1. The Subject of Theoretical Grammar.

Analytical character of English

Language consists of 3 main systems:
 Lexical system
 Phonological system
 Grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the
combination of naming means in the formation of utterances.
Grammar is divided into two parts: morphology (rules of words changing) and
syntax (rules of word combining in sentences).
The aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to present a theoretical description
of its grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical
categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of
words in the process of speech making.
The nature of grammar is better understood from the 2 planes:
The plane of content comprises the purely semantic elements contained in language,
while the plane of expression comprises the material (formal) units of language taken
by themselves, apart from the meanings rendered by them.
Polysemy and homonymy
Two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of
expression. (Present Simple: habitual action, action at the moment of speaking,
general truth)
Synonymy
Two or more units of the plane of expression correspond to one unit of the plane of
content (Will you come to the party? - Will you be coming? - Are you coming?).
The purpose of grammar as a linguistic discipline is to disclose and formulate the
regularities of the correspondence between the plane of content and the plane of
expression in the formation of utterances.
Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic
and paradigmatic.
Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relation between units in a segmental
sequence. E.g. My friend has come. In this sentence syntagmatically connected are
the words and word groups “my friend”, “has come”, “friend has come”.
The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other
is called a syntactic syntagma.
There are four main types of notional syntagmas:
  Predicative (subject + predicate) I like
 Objective (a verb + its object) like grammar
 Attributive (a noun + its attribute) theoretical grammar
 Adverbial (verb/adjective/adverb + adverbial modifier) very much
The other type of relations is called paradigmatic.
They exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they occur.
Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations cannot be directly observed in
utterances, that is why they are referred to as relations “in absentia” (in the absence).
Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories (oppositions). The
minimal paradigm consists of two form-stages, e.g. boy-boys. A more complex
paradigm can be divided into paradigmatic series (sub-paradigms), e.g. the system
of the finite verb (форма глагола, способная выражать весь спектр глагольных
категорий.). (Пример: syntactic + / ? – on the basis of purpose of communication)
Units of language are divided into segmental and suprasegmental. Segmental units
consist of phonemes, syllables, morphemes, words, etc.
Suprasegmantal units do not exist by themselves; they are realized together with
segmental units and express different modification of functions (meanings). To the
supra-segmental units belong intonation, accents, pauses, and patterns of word-
order.
Lingual hierarchy
Segmental units form the hierarchy of language.
 The lowest level is phonemic: it is formed by phonemes which have no
meaning.
 The next level is the morphemic level. The morpheme is the elementary
meaningful part of the word.
 The 3rd level in the segmental lingual hierarchy is the level of words, or
lexemic level.
 The level of phrases (word-groups) or phrasemic level. To this level belong
combinations of two or more notional words.
 Above the phrasemic level lies the level of sentence, or proposemic level.
 Above the proposemic level lies the supra-proposemic level, which is formed
by a supra-phrasal construction (supra-phrasal unity – суперфразовое
единство). In the printed text, the supra-phrasal construction very often
coincides with the paragraph.
 The next level of language is the level of text, which consists of a group of
supra-phrasal constructions.
 And the highest level of this hierarchy is the level of discourse.
Discourse is interpreted as a difficult communicative phenomenon, which includes
in itself social context, information about the participants of communication,
knowledge of process production and perception of texts.
Discourse after T. van Dijk is a difficult communicative event of socio-cultural co-
operation, characteristic lines of which are interests, aims and styles.
B. Johnstone determines discourse as “combining text in an aggregate with extra-
linguistic socio-cultural, pragmatic, psychological factors. Discourse is a
communication, which is submerged in life”.
The chief features characterizing an analytical language are the following
1. A lot of analytical forms
An analytical form consists of one or more functional 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.
E.g. He has come, I am reading.
The analytical forms are:
-Tense and Aspect verb-forms: (the Continuous forms: I am writing, Perfect form: I
have written, the Perfect Continuous form: I have been writing, the Future Simple:
I shall write, all the other forms of the Future; also the interrogative and the negative
forms of the Present and Past Simple: Does he write? He does not write.).
-The Passive voice: e.g. I was invited to the theater.
-The Analytical form of the Subjunctive mood: e.g. I should go there if I had time.
-With some adjectives: the category of degree of comparison: more beautiful, the
most beautiful.
2. Comparatively few grammatical inflections (элемент синтетизма)
Endings:
-s in the third person singular in the Present Simple: speaks
-s in the plural of nouns: tables
-s in the possessive case: my brother’s book
-d, -ed in the Past Simple of regular verbs: smoked, jumped.
-ing in the present participle and gerund: smiling
-en in the past participle of some irregular verbs: broken
-er, -est in comparative and superlative degrees of comparison of some adjectives
and adverbs: sooner, soonest, later, latest.
3. A rare use of sound alterations to denote grammatical forms: speak-spoke
(tense), mouse-mice (number), man-men (number).
4. A rare use of suppletive formations (different roots): good-better-best, be-
am-is-are-were-was.
5. A wide use of prepositions to denote relations between objects and to
connect words in the sentence: the roof of the house
6. Prominent use of word order to denote grammatical relations: a more or less
fixed word order, which acquires extreme importance. The fisherman caught
a fish.
7. Extensive use of substitutes. A word substitute saves the repetition of a word
in certain conditions. Here belong one, that, do.

2. The History of Theoretical Grammar development.

The history of English grammars is roughly divided into 2 periods.
The 1st is the age of prescientific grammar beginning with the end of the 16th century
and lasting till about 1900. It includes 2 types of grammars: the early
prenominative and prescriptive (normative) grammars.
The 2nd period is the age of scientific grammar which includes three types of
grammar: classical scientific grammar, structural grammar or descriptive
grammar and the transformational generative grammar.
THE 1ST PERIOD (16TH C./1586 – 1900)
Early prenormative grammar (1586 – the middle of 18th c.)
Until the 17th century the term “grammar” in Eng. was applied only to the study of
Latin.
The aim of this grammar is to establish English grammar.
Representatives: William Lily (he wrote one of the earliest and most popular Latin
grammars written in English), William Bullokar, Ben Jonson, Ch. Buttler.
The first English grammar, ‘Pamphlet for Grammar’ by William Bullokar, written
with the seeming goal of demonstrating that English was quite as rule-bound as
Latin, was published in 1586.
Morphology:
1) In Bullokar’s grammar there were 5 cases of nouns and 6 genders. Ben Jonson
and Ch. Butler distinguished 2 cases.
2) The Latin classification of the parts of speech (8) different from the system
adopted by modern grammars in that the substantives and adjectives were grouped
together as two kinds of nouns, while the participle was presented as a separate part
of speech.
3) The parts of speech were divided into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech
(W. Bullokar), or words with number and without number (Ben Jonson), or words
with number and case and words without number and case (Ch. Butler). Declinable
words included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, indeclinables were adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
4) Later, J. Brightland reduced the number of parts of speech to four; names (i.e.
nouns), qualities (i.e. adjectives), affirmations (i.e. verbs), and particles, which
included the four so-called indeclinable parts of speech.
Syntax:
1) Brightland introduced the notion “sentence”. According to him sentences are
divided into simple and compound. The simple sentence is defined as containing one
affimation (verb) and one name. The compound consists of 2 or more simple
sentences. Cooper mentioned three principal parts of the sentence: the nominative
case of the grammar ians, the predicate, and the third principal part is the
"accusative", i.e. the noun affected by the action of the transitive verb.
2) Wilkins identified the grammatical notions of the "nominative case" and the verb
with the logical subject and predicate.
Prescriptive grammar (the 2nd half of 18th c. – the end of 19th c./1900)
The aim of prescriptive grammar was to reduce the Eng. Language to rules and to
set up a standard of correct usage.
Representatives: R. Lowth, J. Wallis, Lindley Murray, J. C. Nesfield (modern)
Morphology:
1) Lowth introduced a two-case system for nouns (nominative, possessive) and 3-
cases system for pronouns (nominative, objective, possessive) and the term
“possessive case”.
2) The phrase was differentiated from the clause.
3) Murray, in the later editions of his grammar, decided to adopt the three-case (+
objective case) system for nouns.
Syntax:
1) Appeared the concept of principal parts of the sentence had been already
elaborated to the number of three: an agent, an attribute (i.e. the predicate) and an
object.
2) The rules for the formation of the Future Tense were stated (by J. Wallis?)
3) The compound sentence was subdivided into the compound sentence proper, with
coordinated component parts, and the complex sentence, characterized by
subordination of clauses. – the appearance of a trichotomic division: sentences –
simple, compound and complex.
4) Clauses are classified as independent and dependent or coordinate and
subordinate.
5) Subordinate clauses were also classified morphologically as noun, adjective and
adverb clauses.
6) The objects were classified according to their meaning and form as direct, indirect
and prepositional.
THE 2ND PERIOD (1900 - )
Classical scientific grammar (the beg. of the 20th c. – 1940s)
Representatives: L. G. Kimball, C. T. Onions, H. R. Stokoe, H. Sweet, O. Jespersen,
Curme.
The aim of grammar is to give scientific explanation of the grammatical phenomena.
Morphology:
1) Sweet describes the three main features characterizing the part of speech, namely
meaning, form and function.
2) The authors retain the traditional system of the eight parts of speech, grouping the
article and the numerals with the adjective.
3) Jespersen elaborates about the definition of morphology.
4) Curme introduces four-case system.
Syntax:
1) Stokoe adopted the new classification of sentences, describing double and
multiple sentences.

2) The international scheme of five parts of the sentence and the corresponding
classification is combined with the specifically English features of syntactic
analysis, with the addition of the concepts of the compliment and the modifiers (or
adjuncts).

3) Jespersen lists only five parts of speech – substantives, adjectives, verbs, pronouns
(the latter include pronominal adverbs and articles) and “particles”, in which he
groups adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Like Sweet he
proposes three principles of classification – meaning, form and function. He intends
to reject the traditional syntactic analysis and developed the concept of ranks (on the
bases of principle of determination).

4) Jespersen elaborates such general concepts as the correspondence of grammatical

and logical categories and the definition of syntax. He attempted to represent the
structure of English. Grammatical constructions are transcribed in formulas, in
which the parts of the sentence and the parts of speech are represented by capital and
small letters.

