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СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

 

Введение........................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 1. Morphology

1. SYSTEMIC CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE........................................... 8

2. MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD......................................... 14

3. CATEGORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD....................................... 20

4. GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS................................................ 26

5. NOUN AND ITS CATEGORIES............................................................... 31

6. VERB. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS................................................. 38

7. VERB. NON-FINITE FORMS.................................................................... 48

8. ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB..................................................................... 55

9. NUMERAL. PRONOUN. FUNCTIONAL WORDS................................... 59

Chapter 2. SYNTAX

10. BASIC PROBLEMS OF CONSTRUCTIVE SYNTAX............................ 67

11. THE PROBLEM OF SENTENCE TYPES............................................... 76

12. SIMPLE SENTENCE: CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE........................... 91

13. SIMPLE SENTENCE: PARADIGMATIC STRUCTURE........................ 98

14. COMPOSITE SENTENCE..................................................................... 102

15. COMMUNICATIVE SYNTAX.............................................................. 106

16. SEMANTIC SYNTAX. PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF SYNTAX.......... 114

17. COLLOQUIAL SYNTAX....................................................................... 120

18. LINGUISTICS OF THE TEXT............................................................... 133

 

Заключение................................................................................................. 142

Введение

Лингвистическое учение о частях речи, о строении слов, о составе предложения, о синтагматических и парадигматических отношениях между элементами языка имеет древнейшую историю. На протяжении многих веков своего развития грамматика была связана с гуманитарными и общефилософскими направлениями человеческой мысли. В ХХ веке проявились тенденции сближения грамматической теории с точными науками. Однако в наше время, которое характеризуется как эпоха постструктурализма, лингвисты проявляют все больший интерес к коммуникативным аспектам языковых явлений. Наблюдается переход от описания структурных особенностей естественного человеческого языка к исследованию его функционально-семантических и прагматических характеристик. Задача современных исследователей в области теории грамматики – обобщить весь богатейший опыт предшественников и найти то диалектическое равновесие, которое позволило бы представить объективную картину сложнейших взаимоотношений содержания, формы и функции языковых единиц.

Теоретическая грамматика английского языка представляет в этой связи особый интерес, поскольку в ней в значительной степени нашли свое отражение и реализацию различные методы лингвистического анализа. Особенностью курса является интегративное представление морфологии и синтаксиса как единой системы речеобразования. В пособии представлены: теория уровней языка, оппозиционная теория грамматических категорий с раскрытием контекстного поведения грамматических форм, проблематика парадигматического синтаксиса с его выходом в грамматику текста.

Особое внимание уделяется рассмотрению грамматической семантики во всех разделах предлагаемого описания, что соответствует современному когнитивному подходу к языку в целом.

Лекционный курс «Теоретическая грамматика первого изучаемого языка» входит в учебный план подготовки студентов по направлению 45.03.02-Лингвистика (профиль – «Теория и методика преподавания иностранных языков и культур»). Он рассчитан на один семестр. Курс теоретической грамматики читается на изучаемом языке (английском). Для изучения данной дисциплины требуется свободное владение английским языком как в устной, так и в письменной форме. Необходимо, чтобы студенты в достаточной степени владели навыками восприятия, анализа и фиксирования в письменной форме основной информации по изучаемому предмету. Деятельность студентов на лекции представляет собой частично самостоятельную учебную работу. Задача преподавателя – побуждать слушателей к диалогу, к научной рефлексии, к включению в процесс анализа и разрешения проблемных вопросов.

Изучение материала по данному предмету должно осуществляться в логической последовательности и взаимосвязи с такими дисциплинами как «Лексикология первого изучаемого языка», «Стилистика первого изучаемого языка», «История, культура и литература страны первого изучаемого языка»,  «Практический курс первого иностранного языка», «Введение в специальную филологию первого изучаемого языка». Для успешного освоения данной дисциплины студенты используют знания, умения и навыки, полученные в ходе освоения таких дисциплин как «Введение в языкознание», «Практическая грамматика», «Практический курс первого иностранного языка».

Дисциплина является одним из наиболее сложных обобщающих курсов в цикле теоретических дисциплин изучаемого языка. Данная дисциплина, дает на основе новейших методов анализа возможность теоретического осмысления строя языка как системы взаимосвязанных явлений; обеспечивает теоретическую базу для практического изучения иностранного языка в целом. Знания и умения, полученные в рамках данной дисциплины, помогают студенту сформировать в свете современной науки систематизированное представление о грамматическом строе английского языка; получить, расширить и углубить системные знания по специальности; видеть явления языка в их целости, взаимосвязи и взаимозависимости. Наряду с информированием студентов о достижениях и проблемах в области теоретической грамматики английского языка большое внимание уделяется выработке у них навыков многопланового лингвистического анализа и самостоятельного критического суждения о грамматических явлениях и их интерпретациях в научной литературе. Так, в процессе освоения дисциплины формируется общепрофессиональная компетенция (ОПК-3), которая подразумевает владение системой лингвистических знаний, включающей в себя знание основных фонетических, лексических, грамматических, словообразовательных явлений и закономерностей функционирования изучаемого иностранного языка, его функциональных разновидностей.

В учебном пособии дан обзор основных проблем научной грамматики современного английского языка. Фактически это краткое изложение содержания лекций по изучаемой дисциплине. Такая форма позволяет студентам сосредоточиться на основных понятиях и терминах, принятых в этой области лингвистики, освоить их самостоятельно. Каждый подраздел представляет собой конспективное описание соответствующей проблемы. Он снабжен кратким списком литературы, включающим первоисточники, которые легли в основу данного описания и к которым студенты должны обращаться для более глубокого изучения вопроса.

Большое значение для освоения материала курса имеет самостоятельная работа студентов во время учебного семестра и в период подготовки к итоговому контрольному мероприятию – экзамену. Основным условием успеха этой деятельности является доступность учебных и научных материалов по изучаемой дисциплине.

Полученные студентами знания и навыки реализуются при написании курсовых и квалификационных работ по темам, предполагающим расширение и углубление исследований грамматических явлений, представленных в учебном курсе по данной дисциплине.

CHAPTER I.

Braches of grammar

As a science, grammar is traditionally subdivided into two divisions: morphology and syntax. Morphology studies word-building and word-derivation. The object of morphology is a morphological structure of words, described in such terms as a root, a prefix, flexion and so on. The object of morphology is a paradigmatics of a word, i.e. the laws of the form changing according to word-derivation categories (for example, the category of number in nouns table –tables, tense in verbs – walk - walked) and so on. Syntax studies the theories of word combinations and theory of a sentence. The theory of a word combination studies the nature of its components, the problem of word syntagmatics, types of syntactic links (relations), types of word combinations and so on. The theory of a sentence is a study of structural and communicative types of sentences, ways of connections in a composite sentence, types of subordinate sentences in compound sentences and so on.

    Though in the last decades there appeared other branches of grammar, which is connected with the growing number of linguistic objects. When such linguistic unit as a text appeared in linguistic theories it promoted such division as linguistics of text. It studies the analysis of connections between sentences, the laws of the structure of the sentence dependent of its linguistic environment, the typology of text and so on.

 

Types of grammars

By the present time the following types of grammar description has formed:

1) Descriptive grammars. This type of grammar has indicative character, giving the description of factual condition of grammatical subdivision of this language. From the point of view of grammar of such type one can judge of the structure of this or that language, of existence in it such things as categories, parts of speech and so on.

2) Explanatory grammar. This type of grammar is aimed at the explanation of characteristics of the structure of language and has in general commentary character. They have mostly theoretical character and, as a rule, subordinate the description of material to the task of its scientific understanding.

3) Synchronic grammars. These grammars describe the condition of grammatical subdivision of the language on the definite stage of its development making its horizontal survey.

4) Diachronical (historical) grammars. These grammars are the description of grammatical system of language in the dynamics of its development and changing on the basis of vertical survey. (We should bear in mind that such division is relative).

 

Grammar and usage

It’s traditional to divide grammatical norm and usage under which we understand prevailing tendencies to use different language units by the members of a given language society.

Though it is very difficult to make concrete difference between grammar and usage. In the process of the development of any language the structure of a language is formed by the analysis of the cases of usage of different forms of the words, structures, sentences. The most frequent cases become grammatical rules. But language continues to change according to its inner laws and outer factors, connected with the social condition changes (scientific and technical progress, social and regional differentiation of the society, strengthening or loosing the influence of foreign language culture, appearing and development of mass media and so on.) For example, 

It’s I/me. (the usage of case forms of personal pronouns in the function of predicative).

              What was she talking about? (grammar norm)

              I don’t know what she was talking about (grammar norm).

              I don’t know what was she talking about. (colloquial)

Grammatically correct but not colloquial

  

                                          Whom are you listening to?

                                          Этот кофе для меня слишком крепкий.

 

Grammatically incorrect but colloquial

                                          Who are you listening to?

                                          Это кофе для меня слишком крепкое.

 

Such boundary between grammatical norm and colloquial usage is very vague and that’s why now corpus grammar and communicative grammars appear. Now under the term grammar as a science we understand the branch of linguistics studying and explaining structural characteristics of a language appearing in various speech forms, registers and styles.

 

Grammatical meaning

The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are interrupted in linguistics as categorical grammatical meanings. Grammatical meaning is useful to compare with lexical meaning. Both of these types of meanings have differences and similarities. Their similarity consists in content-based part of linguistic units, they are the units of content and both of them have abstract character.

The difference between lexical and grammatical meaning is first, that lexical meanings are much more numerous than grammatical.

A table, a house, a bird à each of it has lexical meaning but they are united by the grammatical meaning “thingness”.

Second, lexical meanings are individual, grammatical meanings are above individual. Third, appearing as the generalization of individual lexical meanings, grammatical meaning in diachronic approach is later formation than lexical.

Forth, grammatical meaning is obligatory and is determined in every unit of the lexicon, though lexical meaning of some units of the lexicon may be completely lost (article) or unclear (prepositions, particles, conjunctions).

 

Grammatical form

Grammatical form is closely connected with grammatical meaning. There is double way to view the outer side of linguistic units. From one side the attention of a researcher can be on morphological structure of a word, on the mechanics of the combination of morphemes inside of it, and from the other side from what kind of grammatical meaning and additional meaning.

Tables à From lexical aspect there are 2 morphemes in this word which consists of a stem and flexion. From grammatical point of view this is the form of plural number which is made up from the singular form and the element denoting plurality.

Has been waiting à From the morphological point we deal with analytical form of the verb to wait, consisting of 4 morphemes: three of them are free (has, been, wait-) and “-ing” is a bound morpheme.

