Adjective. General characteristics.

Adjective. General characteristics.

The adjective denotes some characteristic of an object, interpreted either as a quality (positive or negative, objective or subjective), or as a space, time, quantity etc. coordinate.

Each adjective used in the text presupposes relation to some noun the property of whose referent it denotes (material, colour, dimensions, position, state, and other permanent and temporary characteristics).

Thus adjectives do not possess a full nominative value. They exist only in collocations showing for ex. what is long, who is hospitable, what is fragrant.

Adjectives are a well-defined part of speech in Modern English.

Syntactical function of adjectives:

1) an attribute

2) a predicative.

Combinability of adjectives:

1) with nouns (use in pre-position);

2) with link-verbs;

3) with modifying adverbs.

4) when used as predicatives or post-positional attributes, certain adjectives demonstrate complementive combinability with nouns (fond of, jealous of, curious of). Such adjectival collocations render:

verbal meanings (be fond of – love, like; be envious of – envy; be angry with – resent).

relations of addressee (grateful to, indebted to, partial to, useful for)

The derivational features of adjectives:

The adjectival suffixes are non-productive (-y, -ish, -ly) and productive (-ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic). Some adjectives exist in two derivative forms, thus differing in style, or in an implication (comical – comic; poetic – poetical).

There are adjectival prefixes proper (un-, il-, a-) and other prefixes belonging to a deriving stem of a corresponding verb or noun (co-operat-ive; super-natur-al).

Compounding is also observed in adjectives and it is considered to be a very productive way of word-building (white-headed, lilly-white).

The variable/demutative morphological features of adjectives:

The English adjective is distinguished by the hybrid category of comparison and have two types of paradigm – a synthetic and an analytic ones.

All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses: qualitative and relative. Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance. E.g.: wood — a wooden hut; mathemat­ics — mathematical precision; history — a historical event; table — tabular presentation; colour — coloured postcards; surgery — surgical treatment; the Middle Ages — mediaeval rites.

Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their correla­tive quantitative measure. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive. Cf.: an awkward situa­tion — a very awkward situation; a difficult task — too dif­ficult a task; an enthusiastic reception — rather an enthu­siastic reception; a hearty welcome — not a very hearty wel­come; etc.

In this connection, the ability of an adjective to form degrees of comparison is usually taken as a formal sign of its qualitative character, in opposition to a relative adjective which is understood as incapable of forming degrees of com­parison by definition. Cf.: a pretty girl --a prettier girl; a quick look — a quicker look; a hearty welcome — the heart­iest of welcomes; a bombastic speech — the most bombastic speech.

 

Verb. General characteristics.

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all 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. Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories.

The verb as a notional part of speech has the following features:

1. they express the meanings of dynamic process, or process developing in time, including not only actions as such (to work, to build), but also states, forms of existence (to be, to become, to lie), various types of attitude, feelings (to love, to appreciate), etc.;

2. they have the grammatical categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood, order and posteriority most of which have their own grammatical means; 3. the function of verbs entirely depends on their forms: if they in finite form they fulfill only one function – predicate. But if they are in non-finite form then they can fulfill any function in the sentence but predicate; they may be part of the predicate;

4. verbs can combine actually with all the parts of speech, though they do not combine with articles, with some pronouns. It is important to note that the combinability of verbs mostly depends on the syntactical function of verbs in speech;

5. verbs have their own stem-building elements:

postfixes: -fy (simplify, magnify, identify…)

-ize (realize, fertilize, standardize…)

-ate (activate, captivate…)

prefixes: re- (rewrite, restart, replant…)

mis- (misuse, misunderstand, misstate…)

un- (uncover, uncouple, uncrown…)

de- (depose, depress, derange…) and so on.

Concerning their structure, verbs are characterized by specific word-building patterns. The verb-stems may be simple, sound-replacive, stress-replacive, expanded, compound, and phrasal. The group of simple verb-stems (e. g. come, take, give, etc) has been greatly enlarged by conversion as one of the most productive ways of forming verb lexemes in Modern English (cf. a park — to park).

The sound-replacive type and the stress-replacive type are nonproductive (e. g. food — to feed, blood — to bleed, import — to import, export — to export, transport — to transport). The suffixes of expanded verb-stems are: -ate (cultivate), -en (broaden), -ify (clarify), -ise/ize (normalize). The verb-deriving prefixes are: be- (belittle), en-/em- (embed), re- (remake), under- (undergo), over (overestimate), sub- (submerge), mis- (misunderstand), un- (undo).

The compound verb-stems in English are rare enough; they usually result from conversion (blackmail — to blackmail, a benchmark — to benchmark).

Phrasal verbs can be of two different types. The first is a combination of a head-verb (have, give, take) with a noun; this combination has an ordinary verb as its equivalent (e. g. to have a smoke to smoke; to give a smile — to smile). The second type is a combination of a head-verb with a postposition (go on, give up, get out, sit down, etc).

When taking the formal aspect of the English verbs, we are also to consider two different morphological groups: the regular verbs and the irregular verbs. With the regular verbs, making the bulk of the verb lexicon, the Past Indefinite and the Past Participle are formed by adding the suffix -ed. The other verbs referred to as irregular comprise various paradigmatic patterns (put — put — put; send — sent — sent; come —came — come; begin — began — begun; go — went — gone; be —was/were — been; etc).