5) H. Poutsma introduces the term “composite sentence" as a common term for

compound and complex sentences.
Structural grammar (the beg. of the 20th c. – 1940s)
Representatives: Ch. Fries, L. Bloomfield, E. Nida, Z. S. Harris
The aim of the grammar is to treat the problems of the structure of English.
Morphology:
1) Ch. Fries applies some of the newly developed techniques, such as distributional
analysis and substitution and classified words into four “form-classes”, designated
by numbers, and 15 groups of “function words” designated by letters. The form-
classes correspond roughly to nouns and pronouns and specific words (or a particular
kind of verbs, adjectives and adverbs).
2) Bloomfield paid attention to phonological alternations of various sorts, which
led to the development of the modern theory of morphophonemics.
Syntax:
1) Sentence structure was represented in terms of immediate constituent analysis
(the binary cutting of sentences and their phrasal constituents into IC’s).
2) Bloomfield using the procedure of substitution, identified phrases according to
their functioning in larger structures into endocentric and exocentric.

Transformational Generative grammar (since 1957

Chomsky introduced Transformational generative grammar. According to this
theory sentences have a surface and a deep structure. In very simple sentence the
difference between the surface structure and the deep structure is minimal. Sentences
of this kind, simple, active, declarative, affirmative, indicative, are designated as
kernel sentences (The man hits the boy). Kernel sentences are produced applying
only obligatory transformations to the phrase-structure (verb + affix in the present
tense hit-s). Non-kernel or derived sentences involve optional transformations in
addition, such as active to passive (rearrangement, addition, deletion and
combination of linguistic elements).
A transformational grammar is organized in three basic parts. The 1st part is syntactic
component which includes the description of deep and surface structures.
The 2nd is the semantic component, which provides a semantic interpretation of the
deep structure. E.g. in sentences WE ENJOY SMOKING and WE OPPOSE
SMOKING the semantic component would indicate that the 1st sentence is a
paraphrase of WE SMOKE AND WE ENJOY IT though the 2 nd one is not a
paraphrase of WE SMOKE AND WE OPPOSE IT.
The 3rd component is the phonological one, which provides a phonetic interpretation
of the surface structure of the sentence.
According to Chomsky sentences are not derived from other sentences but from the
structure underlying by them. The phrase structures produce sentences usually by
way of transformations.
E. Bach in his Introduction to Transformational Grammars links up PS rules (Phrase
Structure Rules) both with traditional and IC analysis, saying that PS rules form a
counterpart in the theory of generative grammar to two techniques of linguistic
analysis (one old and one rather new).

3. Parts of speech. Different classifications

Morphology is the part of grammar which studies the forms of words. The morpheme
is the smallest meaningful unit into which a word form may be divided
Two remarks are necessary here:
1. Two or more morphemes may sound the same but be basically different (- er: the
agent performing the action; the comparative degree of some adjective)
2. There may be zero morphemes, that is the absence of morpheme may indicate a
certain meaning. Thus books is characterized by the -s- morpheme as being a plural
form, book is is characterized by the zero morpheme as being a singular form.
Allomorphs:
- The student comes
- The students come
- The ox comes
- The oxen come
- the change of student to students is paralleled by the change of ox to oxen. That is,
the meaning and function of the -en in oxen is the same as the meaning and function
of the -s in students. -s and the -en represent the same morpheme: each of them is a
morph representing the same morpheme, and they are termed allomorphs of the same
morpheme.
Parts of speech
The words of language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are
divided into grammatically relevant classes of words. The traditional grammatical
classes of words are called parts of speech.
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are classified on the basis of three criteria:
meaning, form and function. I. According to Vinogradov parts of speech are divided
into notional and functional, which reflects their division in the earlier grammatical
tradition into changeable and unchangeable. The notional parts of speech are the
noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.
The features of the noun:
1. The categorial meaning of substance (thingness).
2. The specific suffixal forms of derivation (-age, -ance/-ence, -eer (profiteer), -er, -
ing, -ion); categories: number, case and gender.
3. The functions in the sentence: subject, object, attribute (It’s needed to improve the
system of city transport), predicative (Ann is a nurse), adverbial modifier (We
decided to stay at a hotel).
4. Valency: all parts of speech except adverbs
The features of the adjective:
1. The categorial meaning of property (qualitative and relative);
2. The specific suffixal forms of derivation (-able, -al, -ful, -ish, -ive); categories:
degrees of comparison (for qualitative adjectives);
3. The functions in the sentence: subject (Green is my favourite colour), attribute
(The table contains the main features of nouns), predicative - ! can’t be predicate
(She’s beautiful).
4. Valency: nouns, pronouns (There is nothing beautiful), verbs (She’s beautiful).
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
(first, second, third, -th); no categories.
3. The functions in the sentence: subject, attribute, predicative (We’re four).
4. Valency: noun, pronoun
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; categories: number, case, gender.
3. The functions in the sentence: subject, object (Could you give this pen to her?),
attribute, predicative (It’s me), adverbial modifier (Do it somehow).
 The features of the verb:
1. The categorial meaning of process.
2. The specific suffixal forms of derivation (-ate, -er, -en, -ise/-ize); the opposition
of the finite and non-finite forms; categories: person, number, tense, time
correlation, aspect, voice, mood.
3. Functions in the sentence: predicate for the finite verb, the mixed (verbal and other
than verbal) functions for the non-finite verb (infinitive, participle, gerund) (She is
writing a letter now).
The features of the adverb:
1. The categorial meaning of the secondary property, i.e. the property of process or
another property.
2. The specific suffixal forms of derivation (-ly, -ward/-wards, -wis); categories:
forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs (slowly, distinctly).
3. The functions in the sentence: adverbial modifier (We’ll go to theatre tomorrow).
To the functional parts of speech (unchangeable words) belong the article, the
preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection. (Почему
они называются functional – they have no grammatical meaning and have no
forms).
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 (it appears between
homogeneous parts of the sentence, the parts of compound sentence).
The particle unites the functional words of specifying and limiting meaning.
The modal word expresses the attitude of the speaker to the reflected situation and
its parts (e.g. unfortunately, presumably).
The interjection is a signal of emotions.
II. According to H. Sweet (Classical scientific grammar) the parts of speech in
inflectional languages are divided into declinable, that is, capable of inflection, and
indeclinable, that is, incapable of inflection (у Виноградова они называются
particles). Criteria for classifying are: meaning, form, and function.
1) The declinable parts of speech fall under the three main divisions: nouns,
adjectives, and verbs.
Noun-word: noun proper (any noun), noun-pronoun (personal pronouns: he, she,
I…), noun-numeral (three of us), infinitive and gerund (To study / studying is useful).
Adjective-word: adjective proper, adjective-pronoun (my book), adjective-numeral
(three men), participle (smiling man).
Verb: finite verb and verbals (infinitive, gerund, participle).
2) Indeclinable words or particles comprise adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and
interjections. (they have no inflection, no grammatical category)
III. According to Jespersen (meaning, form, function) parts of speech are classified
into (Classical scientific grammar):
-substantives (including proper names)
-adjectives
-pronouns (including numeral and pronominal adverbs – for that-therefore, by this-
hereby) (этот пункт различает классификацию Есперсона от классификации
Свита)
-verbs
-particles: adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
IV. Ch. Fries (structural grammar) presents his scheme of English word-classes.
Fries gives a classification of Parts of speech which entirely depends on the
distribution of the word. (The materials: some fifty hours of tape-recorded
conversations by some three hundred different speakers, who were unaware about
it.) He introduced the term “frames”. A frame is a formula of a typical construction
which is typical of this particular word as belonging to a certain class.
Frame A. The concert was good (always)
Frame B. The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly)
Frame C. The team was there.
He proved the liability of his theory by the operation of substitution. Through this
operation he gets four cases, he calls them by numbers:
class one (nouns) – сюда входят gerund, pronoun, infinitive в роле сущ.
class two (verbs)
class three (adjectives)
class four (adverbs)
He also distinguished 15 functional classes or functional words, designated by
letters. Functional words are exposed in the process of testing as being unable to fill
in the positions of the frames without destroying their structure. The group of
functional words can be distributed among the three main sets. The words of the
first set: determiners of nouns, modal verbs serving as specifiers of notional verbs,
functional modifiers and intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs.
The words of second set: prepositions and conjunctions.
The words of third set: question-words (what, how, etc), inducement-words (let's,
please, etc), attention-getting words, words of affirmation and negation, sentence
introducers (it, there) and some others.
V. J. Nesfield's (prescriptive grammar) classification of parts of speech. Words are
classified according to the purpose that they are used for, and every such class is
called a Part of Speech. He distinguishes the following parts of speech:
- a noun is a word used for naming some persons or things.
- a pronoun is a word used instead of a noun or noun-equivalent
- an adjective is a word used to qualify a noun
- a verb is a word used for saying something about some person or thing
- a preposition is a word placed before a noun or noun-equivalent to show in what
relation the person or thing denoted by the noun stands to something else
- a conjunction is a word used to join words or phrases together, or one clause to
another clause
- an adverb is a word used to qualify any part of speech except a noun or pronoun
- an interjection is a word or sound thrown into sentence to express some feeling of
the mind.
! Observe that the part of speech to which a word belongs depends on the purpose
that the word is used for in that particular context, and that the same word may be of
a different part of speech in a different context. Thus man is a noun in The man has
come, but a verb in Man the lifeboat.
4. Noun, its categories.
The noun as a part of speech has the categorial meaning of “substance” or
“thingness”. It follows from this that the noun is the main nominative part of speech
and the central nominative lexemic unit of language.
The features of the noun:
1. The categorial meaning of substance (thingness).
2. The specific suffixal forms of derivation (-age, -ance/-ence, -eer (profiteer), -er, -
ing, -ion); categories: number, case and gender.
3. The functions in the sentence: subject, object, attribute (It’s needed to improve the
system of city transport), predicative (Ann is a nurse), adverbial modifier (We
decided to stay at a hotel).
4. Valency: all parts of speech except adverbs
The noun is characterized by some special types of combinability.
In particular, typical of the noun is the prepositional combinability with another
noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, e.g. an entrance to the house, to turn round
the corner, red in the face, far from its destination.
The possessive combinability characterizes the noun alongside its prepositional
combinability with another noun, e.g. the President’s speech, the book’s cover.
English nouns can also easily combine with one another by sheer contact, e.g. a sport
event, film festival. In the contact group the noun in pre-position plays the role of a
semantic qualifier to the noun in post-position.
The noun is generally associated with the article. Because of the comparative
scarcity of morphological distinctions in English in some cases only articles show
that the word is a noun (e.g. building – noun, gerund, participle I; the building –
noun).
Structural classification of nouns
According to their morphological composition we distinguish simple, derivative and
compound nouns.
Simple nouns are nouns which have neither prefixes nor suffixes: chair, table, room,
fish, map, work.
Derivative nouns are nouns which have derivative elements (prefixes or suffixes or
both): reader, sailor, childhood, misconduct, inexperience.
Productive noun-forming suffixes are:
-er – reader, -ist – dramatist, -ess – actress, -ness – madness, -ism – nationalism.
Unproductive suffixes are: -hood – childhood, -dom – freedom, -ship – friendship, -
ment – development, -ance – importance, -ence – dependence, -ty – cruelty, -ity –
generosity.
Compound nouns are nouns built from two or more stems: appletree, snowball,
blueball, reading-hall, dining-room.
Lexico-grammatical classification of nouns (five oppositional pairs)
The first nounal subclass opposition differentiates proper and common nouns. The
basis of this division is ‘type of nomination’.
Proper nouns are always written with a capital letter, since the noun represents the
name of a specific person, place or thing. The names of days of the week, months,
historical documents, institutions, organizations, religions, holy texts are proper
nouns. (e.g. Many people hate Monday mornings.)
Common nouns are nouns referring to a person, place or thing in a general sense.
(According to the sign, the nearest town is 60 miles away.)
The second subclass opposition differentiates animate and inanimate nouns on the
basis of ‘form of existence’ (e.g. dog / stone). The third subclass opposition
differentiates human and non-human nouns on the basis of ‘personal quality’ (e.g.
boy / bird). The fourth opposition is countable, uncountable and collective nouns
(the jury, the police, crowd) on the basis of ‘quantitative structure’. The fifth
opposition differentiates concrete and abstract nouns on the basis of sense
perception.
A concrete noun is a noun which names anything (or anyone) that you can perceive
through your physical senses: touch, sight, taste, hearing, or smell.
An abstract noun is a noun which names anything which you cannot perceive
through your five physical senses (justice, afterthought, childhood, schizophrenia).
Categories of nouns
Category of number
Modern English distinguishes between two numbers, singular and plural.
The grammatical category of number defines a set of word forms which has one
common categorical function, that of the singular / plural distinction.
The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural, its productive formal mark
being the suffix -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz] as presented in the forms dog-dogs, clock-clocks,
box-boxes.
The other, non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are vowel
interchange (man - men, tooth-teeth, etc.), the archaic suffix -(e)n supported by
phonemic interchange (ox-oxen, child-children), the correlation of individual
singular and plural suffixes in a limited number of borrowed nouns (formula -
formulae, phenomenon - phenomena, alumnus-alumni, etc.). In some cases the plural
form of the noun is homonymous with the singular form (sheep, deer, fish, etc.).
Problems
1) There is some difference between three houses and three hours. Whereas three
houses are three separate objects existing side by side, three hours is a continuous
period of time measured by a certain unit of duration.
2) The water of the Atlantic refers to its physical or chemical properties, whereas the
waters of the Atlantic refers to a geographical idea: it denotes a seascape. So we see
that between the singular and the plural an additional difference of meaning has
developed.
3) The difference between two numbers may increase to such a degree, that the plural
form develops a completely new meaning which the singular has not got at all (the
plural form colours has the meaning “banner”).
The nouns which have only a plural and no singular are usually termed pluralia
tantum nouns and those which have only a singular and no plural are termed
singularia tantum nouns.
Among the pluralia tantum are nouns:
1 which denote material objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors, etc)
2 a more or less indefinite plurality (environs, dregs)
3 some names of sciences, e.g. mathematics, and some names of diseases, e.g.
measles, mumps (it is because their symptom is the presenting of lots of spots).
BUT predicate comes in singular form.
Among singularia tantum we must first of all note some nouns denoting material
substance, such as milk, butter, and some abstract notions peace, usefulness.
Collective nouns fall under the following groups:
a) Nouns used only in the singular and denoting a number of things collected
together and regarded as a single object: foliage, machinery.
b) Nouns which are singular in form though plural in meaning: police, people
c) Nouns that may be both singular and plural: family, crowd.
Category of case
Case is the morphological category of a noun manifested in the forms of noun
declension and showing the relations of the nounal referent to other objects or
phenomena.
The category is expressed by the opposition of the uninflected form called the
nominative case (weak member) and the inflected form (‘s) called the possessive
case (strong member of the opposition).
Four special views
1. The 1st is called the theory of positional cases (J.C. Nesfield, M. Deutschbein,
M.Bryant)
In accordance with this theory, the unchangeable forms of the noun are differentiated
as different cases by virtue of the functional position occupied by the noun in the
sentence. Thus the English noun would distinguish nominative, genitive, vocative,
dative and accusative, and only the genitive case is an inflexional one (поэтому он
единственный strong member).
The Nominative case (subject to a verb). Rain falls.
The Genitive case: Yesterday I saw John’s father.
The Vocative case (address). Are you coming, my friend?
The Dative case (indirect object to a verb). I gave John a penny.
The Accusative case (direct object, and also object to a preposition). The man killed
a rat.
2. The 2nd view is called “the theory of prepositional cases” (G. Curme).
Here there are two cases: dative case (to+noun, for+noun) and genitive case
(of+noun). These prepositions, according to Curme are inflexional prepositions”, i.e.
grammatical elements equivalent to case-forms. (Arguable questions are: Why did
he choose these 3 prepositions? The 2nd problem with the opposition itself, i.e. there
is no weak member).
3. The 3rd view is called “the limited case theory” (H. Sweet, O. Jespersen, A.I.
Smirnitsky, S.G. Barkhudarov). The limited case theory is based on the opposition
of nominative case (weak member) and possessive case (strong member of the
opposition).
H. Sweet: (common/genitive). Sweet’s example: Women’s college.
4. The 4th theory, advanced by Vorontsova is called “The theory of the possessive
postposition”. According to her, there are no cases at all. And ‘s is the postpositional
element, which can be transformed: somebody else’s daughter – the daughter of
someone else. (она утверждает, что не совсем понятно, куда ставить апостроф
в следующей фразе: the man’s I saw yesterday son).