 

Grammatical categories

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. Grammatical categories are divided into following types:

a) nominal and verbal. Grammatical categories which characterize nominal parts of speech are called nominal (case, gender, number and so on), and those which characterize verbal parts of speech are called verbal (aspect, mood, voice, tense and others).

b) general and individual. Under general category we understand the category without any concrete lingual connection to any language. And individual category is a category realized in concrete language (for example, a category of tense in the English language).

c) word-changing and classifying. First are realized by opposing two or more linguistic forms on the level of paradigmatics. Word-changing grammatical category is not fixed constantly to the form of the word, is not its permanent classification feature and is not indicated in the dictionaries as the feature of lexeme. Word-changing categories are the category of number of nouns, the category of comparison of adjectives, the category of tense of verbs and so on. Classifying grammatical categories are category of transitiveness/intransitiveness, animateness/inanimateness.

d) morphological and syntactical. Morphological categories refer to the sphere of morphology and characterize the number of grammatical features of words as parts of speech (categories of number, case, gender, mood, voice and etc.) syntactical grammatical categories are transitiveness and intransitiveness, coordination/subordination, predicativeness, modality and so on.

e) overt and covert. Overt grammatical categories are those which are determined by the word-form without turning to context. Table – tables

covert grammatical categories are those which potentially are in lexeme but are determined through the context. For example, most English verbs have notes vt (verb transitive) and vi (verb intransitive), so the category of transitiveness/ intransitiveness of the verb but is manifested in the context.

    He walks in the park every evening (intran.).

    He walks his dog in the park every evening (trans.).

Grammatical means

    The means employed for building up member-forms of categorical oppositions are traditionally divided into synthetical and analytical; accordingly, the grammatical forms themselves are claused into synthetical and analytical, too.

    Synthetical grammatical forms are realized by the inner morphemic composition of the word, while analytical grammatical forms are built up by a combination of at least two words, one of which is a grammatical auxiliary (word-morpheme), and the other, a word of “substantial” meaning.

    Synthetical grammatical forms are based on the inner inflexion, outer inflexion and suppletivity; hence, the forms are referred to as inner-inflexional, outer-inflexional, suppletive and accent.

    Thus, to the analytical grammatical means the following means belong:

1. auxiliary verbs (has done, has been waiting, was taken).

2. word order (paper wall, wall paper)

3. outer categorization (All my family are early risers. My family is big)

4. reduplication (He was very, very sad. Глаза у него были грустные - грустные, еле –еле, чуть- чуть, едва-едва)  

All the analytical verbal forms go back to free syntactical groups.

References

1.Bloch M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 2000. – p.6-26

2.Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики – М., 2000

3. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М., 1981. – с.9-13

4. Хлебникова И.Б. Оппозиции в морфологии. – М., 1969

 

NOUN AND ITS CATEGORIES

 

1. The category of gender

2. The category of number

3. The category of case

4. The category of article determination

 

Terms: substance, gender, number, case, article determination, subject, object, combinability, person, genitive case, word, morpheme

 

The category of gender

The noun in Modern English has only two grammatical catego­ries, number and case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analyzed. The existence of gender appears to be doubtful also.

The Modern English noun certainly has not got the category of grammatical gender, which is to be found, for example, in Rus­sian, French, German and Latin. Not a single noun in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denot­ing a male or a female being (but remember such cases as actor –actress, lion - lioness).

 

Category of number

Modern English, as most other languages, distinguishes between two numbers, singular and plural.

The essential meaning of singular and plural seems clear enough: the singular number shows that one object is meant, and the plural shows that more than one object is meant. Thus, the opposition is "one — more than one". This holds good for many nouns: table — tables, pupil — pupils, dog — dogs, etc.

First of all, it is to be noted that there is some difference be­tween, say, three houses and three hours. Whereas three houses are three separate objects existing side by side, three hours are a con­tinuous period of time measured by a certain agreed unit, of dura­tion. The same, of course, would apply to such expressions as three miles, three acres, etc.

We must also consider here two types of nouns differing from all others in the way of number: they have not got the usual two number forms, but only one form. The nouns which have only plural and no singular are usually termed "pluralia tantum" (which is the Latin for "plural only"), and those which have only a singular and no plural are termed "singularia tantum" (the Latin for "singular only").

Among the pluralia tantum are the nouns trousers, scissors, lungs, pincers, breeches; environs, outskirts, dregs. Close to this group of pluralia tantum nouns are also some name of sciences, e. g. mathematics, physics, phonetics, also politics, and some names of diseases, e. g. measles, mumps, rickets. The reason for this seems to be that, for example, mathematics embrace a whole series of various scientific disciplines, and measles are accompanied: by the appearance of a number of separate inflamed spots on the-skin (rash). However, the reasons are less obvious in the case of phonetics, for instance.

The direct opposite of pluralia tantum are the singularia tantum, i. e. the nouns which have no plural form. Among these we mat first note some nouns denoting material substance, such as milk, butter, quicksilver, etc., and also names of abstract notions, such as peace, usefulness, incongruity, etc. Nouns of this kind ехpress notions which are, strictly speaking, outside the sphere of number: e. g. milk, or fluency. But in the morphological and syntactical system of the English language a noun cannot stand outside the category of number. If the noun is the subject of a sen­tence, the predicate verb (if it is in the present tense) will have to be either singular or plural. With the nouns just mentioned the pred­icate verb is always singular. This is practically the only external sign (alongside of the absence of a plural inflection in the noun ) which definitely shows the noun to be singular.

Certain nouns denoting groups of human beings (family, government, party, clergy, etc.) and also of animals (cattle, poultry, etc.) can be used in two different ways: either they are taken to denote the group as a whole, and in that case they are treated as singulars, and usually termed "collective nouns" (in a restricted sense of the term); or else they are taken to denote the group as consisting of a certain number of individual human beings (or animals), and in that case they are usually termed "nouns of multitude".

The difference between the two applications of such nouns may be briefly exemplified by a pair of examples: My family is small, and My family are good speakers. It is quite obvious here that in the one sentence the characteristic "small" applies to the family as a whole, while in the other sentence the characteristic "good speakers" applies to every single member of the family ("everyone of them is a good speaker" is what is meant, but certainly not "everyone of them is small"). The same consideration would also apply to such sentences as The cattle were grazing in the field. It is also quite possible to say, Many cattle were grazing in the field, where the use of many (not much) clearly shows that cattle is ap­prehended as a plural. With the noun people the process seems to have gone further than with any other noun of this kind. There is, on the one hand, the noun people, singular, with its plural peoples (meaning 'nations'), and there is, on the other hand; the noun people apprehended as a plural (There were fifty people in the hall) and serving as a kind of plural to the noun person (There was only one person in the hall). People can of course be modified by the words many and few and by cardinal numerals (twenty people).

Recently a peculiar view of the category of number was put forward by A. Isachenko. According to this view, the essential inclining of the category (in nouns) is not that of quantity, but of discreteness (расчлененность). The plural, in this view, expresses fundamentally the notion of something consisting of distinguishable parts, and the meaning of quantity in the usual sense would then appear to be a result of combining the fundamental meaning of the category as such with the lexical meaning of the noun used in the plural.

Category of case

The problem of case in Modern English nouns is one of the most vexed problems in English grammar. This can be seen from the fact that views on the subject differ widely. The most usual view is that English nouns have two cases: a common case (e. g. father) and a genitive (or possessive) case (e. g. father's). Side by side with this view there are a number of other views, which can be roughly clas­sified into two main groups: (1) the number of cases in English is more than two, (2) there are no cases at all in English nouns.

Case is the category of a noun expressing relations between the thing denoted in the noun and other things, or properties, or actions, and manifasted by some formal sign in the noun itself. This sign is almost always an inflection, and it may also be a "zero" sign, i.e. the absence of any sign may be significant as distinguishing one particular case from another. It is obvious that the minimum number .

Different views have also been expressed concerning the scope of meaning of the -s. Besides phrases implying possession in the strict sense of the term (my father's books, etc.), the -s is also found in other contexts, such as my father's friends, my father's arrival, my father's willingness, etc.. The question now arises how wide this scope may be. From this point of view it has been customary to point out that the relation expressed by the collocation- "noun + -s + noun" is often a subjective relation, as in my father's ar­rival: my father's expresses the subject of the action, cf. my father arrives. This would then correspond to the so-called subjective ge­nitive of inflected languages, such as Russian or Latin. It would, however, not do to say that the noun having the -'s could never indicate the object of the action: cf. the example Doughty's famous trial and execution, where the implied meaning of course is, 'Doughty was tried and executed'. This would correspond to the so-called objective genitive of inflected languages. Now, though this particular use would seem to be far less frequent than the subjec­tive, it is by no means impossible or anomalous. Thus it would not be correct to formulate the meaning of the -'s in a way that would exclude the possible objective applications of the -'s-formation.

Parallel use of the -'s-form and the preposition of is seen in the following example: In the light of this it was Lyman's belief and it is mine — that it is a man's duty and the duty of his friends to see to it that his exit from this world, at least, shall be made with all possible dignity.

In Old English, the notions of number and case were always expressed by one morpheme. Thus, in the Old English form stana the ending -a expressed simultaneously the plural number and the genitive ease. That was typical of an inflected language, A change came already in Middle English, and in Modern English the two notions have been entirely separated. This is especially clear in the nouns which do not form their plural in -s: in the forms men's, children’s number is expressed by the root vowel and the inflection -ren, where the -s expresses case alone. But this applies to nouns forming their plural in -s as well.

Another view of the case system in English nouns must also be mentioned here, namely the view that we should distinguish between a nominative and an objective case, though there is no difference between the two in any English noun. Such a differentiation could only be based on the fact that personal pronouns (I, he, she, we, they) and the pronoun who have different forms for these cases (I — me, etc.). If, therefore, we start on the assump­tion that the system of cases is bound to be the same in these pro­nouns and in all nouns, we shall be led to acknowledge the two cases in nouns. However, there would seem to be no necessity to endorse this view. It is probably more advisable to consider the case system of nouns without taking into account that of the per­sonal pronouns.

Classification of Verbs

The class of verbs falls into a number of subclasses distinguished by different semantic and lexico-grammatical features. On the upper level of this division two unequal sets are identified: the set of verbs of full nominative value (notional verbs) which are opposed to the set of verbs of partial nominative value (semi-notional and function­al verbs). The set of notional verbs is derivationally open. The sec­ond set is derivationally closed, it includes limited subsets of verbs characterized by individual relational properties. On the lower level of division each set can be subdivided into numerous subsets accord­ing to their relevant features.

Notional verbs are classified on the basis of three main princi­ples: the relation of the subject of the verb to the process denoted by the verb, the aspective verbal semantics, the verbal combinability with other language units.

According to the first criterion, all notional verbs are divided into two sets: actional and statal. This division is grammatically relevant since it explains the difference between the actional and statal verbs in their attitude towards the denotation of the action in progress. Actional verbs express the action performed by the subject, i.e. they present the subject as an active doer. Statal verbs, unlike their sub­class counterparts, denote the state of their subject, i.e. they either give the subject the characteristic of the inactive recipient of some outward activity, or else express the mode of its existence.

