Grammatical categories of the English verb: growth of the future tense and continuous forms in English language.

In the OE language there was no form of the future tense. The category of tense consisted of two members: past and present. The present tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context. Alongside this form there existed other ways of presenting future happenings: modal phrases and the infinitive of the notional verb. In these phrases the meaning of futurity was combined with strong modal meanings of volition, obligation and possibility.

In ME the use of modal phrases, especially with the verb shall, became increasingly common. Shall + inf. was now the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. One of the early instances of shall with a weakened modal meaning is found in the early ME poem ORMULUM.

In late ME texts shall was used both as a modal verb and as a future tense auxiliary, though discrimination between them is not always possible. In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with shall and will, as well as the present tense of notional verbs occurred in free variation; they can express “pure” futurity and add different shades of modal meanings.

The development of aspect is linked up with the growth of the continuous forms. In the OE verb system there was no category of aspect; verbal prefixes especially зe-, which could express an aspective meaning of perfectivity in the opinion of most scholars, were primarily word-building prefixes. The growth of continuous forms was slow and uneven.

Verb phrases consisting of bēon (NE be) + Part.Iare not infrequently found in OE prose. They denoted a quality, or a lasting state, characterizing the person or thing indicated by the subject of the sentence.

In early ME ben + Part.I fell into disuse; it occurs occasionally in some dialectal areas.

In the 15th and 16th c. be + Part.I was often confused with a synonymous phrase – be + the preposition on + a verbal noun.

It was not until the 18th c. that the cont. forms acquired a specific meaning of their own; to use modern definitions, that of incomplete concrete process of limited duration. Only at the stage the cont. and non-cont. made up a new gram. category – aspect. In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with shall and will, as well as the Pres. tense of notional verbs, occurred in free variation; they can express “pure” futurity and add different shades of modal meanings. Phrases with shall and will outnumbered all the other ways of indicating futurity.

Recommended Literature for reading.

1. B.A Ilyish. History of the English Language. L, 1973.

2. T.A Rastorgueva. History of English. M, 1983.

3. B.DАракина История английского языка. М. 1985.

4. И. П.Иванова, Л.П. Чахоян. История английского языка.М.1976.

5. К. Бруннер. История английского языка. ТомI М,1956.

 

49 Syntactic relations in the speech.Syntactic relations are syntagmatic relations observed between syntactic units. They can be of three types – coordination, subordination and predication.Traditionally, in linguistics, the terms “syntactic relations” and “syntactic connections” are used as synonyms, although attempts have been made to distinguish them.The syntactic language level can be described with the help of special linguistic terms and notions: syntactic unit, syntactic form, syntactic meaning, syntactic function, syntactic position, and syntactic relations.The syntactic units can go into three types of syntactic relations.

Coordination (SR1 ) – syntagmatic relations of independence. SR1 can be observed on the phrase, sentence and text levels. Coordination may be symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric coordination is characterized by complete interchangeability of its elements – pens and pencils. Asymmetric coordination occurs when the position of elements is fixed: ladies and gentlemen. Forms of connection within SR1 may be copulative (you and me), disjunctive (you or me), adversative (strict but just) and causative-consecutive (sentence and text level only). In English elements related with coordination are strictly fixed to each other. It depends on the following factors:

1. Within the meaning of, or depending on the semantics: It was cold and we stayed at home - stayed can not precede it was cold

2. Etiquette: My sister and I - element I is used in the last place

3. Volume of units - Smaller unit must be preceded by a greater one: cold and hungry, ladies and gentlemen, men and women.

Subordination (SR2) – syntagmatic relations of dependence. SR2 are established between the constituents of different linguistic rank. They are observed on the phrase and sentence level. Subordination may be of three different kinds – adverbial (to speak slowly), objective (to see a house) and attributive (a beautiful flower). Forms of subordination may also be different – agreement (this book – these books), government (help us), adjournment (the use of modifying particles just, only, even, etc.) and enclosure (the use of modal words and their equivalents really, after all, etc.).

