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Блох
ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ
ГРАММАТИКА
АНГЛИЙСКОГО
ЯЗЫКА
Блох М. Я.
Б70 Теоретическая грамматика английского языка:
Учебник. Для студентов филол. фак. ун-тов и фак.
англ. яз. педвузов. — М.: Высш. школа, 1983.— с. 383
В пер.: 1 р.
В учебнике рассматриваются важнейшие проблемы
морфологии и синтаксиса английского языка в свете ведущих
принципов современного системного языкознания. Введение в
теоретические проблемы грамматики осуществляется на фоне
обобщающего описания основ грамматического строя
английского языка. Особое внимание уделяется специальным
методам научного анализа грамматических явлений и
демонстрации исследовательских приемов на конкретном
текстовом материале с целью развития у студентов
профессионального лингвистического мышления. Учебник
написан на английском языке.
ББК 81.2 Англ-9
4И (Англ)
© Издательство «Высшая школа», 1983.
Preface ................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter I. Grammar in the Systemic Conception of Language. .......................... 6
Chapter II. Morphemic Structure of the Word ..................................................... 17
Chapter III. Categorial Structure of the Word ..................................................... 26
Chapter IV. Grammatical Classes of Words ........................................................ 37
Chapter V. Noun: General .................................................................................... 49
Chapter VI. Noun: Gender.................................................................................... 53
Chapter VII. Noun: Number ................................................................................ 57
Chapter VIII. Noun: Case..................................................................................... 62
Chapter IX. Noun: Article Determination ............................................................ 74
Chapter X. Verb: General .................................................................................... 85
Chapter XI. Non-Finite Verbs (Verbids) ............................................................. 102
Chapter XII. Finite Verb: Introduction ................................................................ 123
Chapter XIII. Verb: Person and Number .............................................................. 125
Chapter XIV. Verb; Tense ................................................................................... 137
Chapter XV. Verb: Aspect ................................................................................... 155
Chapter XVI. Verb: Voice ................................................................................... 176
Chapter XVII. Verb: Mood................................................................................... 185
Chapter XVIII. Adjective ..................................................................................... 203
Chapter XIX. Adverb ........................................................................................... 220
Chapter XX. Syntagmatic Connections of Words ............................................... 229
Chapter XXI. Sentence: General . . ...................................................................... 236
Chapter XXII. Actual Division of the Sentence.................................................... 243
Chapter XXIII. Communicative Types of Sentences ........................................... 251
Chapter XXIV. Simple Sentence: Constituent Structure ..................................... 268
Chapter XXV. Simple Sentence: Paradigmatic Structure . . ................................ 278
Chapter XXVI. Composite Sentence as a Polypredicative Construction ............. 288
Chapter XXVII. Complex Sentence .................................................................... 303
Chapter XXVIII. Compound Sentence ................................................................ 332
Chapter XXIX. Semi-Complex Sentence ............................................................ 340
Chapter XXX. Semi-Compound Sentence ........................................................... 351
Chapter XXXI. Sentence in the Text ................................................................... 361
A List of Selected Bibliography .......................................................................... 374
Subject Index........................................................................................................ 376
CHAPTER II
MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD
CHAPTER III
CATEGORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD
33
CHAPTER IV
GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS
walk, sail, prepare, shine, blow — can, may, shall, be, be-
come;
take, put, speak, listen, see, give — live, float, stay, ache,
ripen, rain;
40
CHAPTER V
NOUN: GENERAL
51
CHAPTER VIII
NOUN: CASE
In the light of all that has been stated in this book in con-
nection with the general notions of morphology, the fallacy of
the positional case theory is quite obvious. The cardinal blun-
der of this view is, that it substitutes the functional characterist-
ics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of
the word class, since the case form, by definition, is the vari-
able morphological form of the noun. In reality, the case forms
as such serve as means of expressing the functions of the noun
in the sentence, and not vice versa. Thus, what the described
view does do on the positive lines,
* The examples are taken from the book: Nesfield J. С Manual of English
Grammar and Composition. Lnd., 1942, p. 24.