Aspective verbal semantics (the second criterion) exposes the in­ner character of the process denoted by the verb. It represents the process as durative (continual), iterative (repeated), terminate (con­cluded), interminate (not concluded), instantaneous (momentary), ingressive (starting), overcompleted (developed to the extent of su­perfluity), undercompleted (not developed to its full extent), and the like. According to the aspective verbal semantics, two major sub­classes of notional verbs are singled out: limitive and unlimitive. The verbs of the first order present a process as potentially limited. The verbs of the second order present a process as not limited by any border point. The demarcation line between the two aspective verbal subclasses is not rigidly fixed, the actual differentiation between them being in fact rather loose. Still, the opposition between limitive and unlimitive verbal sets does exist in English. This division of verbs has an unquestionable grammatical relevance, which is expressed, among other things, in peculiar correlation of these subclasses with the categorial aspective forms of the verbs (indefinite, continuous, perfect). It also reveals the difference in the expression of aspective distinc­tions in English and in Russian. The English lexical aspect differs radically from the Russian aspect. In terms of semantic properties, the English lexical aspect expresses a potentially limited or unlimited process, whereas the Russian aspect expresses the actual conclusion (the perfective, or terminative aspect) or non-conclusion (the imperfective, or non-terminative aspect) of the process in question. In terms of systemic properties, the two English lexical aspect varieties, unlike their Russian absolutely rigid counterparts, are but loosely distinguished and easily reducible. In accord with these characteristics, both the English limitive verbs and unlimitive verbs may correspond alter­nately either to the Russian perfective verbs or imperfective verbs, depending on the contextual uses.

The syntactic valency of the verb falls into two cardinal types: obligatory and optional. The obligatory valency is such as must nec­essarily be realized for the sake of the grammatical completion of the syntactic construction. The subjective and the direct objective valen­cies of the verb are obligatory. The optional valency is such as is not necessarily realized in grammatically complete constructions: this type of valency may or may not be realized depending on the concrete information conveyed by the utterance. Most of the adverbial modi­fiers are optional parts of the sentence, so in terms of valency the adverbial valency of the verb is mostly optional.

Thus, according to the third criterion - the valency of the verb -all notional verbs are classified into two sets: complementive (taking obligatory adjuncts) and supplementive (taking optional adjuncts). Complementive and supplementive verbs fall into minor groups: com­plementive verbs are subdivided into predicative, objective, and ad­verbial verbs; supplementive verbs are subdivided into personal and impersonal verbs.

In connection with complementive and supplementive character­istics of verbs there arises the question of clarifying the difference between the two notions - "objectivity" and "transitivity". Verbal objectivity is the ability of the verb to take any object, irrespective of its type. Verbal transitivity is the ability of the verb to take a direct object. The division of the verb into objective and non-objective is more relevant for English than for Russian morphology because in English not only transitive but also intransitive objective verbs can be used in passive forms.

Semi-notional and functional verbs are united in the set of the verbs characterized by partial nominative value. To this set of verbs refer several subdivisions of verbs: auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, link verbs, and semi-notional verbid introducer verbs. All semi-function­al and purely functional verbs function as markers of predication showing the connection between the nominative content of the sen­tence and reality.

Category of Tense

The category of tense is considered to be an immanent grammatical category which means that the finite verb form always expresses time distinctions.

The category of tense finds different interpretations with dif­ferent scholars. Thus, in traditional linguistics grammatical time is often represented as a three-form category consisting of the "lin­ear" past, present, and future forms. The future-in-the-past does not find its place in the scheme based on the linear principle, hence, this system is considered to be deficient, not covering all lingual data.

At the same time linguists build up new systems of tenses in order to find a suitable place in them for future-in-the past. Nevertheless, many of such schemes are open to criticism for their inconsistency which finds its expression in the fact that some of them deny the inde­pendent status of future tenses while others exclude from the analysis future-in-the-past forms.

The said inconsistency can be overcome if we accept the idea that in English there exist two tense categories.

The first category - the category of primary time - expresses a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process denoted, due to which the process receives an absolute time characteristic., This category is based upon the opposition of "the past tense" and "the present tense", the past tense being its strong member.

The second tense category is the category of "prospective time", it is based upon the opposition of "after-action" and "non-after-ac­tion", the marked member being the future tense. The category of prospect is relative by nature which means that it characterizes the action from the point of view of its correlation with some other ac­tion. As the future verbal form may be relative either to the present time, or to the past time included in non-future, the English verb acquires two different future forms: the future of the present and the future of the past. It means that the future of the past is doubly strong expressing the strong members of the category of primary time and the category of prospect.

The category of primary time is subjected to neutralization and transposition, transposition being more typical. The vivid cases of transposition are the "historical present" and the "Preterite of Mod­esty". As for the category of prospect, it is often neutralized; neutral­ization can be of two types: syntactically optional and syntactically obligatory.

 

The category of aspect

Grammatical aspective meanings form a variable grammatical category which is traditionally associated with the opposition of con­tinuous and non-continuous forms of the verb. Yet, one can find a great divergence of opinions on the problem of the English aspect. The main difference lies in the interpretation of the categorial seman­tics of the oppositional members - continuous and indefinite forms: the categorial meaning of the continuous form is usually defined as the meaning of duration, while the interpretation of the categorial semantics of the Indefinite form causes controversy (the indefinite form may be interpreted as having no aspective meaning (I.P. Ivanova), as a form having a vague content (G.N. Vorontsova), as a form stressing the fact of the performance of the action (A.I. Smirnitsky). In Modern Linguistics A.I. Smirnitsky's interpretation of the cate­gorial semantics of the indefinite form is widely accepted.

In theoretical grammar the interpretation of perfect / non-perfect verb-forms also refers to disputable questions. Some linguists inter­pret the opposition of perfect / non-perfect forms as aspective (O. Jespersen, I.P. Ivanova, G.N. Vorontsova), others - as the op­position of tense forms (H. Sweet, G.O. Curme, A. Korsakov). A.I. Smirnitsky was the first to prove that perfect and non-perfect make up a special, self-sufficient, category which he called the "cate­gory of time correlation"; this viewpoint is shared now by a vast majority of linguists.

Developing A.I. Smirnitsky's views on the categorial semantics of perfect / non-perfect forms, we can come to the conclusion that in English there exist two aspective categories: the category of develop­ment (based on the opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms) and the category of retrospective coordination (based on the opposition of perfect and non-perfect forms).

The perfect form has a mixed categorial meaning: it expresses both retrospective time coordination of the process and the connection of the prior action with a time-limit reflected in a subsequent event. The recognition of the two aspect categories also enables one to give a sound interpretation to the perfect continuous forms: they must be treated as forms having marks in both the aspect categories.

The opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms can be neutralized and transponized. Besides, in the category of development verbs which are usually not used in continuous forms can be subjected to the process of reverse transposition, e.g.: Were you wanting my help?

As for the opposition of perfect and non-perfect forms, it can under­go only the process of neutralization, transposition being alien to it.

 

Category of Voice

The category of voice occupies a peculiar place in the system of verbal categories because it reflects the direction of the process as re­gards the participants in the situation denoted by a syntactic construc­tion. The passive form, being marked, expresses the reception of the action by the subject of the syntactic construction; its weak counter-member - the active form - has the meaning of "non-passivity".

In comparison with Russian, the category of voice in English has a much broader representation as not only transitive but also intran­sitive objective verbs can be used in the passive voice.

Another peculiarity of voice distinctions of English verbs consists in the fact that active forms often convey passive meanings. As a grammatical category voice is the form of the verb which shows the relation between the action and its subject indicating whether the action is performed by the subject or passes on to it. Accordingly there are two voices in English: the active and the passive.

The active voice shows that the action is performed by its subject, that the subject is the doer of the action. The passive voice shows that the subject is acted upon, that it is the recipient of the action:

I wrote a letter – A letter was written by me.

Transformational relations for voice may be symbolized as follows:

N₁ + V_act + N₂ à N₂ + V_pas + by + N₁

According to O.Jespersen, about 70% of passive verb-patterns found in English literature contain no mention of the active subject.

The functional sentence perspective may depend on the choice of the active or passive turn; the latter is often used as an effective device to make the “psychological” subject also the grammatical subject of the sentence. This is the case, for instance, with such prepositional verb-patterns, as:

The doctor was sent for.

The bed had not been slept in.

This matter must be looked into at once.

This child must be taken great care of.

The passive voice is generally expressed by analytic combinations of the auxiliary verb to be with the past participle of the notional verb.

Category of Mood

A great divergence of opinions on the question of the category о mood is caused by the fact that identical mood forms can express: different meanings and different forms can express similar meanings.

The category of mood shows the relation of the nominative con­tent of the sentence towards reality. By this category the action can be presented as real, non-real, desirable, recommended, etc.

It is obvious that the opposition of the one integral form of the indic­ative and the one integral form of the subjunctive underlies the unity of the whole system of English moods. The formal mark of this opposition is the tense-retrospect shift in the subjunctive, the latter being the strong member of the opposition. The shift consists in the perfect aspect being opposed to the imperfect aspect, both turned into the relative substitute for the absolutive past and present tenses of the indicative.

The study of the English mood reveals a certain correlation of its formal and semantic features. The subjunctive, the integral mood of unreality, presents the two sets of forms according to the structural division of verbal tenses into the present and the past. These form-sets constitute the two corresponding functional subsystems of the sub­junctive, namely, the aspective, the mood of attitudes, and the condi­tional, the mood of appraising causal-conditional relations of process­es. Each of these, in its turn, falls into two systemic subsets, so that at the immediately working level of presentation we have the four sub-limitive form-types identified on the basis of the strict correlation be­tween their structure and their function: the pure aspective, the modal aspective, the stipulative conditional, the consecutive conditional. The elaborated scheme clearly shows that the so-called "imperative mood" has historically coincided with Subjunctive 1.

The described system is not finished in terms of the historical de­velopment of language; on the contrary, it is in the state of making and change. Its actual manifestations are complicated by neutraliza­tions of formal and semantic contrasts, by fluctuating uses of the auxiliaries, of the finite "be" in the singular.

Thus, today scholars discuss different classifications of moods in Eng­lish revealing new correlations of meaning and form in the process of expressing mood distinctions but so far a universally accepted system of moods has not been worked out. Hence our task in the objective study of language, as well as in language teaching, is to accurately reg­ister these phenomena, to explain their mechanism and systemic impli­cations, to show the relevant tendencies of usage in terms of varying syntactic environments, topical contexts, stylistic preferences.

 

References

1.Bloch M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 2000. – p.6-26

2.Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики – М., 2000

3. Бархударов Л.С. Очерки по морфологии современного английского языка. – М., 1975

VERB. NON-FINITE FORMS

1. A general outline of verbals: the categorial semantics, categories, syntac­tic functions

2. The infinitive and its properties. The categories of the infinitive. Modal meanings of infinitival complexes

3.  The gerund and its properties. The categories of gerund. The notion of half-gerund

4. The present participle, the past participle, and their properties

5. Language means of expressing modality

 

Terms: modality, aspect, time, tense, time correlation, retrospective coordination, mood, absolute time, relative time, voice.