The category of gender

(this category is arguable by itself, because it is not morphological category of
gender)
Gender, in the English language, is a distinction of certain words according as they
indicate sex or lack of it.
Gender, in English, belongs only to nouns and pronouns. No other words have any
distinctions of gender.
The category of gender is expressed by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the
personal pronouns of the third person.
James Fernald
One opposition functions in the whole set of nouns, dividing them into person
(human) nouns and non-person (non-human) nouns. The other opposition functions
in the subset of person (human) nouns only, dividing them into masculine nouns and
feminine nouns.
As a result of the double oppositional correlation, a specific system of three genders
arises: the neuter, the masculine, the feminine gender.
The strong member of the upper opposition is the human subclass of nouns. The
weak member of the opposition comprises both inanimate and animate non-person
nouns. (tree, mountain, love, cat, etc.)
The strong member of the lower opposition is the feminine subclass of person nouns.
Here belong such nouns as (woman, girl, bride). The masculine subclass of person
nouns (man, boy, father) makes up the weak member of the opposition.
J. Leech
Human (personal) Non-human (non-personal) table, tree
-masculine (man, boy, father) – he
-feminine (woman, girl, mother) – she
-dual (teacher, doctor) – he/she
-common (baby, child) – it
-collective (police, family, team) – it, they
English words can be:
• Morphologically marked for gender (actress - actor)
• Semantically marked for gender (boy-girl, king-queen) – доминирующий в
английском
• Lexically marked for gender (boyfriend-girlfriend)
 5. Adjective. The category of degrees of comparison.
The adjective expresses the categorical 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.
I want a yellow balloon.
Adjectives are distinguished by a specific combinability with nouns, which they
modify, usually in pre-position, and occasionally in post-position; by a
combinability with modifying adverbs.
In the sentence the adjective performs the functions of an attribute and a predicative.
I will be silent as a grave. → I will be like a silent grave.
To the derivational features of adjective belong a number of suffixes and prefixes of
which the most important are: -ful (hopeful), -less (colourless), -ish (reddish), -ous
(famous), -ive (demonstrative), -ic (basic), -un (unhappy), -in (inaccurate), -pre
(prehistoric).
Classification of adjectives
All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses: qualitative and
relative.
Relative adjectives express properties of a substance determined by the direct
relation of the substance to some other substance, e.g. wood – a wooden hut.
Qualitative adjectives denote various qualities of substances, which admit a
quantative estimation. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low,
adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optional or excessive. Cf: an
awkward situation – a very awkward situation.
Only qualitative adjectives have the ability to form degrees of comparison, e.g. a
pretty girl – a prettier girl.
The category is constituted by the opposition of the three forms known under the
heading of degrees of comparison; the basic form (positive degree), having no
features of comparison; the comparative degree form, having the feature of restricted
superiority (which limits the comparison to two elements only); the superlative
degree form, having the feature of unrestricted superiority.
John was the strongest boy in the company.
Positive degree is a weak member of the opposition, comparative and superlative
degrees are strong members.
Some linguists approach the number of the degrees of comparison as problematic on
the grounds that the basic form of adjective does not express any comparison by
itself and therefore should be excluded from the category. This exclusion would
reduce the category to two members only, i.e. the comparative and superlative
degrees.
Another problem is whether relative adjectives could have degree of comparison.
The adjective wooden is basically relative, but when used in broader meaning
“expressionless” or “awkward” it acquires an evaluative force, and can presuppose
a greater or less degree of denoted property. (e.g. to look more wooden than ever)
A more complex problem in the sphere of degrees of comparison concerns the
analytical forms of comparison. The first view that formations of the type more
difficult, (the) most difficult are analytical degree of comparison may be supported
by the following considerations:
- The actual meaning of formations like more difficult, (the) most difficult does not
differ from that of the degrees of comparison larger, (the)largest.
- Qualitative adjectives, like difficult, express properties which may be presented in
different degrees, and therefore they have degrees of comparison.
The second view is that the combinations more difficult, (the) most difficult are not
the analytical expression of the morphological category of comparison, but free
syntactic constructions. The reasons are the following: 1) the more/ most
combinations are semantically analogous to combinations of less/least with the
adjective which are syntactic combinations of notional words; 2) the most-
combinations, unlike the synthetic superlative, can take the indefinite article,
expressing not the superlative, but the elative meaning.
The speaker launched a most significant attack on the Prime Minister (= a high
degree of the quality).
Statives
There are words built up by the prefix –a and denoting different states, mostly of
temporary duration, e.g. afraid, adrift, ablaze. In traditional grammar these words
were generally termed “predicative adjectives”.
Later the English qualifying a-words were subjected to a lexico-grammatical
analysis and given the part- of-speech heading “the category of state” or “statives”.
The part-of-speech interpretation of the Statives is not shared by all linguists
working in the domain of English.
The main meaning types conveyed by statives are:
· The psychic state of a person (afraid, ashamed, aware)
· The physical state of a person (astir, afoot)
· The physical state of an object (afire, ablaze)
· The state of an object in space (askew, awry, aslant)
Statives are not used in attributive preposition, but like adjectives, they are
distinguished by the left-hand categorical combinability both with nouns and link-
verbs.
The household was all astir.
The basic functions of the stative are the predicative and the attribute, e.g. He soon
fell asleep (predicative). A man alive to social interests (attribute).
Statives do not take the synthetic forms of the degrees of comparison (e.g. more
aware).
The semantic and functional analysis shows that statives, forming a unified set of
words, should be looked upon as a subclass within the general class of adjectives.