Predication (SR3) – syntagmatic relations of interdependence. Predication may be of two kinds – primary (sentence level) and secondary (phrase level). Primary predication is observed between the subject and the predicate of the sentence while secondary predication is observed between non-finite forms of the verb and nominal elements within the sentence. Secondary predication serves the basis for gerundial, infinitive and participial word-groups (predicative complexes).

The same with simple language=>The main syntactic relations between components of a phrase are coordination, subordination, interdependence and cummulation.In coordination (сочинение)the constituents of a phrase are independent of each other and we can change their places, e.g. Mary and John(John and Mary), boys and girls(girls and boys)In subordination (подчинение) we have the head and the adjunct, and the adjunct is subordinated to the head. Such syntactic relations are found in all headed phrases, e.g. beautiful girl, country doctor.Interdependence is relations between subject and predicate. The constituents are interdependent; the subject depends on a predicate and visa versa, e.g. he smiles, I know.The forth main type of syntactic relations in a phrase is cummulation, which can be found in non-headed dependent phrases, e.g. my old (friend), his own (dog). The difference between cummulation and coordination is that in coordination you can change the places of the constituents but in cummulation you can not do that.

Reference: List of books:

1. B.Ilyish. The Structure of Modern English.

2. M.Blokh. A Course in Theoretical Grammar.

 

 

Classification of Synonyms

A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy

Acad. V.V. Vinogradov established the following classification of syno­nyms: ideographic, stylistic, ideographic-stylistic, contextual, absolute (total).

Ideographic synonyms are words conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning or emotions expressed: a piece - a lump - a slice; to tremble - to shiver - to shudder; anger - fury; to like - to admire - to love.

Stylistic synonyms are words conveying the same notion but different in stylistic characteristics:

To begin - to start - to commence;

sky - heaven (poetic);

to see - to behold (archaic);

horse - steed (poetic);

to try - to endeavour (bookish).

Stylistic colouring may also be accompanied by a difference in emotional colouring or some other shades of meaning:

to say - to pronounce;

head - onion;

money - cabbage;

face - puss.

Such synonyms are called ideographic-stylistic.

Contextual synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions. Thus, the words bear, stand, suffer are synonyms only when used in the negative form: can't stand it - can't suffer it - can't bear it. Otherwise, all these verbs are semantically different.

Absolute (total) synonyms are words coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics. Absolute synonyms are usu­ally technical and scientific terms, they are rare in the vocabulary and tempo­rary. The vocabulary system tends to reject one of the absolute synonyms or to develop differentiation of characteristics in one or both (or all) of them: noun -substantive; flection - ending; oculist - eye-specialist.

 

52.paradigmatical relations in the language

paradigmatic relation is a relation that holds between elements of the same category, i.e. elements that can be substituted for each other. It contrasts with syntagmatic relation, which applies to relations holding between elements that are combined with each other. The opposition between 'paradigmatic' and 'syntagmatic' relations is an important dichotomy of structuralist linguistics.

The term 'paradigmatic relation' was introduced by Louis Hjelmslev. Ferdinand de Saussure, who established the opposition between the two types of relations in structuralist linguistics, used the term associative relation for what Hjelmslev called 'paradigmatic relation'.

Paradigmatic Relationship

an opposing relationship of several elements of language involving a choice of one of a number of mutually exclusiveelements. The language units are thus joined in a speaker’s consciousness despite the impossibility of the units’ actuallybeing joined in a speech event. The either-or function of a paradigmatic relationship is opposed to the both-and function of asyntagmatic relationship, in which elements of language coexist when they are realized in a speech event. Parádigmaticrelationships are nonlinear and nonsimultaneous. A form’s syntagmatic characteristics are apparently dependent on itsparadigmatic properties.

Paradigmatic relationships were first described by F. de Saussure, who termed them associative relationships, in oppositionto syntagmatic relationships.

PARADIGMATICAL RELATIONS

1.Hypero-hypenymic (ай) relations гипероним и гипоним (plant – tree (oak, apple tree (…)), flower …)

2.part-and-whole relations (body – face, eyes, nose; house – kitchen, sitting room, window, bathroom)

3.serial relations 1.2.3.4.5

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