 

1. A general outline of verbals: the categorial semantics, categories, syntac­tic functions

Non-finite forms of the verb (verbids) are the forms of the verb which have features intermediary between the verb and the non-processual parts of speech. Their mixed features are revealed in their se­mantics, morphemic structural marking, combinability, and syntac­tic functions. Verbids do not denote pure processes but present them as peculiar kinds of substances and properties; they do not express the most specific finite verb categories - the categories of tense and mood; they have a mixed, verbal and non-verbal, valency; they per­form mixed, verbal and non-verbal, syntactic functions.

The strict division of functions clearly shows that the opposition be­tween the finite and non-finite forms of the verb creates a special gram­matical category. The differential feature of the opposition is constitut­ed by the expression of verbal time and mood: while the time-mood grammatical signification characterizes the finite verb in a way that it underlies its finite predicative function, the verbid has no immediate means of expressing time-mood categorial semantics and therefore presents the weak member of the opposition. The category expressed by this opposition is called the category of "finitude". The syntactic content of the category of finitude is the expression of verbal predication.

The peculiar feature of the verbid verbality consists in their ex­pressing "secondary" ("potential") predication. They are not self-de­pendent in a predicative sense. The verbids normally exist only as part of sentences built up by genuine, primary predicative constructions that have a finite verb as their core. And it is through the reference to the finite verb-predicate that these complexes set up the situation denoted by them in the corresponding time and mood perspectives.

The English verbids include four forms distinctly differing from one another within the general verbid system: the infinitive, the ger­und, the present participle, and the past participle. In compliance with this difference, the verbid semi-predicative complexes are dis­tinguished by the corresponding differential properties both in form and in syntactic-contextual function.

ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB

 

1. A general outline of the adjective

2. Classification of adjectives

3. The category of adjectival comparison

4. A general outline of the adverb

5. Classifications of adverbs

Terms: property, comparison, qualitative adjectives, relative adjectives, evaluative adjectives, specificative adjectives, substantivization

 

The numeral

With numerals, even more than with pronouns, it is difficult to keep the strictly grammatical approach and not to let oneself be diverted into lexicological considerations. O. Jespersen has quite rightly remarked that numerals have been treated by grammarians in a different way from other parts of speech. This is what he says, "...the grammarian in this chapter on numerals does what he never dreamed of doing in the two previous chapters (those on nouns and adjectives), he gives a complete and orderly enumeration of all the words belonging to this class."

There are no grammatical categories to be discussed in nu­merals. There is no category of number, nor of case, nor any other morphological category. The numerals are, to all intents and pur­poses, invariable. So there is only the function of numerals to be considered, and also possibilities of their substantivization.

The most characteristic function of numerals is of course that of an attribute preceding its noun. However a numeral can also perform other functions in the sentence (it can be subject, predica­tive, and object) if the context makes it clear what objects are meant, as in: We are seven, Of the seven people I was looking for I found only three.

An ordinal numeral can also be modified by an infinitive de­noting the action in which the object mentioned occupies a definite place; a characteristic example of this usage is, He was the first to come. The numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, share certain peculia­rities of syntactic construction with pronouns. Cf., e. g., five chil­dren, five of the children, five of them; some children, some of the children, some of them; also the first travellers, the first of the travellers, the first of them. This, however, does not seem a suffi­cient reason for uniting pronouns and numerals into one part of speech, and such a union has not so far been proposed.

 

Functional words

Prepositions. The problem of prepositions has caused very
heated discussions, especially in the last few years. Both the mean­ing and the syntactical functions of prepositions have been the subject of controversy.

1) Meaning. The meaning of prepositions is obviously that of relations between things and phenomena.Form. Prepositions are invariable.

2) Function, (a) Prepositions enter into phrases in which they are preceded by a noun, adjective, numeral, stative, verb or adverb, and followed by a noun, adjective, numeral or pronoun, (b) In a sentence a preposition never is a separate part of it. It goes together with the following word to form an object, adverbial modifier, pre­dicative or attribute, and in extremely rare cases a subject (There were about a hundred people in the hall).

Conjunctions. The problem of conjunctions is of the same
order as that of prepositions, but it has attracted less attention.
Meaning. Conjunctions express connections between things and phenomena.

(1) Form. Conjunctions are invariable.

(2) Function, (a) They connect any two words, phrases or clauses, (b) In a sentence, conjunctions are never a special part of it. They either connect homogeneous parts of a sentence or homoge­neous clauses (the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions), or they join a subordinate clause to its head clause (the so-called subordi­nating conjunctions).

A further remark is necessary here. We have said that prepo­sitions express relations between phenomena, and conjunctions express connections between them. It must be acknowledged that the two notions, relations and connections, are somewhat hard to distinguish. This is confirmed by the well-known fact that phrases of one and the other kind may be more or less synonymous: cf., e. g., an old man and his son and an old man with his son. It is also confirmed by the fact that in some cases a preposition and a con­junction may be identical in sound and have the same meaning (e. g. before introducing a noun and before introducing a subordi­nate clause; the same about after). Since it is hard to distinguish between prepositions and conjunctions as far as meaning goes, and morphologically they are both invariable, the only palpable differ­ence between them appears to be their syntactical function. It may be reasonably doubted whether this is a sufficient basis for consid­ering them to be separate parts of speech. It might be argued that prepositions and conjunctions make up a single part of speech, with subdivisions based on the difference of syntactical functions. Such a view would go some way toward solving the awkward problem of homonymy with reference to such words as before, after, since, and the like. However, since this is an issue for further considera­tion, we will, for the time being, stick to the traditional view of prepositions and conjunctions as separate parts of speech.

Particles. By particles we mean such word as only, solely,
exclusively, even (even old people came), just (just turn the handie), etc. These were traditionally classed with adverbs, from which they, however, differ in more than one respect.

(1) Meaning. The meaning of particles is very hard to define. We might say, approximately, that they denote subjective shades of meaning introduced by the speaker or writer and serving to emphasize or limit some point in what he says.

(2) Form. Particles are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) Particles may combine with practically every part of speech, more usually preceding it (only three), but occa­sionally following it (for advanced students only), (b) Particles nev­er are a separate part of a sentence. They enter the part of the sentence formed by the word (or phrase) to which they refer. (It might also be argued that particles do not belong to any part of a sentence.)

Modal words. Modal words have only recently been sepa­rated from adverbs, with which they were traditionally taken to­gether. By modal words we mean such words as perhaps, possibly, certainly.

(1) Meaning. Modal words express the speaker's evaluation of the relation between an action and reality.

(2) Form. Modal words are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) Modal words usually do not enter any phrases but stand outside them. In a few cases, however, they may enter into a phrase with a noun, adjective, etc. (he will arrive soon, possibly to-night), (b) The function of modal words in a sentence is a matter of controversy. Modal words may also be a sentence in themselves.

Interjections.

(1) Meaning. Interjections express feelings (ah, alas). They are not names of feelings but the immediate expression of them. Some interjections represent noises, etc., with a strong emotional colouring (bang!).

(2) Form. Interjections are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) Interjections usually do not enter into phrases. Only in a few cases do they combine with a preposition and noun or pronoun, e. g. alas for him! (b) In a sentence an inter­jection forms a kind of parenthesis. An interjection may also be a sentence in itself, e. g. Alas! as an answer to a question.

Some modern linguists prefer to avoid this traditional grouping and terminology and to establish a classification of types of words based entirely on their morphological characteristics and on their ability (or inability) to enter into phrases with other words of different types. Thus, for instance the words and and or will fall under one class while the words because and whether will fall under another class.

Thus, these classes are not denoted by special terms, such as "noun" or "adjective"; instead they are given numbers; thus, the words concert and necessity would belong to class 1, the words seem and feel to class 2, etc. Without even going into details, it is easy to see that the number of such classes is bound to be greater than that of the usual parts of speech. For instance, in the classification pro­posed by С.С. Fries there are no less than 19 classes of words.

It must be recognized that classifications based on these prin­ciples yield more exact results than the traditional ones, but the system thus obtained proves to be unwieldy and certainly unfit for practical language teaching. Whether it can be so modified as to be exact and easily grasped at the same time remains to be seen.

References

1. Bloch M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 2000. – p.6-26

2. Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики – М., 2000

3. Iofik L.L., Chakhoyan L.P. Readings in the theory of English Grammar

Chapter 2

SYNTAX

Types of phrases

1. The type “noun+ noun” is the most usual type of phrase in Modern English. It must be divided into two subtypes, depending on the form of the first component, which may be in the common or in the genitive case (родительный падеж).

a) the type “noun in the common case + noun” may be used to denote one idea as modified by another, in the widest sense (speech sound, silver watch, army unit)- the first component may be a proper name as well (London Bridge, a Beethoven symphony).

b) The type “noun in the genitive case + noun” has a more restricted meaning and use.

2. Another type is “adjective + noun”, which is used to express all possible kinds of things with their properties.

3. The type “verb + noun” may correspond to two different types of relation between an action and a thing. In the vast majority of cases the noun denotes an object of the action expressed by the verb, but in a certain number of phrases it denotes a measure, rather than the object of the action (walk a mile, sleep an hour, wait a minute). The meaning of the verb divides, for instance, the phrase wait an hour from the phrase appoint an hour, and shows the relations in the two phrases to be basically different.

In a similar way other types of phrases should be set down and analyzed. Among them will be the types “verb + adverb”, “adverb+ adjective”, “ adverb+ adverb”, “noun+ preposition+ noun” (cup of tea), “adjective+ preposition+ noun” (Good for Michael), “verb+ preposition+ noun”, etc.

An important question arises concerning the pattern “noun+ verb”. In our linguistic theory different opinions have been put forward, on this issue. One view is that the phrase type “noun+ verb” (which is sometimes called “predicative phrase”) exists and ought to be studied just like any other phrase type such as we have enumerated above. The other view is that no such type as “noun+ verb” exists, as the combination “noun+ verb” constitutes as a sentence rather than a phrase.

Besides phrase patterns consisting of two notional words with or without a preposition between them, there are also phrases consisting of a preposition and another word, mainly a noun. Thus such groups as in the street, at the station, at noon are prepositional phrases performing some function or other in a sentence. Some of these phrases are phraseological units (by heart), but this is a lexicological observation which is irrelevant from the grammatical viewpoint.

Phrases consisting of two components may be enlarged by addition of a third component

Adj + noun:         high + houses

                             New +high +houses (the limit is hard to define here).

 

The compound sentence

    A compound sentence is a sentence which consists of two or more clauses coordinated with each other. A clause is part of a sentence which has a subject and a predicate of its own.

    In a compound sentence the clauses may be connected:

a) syndetically, i.e. by means of coordinating conjunctions (and, or, else, but, etc) or conjunctive adverbs (otherwise, however, nevertheless, yet, still, therefore, etc.);

b) asyndetically, i.e. without a conjunction or connective adverb.

 

EX. The rain fell softly, the house was quiet.

We can distinguish the following types of coordination:

1. Copulative coordination (соединительная связь) expressed by the conjunctions and, nor, neither…nor, not only…but (also).