6. Pronoun, its categories.

The definition of a pronoun as a separate part of speech has caused many difficulties.
However, nowadays both English and Russian, pronouns are recognized as a part of
speech, which have the categorical meaning of indication. The pronouns, though
pointing to things cannot be modified by adjectives, cannot be connected with any
article or modified by a prepositional phrase.
Classification of Pronouns (Western Approach)
1) Personal Pronouns A personal pronoun refers to a specific person or thing and
changes its form to indicate person, number, gender and case.
Personal pronouns are subdivided into Subjective Personal Pronouns, Objective
Personal Pronouns and Possessive Personal Pronouns.
A Subjective personal pronoun indicates that the pronoun is acting as the
subject of the sentence. They are “I, you, she, he, it, we, they”
(e.g. I like reading.)
An objective personal pronoun indicates that the pronoun is acting as an
object of a verb, compound verb, preposition, or infinitive phrase. The objective
personal pronouns are: me, you, her, him, it, us, you and them.
(e.g. He will meet us in the market.)
 A possessive pronoun indicates that the pronoun is acting as a marker of
possession and defines who owns a particular object or person. The possessive
personal pronouns are: my, your, her, his, our, their; mine, yours, hers, his, its,
ours and theirs.
(e.g. The smallest gift is mine.)
2) Demonstrative pronouns A demonstrative pronoun points to and identifies a noun
or a pronoun. The demonstrative pronouns are: this, that, these and those.
(e.g. This must not continue.)
3) Interrogative pronouns. An interrogative pronoun is used to ask questions. The
interrogative pronouns are: who, whom, which, what and the compounds formed
with the suffix “ever” (whoever, whomever, whichever, whatever)
(e.g. Whom do you think we should invite?)
4) Relative pronouns You can use a relative pronoun to link one phrase or clause to
another phrase or clause. The relative pronouns are: who, whom, that and which,
and the compounds whoever, whomever, whichever.
(e.g. The candidate who wins the vote.)
5) Indefinite pronouns An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun referring to an identifiable
but not specified person or thing. The most common indefinite pronouns are: all,
another, any, anyone, anybody, each, everybody, everyone, everything, few,
many, nobody, none, one, several, some, somebody, someone, something.
(e.g. I know nothing about her interests).
6) Reflexive pronouns You can use a reflective pronoun to refer back to the subject
of the clause or sentence. The reflexive pronouns are: myself, yourself, herself,
himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves and themselves.
(e.g. He built this house himself).
7) Intensive pronouns An intensive pronoun is used to emphasize its antecedent.
Intensive pronouns are identical in form to reflexive pronouns.
(e.g. I myself believe that aliens should abduct my sister.)
Russian classification of pronouns
The Russian approach is distinguished by the absence of intensive pronouns (there
are only reflexive pronouns). Also, personal pronouns are not subdivided further,
because Russian linguists refer it to the category of cases (e.g. me is the personal
pronoun in the objective case). There are reciprocal pronouns in the Russian
classification.
(1) personal pronouns: I, he, she, it, we, you, they.
(2) possessive pronouns: my, his, her, its, our, your, their; mine, his, hers, ours,
yours, theirs.
(3) reflexive pronouns: myself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourself
(yourselves), themselves.
(4) reciprocal pronouns: each other, one another.
(5) demonstrative pronouns: this (these), that (those), such, (the) same.
(6) interrogative pronouns: who, whose, what, which.
(7) relative pronouns: who, whose, which, that, as.
(8) conjunctive pronouns: who, whose, which, what.
(9) defining pronouns: each, every, everybody, everyone, everything, all, either,
both, other, another.
(10) indefinite pronouns: some, any, somebody, anybody, something, anything,
someone, anyone, one.
(11) negative pronouns: no, none, neither, nobody, no one, nothing.
Categories of the pronoun (Russian approach)
Case. Some pronouns distinguish between two cases which are best termed
nominative and objective. These are the following: nominative (I, he, she (it), we
(you), they, who); objective (me, him, her, (it), us, (you), them, whom)
The two pronouns in brackets, it and you might have been left out of the list, but we
have included them because they share many other peculiarities with the pronouns
I, he, she, we and they. No other pronoun, and, indeed, no one other word in the
language has that kind of case system.
A certain number of pronouns have a different system. They distinguish
between a common and a genitive case (or nominative / possessive). These are
somebody, anybody, one, another, and a few more.
All other pronouns have no category of case (something, anything, nothing,
everything, some, any, no, my, his, mine, hers, etc.)
Number. The morphological category of number has only a very restricted field in
pronouns. It is found in the pronouns this/ these, that/those, other/others (if not used
before a noun).
As to the pronouns I/we; he, she, it/they, it must be stated that there is no
grammatical category of number here. We is not a form of I, but a separate word. In
a similar way, they is not a form of he, she or it, but a separate word.
 A peculiar difficulty arises here with reference to the pronouns myself/
(ourself) ourselves; yourself/ yourselves; himself, herself, itself/ themselves.
If we compare the two pronouns myself and ourselves, we shall see that the
difference between the first elements of two words is purely lexical, whereas the
second elements differ from each other by the same suffix –s that is used to form the
plural of most nouns. Thus we are brought to the conclusion that ourselves is
essentially a different word from myself.
There are no other grammatical categories in the English pronouns: there is
no category of gender. The pronouns he, she, it and also the pronouns his, her, its;
his, hers; himself, herself, itself, are all separate words. Thus, she is not a form of
the word he but a separate word in its own right. (They have no morphological
indication, semantic only).

7. Verb, classifications.
Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. It performs the
predicative function of the sentence, i.e. the functions establishing the connection
between the situation named in the utterance and reality.
The general categorial meaning of the verb is process presented dynamically, i.e.
developing in time. E.g. I do love you, really I do.
The verb can be modified by the adverb and can take a different object. E.g. Mr.
Brown received the visitor instantly, which was unusual.
In the sentence the finite verb performs the function of the verb-predicate, expressing
the categorial features of predication, i.e. time, aspect, voice and mood.
Structural classification
The verb stems may be simple, derived, sound-replacive, stress-replacive,
composite and phrasal.
The original simple verb stems are not numerous (e.g. go, take, read, etc.) But
conversion of the noun-verb type, greatly enlarges the simple stem set of verbs, since
it is the most productive way of forming verbs in modern English. Cf.: a cloud – to
cloud, a house - to house, etc.
The sound-replacive and stress-replacive types of derivation are unproductive.
Cf.: food – to feed, 'import – to im'port, transport – to tras'port.
Derivational verbs
The typical suffixes of the verb are: -ate (cultivate), -en (broaden), -ify (clarify), -ize
(normalize). The verb-deriving prefixes are: be- (belittle, befriend), and en-/em-
(engulf, embed). Some other characteristic verbal prefixes are: re- (remake), under-
(undergo), over- (overestimate), sub- (submerge), mis- (misunderstand), un- (undo),
etc.
The composite (compound) verb stems correspond to the composite non-verb
stems from which they are etymologically derived. Here belong the compounds of
the conversion type (blackmail n. - to blackmail v.) and of the back-formation type
(baby-sitter n. - to baby-sit v.)
The phrasal verb stems occupy an intermediary position between analytical forms
of the verb and semantic word combinations.
Two types
The first is a combination of the head-verb have, give, take and occasionally some
others with a noun. The combination has its equivalent as an ordinary verb. Cf: to
give a smile – to smile, to take a stroll – to stroll (Their stems are equivalent: to take
a stroll – to stroll -> та же основа)
The second is a combination of a head-verb with a verbal post-position that has a
specificational value (phrasal verbs). Cf: stand up, go on, etc.
Semantic and lexico-grammatical classification
Verbs

Notional verbs Semi-notional and functional verbs

(the set of verbs of full nominal value) (the set of verbs of partial nominal value)

1. On the basis of subject-process 1. Auxiliary verbs

relation:
- actional 2. Modal verbs
- statal
3. Semi-notional verbid introducer
2. On the basis of aspective verbal verbs
semantics:
- limitive 4. Link verbs:
- unlimitive a) pure link-verb «be»
b) specifying link-verbs
3. On the basis of valency: - specifying link verbs that express
- complementive perception
a) objective: - specifying link-verbs that express
1) monocoplementive non-perceptional / factual link-verb
2) bicomplementive connection
 b) adverbial (place, time,
manner)
- uncomplementive
a) personal
b) impersonal

On the upper level of division two unequal sets are identified:

- the set of verbs of full nominative value (notional verbs)
- the set of verbs of partial nominative value (semi-notional and functional verbs).
Notional verbs undergo the three main grammatically relevant categorizations.
On the basis of the subject-process relation (the relation of the subject of the verb to
the process), all the notional verbs can be divided into actional and statal.
Actional verbs express the action performed by the subject, i.e. they present the
subject as an active doer, e.g. do, act, perform, make, go, read, learn, discover, etc.
Statal verbs denote the state of their subject, e.g. live, survive, suffer, worry, stand,
see, know, etc.
On the basis of aspective verbal semantics (aspective characteristics of the process)
two subclasses of verbs should be recognised in English: limitive and unlimitive.
To the subclass of limitive belong such verbs as arrive, come, leave, find, start, stop,
conclude, aim, drop, catch, etc. Here also belong phrasal verbs with limitive
postpositions, e.g. stand up, sit down, get out, be off, etc. To the subclass of
umlimitive belong such verbs as move, continue, sleep, work, behave, hope, stand,
etc.
According to valency (combining power of the verb in relation to other notional
words) the notional verbs should be classed as complimentive and
uncomplementive. Uncomplementive verbs fall into two unequal subclasses of
personal and impersonal verbs. The personal uncomplementive verbs refer to the
real subject of the denoted process (work, start, pause, hesitate, act, function,
materialize, laugh, grow, etc). The subclass of impersonal verbs belong verbs mostly
expressing natural phenomena (rain, snow, freeze, drizzle, thaw, etc).
Complementive verbs are divided into the objective and adverbial sets. The
objective complimentive verbs are divided into monocomplimentive verbs (taking
one object-compliment) and bicomplimentive verbs (taking two compliments). The
examples of monocomplimentive verbs are have, take, forget, enjoy, look at, point
to, belong to, relate to, etc. The bicomplimentive objective verbs are explain,
mention, devote, say, forgive, cooperate, apologize for, pay for, remined of, tell
about.
Adverbial complimentive verbs include two main subclasses. The first is formed
by verbs taking an adverbial compliment of place or time (be, live, stay, go, ride,
arrive). The second is formed by verbs taking an adverbial compliment of manner
(act, do, keep, behave, get on).
Semi-notional and functional verbs serve as markers of predication in the proper
sense, they show the connection between the nominative content of the sentence and
reality. They include auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, semi-notional verbid
introducer verbs and link-verbs. Auxiliary verbs are be, have, do, shall, will,
should, would, may, might. Modal verbs are used with the infinitive as predicative
markers expressing relational meanings of ability, obligation, permission,
advisability, etс. The modal verbs are can, may, must, shall, will, ought, need, used
(to), dare. The verbs be and have in the modal meanings “be planned”, “be obliged”
and the like are considered by many modern grammarians as modal verbs and are
included in the general modal verb list (= gerund, infinitive по Блоху).
Semi-notional verbid introducer verbs are seem, happen, turn out, try, fall,
manage, begin, continue, stop, etc. Compare “They began to fight” and “They began
the fight”. The verb in the first sentence is a semi-notional predicator, the verb in the
second sentence is a notional transitive verb normally related to its direct object.
Link verbs introduce the normal part of the predicate (the predicative) which is
commonly expressed by a noun, an adjective or a phrase of a similar semantico-
grammatical character.
Two types
1. Pure link-verb be
2. Specifying link-verbs
The specifying link-verbs fall into two main groups: those that express perception
and those that express non-perceptional, or factual link-verb connection. The main
perceptional link-verbs are seem, appear, look, feel, taste; the main factual link verbs
are become, get, grow, remain, keep.

8. Verb, the categories of tense and time correlation.

The category of tense
The immediate expression of grammatical time, or “tense” (Lat Tempus), is one of
the typical functions of the finite verb. The category of tense reflects the objective
category of time and expresses the relations between the time of the action and the
time of the utterance.
In English there are three tenses (past, present and future) represented by the
forms wrote, writes, will write.
Some doubts have been expressed about the existence of a future tense in English.
Otto Jespersen denied the existence of a future tense in English, because according
to Jespersen the verbs shall and will preserve their original meaning (shall – an
element of obligation and will – an element of volition). Thus, in Jespersen's view,
English has no way of expressing “pure futurity” free from modal shades of
meaning.
However, this reasoning is not convincing. Thought the verbs shall and will may in
some context preserve their original meaning, as a rule there are free from these
shades of meaning and express mere futurity in numerous examples. E.g.: I am
afraid I will have to go back to the hotel.
So the three main divisions of time are represented in the English verbal system by
the three tenses. Each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous
aspect. Thus we get six tense-aspect forms. Besides this six, there are two more,
namely future-in-the-past and future-continuous-in-the-past. They don't easily fit
into a system of tenses represented by a straight line running out of the past into the
future.
A different view of the English tense system has been put forward by Prof. N.
Irtenyeva. According to this view, the system is divided into two halves: that of
tense centring in the present and that of tense centring in the past. The former
comprises the present, present perfect, future, present continuous and present perfect
continuous. The letter comprises the past, past perfect, future-in-the-past, past
continuous, and past perfect continuous.
Acccording to A. Korsakov English tenses are subdivided into absolute and
anterior, static and dynamic tenses. By dynamic tenses he means what we call tenses
of the continuous aspect, and by anterior tenses what we call tenses of the perfect
correlation.
The category of time correlation
The category of time correlation is based on the opposition non-perfect/perfect.
The main approaches:
* The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category, a category which should be
classed as the categories present and past. This view was held by Jesperson.
* The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category. The opposition is common
aspect, perfect aspect or retrospective aspect. This view was held by Prof. G.
Vorontsova.
* The category of perfect is neither one of tense nor one of aspect, but a specific
category different from both. This view was expressed by Prof. A. Smirnitsky who
introduced a special term time correlation.
* The perfect form presents an action as prior to some other action (point, a period
of time); it is the strong member of the opposition.
* The non-perfect form denotes either a simultaneous or a posterior action. But we
cannot say that a perfect form always precedes another action: the present perfect
form can be used in sentences which contains no mention of any other action.
He has broken a cup.
On the other hand, the use of a non-perfect form doesn't necessarily imply that the
action did not precede some moment in time.
I remember seeing you.

9. Verb, the categories of voice and aspect.

The category of voice
The category of voice expresses the relations between the subject and the object of
the action. He invited his friends. – He was invited by his friends.
The grammatical category of voice is represented by the opposition of active and
passive voices (invites - is invited; is inviting – is being invited; invited – was invited;
has invited – has been invited; should invite – should be invited).
The passive form is the strong member of the opposition. In colloquial speech the
role of the passive auxiliary may be performed by get or become.
Arguable question:
* At various times the following three voices have been suggested in addition:
- the reflexive, as in He dressed himself,
- the reciprocal, as in They greeted each other, (It is shown that reflexive and
reciprocal pronouns standing after verbs can be treated as denoting the object of the
action).
- the middle voice, as in The door opened. (The problem of the middle voice is
connected with the possibility to use some transitive verbs as intransitive. I opened
the door (transitive) The difference between the voices is not expressed any
morphological sign. It is the context that shows the difference between the “the
passive of state” and the “passive of action”. The door on the right was closed, while
the door on the left was opened. – The door was closed by the girl.)
 The category of aspect
The category of aspect is a grammatical category showing the manner in which the
action is either performed or represented. In English this category consists of two
constituents, the common and the continuous aspect. They form a binary
opposition, the unmarked member of the opposition (common aspect) being opposed
to the marked member (continuous aspect): call - ------ +be calling.
The categorial meaning of aspect indicates that the speaker wants to attract attention
to the process/state described in the sentence itself. The strong member of the
opposition is a continuous form, which presents an action as a process developing at
a certain moment or a limited period of time: These flats are being built so fast that
they are changing the profile of the city. The common aspect just names the action:
Look at the way he walks.
As a rule, the continuous form is not used with verbs, denoting abstract relations,
such as belong, and those denoting sense perception or emotion, e.g. see, hear, hope,
think, love. But there are numerous examples of their usage in the continuous form.
In this case they change the meaning of the verb which comes to denote either an
activity (I am thinking of him. – I think, you're right) or the temporary character of
the state. (You're being silly!).
G.O. Curme (A Grammar of the English Language) distinguishes 4 aspects:
durative aspect, point-action aspect which he subdivided into ingressive and
effective, terminative aspect and iterative aspect.
Durative aspect represents the action as continuing. He is eating.
Point-action aspects call attention, not to an act as a whole, but to only one point,
either the beginning or the final point.
The ingressive type is often expressed by begin, start, in connection with the
infinitive or get, grow, fall, turn, become, run, set, take in connection with a
predicate adjective, participle, noun or a prepositional phrase. He awoke early. He
often gets sick.
Effective type of point-action aspect directs the attention to the final point of the
activity or state. He knocked him out.
Terminative aspect indicates an action as a whole. I overlooked this item in my
calculation.
Iterative aspect indicates an indefinitely prolonged succession. He pooh-poohs at
everything.
 10.Verb, the category of mood. Other types of expressing modality.
The category of mood
Mood shows the degree of reality or possibility of an action. The verbal category of
mood serves to express the speaker's attitude towards the factuality of a state-of-
affairs as real, existing in fact, or as hypothetical, i.e. not necessarily real. The
definition given by Academician V. Vinogradov is the following: “mood expresses
the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker”.
Generally, two groups of moods are distinguished: the real or fact moods and the
unreal or non-fact, oblique moods.
The indicative is the only real mood in the English language. It represents an action
as a real fact. The forms of the Indicative mood are the tense-aspect forms of the
verb. There are two non-fact moods in English: the Imperative and the Subjunctive
(здесь Subjunctive тоже делится на Subj. I и II).
The Imperative mood is represented by one form only, without any suffix or
ending. It expresses advice, request, recommendation, order and so on. Leave me
alone!
The Subjunctive mood represents an action as unreal. I wish I had known it.
Another approach is that the category of mood consists of three constituents, the
Indicative and the Subjunctive I and II. They form a binary apposition, the unmarked
member (indicative) being opposed to the marked member, which appears in two
variants (subjunctive I and II):
call - -------- + call – 0 (no -s/tense, correlation, aspect)
call -ed
The categorial meaning of mood indicates the hypothetical nature of the states-of-
affairs described as seen from the speaker's point of view.
The boss insisted that Tom arrive at eight sharp. (Subj I)
She suggested that I be the cook. (Subj I)
It's time John went on a diet. (Subj II)
I wish I had thought of him before. (Subj II)
The function of the unmarked form negates this categorial meaning in that it
indicates the “reality of the state-of-affairs”.
Prof. Smirnitsky proposed a system of six moods.
Indicative. He came there.
Imperative. Read the letter.
Subjunctive I (be/go for all persons). If it be so.
Subjunctive II (were for all persons, and forms knew, had known). I wish I were
present.
Suppositional (analytical forms should/would + infinitive) I suggest that he/you
should go there.
Conditional (analytical forms should/would + infinitive in the main clause of unreal
condition sentences) If I were you, I would go there.
OTHER WAYS OF EXPRESSING MODALITY.
Modality is one of the most complicated linguistic phenomena which have various
forms of its expression in the language. Academician V. V. Vinogradov, who was
one of the first who gave very broad interpretation of the category of modality. V.
V. Vinogradov first of all refers modality to “the fundamental structural
characteristic of any sentence” and characterizes it as “the speaker’s evaluation of
the relation of utterance content to the reality”.
Lexico-grammatical means are represented with modal verbs. It is the combination
of modal verbs may/might, can/could, must, should, will/would, ought to, etc with
the infinitive. Modal verb is a type of verb that is used to indicate modality, it does
not indicate an action or state, but it shows the attitude of the speaker to the action.
In English, modal verbs express likelihood, ability, permission and obligation.
(Don't wait up for me, because I might be late. If anything could happen I can take
care of myself).
One of the most important aspects of modality is lexical modality, which is
expressed with modal words and expressions. The example of modal words maybe,
perhaps, possibly, probably (Perhaps he has something on his conscience, and
wants advice) and the other words (nouns - likelihood, necessity, adjectives -
important, likely, verbs) of modal semantics, which introduce subordinate clauses
and acts as predicators (wish, it's time, possible, probable, change, possibility, etc).
It's time we were moving.
Syntactic types of sentences and subordinate clauses (imperative, clauses introduced
by conjunctions as if/as though, conditional, etc) Take it easy! She really looks
sometimes as if she isn't all there.
Phonological means are intonation and stress: Phonetic means are very important
and have an essential role in expressing modality. Intonation, prosody. Intonation is
the only generally valid means of expressing modality. It is a prosodic element that
gives information about the content of the utterances such as imperatives,
declaratives and exclamations, besides, intonation gives information about the
speaker’s personality.
Different combinations of the above means.