 

Non-Finite Verbs. (Verbids)

All verbal forms fall into two major sets: finite and non-finite. Non-finite forms of the verb, the infinitive, the gerund, participle I (present participle) and participle II (past participle), are otherwise called “verbals”, or “verbids”. The term, introduced by O. Jespersen, implies that they are not verbs in the proper sense of the word, because they combine features of the verb with features of other notional parts of speech. Their mixed, hybrid nature is revealed in all the spheres of the parts-of-speech characterization: meaning, formal features, and functions. The non-verbal features of verbids are as follows: they do not denote pure processes, but present them as specific kinds of substances and properties; they are not conjugated according to the categories of person and number, have no tense or mood forms; in some contexts they are combined with the verbs like non-verbal parts of speech; they never function as independent predicates; their functions are those characteristic for other notional parts of speech.

The infinitive is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun, serving as the verbal name of a process. The infinitive is used in three fundamentally different types of functions: first, as a notional, self-positional syntactic part of the sentence; second, as the notional constituent of a complex verbal predicate built up around a predicator verb; third, as the notional constituent of a finite conjugation form of the verb.

The combinability of the infinitive also reflects its dual semantic nature, in accord with which we distinguish between its verb-type and noun-type connections. The verb-type combinability of the infinitive is displayed in its combining, first, with nouns expressing the object of the action; second, with nouns expressing the subject of the action; third, with modifying adverbs; fourth, with predicator verbs of semi-functional nature forming a verbal predicate; fifth, with auxiliary finite verbs (word-morphemes) in the analytical forms of the verb. The noun-type combinability of the infinitive is displayed in its combining, first, with finite notional verbs as the object of the action; second, with finite notional verbs as the subject of the action.

The self-positional infinitive, in due syntactic arrangements, performs the functions of all types of notional sentence-parts, i. e. the subject, the object, the predicative, the attribute, the adverbial modifier.

The English infinitive exists in two presentation forms. One of them, characteristic of the free uses of the infinitive, is distinguished by the pre-positional marker to. This form is called traditionally the "to infinitive", or in more recent linguistic works, the "marked infinitive". The other form, characteristic of the bound uses of the infinitive, does not employ the marker to, thereby presenting the infinitive in the shape of the pure verb stem, which in modern interpretation is understood as the zero-suffixed form. This form is called traditionally the "bare infinitive", or in more recent linguistic works, respectively, the "unmarked infinitive".

The infinitive is a categorially changeable form. It distinguishes the three grammatical categories sharing them with the finite verb, namely,the aspective category of development (continuous in opposition), the aspective category of retrospective coordination (perfect in opposition), the category of voice (passive in opposition). Consequently, the categorical paradigm of the infinitive of the objective verb includes eight forms: the indefinite active, the continuous active, the perfect active, the perfect continuous active; the indefinite passive, the continuous passive, the perfect passive, the perfect continuous passive. E.g.: to take — to be taking — to have taken — to have been taking; to be taken —to be being taken — to have been taken — to have been being taken. The infinitive paradigm of the non-objective verb, correspondingly, includes four forms. E.g.: to go —to be going — to have gone — to have been going. The continuous and perfect continuous passive can only be used occasionally, with a strong stylistic colouring. But they underlie the corresponding finite verb forms. It is the indefinite infinitive that constitutes the head-form of the verbal paradigm

The gerund is the non-finite form of the verb which, like the infinitive, combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun. Similar to the infinitive, the gerund serves as the verbal name of a process, but its substantive quality is more strongly pronounced than that of the infinitive. Namely, as different from the infinitive, and similar to the noun, the gerund can be modified by a noun in the possessive case or its pronominal equivalents (expressing the subject of the verbal process), and it can be used with prepositions.

The general combinability of the gerund, like that of the infinitive, is dual, sharing some features with the verb, and some features with the noun. The verb-type combinability of the gerund is displayed in its combining, first, with nouns expressing the object of the action; second, with modifying adverbs; third, with certain semi-functional predicator verbs, but other than modal. Of the noun-type is the combinability of the gerund, first, with finite notional verbs as the object of the action; second, with finite notional verbs as the prepositional adjunct of various functions; third, with finite notional verbs as the subject of the action; fourth, with nouns as the prepositional adjunct of various functions. The gerund, in the corresponding positional patterns, performs the functions of all the types of notional sentence-parts, i.e. the subject, the object, the predicative, the attribute, the adverbial modifier.

The categorial paradigm of the gerund of the objective verb includes four forms: the simple active, the perfect active; the simple passive, the perfect passive. E.g.: taking — having taken — being taken — having been taken. The gerundial paradigm of the non-objective verb, correspondingly, includes two forms. E.g.: going — having gone. The perfect forms of the gerund are used, as a rule, only in semantically strong positions, laying special emphasis on the meaningful categorial content of the form.

The present participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective and adverb, serving as the qualifying-processual name. In its outer form the present participle is wholly homonymous with the gerund, ending in the suffix -ing and distinguishing the same grammatical categories of retrospective coordination and voice. The present participle has its own place in the general paradigm of the verb, different from that of the past participle, being distinguished by the corresponding set of characterisation features. Since it possesses some traits both of adjective and adverb, the present participle is not only dual, but triple by its lexico-grammatical properties, which is displayed in its combinability, as well as in its syntactic functions.