2. Disjunctive coordination (разделительная связь) expressed by the conjunctions or, else, or else, either…or, and the conjunctive adverbs otherwise. By these a choice is offered between the statements expressed in two clauses.

3. Adversative coordination (противительная связь) expressed by the conjunctions but, while, whereas, and the conjunctive adverbs nevertheless, still, yet. These are conjunctions and adverbs connecting two clauses contrasting in meaning.

4. Causative-consecutive coordination (причинно-следственная связь) expressed by the conjunctions for, so, and the conjunctive adverbs therefore, accordingly, consequently, hence.

For introduces coordinate clauses explaining the preceding statement.

Therefore, so, consequently, hence, accordingly introduce coordinate clauses denoting cause, consequence and result.

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:

a) 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;

b) Asyndetically, i.e. without a conjunction or connective.

A subordinate clause may follow, precede or interrupt the principal clause.

A subordinate clause may be subordinated to the principal clause or to another subordinate clause. Accordingly we distinguish subordinate clauses of the first, second, third, etc. degree of subordination.

EX.: I don’t mind making the admission…that there are certain forms of so-called humor, or, at least, fun, which I am quite unable to appreciate.

According to their grammatical function subordinate clauses are divided into subject, predicative, attributive, object and adverbial clauses.

1. Subject clause performs the function of subject to the predicate of the principal clause. Attention should be paid to the peculiar structure of the principal clause, which in this case has no subject, the subordinate clause serving as such. EX.: What I want to do is to save us both.

If a subject clause follows the principal clause the so-called introducing it is used in the principal clause. Subject clauses are connected with the principal clause in the following ways:

a) by means of the conjunctions that, if, whether: It was unfortunate that the patient was brought in during the evening;

b) by means of the connectives who, which, what, whoever, whatever (connective pronouns), where, when, how, why (conjunctive adverbs): What was done could not be undone;

c) asyndetically: It is a pity her brother should be quite a stranger to her.

2. Predicative clauses perform the function of a predicative. The peculiarity of complex sentences with a predicative clause is that in the principal clause we find only part of the predicate, i.e. a link verb, which together with the predicative clause forms a compound nominal predicate.

Predicative clauses are connected with the principal clause in the following ways:

a) by means of the conjunctions that, if, whether, as if: I felt as if death had laid a hand on me;

b) by means of the connectives who, which, what (connective pronouns), where, when, how, why (conjunctive adverbs): That was why you were not one a bit frightened ;

c) asyndetically.

3. Object clauses perform the function of an object to the predicative verb of the principal clause. An object clause may also refer to a non-finite form of the verb, to an adjective, or to a word belonging to the part of speech expressing state. EX.: She was aware that someone else was there.

Object clauses are connected with the principal clause in the following ways:

a) by means of the conjunctions that, if, whether: Time will show whether I am right or wrong;

b) by means of the connectives who, which, what, whoever, whatever, whichever (connective pronouns), where, when, how, why (conjunctive adverbs): I’ll do just what I say;

c) asyndetically: He said there was nothing much the matter with me;

    -or may be introduced by a preposition: I am always ready to listen to whatever you may wish to disclose.

4. Attributive clauses serve as an attribute to a noun (pronoun) in the principal clause. This noun or pronoun is called the antecedent of the clause. According to their meaning and the way they are connected with the principal clause attributive clauses are divided into relative and appositive ones.

Attributive relative clauses qualify the antecedent whereas attributive appositive clauses disclose its meaning. Attributive relative clauses are joined to the principal clause syndetically – by means of connectives, and asyndetically; attributive appositive clauses only syndetically – by means of conjunctions. Attributive relative clause can be restrictive and non-restrictive or descriptive.

5. Adverbial clauses perform the function of an adverbial modifier. It can modify a verb, an adjective or an adverb in the principal clause. Adverbial clauses are joined to the principal clause by means of subordinating conjunctions; they are not joined to the principal clause asyndetically except sometimes adverbial clause of condition.

a) Adverbial clause of time: conjunctions- when, while, whenever, as, till, until, as soon as, as long as, since, after, before, now that; EX: You can stay here as long as you want;

b) Of place: conjunctions- where, wherever; EX: I looked where she pointed;

c) Of cause: as, because, since, for fear (that), on the ground that, for the reason that;

d) Of purpose: that, in order that, so that, lest;

e) Of condition: if, unless, suppose, in case, on condition that, provided;

f) Of concession: though, although, as, no matter how, however, whoever, whatever, whichever, notwithstanding that, in spite of the fact that;

g) Of result: so that, that

h) Of manner: as; EX: John left the house as he had entered it

i) Of comparison: than, as, as…as, not so…as, as if, as though; EX: We were going up the road as fast as we could.

 

Word order in English is much greater importance than in Russian. As English words have hardly any inflexions and their relation to each other is shown by their place in the sentence and not by their form, word order in English is fixed:

    The subject, the predicate, objects, adverbial modifiers.

The order of words in which the subject is placed after the predicate is called inverted order or inversion. The inverted order of words is widely used when a word or a group of words is put in a prominent position, i.e. when it either opens the sentence or is withdrawn (отведено назад) to the end of the sentence so as to produce a greater effect. So word order often becomes a means of emphasis, thus acquiring a stylistic function.

In this case inversion is not due to the structure of the sentence but to the author’s wish to produce a certain stylistic effect.

1. Inversion occurs when an adverbial modifier opens the sentence

2. Inversion occurs when the emphatic particle only, the adverbs hardly, scarcely, the adverb no sooner, or the conjunction nor open the sentence.

3. Inversion occurs when the sentence begins with the word here which is not an adverbial modifier of place but has some demonstrative force.

4. Inversion occurs when postpositions denoting direction open the sentence and the subject is expressed by a noun. Here belong such words as in, out, down, away…The order of words makes the speech especially lively.

5.  Inversion occurs when an object or an adverbial modifier expressed by a word-group with not a…, many a…opens the sentence.

6. Inversion often occurs with a predicate expressed by an adjective or by a noun modified by an adjective or by the pronoun such opens the sentence.

7. Inversion is also found in conditional clauses introduced without any conjunction when the predicate is expressed by was, were, had, could or should.

8. There is another way to make almost any part of the sentence emphatic. This is achieved by placing it is or it was before the part of the sentence which is to be emphasized.

So it’s you that have disgraced ( опозорить ) the family.

 

Analysis of Sentence Parts

The study of the constituent structure of the sentence presupposes the analysis of its parts. Traditionally, scholars distinguish between the main and secondary parts of the sentence. Besides, they single out those parts which stand outside the sentence structure. The two gener­ally recognized main parts of the sentence are the subject and the pred­icate. To the secondary sentence parts performing modifying functions linguists usually refer object, adverbial modifier, attribute, apposition, predicative, parenthetical enclosure, and addressing enclosure.

The description of sentence parts is usually based upon semantic and syntactic criteria and is supplemented by the correlation of sen­tence parts and parts of speech.

 

IC –Model of the sentence

Building up the “model of immediate constituents” is a particular kind of analysis which consists in dividing the sentence into two groups: the subject group and the predicate group, which in their turn, are divided into their subgroup constituents according to the successive subordinative order of the constituents. The main advantage of the IC-model is that it exposes the binary hierarchical principle of subordinative connection. The widely used version of the IC-model is the “IC – derivation tree”. It shows the groupings of sentence constituents by means of branching nodes: the nodes symbolize phrase-categories as unities, while the branches mark their division into constituents.

Thus, syntactic signals have a meaning of their own independent of the meaning of the notional words. This can be illustrated by the following sentence with nonsensical words.

References

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 2000. – p.229-236, 261-272

2. Ilyish B.A. The structure of Modern English. – L., 1971. –Ch.26-29, 31

3. Бархударов Л.С. Структура простого предложения современного английского языка. - М., 1982

4. Долинина И.Б. Системный анализ предложения. – М., 1977

5. Смирницкйи А.И. Синтаксис английского языка. – М., 1957.

COMPOSITE SENTENCE

1. Classification of Sentences According to the Number of Predicative Lines

2. Compound Sentence

3. Complex Sentence

4. Semi-Composite Sentence and Its Types

Terms: composite, compound, complex, semi-compound, semi-complex, coordination, subordination, parallel subordination, consecutive subordination

 

Compound Sentence

The compound sentence is based on parataxis, i.e. coordination. By coordination the clauses in the composite sentence are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank. The position of the coordinate clause is always rigidly fixed and it serves as one of the differential features of coordination as such.

It is usual to single out the following types of semantic relations between coordinative clauses: copulative, adversative, disjunctive, causal, consequential, and resultative.

Coordinating connectors are divided into proper and semi-func­tional, the latter revealing adverbial features.

 

Complex Sentence

The complex sentence is based on hypotaxis, i.e. subordination. By subordination the principal clause positionally dominates the subordi­nate clause making up with it a semantico-syntactic unity. The subor­dinate clause can be joined to the principal clause either by a subordi­nating connector, or, with some types of clauses, asyndetically.

Subordinate clauses can be classified on different principles: ei­ther functional, or categorial.

In accord with the functional principle, subordinate clauses are classified on the analogy of the positional parts of the simple sen­tence. As a result of this classification, subordinate clauses are classed into subject, predicative, object, attributive, and adverbial.

The categorial classification is aimed at revealing the inherent nominative properties of the subordinate clauses irrespective of their immediate position in the sentence.

According to their integral features all subordinate clauses are divided into four generalized types: clauses of primary nominal posi­tions, clauses of secondary nominal positions, clauses of adverbial positions, clauses of parenthetical positions.

 

COMMUNICATIVE SYNTAX

 

1. Grammatical category of person

2. Actual division of the sentence

3. Communicative types of sentences

 

Terms: communication, interlocutor, actual division of the sentence, theme, rheme, psychological subject, psychological predicate, communicative purpose, declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory

 

Interrogative sentences

    Most interrogative sentences are formed by means of inversion, i.e. by placing the predicate or part of it before the subject. There are the following types of interrogative sentences: - general (Yes/No) questions

- special questions

- alternative questions

- disjunctive questions

Every type of questions has its own features and rules of usage.

Imperative sentences

    They are widely used in speech when the speaker induces the person(s) addressed to fulfill an action. This may be done in the form of a command, order, request, irritation, offer, entreaty, etc. The most common type of imperative sentences differs structurally from the declarative and interrogative sentences in several important points. Most imperative sentences normally have no overt grammatical subject.

    It is easy to confuse the imperative subject in such sentences with a vocative. Whereas the subject always precedes the predicate verb, however, the vocative is a mobile element that occur in final and medial, as well as initial position in the sentence. Another difference is that the vocative, when placed in front position, has a separate tone-unit (typically fall-rise), the subject merely receives ordinary word – stress.

Exclamatory sentences

    Exclamatory sentences are primarily used for expressing the speaker’s own feelings or strong emotion (surprise, indignation, incredulity, disgust, ridicule and so on). They are characterized by emphatic intonation in speaking and by an exclamation mark in writing. Any of the three above-mentioned communicative types of sentences can be made exclamatory but in our further discussion we will restrict ourselves to purely exclamatory sentences which do not belong to any of those three types whose basic quality is either declarative or interrogative or imperative with an additional emotional element when they are made exclamatory.

              What a shame! How encouraging!

Thus, in studying the structure of a sentence, we are faced with a problem which has been receiving ever greater attention in linguistic investigations of recent years.

References

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 2000. – p.229-236, 261-272

2. Ilyish B.A. The structure of Modern English. – L., 1971. –Ch.26-29, 31

Proposition

Under proposition we understand the typicalized mental reflection of onthological situation, its mental correlate. The ability of a man to form proposition is based on the ability to categorize the apprehended and cognizable world, to divide it into separate classes, to generalize the infinite diversity of its fragments into finite and observable number of types. Coming across a great variety of different situations, a man understands that in the end all of them can be united on the basis of dominating feature into several groups. For example:

Someone performs the action upon somebody/something. (The boy hit the ball; The woman picked up a flower. The man threw his hat away). Though all these sentences indicate different denotational situations, they’ll come up the same proposition.

    Another example: He is hungry. The girl is ill. Mother was nervous. Farther was angry. These sentences also come from one proposition which is the mental analogue of similar situations, united by classifying ability of human mind into one type.

    Proposition is a binary structure. It consists, from one side, from a relative predicate, which is a mental correlate of relations in reality, and, from the other side – from a number of predicate actants (semantic roles, semantic cases) which are mental correlates of objective world being in some relation to each other.

    As we know sentences can be extended and non-extended, complete and elliptical, simple and composite, compound and complex. Sentences can be complicated by different elements. For realization of the proposition on the word level it is necessary that a special type of a lexeme should be its correlate. In semantic syntax such a correlate is called a name of propositional semantics. Such nouns are not those which denotata are objects with space limits but which denotata are events with time limits and their meaning is very close to verbal. (revolution, simile, attack, explosion, war, negotiations, applause, departure, birth, death and others). On the level of word combination, it’s necessary that it should include the name of propositional semantics. Such word combination is able to nominate not only an event, but also its participants: Tom’s death, the teacher’s departure, the uprising of slaves.

 

The theory of speech acts

    Another meaningful aspect of syntax is its pragmatical aspect. Initially the term “pragmatics” was introduced in the sphere of “semiotics” – the science about signs and sign systems considering their object in logico-phylosophical plan. Along with syntactics and semantics pragmatics is one of the key notions of semiotics, denoting the relations between the sign and the user of the sign, while syntactics means the relation between signs and semantics – between a sign and an object denoted by it. Pragmalinguistics study such questions as aims and tasks of the communicants during their speech interchange, discourse strategies of speech partners, communicative effects and so on – all in all it studies everything which concerns intentional potential of a speech utterance, of an act of speech as a special sort of activity. As the human activity is comprehended and performed under certain conditions, encouraged by the purpose to solve some tasks (so there is an aim), is realized in accord with possible consequences then speech activity should be studied with respect to all features.

    In the basis of the theory of speech acts developing in the middle of 20^th century lies the idea about the possibility of dividing all utterances made in the form of a sentence into two main types – constatives and performatives. The founder of this theory, English philosopher J.L. Austin noticed that along with utterances describing a certain fragment or events of non-lingual world or situation – in other words, declaring a certain state of affairs in the world, there exist other utterances which do not denote anything beyond language and are actions, acts, activities of purely lingual character. Such speech acts received the name of performatives and became the object of the theory of speech acts. The first feature of performative utterances is their ability to be language signs of themselves. Their second feature is in the presence in any performative utterance of performative verb in the first person singular in present tense, in active voice, indicative mood: I name the boy Jack; I promise to be loyal to you; I congratulate you on the occasion. If we change even one parameter of the utterance, it becomes a constative. You (they, he, she)name(s) the boy Jack. It is the sign of non-lingual situation naming a boy by someone. While performing a speech act in the form of I name the boy Jack a speaker performs the action of naming a boy Jack and he can’t do it anyhow as pronounce such sentence. That’s why performatives are not sign analogue of the fragment of the world: they are certain facts of reality by themselves.

    Such approach is very important in analyzing functional side of language. Now we can’t consider speech activity only as semiotic signification and substitution of the world happening in parallel or additionally to the world. Consequently, we can apply the principles of activity approach to the language phenomenon (in wide sense) and consider such characteristics as motives, strategies, aims and so on.

    In the theory of speech acts there are different typologies of performative utterance. The common feature of all sentences is that the name of every type of performative utterance is the same of performative verb which is the most prominent representative of this or that pragmatic intention of the utterance. There exist:

1) speech acts – requestives: I request that you help me.

2) Speech acts – prohibitives: I prohibit your going there alone.

3) Speech acts – promises: I promise not to be late.

4) Speech acts – directives: I order you to obey.

We speak about this forth type we should bear in mind that a language developed a special form of mood – imperative – for them. Come here! – I order [that you come here]. The theory of speech acts has also enriched linguistics by such terms as locution, illocutive power, perlocutive effect of the utterance. Under locution we understand the act of speech production, the speech act itself, performing a speaker as the author and creator of the utterance. Under illocutive power the communicative intention of the speaker; it’s the illocutive power which forms the basis for classification of speech acts: threats, promises, orders, requests, prohibition, congratulations and so on. The perlocutive effect of the utterance is the behavioristic reaction of the listener on which the speaker accounts. The perlocutive effect can be expressed in action or in collection of actions. In the theory of speech acts it was noticed that very often the illocutive power of the utterance and its form do not coincide. Communicants, leading by different purposes (tactfulness, shyness, delicacy) often apply indirect methods to express a certain illocutive power. For example, an idea of discussing can be expressed by such utterances as: You should have behaved differently. Couldn’t you have acted differently. Look, people don’t act like that.

Thus, indirect speech act is an act in which an illocutive power isn’t marked by any means fixed in language to express it. We can say in conclusion that firstly the theory of speech acts doesn’t limit its object only by performative utterances. It unites and simplifies the theory, extracting all indirect speech acts. The weak point of this theory is that it doesn’t take into account that wide social, extralingual context which serves as a natural background of the utterance.  

 

References

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 2000. – p.229-236, 261-272

2. Ilyish B.A. The structure of Modern English. – L., 1971. –Ch.26-29, 31

3. Бархударов Л.С. Структура простого предложения современного английского языка. - М., 1982

4. Долинина И.Б. Системный анализ предложения. – М., 1977

5. Смирницкйи А.И. Синтаксис английского языка. – М., 1957.

COLLOQUIAL SYNTAX

 

1. Basic features of colloquial speech

2. Types of colloquial constructions

3. Grammar of conversation

 

Grammar of conversation

The grammar of conversation represents the spoken language, it has been little researched until recently, when the advent of sizable computer corpora have made such research feasible for the first time. The conversation is the most commonplace, everyday variety of language, from which, if anything, the written variety, acquired through painstaking and largely institutional processes of education.

    Before going further, we present a conversational extract (labeled “Damn chilli”) which illustrates many typical grammatical features of conversation.

                                          “Damn chilli”

A family of four is sitting down to dinner; P is the mother, J the father, and D (David) and M (Michael) are their 20-year-old and 17-year-old sons.

D1: Mom, I, give me a rest, give it a rest. I didn’t think about you, I mean, I would rather do it <unclear> some other instance in my mind.

P1: Yeah, well I can understand you know, I mean <unclear> Hi, I’m David’s mother, try to ignore me.

D2: I went with a girl like you once. Let’s serve this damn chilli.

M1: Okay, let’s serve the chilli. Are you serving or not dad?

J1: Doesn’t matter.

P2: Would you get those chips in there. Michael, could you put them with the crackers.

J2: Here, I’ll come and serve it honey if you want me to.

P3: Oh wait, we still have quite a few.

D3: I don’t see any others.

P4: I know you don’t

D4: We don’t have any others.

P5: Yes, I got you the big bag I think it will be a help to you.

J3: Here’s mom’s.

M2: Now this isn’t according to grandpa now.

P6: Okay.

M3: The same man who told me it’s okay <unclear>

P7: Are you going to put water in our cups? Whose bowl is that.

M4: Mine.

P8: Mike put all the water in here. Well, here we are.

J4: What.

P9: Will y’all turn off the TV.

J5: Pie, I’ll kill you, I said I’d take you to the bathroom.

P10: Man, get your tail out of the soup – Oh, sorry – Did you hear I saw Sarah’s sister’s baby?

M5: How is it?

P11: She’s cute, pretty really.

A functional survey of conversation.

    Conversation cannot be easily characterized in terms of communicative goals or social functions. It is a pervasive activity among human beings, and that its primary function appears to be to establish and maintain social cohesion through the sharing of experience, although secondarily it may promote other goals such as entertainment, exchange of information and control of other’s behaviour. There are several characteristics of conversation which define its grammar:

1) Conversation takes place in speech – by use of an oral-auditory channel.

2) Conversation takes place in shared context. Conversation is typically carried out in face-to-face interaction with others, e.g. family members or friends, with whom we share a great deal of contextual background. Face-to-face interaction means that we share not just as immediate physical context of time and space, but a large amount of specific social, cultural and institutional knowledge.

In keeping with this shared knowledge, conversation is marked grammatically by a very high frequency of pronouns, as contrasted with a very low frequency of nouns. The user of personal pronouns normally assumes that we share knowledge of the intended reference of you, she, it, etc. This sharing of situational knowledge is most obvious in the case of first and second person pronouns (especially I and you) which, referring directly to participants in the conversation, are the most common in this variety. Pronoun reference, however, represents only the most common variety of grammatical reduction that characterizes conversation, others being the use of ellipsis or of substitute proforms. In the extract “Damn chilli”, substitution is illustrated by:

    I mean, I would rather do it. And both substitution and ellipsis (signaled by < -- >) are illustrated in this sequence of turns:

 Here, I’ll come and serve it honey if you want me to <>    

Oh, wait, we still have quite a few.

I don’t see any others.

I know you don’t <>

    The frequency of ellipsis shows up especially in situational ellipsis (J1), in ellipsis across turns (P4) and also commonly in answers to questions.

3) Conversation avoids elaboration or specification of meaning

4) Conversation is interactive. Conversation is co-constructed by two or more interlocutors, dynamically adapting their expression on the ongoing exchange. The to-and-fro movement of conversation between speaker and hearer is evident in the occurrence of utterances which by their nature either form a response, or elicit a response. In conversational analysis, these utterance – response sequences, known as adjacency pairs, may be either symmetric, as in the case of one greeting echoing another, or asymmetric, such as a sequence of question followed by answer.

Questions and imperatives, the sentence types that typically elicit a response, are more frequent in conversation than in written language. Many response forms lack the full syntactic articulation of the clause, which is understandable, since they rely on the context created by the preceding turn. These insert often have a stereotyped initiating or responding function within an adjacency – pair framework:

Greetings – hi

Farewells – bye

Backchannels – uh huh

Response elicitors – okay

Among the types of interrogative structure in conversation, about one in four questions are question tags. The important point about question tags, here, is that they add an interrogative force to a declarative one, combining assertion with a request for confirmation, thus illustrating the characteristic “negotiation” or co-construction of meaning between interlocutors.

The peripheral adverbs, stance adverbials and linking adverbials have a discoursal function, being markers respectively of the speaker’s attitude to what is said, and of a link or translation between neighboring parts of the discourse. Therefore and however are used to signpost the logical and argumentative links between one part of the discourse and another, anyway and so are used more dynamically and interpersonally, to signal transitions in the interactive development of discourse.

These interaction signals shade into discourse markers. These include some single word inserts, like well and now as utterance introducers, as well as formulaic clausal forms such as the inevitable I mean and you know. In conversation, discourse markers can be said to have a “discourse management” function, which they share broadly with vocatives or address forms.

5) Conversation is expressive of politeness, emotion, and attitude. The interactive nature of conversation extends to the use of polite or respectful language in exchanges such as requests, greetings, offers and apologies (thanks, thank you, please, bye, sorry…). The conversational routines are historically derived by ellipsis from more elaborated, clausal expressions, but for the purposes of present-day English grammar they are best regarded as analyzed formulae. Vocatives such as sir and madam also have a respectful role, although such honorific forms are rare in English compared with many other languages. More typical of English is the use of stereotypic polite openings such as the interrogative forms would you and could you, functioning as requests in “Damn chilli”:

P2: Would you get those chips in there. Michael, could you put them with the crackers.

However, it must not be supposed that conversation preserves polite norms all of the time.

6) Conversation takes place in real time. Conversation is typically spontaneous, so that speakers are continually faced with the need both to plan and to execute their utterances in real time, “online” or “on the fly”. Consequently, conversation is characterized by what has been called “normal disfluency”. It is quite natural for a speaker’s flow to be impaired by pauses, hesitators (er, um), and repetitions, such as I – I – I at points where the need to keep talking threatens to run ahead of mental planning, and the planning needs to catch up.

However, we should also note the importance of a phenomenon the opposite of that above: where the speaker knows pretty well what to say, and indeed the hearer may to some extent share that knowledge. Here planning runs ahead of speech production. To save time and energy, speakers aim to reduce the length of what they have to say.

Speed of repartee, making an opportune remark, getting “a word in edgeways” in a lively dialogue, or reaching the point quickly, may all add urgency to the spoken word. In fact, in conversation speed of communication can vary a great deal according to the needs of encoding and decoding. In a familiar context, where many of the words to be uttered are largely predictable, devices for reducing the length of utterances are likely to be routinely employed. In phonological terms, fast, informal speech is often marked by effort – reducing features such as elision and assimilation. Although such features are not directly visible in our orthographic transcriptions, a reduction of length may also be readily observed on the levels of morphology and syntax, through contractions and other morphologically reduced forms, and the types of ellipsis.

    One common effort – saving device in conversation is the use of contractions: reduced enclitic forms of the verb and of the negative particle. Another is situational ellipsis taking the form of the omission of words of low information value. This type of ellipsis is termed “situational” because the missing elements are retrievable through situational knowledge, rather than through anaphoric reference to a previous mention. However, it is often a condition of this type of ellipsis that the elements omitted are so stereotyped as to be predictable in any situation. Situational ellipsis gives rise to sentences which fail to conform to the ideal of sentence grammar – where every sentence has a finite verb and every finite verb has a subject: Got a pen? Didn’t know it was yours.

In fact, very often the omission of subject and operator result in an utterance or clause lacking any verb at all. No problem.

Quite apart from this, the syntax of conversation differs from the “sentence grammar” typical of planned writing in ways which bear the marks of online planning pressure. In “Damn chilli”, the last turn (P11) has a structure scarcely paralleled in written English, where that last two words pretty really are tagged on to the simple clause She’s cute, elaborating and modifying retrospectively the intended meaning of cute. Prefaces placed respectively before and after a clause, elaborating part of the meaning:

    Cos Brenda whose horse I ride up at Bridley – I was telling her.           

The effect of such devices is to eliminate complex phrases from the body of the clause, where they could cause processing hold-ups both for the speaker and the hearer.

7) Conversation has a restricted and repetitive repertoire. Speakers often repeat partially or exactly what has just been said in the conversation, thus relieving online planning pressure by a device which may be called local repetition. However, conversation is repetitive in a more global sense, in that it relies more on stereotyped, prefabricated sequences of words lexical bundles.

    Another piece of evidence for stereotyped verbal repertoire in conversation is the low type – taken ratio. This tendency also shows up in our grammatical analysis in the steepness of rank – frequency curves for vocabulary filling particular syntactic roles. For example, the particularly high frequency of modal auxiliaries in conversation is largely due to the extremely common use of the modals will, can, would and could.

Thus, conversation employs a vernacular range of expression. Conversation typically takes place privately between people who know one another, perhaps intimately: it is remote from and little influenced by traditions of prestige and correctness often associated with publicly available written texts, where the English language is “on its best behavior”.                         

References

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 2000. – p.229-236, 261-272

2 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Longman, 2003

 

 

LINGUISTICS OF THE TEXT

 

1. Text as an object of research. Basic elements of the text

2. The features of the text

3.The linguistic means of textual connections

4. Types of contexts

5. Text and discourse

 

Terms: text, discourse, textual units, supra-phrasal unity, cumuleme, occurseme, paragraph, stylistic load, retrospect, prospect, category of author, cohesion, representation, substitution, context

 

The features of the text

In the framework of the given understanding of text, it has two main differential features topical (semantic) unity and semantico-syntactic cohesion. Under topical unity we understand impossibility to extract from the text any of it fragmant or in other case the text is destroyed or is reorganized into another text. Any way of extraction can lead to visible change of the text. Under cohesion we understand logical semantico-syntactic and formal structure of the text, leading to the reorganizing its components in any order or including into it some “foreign” fragments.

    Textual categories appear and function only in the text as a language unit of the highest rank. Textual categories reveal the cardinal and the most general differential features of the text.

    Today the list of textual categories is open: linguists name different textual categories because they approach the text from different angles. To the list of textual categories scholars usually refer cohesion, informativeness, retrospection, modality, causality, implication, the author’s image, and some others.

   

Types of contexts

The theory of text usually presupposes the investigation of problems concerning the context. In linguistics there are a lot of types of context but we’ll speak about two: horizontal and vertical.

    Under horizontal we mean the context describing the series of events, immediately changing one another in the frame of dynamically developed in time situation. For example,  A boy entered the room. He came up to the window and opened it. Looking out the window, he saw a girl crossing the street. Having crossed the street the girl disappeared behind the doors of a nearby café.

Under vertical we understand the context, which describes the situation or situations, preceding or being simultaneously with that which is given in the initial sentence of the context; the time in such context freezes or gets the regressive features, for example:

    A boy entered the room. He was dressed poorly but neatly. He was thin and pale and looked very tired. It was obvious that he had not eaten for days as he was very weak. He was standing in the doorway ready to faint.

    The main differential features of two studied types of contexts are semantics and tense-forms of predicates. If in the contexts of the first type the actional type of predicate prevails (to enter, to come up, to open, to look out, to cross, to disappear), than in the contexts of the second type – statal predicates (to be poorly dressed, to look pale, to be weak).

    It is common for the contexts of the first type to use the predicates of the past simple and for the second type the forms of past continuous (was standing) and past perfect (had eaten) tenses to indicate the actions simultaneous with the actions indicated by the predicate in the initial sentence of context or preceding it. We may even say that tense-forms of the English forms are one of the means of cohesion.

    In the real texts these contexts can be found in combined form. The combination of contexts means that the horizontal context and include the characteristics of the vertical and vice versa. The example of a horizontal context with the aspects of vertical is: A boy entered the room. He looked pale and exhausted. He came up to the window and opened it. Having had nothing to eat for days he found it difficult to move. Looking out of the window he saw a girl crossing the street. He thought that he had already seen the girl somewhere. Having crossed the street the girl disappeared behind the doors of a nearby café.

    The example of the vertical context with the elements of horizontal is: A boy entered the room. He was dressed poorly but neatly. He said that three years before his parents had been killed in a car-crash and he was then adopted by a family who did not care much about him. His stepparents made him do all the work about the house and look after their own two babies. The boy had to quit school and do odd jobs earning money for his family. One day he met a friend who persuaded him to run away from his new family and was standing in the doorway of a police station asking for food and shelter.

Text and discourse

    For the last several years there develops the theory of discourse along with the theory of text. Text and discourse are the notions interrelated but not identical. Under the text most researchers understand the example of written speech literally, stylistically organized according to a particular genre and that’s why it is characterized by thought up composition, relevance, syntactical correctness and structural completeness. Discourse isn’t bounded by such parameters. First, it cannot be summed to the written form. Second, it is spontaneous, and it isn’t from the point of the form, ideal, structurally changeable, stylistically not completely correct. Discourse is a verbal reaction of a man to the communicative situation; it is speech “absorbed in life”, it’s the type of activity which exist along with other activities. The text is characterized by the presence of its own categories and parameters. The formal feature of the discourse is the presence of discourse lexicon (discourse markers, discourse operators) – the adequate interpretation of such verbal elements can be only when they are engaged in speech structure. To such discourse words the grammarians ascribe interjections (oh, aha), the formation of sentential type (you know, you see), particles (even, only) and some others.

It should be noted that the investigation of discourse words in isolation, without speech context reveals their meaning only as intensifiers.

Thus, the text began to be considered by many linguists as the highest lingual unit having its own categories and elements, and also rules of organization, i.e. having its specific grammar. In the grammar of the text it is said that the text has powerful integral potential and, therefore, structurally and communicatively it is the unity, the features of which can not be summed up to the features of constituent sentences.

References

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 2000. – p.229-236, 261-272

2. Гальперин И.Р. Текст как объект лингвистического исследования. М., 1981

3. Лотман Ю.М. Анализ художественного текста. – Л., 1972

 

Заключение

Теоретическая грамматика английского языка в связи с переходом от описания структурных особенностей естественного человеческого языка к исследованию его функционально-семантических и прагматических характеристик представляет особый интерес, поскольку в ней в значительной степени нашли свое отражение и реализацию различные методы лингвистического анализа. Интегративное представление морфологии и синтаксиса как единой системы речеобразования представлены в учебном пособии в теории уровней языка, оппозиционной теории грамматических категорий с раскрытием контекстного поведения грамматических форм, проблематики парадигматического синтаксиса с его выходом в грамматику текста.

Теоретическая грамматика первого изучаемого языка один из наиболее сложных обобщающих курсов в цикле теоретических дисциплин изучаемого языка. Данная дисциплина дает на основе новейших методов анализа возможность теоретического осмысления строя языка как системы взаимосвязанных явлений; обеспечивает теоретическую базу для практического изучения иностранного языка в целом. Знания и умения, полученные в рамках данной дисциплины, помогают студенту сформировать в свете современной науки систематизированное представление о грамматическом строе английского языка; получить, расширить и углубить системные знания по специальности; видеть явления языка в их целости, взаимосвязи и взаимозависимости. Наряду с информированием студентов о достижениях и проблемах в области теоретической грамматики первого изучаемого языка (английского) большое внимание уделяется выработке у них навыков многопланового лингвистического анализа и самостоятельного критического суждения о грамматических явлениях и их интерпретациях в научной литературе.