11.The theory of a phrase.

Syntax is a study of the arrangement, or connection of words. Here we should
distinguish two levels: that of phrases (or word-groups) and that of sentences.
According to Russian linguists the term word-combination can be applied to such
groups of words which contain at least two notional words, forming a grammatical
unit, e.g. fine weather, to speak English fluently, etc.
Western scholars consider every combination of two or more words which
constitutes a unit to be a phrase. They don't limit the term “phrase” to combination
of notional words only and draw a sharp distinction between the two types of word
groups such as: wise men and in the morning.
According to H. Sweet when words are joined together grammatically and logically
without forming a full sentence, we call the combination a word-group. According
to Pr. Ilyish, a phrase is any combination of two or more words which is a
grammatical unit but not an analytical form of some word (as, for instance the perfect
forms of verbs). The constituent element of a phrase may belong to any part of
speech.
Difference between a phrase and sentence

A sentence is a basic unit of communication. A phrase is a unit of nomination.

Intonation is one of the most significant features of a sentence, which
distinguishes it from a phrase.
A classical word-group is a non-predicative unit, because a word-group does
not carry predication (only sentence can carry it).
A word group is a static explanation, a sentence carries some dynamic force.
Each component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes according to
grammatical categories represented in it. In the phrase write letters the first
component can change its tense or mood and the second component – its number.
A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the
form of one or more words would produce a new sentence.
Classification of phrases
According to Henry Sweet the most general relation between words in sentences
from a logical point of view is that of adjunct-word (зависимое) and head-word
(главное), or we may also express it of modifier and modified. Thus in the sentences
tall men are not always strong, all men are not strong, tall and all are adjunct-words
modifying the meaning of the head-word men.
This distinction between adjunct-word and head-word is only a relative one:
the same word may be a head-word in one sentence or context, and an adjunct-word
in another, and the same word may even be a head-word and an adjunct-word at the
same time. Thus in he is very strong, strong is an adjunct-word to he, and at the
same time head-word to the adjunct-word very, which again, may itself be a head-
word, as in he is not very strong.
E. Kruisinga's classification
In Kruisinga's grammar we find the same principle in his theory of close and
loose word-groups. We speak of a close group when one of the members is
syntactically the leading element of the group. We speak of a loose group when each
element is comparatively independent of the other members (men and women).
Close groups are subdivided according to their leading member into:
- verb groups (you can go; finished undressing; to hear a noise; he goes) +
traditional verbal type – to cook a cake);
- noun groups (a village church, Mary's dress);
- adjective groups (very beautiful);
- adverb groups (very well);
- prepositional groups (in the morning).
Loose syntactic groups are subdivided into linking groups (five and twenty) and
unlinked groups (a low soft breathing – 3 elements, i.e. it is mixed type).
O. Jespersen's classification
Syntactic theory of Otto Jespersen comprises the concept of junction and nexus (i.e.
of attributive and predicative relations) as well as the theory of ranks, applied both
to relations between the members of a word-group and the parts of a sentence. In a
junction the joining of the two elements is so close that they may be considered as
one composite name.
A silly person – fool the same rank если attribute
The warmest season - summer
The nexus is independent and forms a whole sentence, i.e. give a complete bit of
information.
The door is red. Different rank если predicate
The dog barks.
We can also establish different “ranks” of words according to their mutual relations
as defined or defining. In the combination extremely hot weather the last word
weather, which is evidently the chief idea, may be called primary; hot which defines
weather secondary and extremely, which defines hot, tertiary.
Drawback: the absence of coordinate relations, there is no clear destribution
M. Bloch's classification (the basis is parts of speech)
Prof. Bloch singes out three types of phrase:
Notional phrases (only notional parts of speech): traffic rules, to go fast, John and
Mary, he writes, etc.
Formative phrases (the combination of notional and functional parts of speech): at
the table, with difficulty, out of sight, etc.
Functional phrases (only functional parts of speech): from out of, so that, up to,
etc.
The other Russian linguists don’t agree with the Bloch’s classification, because it
includes the functional parts of speech.
S.G. Barkhudarov's classification (on the basis of syntactic relations)
According to Barkhudarov a phrase is a combination of two or more notional words,
connected by means of subordination, coordination and predicative relation if it
cannot function as a sentence. He distinguished coordinate word groups,
subordinate word groups and predicative word groups.
Coordinate word groups are groups of words, which have the same function, they
are joined together either syndetically (with linking element) or asyndetically (Mary
and Peter, The spidery, dirty, ridiculous business!).
Subordinate word groups always have the head and the adjunct. They are further
classified according to the way the headword is expressed into:
- Nounal word groups (mild weather, a country doctor)
- Adjectival word groups (dark red, very strong, very nice)
- Verbal word groups (to hear a noise, to write a letter)
- Adverbial word groups (very well, pretty easily).
A predicative word group is a special kind of word group with predicative relations
between the nominal and the verbal parts (not the general predication of the sentence
but a secondary one is meant). Here belong five main types of complexes:
- The Complex Object (I want you to do smth)
- The Complex Subject
 - The For-phrase
- The Gerundial Complex
- The Absolute Nominative Participial Construction
L. Bloomfield's classification
Bloomfield distinguishes two main classes of phrases: endocentric phrases
(containing a head: word or centre) and exocentric phrases (non-headed).
Phrase
Endocentric (headed) Exocentric (non-headed)
Subordination Syntactiс predicate relations (subj. +
Poor John predic.)
Coordination John ran away
Mary and Peter Morphological prepositional phrase
(prepos. + noun)
beside John

The difference between endocentric and exocentric phrases

The head word of an endocentric phrase can stand for the whoe phrase in a
larger construction.
In the sentence Poor John ran away, the noun John may substitute for Poor
John. In the sentence Mary and Tom ran away, both Tom and Mary may stand
for the whole phrase: Mary ran away, Tom ran away. Thus, the phrases Poor
John and Mary and Tom are endocentric.
The constituents of exocentric phrases can't stand for the whole group in a
larger structure: John ran, beside John.
In the sentence Poor John ran away you can omit either John or ran.
Modern approach to the classification of the phrase
Headed phrases have the head and the anjunct.
1) the distribution of the anjunct into: progressive (right-hand distribution of the
adjust), e.g. to write a letter, and regressive (left-hand distribution of the adjunct),
e.g. a country doctor.
2) the way the head-word is expressed into:
Nounal or sunstantival, e.g. sport event
Adjectival, e.g. very beautiful
Verbal, e.g. to write a letter
Adverbial, e.g. very well
Non-headed phrases are divided into:
1. independent (the constituents are relatively independent), e.g. Mary and John, he
writes and dependent (the constituents depend on the context), e.g. my own (dog),
his old (friend).
2. one-class (constituents belong to the same part of speech), e.g. Oxford and
Cambridge and different-class phrases (the constituents belong to different parts
of speech), e.g. I see.

12.Transformational Generative Grammar.

Beginning in 1957, Chomsky introduced two central ideas relevant to grammatical
theories. The first was the distinction between competence and performance. Central
to his theory was explanation of knowledge that underlies the human ability to speak
and understand. One of the most important of his ideas is that most of this knowledge
is innate, with the result that a baby is born wired to acquire language and needs only
actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language's he or she is exposed to.
Perhaps more significantly, he made concrete and technically sophisticated
proposals about the structure of language.
The second idea related directly to the evaluation of theories of grammar. Generative
transformational grammar tries to explain language creativity: how we are able to
utter and interpret sentences we have not heard before. Creativity is made possible
by the generative nature of transformational grammar. In order to create and
understand newly generated sentences, we must depend on our language
competence. Our competence derives from our knowledge of grammar: grammar
shapes each of our utterances, setting the boundaries for what is acceptable and
ensuring that we will be understood. We compose and structure each of our
utterances based on our knowledge of what is acceptable according to the
grammatical systems.
Chomsky introduced his theory on Transformational Grammar (TG) and it
challenged the structural linguistics. TG related the word meaning and sound. The
TG rules were expressed in mathematical notation by Chomsky. In this theory he
gave an in-depth information on the deep structure and surface structure of the
language. The deep structure acts as a foundation and gives conceptual meaning and
the surface structure acts as a spoken utterances.
Harris and Chomsky developed ideas of transformation in different contexts and for
different purposes. For Harris transformation relates to surface structure sentence
forms: Jim drinks beer => Beer is drunk by Jim. This transformation relates both
structures, passive and active. For Chomsky transformation is a device to transform
a deep structure into a surface structure, to show the generation of infinite living
structures out of a finite set of deep structures (I have a car. She is nice.., etc,). The
theory of deep structures can serve as a method of analyzing and explaining the
generation of surface structures. He married young is a surface structure with a
double predicate, the nature of which can be explained transformationally =>He
marries and =>He is young. The sentence with a simple nominal predicate can be
analyzed as comprising two deep structures : She a beauty?! => She is a beauty. =>It
is not true. Genitive constructions with semantically different genitives can be
analyzed as John’s arrival => John arrives, or John arrived, or John will arrive. This
method allows to see the difference between a subjective and an objective genitive:
1. Napoleon’s victory=> Napoleon wins a victory over smb; 2. Napoleon’s defeat=>
Smb wins a victory over Napoleon. So we see that two identical surface structures
may posses absolutely different meanings.

13.Syntactic relations in a phrase, sentence, text.