The verb-type combinability of the present participle is revealed, first, in its being combined, in various uses, with nouns expressing the object of the action; second, with nouns expressing the subject of the action (in semi-predicative complexes); third, with modifying adverbs; fourth, with auxiliary finite verbs (word-morphemes) in the analytical forms of the verb.

The past participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective, serving as the qualifying-processual name. The past participle is a single form, having no paradigm of its own. By way of the paradigmatic correlation with the present participle, it conveys implicitly the categorial meaning of the perfect and the passive. As different from the present participle, it has no distinct combinability features or syntactic function features specially characteristic of the adverb. Thus, the main self-positional functions of the past participle in the sentence are those of the attribute and the predicative.

The past participle is included in the structural formation of the present participle (perfect, passive), which, together with the other differential properties, vindicates the treatment of this form as a separate verbid. The past participles of non-objective verbs are rarely used in independent sentence-part positions; they are mostly included in phraseological or cliche combinations like faded photographs, fallen leaves, a retired officer, a withered flower, dream come true, etc.

Finite verb: Introduction.

The finite forms of the verb express the processual relations of substances and phenomena making up the situation reflected in the sentence. These forms are associated with one another in an extremely complex and intricate system. The peculiar aspect of the complexity of this system lies in the fact that, the finite verb is directly connected with the structure of the sentence as a whole.The finite verb, through the working of its categories, is immediately related to such sentence-constitutive factors as morphological forms of predication, communication pur­poses, subjective modality, subject-object relation, gradation of proba­bilities, and quite a few other factors of no lesser importance.

· A finite verb is a verb which has a subject and shows tense.

· A finite verb is a form of a verb that has a subject (expressed or implied) and can function as the root of an independent clause; an independent clause can, in turn, stand alone as a complete sentence.

· A form of a verb that shows agreement with a subject and is marked for tense.

· It is a verb being a verb as opposed to a verbal which is another part of speech formed form a verb.

· Finite verbs are distinguished from non-finite verbs which do not show a distinction in tense and number, and cannot stand alone as the main verb in an independent clause.

· A finite verb is a form of a verb that has a subject and exhibit tense and number in an independent clause or sentence.

· Finite verbs indicate a person, number and tense.

· It shows tense (past / present etc..) or number (singular / plural).

· The finite verb always shows an agreement with a subject.

 

 

Noun. Gender

In Indo-European languages the category of gender is presented with

flexions. It is not based on sex distinction, but it is purely grammatical.

According to some language analysts (B.Ilyish, F.Palmer, and

E.Morokhovskaya), nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.

Ilyish states that not a single word in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its

morphology due to its denoting male or female being. Thus, the words husband

and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their

lexical meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor and actressis a

purely lexical one. In other words, the category of sex should not be confused with

the category of gender, because sex is an objective biological category.It

correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings are manifested in

the language grammatically (e.g. tiger – tigress).

Gender distinctions in English are marked for a limited number of nouns. In

present-day English there are some morphemes which present differences between

masculine and feminine (waiter – waitress, widow – widower). This distinction is

not grammatically universal. It is not characterized by a wide range of occurrences

and by a grammatical level of abstraction. Only a limited number of words are

marked as belonging to masculine, feminine or neuter. The morpheme on which

the distinction between masculine and feminine is based in English is a wordbuilding morpheme, not form-building.

Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of the

category of gender. Prof. Blokh states thatthe existence of the category of gender

in Modern English can be proved by the correlation of nouns with personal

pronouns of the third person (he, she, it). Accordingly, there are three genders in

English: the neuter (non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine

gender.

 

 

Noun.Number.

The grammatical category of number isthe 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.

There are different approaches to defining the category of number. Thus,

some scholars believe that the category of number in English is restricted in its

realization because of the dependentimplicit grammatical meaning of

countableness/uncountableness.The category of number is realized only within

subclass of countable nouns, i.e. nouns having numeric (discrete) structure.

Uncountable nouns have nocategory of number, for they have quantitative

(indiscrete) structure. Two classes of uncountables can be distinguished: singularia

tantum (only singular) and pluralia tantum (only plural). M. Blokh, however, does

not exclude the singularia tantum subclass from the category of number. He calls

such forms absolute singular forms comparable to the ‘common’ singular of

countable nouns.

In Indo-European languages there are lots of nouns that don’t fit into the

traditional definition of the category based on the notion of quantity. A word can

denote one object, but it has the plural form. Or a noun can denote more than one

thing, but its form is singular. There is a definition of the category of number that

overcomes this inconsistency. It was worked out by prof. Isachenko. According to

him, the category of number denotes marked and unmarked discreteness (not

quantity). A word in a singular form denotes unmarked discreteness whether it is a

book, or a sheep, or sheep. If an object is perceived as a discrete thing, it has the

form of the plural number. Thus, trousers and books are perceived as discrete

object whereas a flock of sheep is seen as a whole. This definition is powerful

because it covers nearly all nouns whilethe traditional definition excludes many

words.

The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional

quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one object while the

plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of several parts. The

singular form may denote:

a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);

b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic

animal);

c) indiscreteness (нерасчлененностьor uncountableness - money, milk).

The plural form may denote:

a) the existence of several objects (cats);

b) the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum,

jeans).

To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:

1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit

discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed: cat::cats;

2. The nouns in which this opposition isnot expressed explicitly but is

revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are two

groups here:

A. Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names,

abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;

B. Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several

parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.

3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition

here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in

the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass.Look! The sheep are eating

grass.

 

Noun. Case.

In present-day linguistics case is used intwo senses: 1) semantic, or logic,

and 2) syntactic.

The semantic case conceptwas developed by C. J.Fillmore in the late

1960s. Ch. Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of cases. They

show relations in the so-called deep structure of the sentence.According to him,

verbs may stand to different relations to nouns. There are 6 cases:

1. Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;

2. Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the

door;

3. Dative Case (D) Johnbelieved that he would win(the case of the animate

being affected by the state of action identified by the verb);

4. Factitive Case (F) The keywas damaged(the result of the action or state

identified by the verb);

5. Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;

6. Objective case (O) John stole the book.

The syntactic case conceptdates back to the grammars of Ancient Greece

and Ancient Rome. It is a case whose main role is to indicate a relationship

between constituents. To put it otherwise, its role is to indicate a construction in

syntax. Thus genitive is a case which marks one noun as dependent on another, e.g.

John’s car. The conception of case as a marker of a syntactic relation or a

construction can be found in prescriptive, non-structural descriptive and structural

descriptive grammars. Prescriptivists spoke of the nominative, the dative, the

genitive, the accusative, and the ablative.

H. Sweet’sviews (1925) rest on the syntactic conception of case: case to

him is a syntactic relation that can be realized syntactically or morphologically. He

speaks of inflected and non-inflected cases (the genitive vs. the common case).

Non-inflected cases, according to the scholar, are equivalent to the nominative,

vocative, accusative, and dative of inflected languages.

O. Jespersen(1933) speaks of the genitive and the common case. Some

grammarians (R. W. Pence (1947), H. Whitehall (1965), H. Shaw (1952)) give

three cases in English - nominative,genitive (possessive) and accusative

(objective). This three-case system, based on the analogy of the form of pronouns,

remained extremely popular in the grammars of the 20th century, including some

structural grammars (H. Whitehall). H. Whitehall, however, does not reflect the

general situation in the school of structural grammar: structuralists at large

recognize the existence of two cases- the genitive and the common.

Case expresses the relation of a word toanother word in the word-group or

sentence (my sister’s coat). The category of case correlates with the objective

category of possession. The case category in English is realized through the

opposition: The Common Case:: The Possessive Case (sister:: sister’s). However,

in modern linguistics the term “genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive

case” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of

possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following:

1. Possessive Genitive: Mary’s father – Mary has a father,

2. Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,

3. Objective Genitive: The man’s release – The man was released,

4. Genitive of origin: the boy’s story – the boy told the story,

5. Descriptive Genitive: children’s books – books for children

6. Genitive of measure and partitive genitive: a mile’sdistance, a day’s trip

7. Appositive genitive: the city of London.

To avoid confusion with the plural, the marker of the genitive case is

represented in written form with an apostrophe. This fact makes possible

disengagement of –`s form from the noun to which it properly belongs. E.g.: The

man I saw yesterday’s son, where -`s is appended to the whole group (the so-called

group genitive). It may even follow a word which normally does not possess such

a formant, as in somebody else’s book.

There is no universal point of view as to the case system in English.

Different scholars stick to a different number of cases.

1. There are two cases. (limited casetheory) The Common one and The

Genitive;

2. There are no cases at all, the form`s is optional because the same

relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s arrival – the arrival

of the doctor;

3. There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due

to the existence of objective pronouns me, him, whom;

4. The theory of positional cases.

5. The theory of prepositional cases.

We adhere to the view that English does possess the category of case, which

is represented by the opposition of the two forms - the genitive vs. the nongenitive, or the common. The marked member of the opposition is the genitive and

the unmarked the common: both members express a relation - the genitive

expresses a specific relation (the relation of possession in the wide meaning of the

word) while the common case expresses a wide range of relations including the

relation of possession, e.g. Kennedy’s house vs. the Kennedy house. While

recognizing the existence of the genitive case, we must say that the English

genitive is not a classical case. Its peculiarities are:

1) the inflection -‘s is but loosely connected with the noun (e.g. the Queen of

England’s daughter; the man I met yesterday’s son);

2) genitive constructions are paralleled by corresponding prepositional

constructions (e.g. Shakespeare’s works vs. the works of Shakespeare);

3) the use of the genitive is mainly limited to nouns denoting living beings;

4) the inflection -‘s is used both in the singular and in the plural (e.g. a boy’s

bicycle vs. the boys’ bicycles), which is not typical of case inflexions.

Verb: Person and Number.

 

As it can be seen, in Russian person isfully grammaticalized in the present

tense; grammatically, the personal pronouns are redundant: they merely reduplicate

the person information contained in the verb form.

In English, only the third person present tense singular form expresses

person grammatically; therefore, the verb forms are obligatorily associated with

personal pronouns. Special mention should be made of the modal verbs and the

verb be. Modal verbs, with the exception of shall/shouldand will/would, do not

show person grammatically.

The verb beis more grammaticalized in thisrespect: it takes an exception to

the other verbs.

As can be seen, it has two grammaticalized persons in the singular – first and third

person – and no grammaticalized persons in the plural. In the past tense, the verb

bedoes not distinguish person – withouta personal pronoun we cannot say which

person the form expresses.

To sum up, the category of person isrepresented in English by the twomember opposition: third person singular vs. non-third person singular. The

marked member of the opposition is third person; the unmarked member is nonthird person (it includes the remaining forms – first person, second person forms –

singular and plural). The opposition is privative both in the plane of content and in

the plane of expression.

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 despitethe fact than more than

one process is meant.

The category of number is a two-memberopposition: 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:

The boys crowded round him. vs.

*The boy crowded round him.

The soldiers regrouped and opened fire. vs.

*The soldier regrouped and opened fire.

The analysis of the examples demonstrates the weakness of the English verb

as concerns the expression of person and number and its heavy reliance on the

subject: it is the subject that is generally responsible for the expression of person

and number in English.

The forms of the type livest, takest, livedst, tookeststand outside the

grammatical system. They are associated with the personal pronoun thouand are

only used in religious and occasionally inpoetical texts and among Quakers. With

these forms the category of number appears within the category of the 2nd person

and the whole system of person and number(including the past tense) must be

presented in a different shape.

 

Verb. tense

Time is an unlimited duration in which things are considered as happening

in the past, present or future. Time stands for a concept with which all mankind is

familiar. Time is independentof language. Tense stands for a verb form used to

express a time relation. Time is the sameto all mankind while tenses vary in

different languages. Time can be expressed in languagein two basic ways: 1)

lexically; 2) grammatically.

The category of tense is considered tobe an immanent grammatical category

which means that the finite verb form always expresses time distinctions. The

category of tense finds different interpretations with different scholars.

According to one view, there are only two tenses in English: past and

present. Most British scholars do not recognize the existence of future. It is

considered to be a combination of the modal verb and an infinitive used to refer to

future actions. The modal verbs “shall”and “will”preserve their lexical meaning

of “wish, volition”. In that case combinations ofthe modal verbs with notional

verbs should be regarded as free syntactical constructions, not as analytical

structures. However, there are some examples in which the notion of volition

cannot be implied:

eg. He will die in a week.

I shall be twenty next Friday.

Provided that the situation is realistic, in these contexts lexical meanings of

“shall” and “will” are not present. These elements render only grammatical

meanings, therefore they serve as auxiliaries and such combinations must be

regarded as analytical structures. So wehave to recognize the existence of pure

futurity in English.

In traditional linguistics grammatical time is often represented as a threeform category consisting of the “linear” past, present and future forms. The

meaning of the category of tense is the relation of the action expressed by a finite

verb to the moment of speaking. Present denotes coincidence, past denotes a prior

action, future denotes a posterior action which follows the moment of speaking.

The future-in-the-past does not find its place in the scheme based on the linear

principle since it does not show any relation to the moment of speaking, hence this

system is considered to be deficient, not covering all lingual data. Those who deny

the existence of simple future in English consider future-in-the-past one of the

mood forms. Those who recognize the existence of simple future argue that it is

used in the same situation when simple future is used, in subordinate clauses when

the principal clause contains a past form. So, this form is different only in one

respect – it is dependent on the syntactic structure.

According to the concept worked out by Prof. Blokh, there exist two tense

categories in English. The first one – the category of primary time – expresses a

direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process denoted. It is based upon

the opposition of past vs. present, the past tense being its strong member. The

second one – the category of “prospective time” – is based onthe opposition of

“after-action” and “non-after-action”, the marked member being the future tense.

 

Verb. Aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category

of manner of action. It is realizedthrough the opposition Continuous::NonContinuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The opposition is privative both in the

plane of content and in the plane of expression. It is easily neutralized, i. e. noncontinuous forms substitute continuous forms when the notion of duration is

expressed by other means (eg. lexical).

The realization of the category of aspectis closely connected with the lexical

meaning of verbs. There are some verbs inEnglish that do not normally occur with

progressive aspect, even in those contexts in which the majority of verbs

necessarily take the progressive form. Among the so-called ‘non-progressive’

verbs are think, understand, know, hate, love,see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The

most striking characteristic that they have in common is the fact that they are

‘stative’ - they refer to a state of affairs, rather than to an action, event or process.

It should be observed, however, that all the ‘non-progressive' verbs take the

progressive aspect under particular circumstances. As the result of internal

transposition verbs of non-progressive nature can be found in the Continuous form:

Now I'm knowing you.Generally speaking the Continuous form has at least two

semantic features - duration (the action is always in progress) and definiteness (the

action is always limited to a definite pointor period of time). In other words, the

purpose of the Continuous form is to serve as a frame which makes the process of

the action more concrete and isolated.

A distinction should be made betweengrammatical aspect and semantic

aspectuality. English has an aspect systemmarked by the presence or absence of

the auxiliary becontrasting progressive and non-progressive. The major

aspectuality contrast is between perfective and imperfective. With perfective

aspectuality the situation described in a clause is presented in its totality, as a

whole, viewed, as it were, from the outside. With imperfective aspectuality the

situation is not presented in its totality, but viewed from within, with focus on the

internal temporal structure or on some subinterval of time within the whole. The

main use of progressive forms is to express a particular subtype of imperfective

aspectuality.

As for the Russian verb, it has two aspects, the perfective and the

imperfective. It is obvious at once that there is no direct correspondence between

English and Russian aspects; for instance, the English continuous aspect is not

identical with the Russian imperfective. The relation between the two systems is

not so simple as all that. On the onehand, the English common aspect may

correspond not only to the Russian perfective but also to the Russian imperfective

aspect; thus, he wrote may correspond both to написалand to писал. On the other

hand, the Russian imperfective aspect may correspond not only to the continuous

but also to the common aspect in English; thus, писалmay correspond both to was

writing and to wrote.

Verb. 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 realizedthrough the opposition Active

voice::Passive voice. The passive is markedboth in meaning and in form and the

active as unmarked both in meaning and in form.

The realization of the voice category isrestricted because of the implicit

grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this

meaning, all English verbs should fall intotransitive and intransitive. However, the

classification turns out to be morecomplex and comprises 6 groups:

1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;

2. Verbs with the maintransitive 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.

Three types of passiveconstructions can be differentiated: 1) direct primary

passive; 2) indirect secondary passive; 3) prepositional tertiary passive.

Some English verbs can admit only one object – the direct one: e.g. Mary

saw him.

When such an object becomes the subject of a passive construction, the

latter is called direct primary passive: e.g. He was seen by Mary.

There are many verbs in English that take two objects in the active

construction (direct and indirect): e.g. I gave him a book. She told the story to her

sister.

These verbs admit of two passive constructions:

a) A book was given to him. The story was told to her sister. (the direct

primary passive)

b) He was given a book. Her sister was told the story. (the indirect secondary

passive)

The indirect (secondary) passive is not infrequent in verb-phrases with the

verb to give, such as: to give credit, to give command, to give a chance, to give a

choice, to give an explanation, to give an opportunity, to give orders, to give

shelter, and the like.

e.g. He was given a good to chance to argue.

She is given an opportunity to go to the south in summer.

Suppose, you are given a choice. What would you prefer?

However, many verbs in English may take a direct and an indirect object in

the active construction but admit only onepassive construction — the direct

passive, e.g.: to bring, to do, toplay, to telegraph and many others. The list could

be extended.

Next come constructions with the so-called prepositional or tertiary passive.

The subject of the passive construction corresponds to the prepositional object of

the active construction. This “detached” preposition retains its place after the verb.

e.g. Everything was taken care of.

She could not bear being read to any longer.

He was constantly being laughed at.

It should be noted that some scholars admit the existence of Middle,

Reflexive and Reciprocal voices.

"Middle Voice" - the verbs primarily transitive may develop an intransitive

middle meaning: That adds a lot; The door opened; The book sells easily; The

dress washes well.

"Reflexive Voice": He dressed; He washed- the subject is both the agent

and the recipient of the action at the sametime. It is always possible to use a

reflexive pronoun in this case: He washed himself.

"Reciprocal voice”: They met; They kissed- it is always possible to use a

reciprocal pronoun here: They kissed each other.

We cannot, however, speak of differentvoices, because all these meanings

are not expressed morphologically.

 

Verb. Mood.

A great divergence of opinions on the category of mood is caused by the fact

that identical mood forms can express different meanings and different forms can

express similar meanings.

The category of mood expresses the relation of nominative content of the

sentence towards reality. Hence there are two moods – one presenting the action as

real and the other presenting the action asunreal. Real actions are expressed by the

indicative mood and unreal are expressed by the oblique mood.

I go to university. vs. He suggests I (should) go to university.

I am a student again. vs. I wish I were a student again.

As for the imperative mood, traditionally ithas been referred to as a separate

mood. However, Prof. Blokh thinks thatthe imperative is a variety of the

subjunctive. This can be shown by means of equivalent transformations:

Be off! _ I demand thatyou (should) be off.

Do be careful with the papers. _ My request is that you (should) be careful

with the papers.

Do as I ask you! _ I insist that you (should) do as I ask you.

As it can be seen, the meaning of the imperative does not much differ from

the meaning of the subjunctive. It expresses a directive which may or may not be

translated into a fact. Thusif we agree with M. Blokh, we shall have only two

moods – the indicative and the non-indicative, or spective.

Speaking of the system of oblique moods, linguists distinguish various

semantic varieties: Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, Conditional, Suppositional.

Subjunctive I So be it. Long live the Queen.

Subjunctive II If I had / had had time

Conditional I would go / would have gone there

Suppositional I demand that he should be present

These moods are distinguished on the basis of meaning which is coloured by

the linguistic environment of the forms, i.e. these are ‘modal’ varieties of the

subjunctive mood.

Subjunctive II and Conditional are used in a conditional period. They have

two forms – either homonymous to Past Indefinite and Future-in-the-Past, or to

Past Perfect and Future-Perfect-in-the-Past.

Prof. Khlebnikova analyzed the morphological system of the English verb

on the basis of oppositions. She paid proper attention to the fact that all these forms

are united by one meaning – that of unreality. Since the meaning is one, but forms

are different, she made the conclusion that there is only one oblique mood

presented by two subtypes.

Subjunctive II and Conditional are more important than the other two

because they are indispensable and sufficient in the system, that is, one cannot do

without them, but can easily do withoutthe other two. Subjunctive II and

Conditional express the same meaning and don’t exist independently, so they can

be united into one mood. Prof. Khlebnikova called this mood Conjunctive.

Subjunctive I and Suppositional are on the periphery of the system. The

former is a remnant of history. It has fallen out of the system and is used in

restricted contexts, such as religious hymns, slogans, etc. The latter is a new

formation that has not entered into the system yet. It is used in specific syntactic

structures, eg., after verbs ‘demand’, ‘suggest’, etc. Another indication that

Subjunctive I and Suppositional are on the periphery of the system is that they are

synonymous and interchangeable in the structure.