64
65
m
y
—
m
in
e,
y
o
u
—
y
o
u
—
y
o
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ur
—
y
o
ur
s,.
..
w
h
o
—
w
h
o
m
—
w
h
os
e
—
w
h
os
e.
W
hi
ch
ev
er
of
th
e
fo
r
m
er
ca
se
co
r-
re
l-
a-
ti
o
ns
ar
e
sti
ll
tr
ac
e-
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ab
le
in
th
is
sy
s-
te
m
(a
s,
fo
r
ex
a
m
pl
e,
in
th
e
su
b-
se
ri
es
h
e
—
hi
m
—
hi
s)
,
th
ey
ex
ist
as
m
er
e
re
l-
ic
ts,
i.e
.
as
a
pe
t-
ri-
fi
ed
ev
Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 78
id
en
ce
of
th
e
ol
d
pr
o-
d
uc
t-
iv
e
sy
s-
te
m
th
at
ha
s
lo
n
g
ce
as
ed
to
fu
nc
ti
o
n
in
th
e
m
or
p
h
o-
lo
g
y
of
E
n
g-
lis
h.
Thus, what should finally be meant by the suggested termin-
ological name "particle case" in English, is that the former sys-
tem of the English inflexional declension has completely and
irrevocably disintegrated, both in the sphere of nouns and their
substitute pronouns; in its place a new, limited case system has
Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 79
arisen based on a particle oppositional feature and subsidiary to
the prepositional expression of the syntactic relations of the
noun.
CHAPTER IX
NOUN: ARTICLE DETERMINATION
Will you give me this pen, Willy? (I.e. the pen that I am
pointing out, not one of your choice.) — Will you give me the
pen, please? (I.e. simply the pen from the desk, you understand
which.) Any blade will do, I only want it for scratching out the
wrong word from the type-script. (I.e. any blade of the stock,
however blunt it may be.) — Have
74
* Different aspects of the discussion about the English article are very
well shown by B. A. Ilyish in the cited book (p. 49 ff.).
75
Fig. 2
CHAPTER X
VERB: GENERAL
* The term "verbids" for the non-finite forms of the verb was introduced
by O. Jespersen. Its merit lies in the fact that, unlike the more traditional term
"verbals", it is devoid of dubious connotations as well as homonymic correla-
tions.
88
95
97
99
CHAPTER XI
106
§ 3. The gerund is the non-finite form of the verb which, like the in-
finitive, combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun. Sim-
ilar to the infinitive, the gerund serves as the verbal name of a process,
but its substantive quality is more strongly pronounced than that of the
infinitive. Namely, as different from the infinitive, and similar to the
noun, the gerund can be modified by a noun in the possessive case or its
pronominal equivalents (expressing the subject of the verbal process),
and it can be used with prepositions.
Since the gerund, like the infinitive, is an abstract name of the pro-
cess denoted by the verbal lexeme, a question might arise, why the infin-
itive, and not the gerund is taken as the head-form of the verbal lexeme
as a whole, its accepted representative in the lexicon.
