subject attitude type, i.e. ability, obligation, permission, advisability, etc. The modal verbs can, may, must, shall, will, ought, need, used (to), dare are defective in forms, and are suppletively supplemented by stative groups similar to those shown above.
Link-verbs introduce the nominal part of the predicate (the predicative) which is commonly expressed by a noun, an adjective, or a phrase of a similar semantic-grammatical character. The main perceptional link-verbs are seem, appear, look, feel, taste; the main factual link-verbs are become, get, grow, remain, keep.
Functions of verbs: Effective English language communication usually requires that each sentence contain a subject and a verb. The subject is sometimes defined as a person, a place, or a thing. The verb conveys an understanding of the action expressed, or it conveys the state of the subject.
1)action and state (Tom hit the ball)

 

9) The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic, morphological and syntactical.
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:
1)According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;
2)According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.
3)According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable.
Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived; compound and composite.
Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used un the sentence in all syntactic functions but predicate.

Category of number: The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form & the singular form.
Category of person;
Category of case: This category is expressed in English by the opposition of the form in -'s [-z, -s, -iz], usually called the "possessive" case, or more traditionally, the "genitive" case, to the unfeatured form of the noun, usually called the "common" case.

Types of possessive case: 1) "genitive of possessor". Its constructional meaning will be defined as "inorganic" possession, i.e. possessional relation of the genitive referent to the object denoted by the head-noun. E.g.: Christine's living-room; the assistant manager's desk; 2) the "genitive of integer" Its constructional meaning will be defined as "organic possession", i.e. a broad possessional relation of a whole to its part. E.g.: Jane's busy hands; Patrick's voice;3) "genitive of agent". The more traditional name of this genitive is "subjective".The general meaning of the genitive of agent is explained in its name: this form renders an activity or some broader processual relation with the referent of the genitive as its subject. E.g.: the great man's arrival; Peter's insistence 4) the "genitive of patient" This type of genitive, in contrast to the above, expresses the recipient of the action or process denoted by the head-noun. E.g.: the champion's sensational defeat; Erick's final expulsion; 5) the "genitive of destination" (Lat. "genetivus destinationis"). This form denotes the destination, or function of the referent of the head-noun. E.g.: women's footwear; children's verses; a fishers' tent. 6)"genitive of dispensed qualification" The meaning of this genitive type, as different from the subtype "genitive of received qualification", is some characteristic or qualification, not received, but given by the genitive noun to the referent of the head-noun. E.g.: a girl's voice; a book-keeper's statistics; Curtis O'Keefe's kind 7) "genitive of adverbial" E.g.: the evening's newspaper; yesterday's encounter; Moscow's talks. 8) the "genitive of quantity" E.g.: three miles' distance; an hour's delay; two months' time;

Functions of nouns: A noun is a word that represents a person, a place, or a thing. A thing in this definition can be a physical entity or it can be an abstract idea. A noun may be used as a subject of a sentence, as a direct object, as an indirect object, or it may be used as the object of a preposition.

The adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of a substance. It means that each adjective used in the text presupposes relation to some noun the property of whose referent it denotes, such as its material, colour, dimensions, position, state, and other characteristics both permanent and temporary. Adjectives are distinguished by a specific combinability with nouns, link-verbs, modifying adverbs. In the sentence the adjective performs the functions of an attribute and a predicative. To the derivational features of adjectives, belong a number of suffixes and prefixes of which the most important are: -ful (hopeful), -less (flawless), -ish (bluish), -ous (famous), -ive (decorative), -ic (basic); un- (unprecedented), in- (inaccurate), pre- (premature). the predicative adjective expresses some attributive property of its noun-referent eg. You talk to people as if they were a group. → You talk to people as if they formed a group. Quite obviously, he was a friend. —» His behaviour was like that of a friend.

10) The sentence is the immediate integral unit of speech built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose. Any coherent connection of words having an informative destination is effected within the framework of the sentence. Therefore the sentence is the main object of syntax as part of the grammatical theory. The sentence, being composed of words, may in certain cases include only one word of various lexico-grammatical standing. Cf.: Night. Congratulations. Away! Why? Certainly.
Being a unit of speech, the sentence is intonationally delimited. Intonation separates one sentence from another in the continual flow of uttered segments and, together with various segmental means of expression, participates in rendering essential communicative-predicative meanings (such as, for instance, the syntactic meaning of interrogation in distinction to the meaning of declaration). The role of intonation as a delimiting factor is especially important for sentences which have more than one predicative centre, in particular more than one finite verb. Cf.:
1) The class was over, the noisy children fitted the corridors. 2) The class was over. The noisy children filled the corridors.
Special intonation contours, including pauses, represent the given speech sequence in the first case as one compound sentence, in the second case as two different sentences (though, certainly, connected both logically and syntactically).

Within each sentence as an immediate speech element of the communication process, definite standard syntactic-semantic features are revealed which make up a typical model, a generalised pattern repeated in an indefinite number of actual utterances. This complicated predicative pattern does enter the system of language. It exists on its own level in the hierarchy of lingual segmental units in the capacity of a "linguistic sentence" and as such is studied by grammatical theory,

Thus, the sentence is characterised by its specific category of predication which establishes the relation of the named phenomena to actual life. The general semantic category of modality is also defined by linguists as exposing the connection between the named objects and surrounding reality. However, modality, as different from predication, is not specifically confined to the sentence; this is a broader category revealed both in the grammatical elements of language and its lexical, purely nominative elements. In this sense, every word expressing a definite correlation between the named substance and objective reality should be recognised as modal. Here belong such lexemes of full notional standing as "probability", "desirability", "necessity" and the like, together with all the derivationally relevant words making up the corresponding series of the lexical paradigm of nomination; here belong semi-functional words and phrases of probability and existential evaluation, such as perhaps, may be, by all means, etc.; here belong further, word-particles of specifying modal semantics, such as just, even, would-be, etc.; here belong, finally, modal verbs expressing a broad range of modal meanings which are actually turned into elements of predicative semantics in concrete, contextually-bound utterances.

On the basis of predicative line presentation, sentences are divided into monopredicative (with one predicative line expressed E.g.:Bob has never left the stadium.), i.e. simple, and polypredicative (with two or more predicative lines expressed), i.e. composite. Sentences with several predicates referring to one and the same subject cannot be considered as simple. Sentences having one verb-predicate and more than one subject to cannot be considered as simple, either. E.g.: The door was open, and also the front window. The syntactic feature of strict monopredication should serve as the basic diagnostic criterion for identifying the simple sentence.

The simple sentence, as any sentence in general, is organised as a system of function-expressing positions, the content of the functions being the reflection of a situational event. The nominative parts of the simple sentence, each occupying a notional position in it, are subject, predicate, object, adverbial, attribute, parenthetical enclosure, addressing enclosure; a special, semi-notional position is occupied by an interjectional enclosure. The parts are arranged in a hierarchy, wherein all of them perform some modifying role. The principal parts of the sentence arethe subject and the predicate, which modify each other: the subject is the “person” modifier of the predicate, and the predicate is the “process” modifier of the subject; they are interdependent. The secondary parts are: the object – a substance modifier of the predicate; the attribute – a quality modifier of substantive parts, either the subject or the object; the adverbial modifier – a quality modifier of the predicate; the apposition – a substance modifier of the subject; the parenthesis (parenthetical enclosure) - a detached speaker-bound modifier either of one of the nominative parts of the sentence or of the sentence in general; the address (addressing enclosure) – a modifier of the destination of the whole sentence; the interjection (interjectional enclosure) – an emotional modifier. All nominative parts of the sentence are syntagmatically connected, and the modificational relations between them can be analyzed in a linear as well as in a hierarchical way (“immediate constituents” analysis, IC analysis). The subdivision of all notional sentence parts into obligatory and optional in accord with the valency of the verb-predicate makes it possible to distinguish the category of “elementary sentence”: it is a sentence in which all the positions are obligatory. The elementary sentence coincides structurally with the so-called unexpanded simple sentence, a monopredicative sentence, which includes only obligatory nominative parts. The expanded simple sentence includes also some optional parts, i.e. supplementive modifiers, which do not violate the syntactic status of the simple sentence, i.e. do not make it into a composite or semi-composite sentence. sentences are subdivided into complete sentences and incomplete sentences: in complete sentences both the subject group and the predicate group are present; they are also called “two-member sentences” or “two-axis sentences”; if only one axis is expressed in the outer structure of the sentence, the sentence is defined as incomplete; it is also called “one-member sentence”, “one-axis sentence”, or “elliptical sentence”.

The functional meanings of sentences make up syntactic categories, represented by the oppositions of paradigmatically correlated sentence patterns. Studying these oppositions on the analogy of morphological paradigms we can distinguish formal marks and individual grammatical meanings of paradigmatically opposed sentence patterns. he initial basic element of syntactic derivation, the “sentence-root”, which undergoes various transformations and serves as the basis for identifying syntactic categorial oppositions. This element is known under different names: “the basic syntactic pattern”, “the elementary sentence model”, “the base sentence”, or “the kernel sentence”. Там на этот подпунктик 10 страниц….я не знаю что выбрать конкретно

Сomposite sentences are polypredicative syntactic constructions, formed by two or more predicative lines, each with a subject and a predicate of its own. Each predicative unit in a composite sentence forms a clause. A clause as a part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence, but a composite sentence is not at all equivalent to a sequence of the simple sentences underlying its clauses. Cf.: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. - This is the issue. I planned to discuss it with you. There are two principal types of composite sentences: complex and compound. In compound sentences, the clauses are connected on the basis of coordinative connections (parataxis) - equal rank, i.e. equipotently This is the issue I planned to discuss with you.In complex sentences, the clauses are united on the basis ofsubordinative connections (hypotaxis)- unequal rank, one of which dominates another: I want to discuss something with you, but we can talk about it later. The connections between the clauses in a composite sentence may be effectedsyndetically, i.e. by means of special connecting words, conjunctions and other conjunctional words or word-combinations, orasyndetically, i.e. without any conjunctional words used. Alongside the two basic types of composite sentences there is one more type ofpolypredicative construction, in which the connections between the clauses are rather loose, syntactically detached: I wasn’t going to leave; I’d only just arrived. This type of connection is calledcumulation, and such composite sentences can be called cumulative. Тhere are also polypredicative constructions, in which one predicative line may be partially predicative (potentially predicative, semi-predicative), as, for example, in sentences with various verbid complexes, e.g.: I heard him singing in the backyard.

 

11. Sentence. Actual division. The sentence is the central syntactic construction used as the minimal communicative unit that has its primary predication, actualises a definite structural scheme and possesses definite intonation characteristics. The sentence is a communicative unit, therefore primary classification of sentence must be based on the communicative principle - the purpose of communication. Traditional grammar recognized three cardinal sentence-types:

a) the declarative sentence expresses a statement, either affirmative or negative;

b) the imperative sentence expresses inducement, either affirmative or negative;

c) the interrogative sentence expresses a question, i.e. request for information wanted by the speaker from the listener.

Interrogative sentences are subdivided into general questions and special questions, disjunctive questions and alternative questions. The last 2 types of questions may be treated as variants of the first 2 types.

The general question is that one in which the relations between the subject and the predicate are questioned. Such questions require a positive or negative answer (yes - no).

In special questions we ask about some definite or specific information, which is marked by the interrogative pronoun or adverb, (d) the exclamatory sentence.

These are the cardinal communicative sentence types in English.

Alongside of the nominative division of the sentence, the idea of the so-called "actual division" of the sentence has been put forward in theoretical linguistics. The purpose of the actual division of the sentence, called also the "functional sentence perspective", is to reveal the correlative significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance, i.e. from the point of view of the immediate semantic contribution they make to the total information conveyed by the sentence in the context of connected speech. In other words, the actual division of the sentence in fact exposes its informative perspective.

The main components of the actual division of the sentence are the theme and the rheme. The theme expresses the starting point of the communication, i.e. it denotes an object or a phenomenon about which something is reported. The rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication, its contextually relevant centre. Between the theme and the rheme are positioned intermediary, transitional parts of the actual division of various degrees of informative value (these parts are sometimes called "transition").

The theme of the actual division of the sentence may or may not coincide with the subject of the sentence. The rheme of the actual division, in its turn, may or may not coincide with the predicate of the sentence — either with the whole predicate group or its part, such as the predicative, the object, the adverbial.

Theoretical Phonetics

12. Word stress or accent is usually defined as the degree of force or prominence with which a sound or syllable is uttered.In English there are three degrees of word stress: stressed syllables (primary stress), half-stressed syllables (secondary stress) and weak or unstressed syllables. A large group of polysyllabic simple words bear both the primary and the secondary stresses, eg ,conver'sation. There are several large groups of words in English with two equally strong stresses. These words consist of two morphemes. The use of the second strong stress is caused by the semantic significance of both equally stressed elements of the word, eg 're'write, 'fourteen. Word stress in English as well as in Russian is free, in the sense that the primary stress is not tied to any particular syllable in all the words. But it always falls on a particular syllable of any given word.The secondary stress is manifested in polysyllabic words with the primary stress on the third or on the fourth syllable from the beginning, eg popularity, responsibility. In words with the primary stress on the third syllable the secondary stress usually falls on the first syllable, eg ,deco'ration. If the primary stress falls on the fourth or fifth syllable the secondary stress is very commonly on the second syllable, eg ar,ticu'lation, experimentation. Consequently the position of the secondary stress is often that of the primary stress in the original word, i.e. in the word from which the derivative word is formed, cf 'possible — ,possi'bility, appreciate — ap,preci'ation. In some cases the position of the secondary stress is connect­ed with the type of the suffix which can influence the accentual pattern. But there is still no good ground for establishing regular rules in this case. To avoid making accentual mistakes it is necessary to the learner to know the basic rules of English words:

In most disyllabic word the accent falls of the initial syllabic

1. In the disyllabic words with a prefix which has lost its meaning the stress falls on the second syllable that is to say on a rood syllable (become).

2. In disyllabis words ending in –aty, -ise, -ize, -ly the stress falls on the last syllable (dictate, surprise)

3. In most word in 3 or 4 syllables the accent falls on the 3 syllable from the end of tne word (family)

4. The accent on the 3 syllable from the end is especially typical of polysyllabic word with the suffix (recognize) –ize, -ly, -ate. The accent falls on the3 syllabic from the end of the word before the following suffixes:

- logy (psychology), -logist (biologist)

- graphy (geography), -grapher (geographer)

- cracy (democracy)

The accent falls on the 2 second syllable from the end of the word:

- ian (physician)

- unce (experience)

- ient (expedient)

- cient (efficient)

The accent falls on the final syllable formed by the following suffixes:

- ee (refuge – refugee/ employ – employee)

- eer (engine – engineer)

- esque (picture – picturesque)

 

13. According to V. A. Vassilyev (79) primary importance should be given to the type of obstruction and the manner of produc­tion of noise. On this ground he distinguishes two large classes of consonants:a) occlusive, in the production of which a complete obstruc­tion is formed; b) constrictive, in the production of which an incomplete ob­struction is formed. Another point of view is shared by a group of Soviet phone­ticians (authors of the book among them). They suggest that the first and basic principle of classification should be the degree of noise. Such consideration leads to dividing English consonants into two general kinds: A — noise consonants,В — sonorants

As was mentioned earlier, vowels unlike consonants are produced with no obstruction to the stream of air, so on the perception level their integral characteris­tic is naturally tone, not noise.

Phonetic criteria for the classification of vowels:

- tongue shape (tongue height = closeness/openness + part of tongue which is highest = frontness/backness)

- lip shape (rounded vs. unrounded or spread vs. neutral vs. round)

- constancy of tongue/(lip)-shape (diphthongs vs. monophthongs)

- position of velum (oral vs. nasal vowels)

- duration (long vs. short)

14. A syllable is a speech unit consisting of a sound or a sound sequence one of which is heard to be more prominent than the others. The most prominent sound being the peak or the nucleus of a syllable is called syllabic. Syllabic sounds are generally vowels and sonorants. The latter become syllabic when joined to a preceding consonant. A syllabic sonorant is marked by the sign [,].

A word consisting of only one vowel sound represents a separate syllable.In the case of a diphthong the peak of the syllable is formed by its nucleus.

Many words in English such as parcel, level, special, person and the like could be pronounced with the neutral vowel before the sonorant thus making it non-syllabic.

In all these words the second prominent sound or the peak is formed by [a] corresponding to some vowel letter in an un­stressed position before the sonorant.

On the other hand many words having a vowel-letter before the neutral vowel final sonorant are pronounced without the neutral vowel, where by the sonorant is syllabic, eg garden; lesson; pupil.

If a sonorant is preceded by a vowel sound it loses its syllabic character and the syllable is formed by the vowel.

Syllable formation and syllable division rules appear to be a matter of great practical value to the language learner. They are especially important when it is necessary to know the number of syllables for the purpose of picturing a word or a sentence on the staves, or for finding a convenient place to put a stress mark in phonetic transcription.

In most general terms syllable division rules can be defined as follows:

(1)An intervocalic consonant tends to belong to the follow­ing syllabic sound, eg about; writing.

(2) Intervocalic combinations of consonants belong to the fol­lowing syllabic sound, if such combinations are typical of English, eg naturally.

15. The modifications of vowels in a speech chain are traced in the following directions: they are either quantitative or qualitative or both. These changes of vowels in a speech continuum are determined by a number of factors such as the position of the vowel in the word, accentual structure, tempo of speech, rhythm, etc.

The decrease of the vowel quantity or in other words the shortening of the vowel length is known as a quantitative modi­fication of vowels, which may be illustrated as follows:

1. The shortening of the vowel length occurs in unstressed positions, e. g. blackboard [ɔ:], sorrow [зu] (reduction). In these cases reduction affects both the length of the unstressed vowels and their quality.

2. The length of a vowel depends on its position in a word. It varies in different phonetic environments. English vowels are said to have positional length, as you probably remember from your practical course of phonetics, e.g. knee — need — neat (ac­commodation). The vowel [i:] is the longest in the final position, it is obviously shorter before the lenis voiced consonant [d], and it is the shortest before the fortis voiceless consonant [t].

Qualitative modification of most vowels occurs in unstressed positions. Unstressed vowels lose their "colour", their quality, which is illustrated by the examples below:

1. In unstressed syllables vowels of full value are usually sub­jected to qualitative changes, e.g. man [mæn] — sportsman ['spɔ:tsmən], conduct ['kɒndəkt] — conduct [kən'dʌkt]. In such cases the quality of the vowel is reduced to the neutral sound [ə].

These examples illustrate the neutralized (reduced) allo­phones of the same phonemes as the same morphemes are op­posed.

The neutral sound [ə] is the most frequent sound of English. In continuous text it represents about eleven per cent of all sounds.

. The degree of sound weakening depends on the place of the unstressed vowel in relation to the stressed one. The farther the unstressed syllable is from the stressed one the weaker the vowel in the unstressed syllable is, e.g. молоко [мълʌко́].

2. Slight degree of nasalization marks vowels preceded or fol­lowed by the nasal consonants [n], [m], e.g. "never", "no", "then", "men" (accommodation).

The adaptive modification of a consonant by a neighbouring consonant m the speech chain is known as assimilation, e. g. the alveolar [t] followed by the interdental [θ] becomes dental: eighth, at three.

The term accommodation is often used by linguists to denote the interchanges of "vowel + consonant type" or "consonant + vowel type", for instance, some slight degree of nasalization of vowels preceded or followed by nasal sonorants: never, men; or labialization of consonants preceding the vowels [o] and [y] in Russian: больно, конь, думать, лучше.

One of the wide-spread sound changes is certainly vowel reduction. Reduction is actually qualitative or quantitative weak­ening of vowels in unstressed positions, e.g. board — blackboard, man — postman.

Elision or complete loss of sounds, both vowels and consonants, is often observed in English. Elision is likely to be minimal in slow careful speech and maximal in rapid relaxed colloquial forms of speech.

Assimilation takes place when a sound changes its character in order to become more like a neighbouring sound. The characteristic which can vary in this way is nearly always the place of articulation, and the sounds.

16. An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or following the nucleus. The boundaries of an intonation pattern may be marked by stops of phonation, that is temporal pauses.

Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. It may be well to remind you here that the syntagm is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically com­plete. In phonetics actualized syntagms are called intonation groups ¹. Each intonation group may consist of one or more po­tential syntagms.

The Constitutive Function. Intonation forms sentences. Each sentence consists of one or more intonation groups.

An intonation group is a word or a group of words characterized by a certain intonation pattern and is generally complete from the point of view of meaning, eg: He's nearly sixty. (As a - matter of fact | he's - nearly sixty).

The intonation pattern consists of one or more syllables of various pitch levels and bearing a larger or smaller degree of prominence. Those intonation patterns that contain a number of syllables consist of the following parts: the pre-head, the head, the nucleus and the tail. The pre-head includes unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the head. The head con­sists of the syllables beginning with the first stressed syllable up to the last stressed syllable. The last stressed syllable is called the nucleus. The unstressed and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus are called the tail. Thus in the example They don't 'make so much fuss about it. ('Then' is the pre-head, 'don't make so much' is the head, 'fuss' is the nucleus, 'about it', is the tai)l.

The changes of pitch that take place in the nucleus are called nuclear tones. The nuclear syllable is generally the most prominent one in the intonation pattern. The nucleus and the tail form the terminal tone. It is the most significant part of the intonation group.

Low Fall — ˎNo.

High Fall — ˋNo.

Low Rise — ˊNo.

High Rise — ˏNo.

Fall-Rise — _vNo.

 

The modification of the intonation pattern is also due to the speed of utterance and pausation. We must point out in conclusion that of the three components of the intonation pattern pitch is the most significant one.

Timbre, a special colouring of human voice, is sometimes considered to be the fourth component of intonation. But as it has not been thoroughly investigated yet we shall exclude it from the description of intonation in this book.

The Distinctive Function. Intonation also serves to distinguishcommunicative types of sentences, the actual meaning of a sentence, the speaker's emotions or attitudes to the contents of the sentence, to the listener or to the topic of conversation. One and the same word sequence may express different meaning when pronounced with a different intonation pattern.