To sum up, the category of mood is represented by two oppositions: the

indicative mood and the spective mood. The indicative mood is the basic mood of

the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system. Semantically, it is a fact

mood; it is the least subjective of all the moods. The spective mood, which

includes the traditional imperative and the subjunctive mood, represents a process

as a non-fact, i.e. as something imaginary, desirable,problematic, contrary to

reality. The imperative variety of the spective mood is morphologically the least

developed mood: it is only expressed by the bare infinitive form.

 

Analytical Forms

An analytic language is a language that conveys grammatical relationships without using inflectional morphemes. Analytical forms are combinations of the auxiliary element (a word morpheme) and the notional element: is writing. In the analytical form is writing the auxiliary verb be is lexically empty. It expresses the, grammatical meaning. The notional element expresses both the lexical and the grammatical meaning. So the grammatical meaning is expressed by the two components of the analytical form: the auxiliary verb be and the affix ing. The word-morpheme be and the inflexion -ing constitute a discontinuous morpheme. Analytical forms are mostly proper to verbs. An analytical verb-form consists of one or more form words, which have no lexical meaning and only express one or more of the grammatical categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood, and one notional word, generally an infinitive or a participle: e. g. He has come, I am reading. Some verb phrases, as the Perfect forms have been completely grammatized, – the first components have completely lost their lexical meanings and became pure auxiliaries. Some of them have not been fully grammatized to this day and are not regarded as ideal analytical forms (for instance, the Future tenses). The analytical way of form-building was a new device, which developed in Late OE and ME. Analytical forms developed from free word groups (phrases, syntactical constructions). The first component of these phrases turned into a grammatical marker, while the second component retained its lexical meaning and acquired a new grammatical value in the compound form.. A true analyt.form is idiomatic in character, the overall meaning of the form is not immediately dependent on the individual meaning of its constituents. It's NOT a sum of meanings of its components. An analyt.form also functions as a gramm. form of a single word. such phrases «as most interesting» are not an analytical form, because it is not idiomatic enough.

Sentence in the text.

Syntax of the text is one of the youngest branches of grammar. The sentence and the phrase, as a constituent of the sentence, have been traditional objects of study in linguistics in general and of grammar in particular for centuries, starting with ancient linguistics. The text (oral or written) has been studied primarily by stylistics, rhetoric and literary studies, from the point of view of the means used by the speaker or the author of a written text to achieve the desired effect on the listener or the reader, the recipient of the text. Some linguistic aspects of textual sequences of sentences were also addressed: for example, connections between sentences were described in the works of the Russian linguists N. S. Pospelov, L. A. Bulakhovsky and others; the linguists of the Prague Linguistic Circle showed that the actual semantics of the sentence and the use of such lingual elements as articles or substitutive words cannot be accounted for without reference to the broader textual context. But it was only in the 1980s-90s that the majority of linguists admitted, that the sentence is not the largest grammatically arranged lingual unit.

Sentences are unified by a certain topic and are organized in speech according to a communicative purpose in a particular communicative situation. The linguistic description of the text is as follows: it is a speech sequence of lingual units interconnected semantically (topically) and syntactically (structurally); in other words, it is a coherent stretch of speech, characterized by semantic and syntactic unity. Topical (semantic) unity and semantico-syntactic cohesion ^[1] are the basic differential features (categories) of the text.

On the basis of the communicative direction of their component sentences, sentence sequences in speech are divided into monologue sequences and dialogue sequences. In a monologue,sentences are directed from one interlocutor (participant of communication) to another: from a speaker to a listener, or from an author to a reader, e.g.: Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess. She had many suitors from far countries. In a dialogue, the sentences are directed from one interlocutor to another in turn, to meet one another, e.g.: “ Who is absent today?” – “John.” “What’s the matter with him?” – “He is ill.” Traditionally, a monologue sequence of sentences united by a common topic is identified as the basic textual unit; it is called a “ supra-phrasal unity ” (the term of L. A. Bulakhovsky) or a “ complex syntactic unity ” (the term of N. S. Pospelov); a two-directed sequence of sentences is sometimes called a “ dialogue unity ”.

The elements of a dialogue can be used in a monologue text: for example, the author of the text can ask a question and answer it in his or her “inner dialogue” (also known in stylistics as “dramatic monologue”), e.g.: What can I do in this situation? Nothing whatsoever. And vice versa, one-direction sequences can be used in a dialogue, e.g.: “He is not a very nice person.” – “And he never was.” Dialogues can contain stretches of speech by a single speaker, which are actually monologues: descriptions, narrations, jokes, etc.

Thus, more consistent is the definition of the two types of sentence sequences on the basis of syntactic connections used: the supra-sentential construction of the one-direction communicative type is based on cumulation of sentences, so it can be defined as a cumulative sequence, or a “ cumuleme ”: the connections between the components of a dialogue sequence can be defined as “ occursive ” (from the Latin word “to meet”) and the supra-sentential construction based on occursive connections can be called an “ occurseme ”.

The occurseme as an element of the system occupies a place above the cumuleme: the occurseme can be built by separate sentences or by cumulative sequences. Both occursemes and cumulemes are topical textual entities.

Cumulation in sentence sequences may be of two types: prospective (cataphoric) cumulation and retrospective (anaphoric) cumulation.

Prospective or cataphoric cumulation presupposes the use of connective elements which relate the sentence in which they are used, to the sentence which follows. In other words, prospective connective elements make the preceding or leading sentence semantically incomplete; they signal that this sentence is to be semantically developed in the following, sequential sentence or sentences. E.g.: Let me tell you this. Jack will never let you down. In this cumulative sequence, the demonstrative pronoun this functions as a prospective connector. Among the other prospectives are: the following, as follows, the following thing (way), one thing, two things, etc.

Retrospective or anaphoric cumulation presupposes the use of connective elements relating the sentence in which they are used to the one that precedes it. In other words, retrospective (anaphoric) connectors make the sequential sentence dependent on the leading sentence of the sequence. E.g.: She was taken aback. However, she tried to pull herself together. Retrospective cumulation is the basic, the most neutral, and the most widely used type of text connection; prospective cumulation is much rarer, characteristic mostly of scientific and technical texts.

According to the connective means used, cumulation is divided into two types: conjunctive and correlative.

Conjunctive cumulation is achieved by functional or semi-functional conjunction-like words and word combinations: pure conjunctions (coordinative or subordinative), adverbial connectors, such as however, thus, yet, then, etc., or parenthetical connectors, such as firstly, secondly, on the one hand, on the other hand, in other words, as mentioned above, etc. Conjunctive cumulation is always retrospective (anaphoric).

Correlative cumulation is achieved by a pair of elements, one of which, the “ succeedent ”, refers to the other, the “ antecedent ”. Correlative cumulation may be either prospective or retrospective. Correlative cumulation can be divided into substitutional connection and representative connection. Substitutional correlation is based on the use of various substitutes, for example, pronouns, e.g.: I saw a girl. She looked very much upset; the girl is the antecedent of the pronoun she. The whole preceding sentence, or its clause, can be the antecedent of a correlative substitute, e.g.: We’re getting new machines next month. This (= this fact) will help us to increase productivity. Representative cumulation is achieved by elements which are semantically connected without the factor of replacement, e.g.: I saw a girl. Her face seemed familiar to me. Representative correlation includes repetition (so-called “repeated nomination”): simple lexical repetition or repetition complicated by different variations (by the use of synonyms, by certain semantic development, periphrasis, association, etc.), e.g.: I answered very sharply. My answer didn’t upset her.

Conjunctive and correlative types of cumulation are often used together in supra-sentential constructions.

Semantic unity and syntactic cohesion are supported by communicative unity of sentences, or theme-rheme arrangement (organization ) of the cumuleme. As was mentionned, the role of actual division of the sentence in the forming of the text was first demonstrated by the linguists of the Praguelinguistic school (F. Daneč, in particular). There are two basic types of theme-rheme arrangement of sentences in textual sequences: linear (progressive) connection and parallel connection of sentences. With linear connection of sentences, the rheme of the leading sentence becomes the theme of the sequential sentence, forming what is known as a theme-rheme chain, e.g.: There was a girl on the platform She was wearing a hat. The hat was decorated with flowers and ribbons. With parallel connection of sentences, the component sentences share the same theme within the supra-sentential construction, e.g.: George was an honest man. He had graduated from Harvard. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts.

As was mentioned earlier, in Unit 1, acumuleme (a cumulative supra-sentential construction) correlates with a separate sentence which is placed in the text in a topically significant position. Thus, the general elementary unit-segment of text built up by either a cumuleme or by a single sentence can be defined as a “ dicteme ” (from Latin ‘ dicto ’ ‘I speak’).

The basic communicative function of the dicteme is topical. But the dicteme is polyfunctional; in the text, besides the topical function, it performs the functions of nomination, predication, and stylization: besides combining various lingual units into a topical unity, it names propositional events, refers them to reality, and regulates the choice of lingual units, appropriate for communication in specific conditions.

In oral text, dictemes are delimited intonationally: pauses between dictemes are longer than pauses between sentences within the same cumuleme.

In written text, the dicteme is normally represented by a paragraph, but it must be noted that the two units are not identical. Theparagraph is a unit of written speechdelimited by a new (indented) line at the beginning and an incomplete line at the close; it is a purely literary-compositional device. A paragraph can include more than one dicteme, or it may divide one dicteme into parts, for example, for the introduction of utterances in a dialogue or for the introduction of separate points in enumerations. Still, though the paragraph is not a strictly syntactic device, the borderlines between paragraphs are basically the same as the borderlines between dictemes. Both multidicteme paragraphs and one-sentence paragraphs are stylistically marked features of the text.

There are some syntactic constructions intermediary between the sentence and the sequence of sentences. The first one is known as parcellation: in a parcellated construction, the two parts are separated by a finalizing sentence tone in oral speech and by a full stop in written speech, but they relate to each other as parts of one and the same sentence, e.g.: I am always shy. With you. Parcellation can be treated as transposition of a sentence into a cumuleme; it adds some topical significance to the part parcellated. The second intermediary phenomenon is the result of transposing a cumuleme into a sentence when two or more semantically independent sentences are forced into one. This is characteristic of a casual manner of speech or, on the other hand, for prolonged literary passages; in written speech such constructions usually include semi-final punctuation marks, such as, for example, a semi-colon or brackets (see Unit 25; inner cumulation).

ictemes and paragraphs are connected within the framework of larger elements of texts in various groupings, each of them being characterized by semantic (topical) unity and syntactic cohesion. A large text, or macro-text (pleni-text), united by a macro-topic, is semantically subdivided into smaller texts, or micro-texts (parti-texts), united by micro-topics; for example, a novel can be subdivided into parts, chapters, sections, and paragraphs. The smallest topical