As a matter of fact, the gerund cannot perform the function of the
paradigmatic verbal head-form for a number of reasons. In the first
place, it is more detached from the finite verb than the infinitive se-
mantically, tending to be a far more substantival unit categorially. Then,
as different from the infinitive, it does not join in the conjugation of the
finite verb. Unlike the infinitive, it is a suffixal form, which
108
Repeating your accusations over and over again doesn't make them
more convincing. (Gerund subject position) No wonder he delayed
breaking the news to Uncle Jim. (Gerund direct object position) She
could not give her mind to pressing wild flowers in Pauline's botany
book. (Gerund addressee object position) Joe felt annoyed at being shied
by his roommates. (Gerund prepositional object position) You know
what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky. (Gerund predicative posi-
tion) Fancy the pleasant prospect of listening to all the gossip they've in
store for you! (Gerund attributive position) He could not push against the
furniture without bringing the whole lot down. (Gerund adverbial of
manner position)
One of the specific gerund patterns is its combination with the noun
in the possessive case or its possessive pronominal equivalent expressing
the subject of the action. This gerundial construction is used in cases
when the subject of the gerundial process differs from the subject of the
governing
109
§ 5. The past participle is the non-finite form of the verb which com-
bines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective, serving as the
qualifying-processual name. The past participle is a single form, having
no paradigm of its own. By way of the paradigmatic correlation with the
present participle, it conveys implicitly the categorial meaning of the per-
fect and the passive. As different from the present participle, it has no
distinct combinability features or syntactic function features specially
characteristic of the adverb. Thus, the main self-positional functions of
the past
1 12
CHAPTER XII
FINITE VERB: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER XIII
VERB: PERSON AND NUMBER
§ 1. The categories of person and number are closely con-
nected with each other. Their immediate connection is condi-
tioned by the two factors: first, by their situational semantics,
referring the process denoted by the verb to the
125
129
131
CHAPTER XIV
VERB: TENSE
(1) I was making a road and all the coolies struck. (2) None
of us doubted in the least that Aunt Emma would soon be mar-
velling again at Eustace's challenging success. (3) The next
thing she wrote she sent to a magazine, and for many weeks
worried about what would happen to it. (4) She did not protest,
for she had given up the struggle. (5) Felix knew that they
would have settled the dispute by the time he could be ready to
have his say. (6) He was being watched, shadowed,
144
§ 6. In the clear-cut modal uses of the verbs shall and will the
idea of the future either is not expressed at all, or else is only
rendered by way of textual connotation, the central semantic
accent being laid on the expression of obligation, necessity,
inevitability, promise, intention, desire. These meanings may be
easily seen both on the examples of ready phraseological cita-
tion, and genuine everyday conversation exchanges. Cf.:
He who does not work neither shall he eat (phraseological
citation). "I want a nice hot curry, do you hear?" — "All right,
Mr. Crackenthorpe, you shall have it" (everyday speech). None
are so deaf as those who will not hear (phraseological citation).
Nobody's allowed to touch a thing — I won't have a woman
near the place (everyday speech).
The modal nature of the shall/will + Infinitive 146
You are trying to frighten me. But you are not going to
frighten me any more (L. Hellman). I did not know how I was
going to get out of the room (D. du Maurier).
She knew what she was doing, and she was sure it was go-
ing to be worth doing (W. Saroyan). There's going to be a con-
test over Ezra Grolley's estate (E. Gardner).
CHAPTER XV
VERB: ASPECT
161
CHAPTER XVI
VERB: VOICE
177
CHAPTER XVII
VERB: MOOD
193
195
CHAPTER XVIII
ADJECTIVE
203
211
CHAPTER XIX
ADVERB
225
227
CHAPTER XX
SYNTAGMATIC CONNECTIONS OF WORDS
CHAPTER XXI
SENTENCE: GENERAL
CHAPTER XXII
In all the cited examples, i.e. both base sentences and their trans-
forms, the rheme (expressed either by the subject or by an element of
the predicate group) is placed towards the end of the sentence, while
the theme is positioned at the beginning of it. This kind of positioning
the components of the actual division corresponds to the natural de-
velopment of thought from the starting point of communication to its
semantic centre, or, in common parlance, from the "known data" to
the "unknown (new) data". Still, in other contextual conditions, the
reversed order of positioning the actual division components is used,
which can be shown by the following illustrative transformations:
It was unbelievable to all of them. → Utterly unbelievable it was
to all of them. Now you are speaking magic words, Nancy. → Magic
words you are speaking now, Nancy. You look so well! → How well
you look!
It is easily seen from the given examples that the reversed order
of the actual division, i.e. the positioning of the rheme at the begin-
ning of the sentence, is connected with emphatic speech.
Among constructions with introducers, the there-pattern provides
for the rhematic identification of the subject without emotive connota-
tions. Cf.:
Tall birches surrounded the lake. → There were tall birches sur-
rounding the lake. A loud hoot came from the railroad. → There came
a loud hoot from the railroad.
Emphatic discrimination of the rheme expressed by various parts
of the sentence is achieved by constructions with the anticipatory it.