 

СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

 

Введение........................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 1. Morphology

1. SYSTEMIC CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE........................................... 8

2. MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD......................................... 14

3. CATEGORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD....................................... 20

4. GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS................................................ 26

5. NOUN AND ITS CATEGORIES............................................................... 31

6. VERB. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS................................................. 38

7. VERB. NON-FINITE FORMS.................................................................... 48

8. ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB..................................................................... 55

9. NUMERAL. PRONOUN. FUNCTIONAL WORDS................................... 59

Chapter 2. SYNTAX

10. BASIC PROBLEMS OF CONSTRUCTIVE SYNTAX............................ 67

11. THE PROBLEM OF SENTENCE TYPES............................................... 76

12. SIMPLE SENTENCE: CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE........................... 91

13. SIMPLE SENTENCE: PARADIGMATIC STRUCTURE........................ 98

14. COMPOSITE SENTENCE..................................................................... 102

15. COMMUNICATIVE SYNTAX.............................................................. 106

16. SEMANTIC SYNTAX. PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF SYNTAX.......... 114

17. COLLOQUIAL SYNTAX....................................................................... 120

18. LINGUISTICS OF THE TEXT............................................................... 133

 

Заключение................................................................................................. 142

Введение

Лингвистическое учение о частях речи, о строении слов, о составе предложения, о синтагматических и парадигматических отношениях между элементами языка имеет древнейшую историю. На протяжении многих веков своего развития грамматика была связана с гуманитарными и общефилософскими направлениями человеческой мысли. В ХХ веке проявились тенденции сближения грамматической теории с точными науками. Однако в наше время, которое характеризуется как эпоха постструктурализма, лингвисты проявляют все больший интерес к коммуникативным аспектам языковых явлений. Наблюдается переход от описания структурных особенностей естественного человеческого языка к исследованию его функционально-семантических и прагматических характеристик. Задача современных исследователей в области теории грамматики – обобщить весь богатейший опыт предшественников и найти то диалектическое равновесие, которое позволило бы представить объективную картину сложнейших взаимоотношений содержания, формы и функции языковых единиц.

Теоретическая грамматика английского языка представляет в этой связи особый интерес, поскольку в ней в значительной степени нашли свое отражение и реализацию различные методы лингвистического анализа. Особенностью курса является интегративное представление морфологии и синтаксиса как единой системы речеобразования. В пособии представлены: теория уровней языка, оппозиционная теория грамматических категорий с раскрытием контекстного поведения грамматических форм, проблематика парадигматического синтаксиса с его выходом в грамматику текста.

Особое внимание уделяется рассмотрению грамматической семантики во всех разделах предлагаемого описания, что соответствует современному когнитивному подходу к языку в целом.

Лекционный курс «Теоретическая грамматика первого изучаемого языка» входит в учебный план подготовки студентов по направлению 45.03.02-Лингвистика (профиль – «Теория и методика преподавания иностранных языков и культур»). Он рассчитан на один семестр. Курс теоретической грамматики читается на изучаемом языке (английском). Для изучения данной дисциплины требуется свободное владение английским языком как в устной, так и в письменной форме. Необходимо, чтобы студенты в достаточной степени владели навыками восприятия, анализа и фиксирования в письменной форме основной информации по изучаемому предмету. Деятельность студентов на лекции представляет собой частично самостоятельную учебную работу. Задача преподавателя – побуждать слушателей к диалогу, к научной рефлексии, к включению в процесс анализа и разрешения проблемных вопросов.

Изучение материала по данному предмету должно осуществляться в логической последовательности и взаимосвязи с такими дисциплинами как «Лексикология первого изучаемого языка», «Стилистика первого изучаемого языка», «История, культура и литература страны первого изучаемого языка»,  «Практический курс первого иностранного языка», «Введение в специальную филологию первого изучаемого языка». Для успешного освоения данной дисциплины студенты используют знания, умения и навыки, полученные в ходе освоения таких дисциплин как «Введение в языкознание», «Практическая грамматика», «Практический курс первого иностранного языка».

Дисциплина является одним из наиболее сложных обобщающих курсов в цикле теоретических дисциплин изучаемого языка. Данная дисциплина, дает на основе новейших методов анализа возможность теоретического осмысления строя языка как системы взаимосвязанных явлений; обеспечивает теоретическую базу для практического изучения иностранного языка в целом. Знания и умения, полученные в рамках данной дисциплины, помогают студенту сформировать в свете современной науки систематизированное представление о грамматическом строе английского языка; получить, расширить и углубить системные знания по специальности; видеть явления языка в их целости, взаимосвязи и взаимозависимости. Наряду с информированием студентов о достижениях и проблемах в области теоретической грамматики английского языка большое внимание уделяется выработке у них навыков многопланового лингвистического анализа и самостоятельного критического суждения о грамматических явлениях и их интерпретациях в научной литературе. Так, в процессе освоения дисциплины формируется общепрофессиональная компетенция (ОПК-3), которая подразумевает владение системой лингвистических знаний, включающей в себя знание основных фонетических, лексических, грамматических, словообразовательных явлений и закономерностей функционирования изучаемого иностранного языка, его функциональных разновидностей.

В учебном пособии дан обзор основных проблем научной грамматики современного английского языка. Фактически это краткое изложение содержания лекций по изучаемой дисциплине. Такая форма позволяет студентам сосредоточиться на основных понятиях и терминах, принятых в этой области лингвистики, освоить их самостоятельно. Каждый подраздел представляет собой конспективное описание соответствующей проблемы. Он снабжен кратким списком литературы, включающим первоисточники, которые легли в основу данного описания и к которым студенты должны обращаться для более глубокого изучения вопроса.

Большое значение для освоения материала курса имеет самостоятельная работа студентов во время учебного семестра и в период подготовки к итоговому контрольному мероприятию – экзамену. Основным условием успеха этой деятельности является доступность учебных и научных материалов по изучаемой дисциплине.

Полученные студентами знания и навыки реализуются при написании курсовых и квалификационных работ по темам, предполагающим расширение и углубление исследований грамматических явлений, представленных в учебном курсе по данной дисциплине.

CHAPTER I.

SYSTEMIC CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE

 

1. The notion of “grammar”

2. Branches of grammar

3. Types of grammar

4. Grammar and usage

5. The connection of grammar with other disciplines

 

Terms: system, sign, hierarchy, paradigmatics, syntagmatics, level of language, word, phrase, sentence, utterance, structure, language, category, function, transformational grammar, classical scientific grammar, structural grammar.

 

1.The notion of “grammar”

The notion of “grammar” comes from Greek word “grammatike” which is the derivation from the word “gramma” – “a letter, writing” (буква, написание). According to linguistic tradition this term is used to denote

a) grammatical structure of language;

b) the branches of linguistics studying its structure

c) a textbook, containing information about its structure.

In the English language the articles are used to mark the difference between these three definitions: definite – for the first (the English grammar), the absence of the article – for the second (English grammar), indefinite – for the third (an English grammar).

Grammar as a science treats of the laws of language and provides the basic principles of language. It considers and examines language from its smallest parts up to its most complex organization. Grammar classifies words into all sorts of categories and states the peculiarities of each category, it classifies the various ways in which words are used for conveyance of ideas.

Grammar, whose subject matter is the observable organization of words into various combinations, takes that which is common and basic in linguistic forms and gives in an orderly way accurate descriptions of the practice to which users of the language conform.

Grammar is the heart of the language. Properly approached, studies of grammar will not only do practical good but carry each individual student into advanced work on the subtler use of grammatical forms and direct his own natural interest in language intelligently and efficiently.

 

Braches of grammar

As a science, grammar is traditionally subdivided into two divisions: morphology and syntax. Morphology studies word-building and word-derivation. The object of morphology is a morphological structure of words, described in such terms as a root, a prefix, flexion and so on. The object of morphology is a paradigmatics of a word, i.e. the laws of the form changing according to word-derivation categories (for example, the category of number in nouns table –tables, tense in verbs – walk - walked) and so on. Syntax studies the theories of word combinations and theory of a sentence. The theory of a word combination studies the nature of its components, the problem of word syntagmatics, types of syntactic links (relations), types of word combinations and so on. The theory of a sentence is a study of structural and communicative types of sentences, ways of connections in a composite sentence, types of subordinate sentences in compound sentences and so on.

    Though in the last decades there appeared other branches of grammar, which is connected with the growing number of linguistic objects. When such linguistic unit as a text appeared in linguistic theories it promoted such division as linguistics of text. It studies the analysis of connections between sentences, the laws of the structure of the sentence dependent of its linguistic environment, the typology of text and so on.

 

Types of grammars

By the present time the following types of grammar description has formed:

1) Descriptive grammars. This type of grammar has indicative character, giving the description of factual condition of grammatical subdivision of this language. From the point of view of grammar of such type one can judge of the structure of this or that language, of existence in it such things as categories, parts of speech and so on.

2) Explanatory grammar. This type of grammar is aimed at the explanation of characteristics of the structure of language and has in general commentary character. They have mostly theoretical character and, as a rule, subordinate the description of material to the task of its scientific understanding.

3) Synchronic grammars. These grammars describe the condition of grammatical subdivision of the language on the definite stage of its development making its horizontal survey.

4) Diachronical (historical) grammars. These grammars are the description of grammatical system of language in the dynamics of its development and changing on the basis of vertical survey. (We should bear in mind that such division is relative).

 

Grammar and usage

It’s traditional to divide grammatical norm and usage under which we understand prevailing tendencies to use different language units by the members of a given language society.

Though it is very difficult to make concrete difference between grammar and usage. In the process of the development of any language the structure of a language is formed by the analysis of the cases of usage of different forms of the words, structures, sentences. The most frequent cases become grammatical rules. But language continues to change according to its inner laws and outer factors, connected with the social condition changes (scientific and technical progress, social and regional differentiation of the society, strengthening or loosing the influence of foreign language culture, appearing and development of mass media and so on.) For example, 

It’s I/me. (the usage of case forms of personal pronouns in the function of predicative).

              What was she talking about? (grammar norm)

              I don’t know what she was talking about (grammar norm).

              I don’t know what was she talking about. (colloquial)

Grammatically correct but not colloquial

  

                                          Whom are you listening to?

                                          Этот кофе для меня слишком крепкий.

 

Grammatically incorrect but colloquial

                                          Who are you listening to?

                                          Это кофе для меня слишком крепкое.

 

Such boundary between grammatical norm and colloquial usage is very vague and that’s why now corpus grammar and communicative grammars appear. Now under the term grammar as a science we understand the branch of linguistics studying and explaining structural characteristics of a language appearing in various speech forms, registers and styles.