Syntactic relations between words (components) of a word group
The main syntactic relations between components of a phrase are coordination
(сочинение), subordination (подчинение), interdependence
(взаимозависимость) and cummulation (куммуляция).
In coordination 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 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, county doctor.
Interdependence is relations between subject and predicate. The constituents are
interdependent; the subject depends on a predicate and vice 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 cannot do that.
However, it is an arguable moment, because if we take such phrase with coordination
as you and me, we can’t change the places of its constituents according to the
politeness of a speech.
To additional types of syntactic relations in a phrase refer agreement
(согласование), government (управление), and enclosure (замыкание).
By agreement we mean a method of expressing a syntactical relationship, which
consists in making the subordinate word take a form similar to that of the word to
which it is subordinate. In Modern English this can refer only to the category of
number: a subordinate word agrees in number with its head-word. It can be found in
two words only this and that, which agree in number with their headword.
The verb agrees in number with a noun or pronoun in the 3rd person singular.
He studies Grammar. But not always.
The United Nations is an international organisation, or My family are early
risers. Such sentences prove that there is no agreement of the verb with the noun.
By government we understand the use of a certain form of the subordinate word
required by its head word, but not coinciding with the form of the head word itself.
The role of government in Modern English is almost insignificant. The only thing
that may be termed government in Modern English is the use of the objective case
of personal pronoun and of the pronoun who when they are subordinate to a verb or
follow a preposition (invite him, saw him).
There is another means of expressing syntactical connection which plays a
significant part in Modern English. It may be called enclosure. The most widely
known case of enclosure is the putting of a word between an article and noun to
which this refers to. A beautiful girl, the country doctor.
Sentence
Compound sentence
The parts of the composite sentences are clauses. The compound sentence is a
sentence which consists of two or more independent clauses connected by means of
coordination, e.g. She was tired and we decided to stay at home.
The clauses of a compound sentence may be connected syndetically (by means of
coordinating conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs) and asyndetically (without any
conjunction or adverbs).
There are four types of syndetic coordination in a compound sentence:
1) copulative (соединительная)
and, not only...but, both, neither...nor, nor
I neither want to stay at home, nor do I want to go to the mountains.
2) disjunctive (разделительная)
or, either...or, or else, otherwise
Either I do it or I'll punish you!
3) adversative (противительная)
but, yet, still, however, nevertheless, whereas, while
She was tired yet she helped me.
4) causative-consecutive (причинно-следственная)
for (т.к., потому что), therefor, so, accordingly, then, hence
I don't see anything for it is dark.
Complex sentence
A complex sentence consists of a principal clause and one or more subordinate
clauses. Clauses in a complex sentence may be linked in two ways:
1) syndetically, i.e. by means of subordinating conjunctions or connectives.
There is a difference between a conjunction and a connective. A conjunction only
serves as a formal element connecting separate clauses, whereas a connective serves
as a connecting link and has at the same time a syntactic function in the subordinate
clause it introduces.
More and more, she became convinced that some misfortune had overtaken Paul
(conjunction).
All that he had sought for and achieved seemed suddenly to have no meaning
(connective).
2) asyndetically, i.e. without a conjunction or connective. I wish you had come
earlier.
Text
Speaking about the cohesion of the text we should mention two types of relations in
the text: anaphoric and cataphoric.
Cataphoric or prospective relations are effected by connective elements that relate a
given sentence to one that is to follow it. In other words, a prospective Cataphoric
connector signals a continuation of speech as in the house that jack built where the
refers forward to the specifying that Jack built.
e.g. In analyzing a novel, we note a number of basic elements which the author has
developed in his narrative. The elements are theme, plot, characterization, setting
and conflict (forward reference).
Anaphoric or retrospective relations are effected by connective elements that relate
a given sentence to the one that precedes it and is semantically complete by itself
e.g. Jack built a house. It was large, where it refers back to the house.
 14.Sentence in Transformational Generative Grammar.
This method of grammar analysis was created by Noam Chomsky in 1957.
According to this theory, sentences have 2 aspects: 1) surface and 2) deep structures.
According to the transformational approach there are two main types sentences:
kernel (ядерные) sentences and transforms (P. Roberts, O. Thomas, N. Chomsky).
The main types of English kernel sentences might be illustrated by such sentences
as the following:
1. John is heroic. (a hero) NP + be + substantive
2. John is in the room. NP + be + Adv-p
3. John worked. NP + VI
4. John paid the bill. NP + VT + NP
5. John became a hero. (heroic) NP + Vb + substantive
6. John felt sad. NP + Vs + Adj
7. John had a car. NP + Vh + NP
Note: Adv.-p = an adverbial modifier of place
VI = an intransitive verb
VT = a transitive verb
Vb = Verbs of becoming
Vh = the verb “to have”.
Kernel clauses are essentially the building blocks of a language's sentences. Other
phrases or clauses, modifying words such as adjectives and adverbs can be added to
kernel sentences. The mood can be changed and the negation of the sentence can
also be effected. More complex pattern constructions can be built from kernel
sentences with the help of transformation rules:
1) Permutation (перестановка);
2) Substitution (замена);
3) Adjunction (дополнение);
4) Ellipsis (опущение).
According to this approach indirect objects and objective complements are not
included in the kernel, whereas such an optional element as the adverbial is
contained in the kernel. The principle sentence elements of syntactic units of
transformational generative grammar are the phrasal units – the Noun Phrase and
the verb Phrase.
All other structures of English can be thought of as deriving from the kernel. All the
more complicated sentences of English are derivations from, or the transformations
of the kernel.
For example, the kernel sentence “The dog barked” indicates a certain relationship
between the noun dog and the verb bark. We find exactly the same relationship in
such transforms as “The barking dog frightened me”, “The barking of the dog kept
us awake”.
(kernel) The dog is sad.
(transform) I don’t like dogs that are too sad.
According to N. Chomsky sentences have a surface and a deep structure. Of these,
the surface structure is the more complicated, based on one or more abstract simple
structures. In certain very simple sentences the difference between the surface
structure and the deep structure is minimal. Sentences of this kind, simple, active,
declarative, indicative, are designated as kernel sentences.
A Transformational Grammar is organized in three basic parts. The first part – its
syntactic component, which includes description both of deep and surface structure.
The second is the semantic component, which provides a semantic interpretation of
the deep structure, e.g. in sentences we enjoy smoking and we appose smoking the
semantic component would indicate that the first sentence is a paraphrase of we
smoke and we enjoy it, though the second is not a paraphrase of we smoke and we
appose it. The third, the phonological component provides a phonetic interpretation
of the surface structure of the sentence.
N. Chomsky defines Grammar as a system of rules that determine the deep and
surface structures, it establishes the relations between the sounds and the meaning.
Let’s compare the following two sentences:
The hunter killed the lion. [N1 Vact N2]
The lion was killed by the hunter. [N2 VpasPrp N1].
The surface structures of these two sentences are different. However, the deep
structure of both sentences is the same: [N1 – agent, N2 – patient, V – to kill]. This
deep structure is implicit, it is not expressed but is only represented in the mind.
What is presented in Chomsky’s theory is the analysis of compound judgements as
consisting of two or more simple judgements or propositions which was common in
logics and influenced English grammarians, e.g. John married Fred’s sister. The
semantic component, which provides the interpretation of the deep structure of this
sentence presupposes that Fred has a sister.

15.Simple sentence. Structural approach.

The simple sentence is a sentence in which only one predicative line (group) is
expressed. E.g. Bob has never left the stadium. Opinions differ.
The sentence is a communicative unit, therefore the primary classification of
sentences must be based on the communicative principle.
According to the purpose of communication sentences are classified into
declarative, imperative and interrogative.
1) The declarative sentence expresses a statement, either affirmative or negative.
E.g. We live very quietly here.
2) The imperative sentence expresses inducement, either affirmative or negative,
in the form of request or command. E.g. Let’s go and sit down up there.
3) The interrogative sentence expresses a question, i.e. a request for information
wanted by the speaker from the listener. E.g. What do you suggest I should do?
Each of the three communicative types can be exclamatory and non-exclamatory.
The second classification is based on the number of predicative groups. According
to this criterion sentences are divided into simple and composite (the later are
further subdivided into compound and complex).
The connection between the parts may be syndetic or asyndetic.
Another classification is based on the use of secondary members. The sentences can
be extended and non-extended (or unextended). The extended sentences are those
having one or more secondary members. E.g. He smiles because of her joke.
While the non-extended one consist of only main members of sentence. E.g. He
smiles.
According to the number of the main members the sentences can be one-member
and two-member sentences.
Classification of one-member sentences:
1. Nominative sentences:
a) substantive sentences (the main part of it is a noun). Spring. Night. A hose by the
sea.
b) adjectival sentences (the main member of the sentence is an adjective). Fine.
Excellent.
2. Imperative sentences. Do it! Give me a book.
3. Verbless Imperative sentences: Out with it! Down with the bosses!
4. Exclamatory sentences of a specific type: What a beautiful night!
5. Infinitive Sentences:
a) the infinitive without the partical “to” which builds a rhetorical question (Why
not go there?)
b) the infinitive with “to” To think of it! To have done such a thing!
6. Gerundial Sentences. No talking.
7. Sentence-words: Oh! Alas! (interjections) Yes! No. (Particles). Of course
(modal words).
According to the completeness of the structure sentences are divided into complete
and elliptical. It should be noted here, that all one-member sentences are complete.
In elliptical sentences a word form can be omitted:
a) in the subject position. Looks like rain.
b) in the subject position and part of the predicate position Seen him?
c) in the predicate position Who lives there? – Jack
From the point of view of the nature of the subject or the nature of the possible doer,
sentences can be personal and impersonal.
Impersonal sentences are:
1. Sentences, describing phenomena of nature: It’s raining! It’s dark!
2. Sentences, expressing time, distance: It’s 2 o’clock! It was Monday! It’s
five minutes!
3. Sentences expressing a certain state of things: It’s all over with him.
IC analyses
The simple sentence, as any sentence in general, is organized as a system of function-
expressing positions, the parts are arranged in a hierarchy.
The traditional scheme of sentence parsing shows the functional hierarchy. On the
scheme presented graphically, sentence-parts connected by domination are placed
one under the other in a successive order of subordination, while sentence-parts
related to one another equipotently are placed in a horizontal order. Direct
connections between the sentence-parts are represented by horizontal and vertical
lines.
Exposing the subordination ranks of the parts of the sentence, it fails to present its
original linear order in speech.
This drawback is overcome in another scheme of the analysis called the model of
immediate constituents (contractedly, the IC-model).
The modal of immediate constituents is based on the group-parsing of the sentence.
It consists in dividing the whole of the sentence into two groups: that of the subject
and that of the predicate, which in their turn, are divided into their sub-groups
according to the successive subordination.
On the upper level of analysis the sentence is looked as a united whole (the accepted
symbol S); at the next level it is divided into two maximal constituents – the subject
noun-phrase NP and the predicate verb-phrase VP; at the next lower level NP is
divided into the determiner (det) and the rest of the phrase to which it semantically
refers (NP), while the predicate verb-phrase is divided into the adverbial (D) and the
rest of the verb-phrase; the next level includes the division of the NP into its attribute
constituent (A) and the noun-constituent (N), and correspondingly, the division of
the VP into its verb-constituent (V) and object noun-phrase constituent (NP-obj), the
latter being, finally, divided into the preposition constituent (prp) and noun
constituent (N).
The described model of immediate constituents has two basic versions: “analytical
IC-diagram” and the “IC-derivation tree”.
 16.Sentence in semantics.
Henry Sweet defines a sentence as a word or a group of words capable of expressing
a complete thought or meaning.
According to M. Bryant a sentence is a communication in words, conveying a sense
of completeness and containing at least one independent verb with its subject.
Every sentence has several main features:
 a certain intonation structure (depends on the aim of communication, its
structure, grammatical type);
 a certain grammatical structure (the division into members of the sentence
and their arrangement);
 a certain communicative structure (the theme-rheme structure).
Every sentence is characterized by predication which establishes the relation of the
named phenomena to actual life, the named objects to reality.
Being a language unit, a sentence is characterized by form and meaning. For
example, the artificial structures suggested by Fries as A diggled woggle uggled a
wiggled diggle (here we can see a proper structure of a sentence, but the constituents
have no meaning). Another example was provided by Chomsky: Colorless green
ideas sleep furiously. From this example we can notice that there is the structure of
the sentence and that each constituent has its own meaning, but on the whole the
sentence is meaningless. The very existence of these two criteria help us to define a
sentence.
In the study of semantic structure of the sentence we concentrate on the semantic
centre of the sentence and on the expression of modality.
The semantic aspect of the sentence describes the meaning of a whole sentence. The
simplest and most naive hypothesis is that the meaning of a sentence is the sum of
the meanings of the words and other constituents which compose it. But it is not so.
We can tell the difference of meaning between My wife has a new dog, my new wife
has a dog, My new dog has a wife, though their constituents are the same.
According to N. Chomsky (Transformational Generative Grammar) sentences have
a surface and a deep structure. Of these, the surface structure is the more
complicated, based on one or more abstract simple structures. In certain very simple
sentences the difference between the surface structure and the deep structure is
minimal. Sentences of this kind, simple, active, declarative, indicative, are
designated as kernel sentences.
A Transformational Grammar is organized in three basic parts. The first part is its
syntactic component, which includes description both of deep and surface structure.
The second is the semantic component, which provides a semantic interpretation of
the deep structure, e.g. in sentences we enjoy smoking and we appose smoking the
semantic component would indicate that the first sentence is a paraphrase of we
smoke and we enjoy it, though the second is not a paraphrase of we smoke and we
appose it. The third, the phonological component provides a phonetic interpretation
of the surface structure of the sentence.
N. Chomsky defines Grammar as a system of rules that determine the deep and
surface structures, it establishes the relations between the sounds and the meaning.
Let’s compare the following two sentences:
The hunter killed the lion. [N1 Vact N2] - The lion was killed by the hunter. [N2
VpasPrp N1].
The surface structures of these two sentences are different. However, the deep
structure of both sentences is the same: [N1 - agent, N2 - patient, V - to kill]. This
deep structure is implicit, it is not expressed but is only represented in the mind.
What is presented in Chomsky’s theory is the analysis of compound judgements as
consisting of two or more simple judgements or propositions which was common in
logics and influenced English grammarians, e.g. John married Fred’s sister. The
semantic component, which provides the interpretation of the deep structure of this
sentence presupposes that Fred has a sister.
Another approach to describe the semantic relations between the words in the
sentence was put forward by L. Tenier and later developed by Ch. Fillmore.
L. Tenier (a French linguist) calls the sentence a little drama in which the members
of the sentence are actors; the verb is the main hero and all other parts of the sentence
are names which have certain relations with the verb and play certain roles in their
relations with the verb.
Charles Fillmore developed the Grammar of cases or roles in which he discusses
the parts of the sentence from the point of view of their semantic significance or
roles.
Ch. Fillmore’s actors
Agent – Jack cleaned the floor. (anim. + actional)
Patient – Peter underwent a surgical operation. (anim. + actional/stative)
Experiencer – Jill likes to read. (anim. + stative)
Beneficiary – Jack bought a pair of jeans for himself. (anim. + actional)
Instrument – Jill opened the door with the key. (inanim.)
Locative – Jack lives in London. (inanim.)
The verb isn’t included in the classification, but it influences the type of actor.
The drawback is that agent is an animate noun.
Deep cases (Ch. Fillmore)
1. Agentive (the animate initiator of the action). Jack is reading a book.
2. Instrumental (inanimate force or object casually involved in the action or
state). Jack opened the door with the key.
3. Dative (animate being affected by the action or state) – I gave John a book.
4. Factitive (object or being resulting from the action or state). Mary is writing
a letter.
5. Locative (location or spatial orientation of the action or state). John lives in
London.
6. Objective (the semantically most neutral case: anything that can be marked
with a noun, the role of which in the action or state is defined by the verb) –
Jack is reading a book.

17.Sentence in pragmatics.
The pragmatic aspect of the sentence is connected with the ways of expressing
different purposes of communication of the speaker, i.e. his communicative
intentions, which are realized in his speech acts. Pragmatics is a systematic way of
explaining language use in context.
Pragmatics includes: Speech act theory, Felicity conditions, Conversational
implicature, The cooperative principle, conversational maxims, Relevance,
Politeness, Phatic tokens, Deixis
I. Speech acts
We use language all the time to make things happen. We ask to pass a salt, promise
smth. Linguists have called these things “speech acts” and developed a theory called,
“speech act theory” to explain how they work.
The philosopher J.L. Austin claims that many utterances are equivalent to actions.
Speech act theory broadly explains these utterances as having three parts or aspects:
locutionary, illocutionaty and prelocutionary acts.
Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.
Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where
saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one’s troth, welcoming and warning.
Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the
bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned.
Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of
categories or types. J.R. Searle gives five such categories: representatives
(assertatives), directives, commissives, expressives and declaration.
Representatives (any statements): here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true,
using such verbs as: affirm, believe, conclude, deny, report.
- I study theoretical grammar.
Directives: here the speaker tries to make the hearer do something, with such words
as: ask, beg, challenge, command, dare, invite, insist, request.
- Open the window, please!
Commisives: here the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future) course of
action, with verbs as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake, warrant.
- I’ll come tomorrow.
Expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs, using
verbs as: apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank,
welcome.
- Happy New Year.
Declarations: the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or
situation, solely by making the utterance: I now pronounce you man and wife.
Paragmatic types of sentences / speech acts (Pochepstov)
 - Constative (любое утвер.)
- Directive. (injunctive, requestive): Open the window! Could you open the
window? – requestive
- Question (все вопросы, кроме просьб) – What is your name?
- Promissive – I promise to come.
- Menacive (любая угроза) – I’ll kill you.
- Performative – It includes all declaratives that distinguishes Searle, because
of performative verbs

II. Felicity conditions - necessary to the success of the speech act.

Preparatory conditions (предотвращение) include the status or authority of the
speaker to perform the speech act, the situation of other parties and so on. E.g. In the
UK only the monarch can dissolve parliament.
Conditions for execution. External circumstances must be suitable, E.g.: “Can you
give me a lift?” the speaker has a reason for the request.
Sincerity conditions. In some cases, the speaker must be sincere (as in apologizing
or vowing).
III. Conversational implicature
English philosopher H.P. (Paul) Grice outlined an approach to what he termed
conversational implicature – how hearers manage to work out the complete message
when speakers mean more than they say. E.g. “Have you got any cash on you?”
where the speaker really wants the hearer to understand the meaning: “Can you lend
me some money? I don’t have much on me”.
P. Grice proposed that implicatures like the second sentence can be calculated from
the first, by understanding three things:
1. the usual linguistic meaning of what is said.
2. contextual information (shared or general knowledge)
3. the assumption that the speaker is obeying what P. Grice calls the cooperative
principle.
IV.Conversational maxims and the cooperative principle
The way in which people try to make conversations work is sometimes called the
cooperative principle.
Paul Grice proposes conversational maxims or Gricean maxims for successful
communication.
They are the maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.
Quality (самый важный по Грайсу): speakers should be truthful.
Quantity: a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation
to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much.
Relevance: speakers’ contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the
exchange.
Manner: speakers’ contribution should be clear, orderly and brief, avoiding
obscurity and ambiguity.
V. The politeness principle
The politeness principle is a series of maxims, which Geoff Leech has proposed as
a way of explaining how politeness operates in conversational exchanges. Leech
defines politeness as forms of behaviors that establish and maintain comity.
Leech’s maxims
Tact maxim (in directives and commissives): minimize cost to other; [maximize
benefit to other]
Generosity maxim (in directives and commissives): minimize benefit to self;
[maximize cost to self]
Approbation maxim (in expressives and representatives): minimize dispraise of
other; [maximize praise of other]
Modesty maxim (in expressives and representatives): minimize praise of self;
[maximize dispraise of self]
Agreement maxim (in representatives): minimize disagreement between self and
other; [maximize agreement between self and other]
Sympathy maxim (in representatives): minimize antipathy between self and other
[maximize sympathy between self and other]
VI. Phatic tokens
These are ways of showing status by orienting comments to oneself, to the other, or
to the general or prevailing situation (in England this is usually the weather).
Self-oriented phatic tokens are personal to the speaker: “I’m not up to this” or “My
feet are killing me”.
Other-oriented tokens are related to the hearer: “Do you work here?” or “You seem
to know what you’re doing”
A neutral token refers to the context or general state of affair: “Cold, isn't it?” or
“Lovely flowers”.
 VII. Deixis
Deixis refers to words and phrases, such as “me” or “here”, that cannot be
understood without additional context. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning
is fixed, but their denotational meaning varies depending on time or place. Deixis
refers to the world outside a text. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called
deictic expressions, deictic markers or deictic words.
Deictic expressions include such lexemes as:
 Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours),
 Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),
 (Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),
 Other pro-forms (so/do),
 Articles (the).