Cf.:
Grandma gave them a moment's deep consideration. → It was a
moment's deep consideration that Grandma gave
247
249
254
259
§ 11. The undertaken survey of lingual facts shows that the com-
bination of opposite cardinal communicative features displayed by
communicatively intermediary sentence patterns is structurally sys-
temic and functionally justified. It is justified because it meets quite
definite expressive requirements. And it is symmetrical in so far as
each cardinal communicative sentence type is characterised by the
same tendency of functional transposition in relation to the two other
communicative types opposing it. It means that within each of the
three cardinal communicative oppositions two different intermediary
communicative sentence models are established, so that at a further
level of specification, the communicative classification of sentences
should be expanded by six subtypes of sentences of mixed commu-
nicative features. These are, first, mixed sentence patterns of declara-
tion (interrogative-declarative, imperative-declarative); second, mixed
sentence patterns of interrogation (declarative-interrogative, imperat-
ive-interrogative); third,
267
CHAPTER XXIV
Fig. 3
det NP VP D
NP-subj VP-pred
Fig. 4
272
CHAPTER XXV
SIMPLE SENTENCE:
PARADIGMATIC STRUCTURE
bols can vary in accord with the concrete needs of analysis and
demonstration.
CHAPTER XXVI
COMPOSITE SENTENCE AS A POLYPREDICATIVE
CONSTRUCTION
291
295
302
307
316
CHAPTER XXVIII
COMPOUND
SENTENCE
Mrs. Dyre stepped into the room, however the host took no
notice of it. → Mrs. Dyre stepped into the room, the host, how-
ever, took no notice of it.
335
337
CHAPTER XXIX
SEMI-COMPLEX SENTENCE
The subject of the insert sentence may be either identical with that of
the matrix sentence (the first of the above examples) or not identical with
it (the second example). This feature serves as the first fundamental basis
for classifying the semi-complex sentences in question, since in the de-
rived adverbial semi-clause the identical subject is dropped out and the
non-identical subject is preserved. It will be reasonable to call the ad-
verbial semi-clause of the first type (i.e. referring to the subject of the
dominant clause) the "conjoint" semi-clause. The adverbial complicator
expansion of the second type (i.e. having its own subject) is known under
the name of the "absolute construction" (it will further be referred to as
"absolutive").
The given classification may be formulated for practical purposes as
the "rule of the subject", which will run as follows: by adverbialising
scmi-complexing the subject of the insert sentence is deleted if it is
identical with the subject of the matrix sentence,
The other classificational division of adverbial semi-clauses concerns
the representation of the predicate position. This position is only partially
predicative, the role of the partial predicate being performed by the parti-
ciple, either present or past. The participle is derived from the finite verb
of the insert sentence; in other words, the predicate of the insert sentence
is participialised in the semi-clause. Now, the participle-predicate of the
adverbial semi-clause may be dropped out if the insert sentence, presents
a nominal or existential construction (the finite verb be). Thus, in accord
with this feature of their outer structure, adverbial semi-clauses are di-
vided into participial and non-participial. E.g.:
One day Kitty had an accident. + She was swinging in the garden. →
One day Kitty had an accident while swinging in the garden. (The parti-
ciple is not to be deleted, being of an actional character.) He is very
young.+ He is quite competent in this field. —» Though being very
young, he is
348
CHAPTER XXX
SEMI-COMPOUND
SENTENCE
CHAPTER XXXI
SENTENCE IN THE TEXT
When he had left the house Victorina stood quite still, with
hands pressed against her chest. // She had slept less than he.
Still as a mouse, she had turned the thought: "Did I take him
in? Did I?" And if not — what? // She took out the notes which
had bought — or sold — their happiness, and counted them
once more. And the sense of injustice burned within her (J.
Galsworthy).
The fascists may spread over the land, blasting their way
with weight of metal brought from other countries. They may
advance aided by traitors and by cowards. They may destroy
cities and villages and try to hold the people in slavery. But
you cannot hold any people in slavery.
The Spanish people will rise again as they have always
risen before against tyranny (E. Hemingway).
378
ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ГРАММАТИКА
АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА