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THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR
The aims of the theoretical course of Grammar are:
• to present a theoretical description of its grammatical
system;
• to analyze and define its grammatical categories and
study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of
utterances out of words in the process of speech
making;
• to give an analysis of English Grammatical structure in
the light of general principles of linguistics.
• to define the specific features of English grammar in
practice and their usage that allows a language to have
a meaningful character.
The words of every language fall into classes which are
called parts of speech. In Modern English there is
following system of parts of speech:
The Noun.
The Adjective.
The Pronoun.
The Adverb.
The Numeral.
The Verb.
The Preposition.
The Conjunction.
The Interjection.
The parts of speech differ from each other in meaning,
in form and function. In modern linguistics, parts of
speech are described according to three criteria:
semantic, formal and functional.
The semantic criterion regards the grammatical forms
of the whole class of words (general grammatical
meaning).
The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties:
relevant grammatical categories, the form of the
words, their specific inflectional and derivational
features.
The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function
of words in the sentences and their combinability.
All the words of the language can be divided into:
• notional words which denote things, objects, qualities,
notions. It is commonly recognized that the notional
parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs
• function or grammatical words having no references of
their own in the objective reality, most of them are used
only as grammatical means to form up utterances.
The functional parts of speech are articles, particles,
prepositions, conjunctions.
Types of meanings
The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings:
• Lexical meaning is the individual meaning of the word,
including everything as a thing or object (table, peace, boy).
• Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole class or a
subclass of words. The grammatical form is not confined to an
individual word, but unites a whole class of words, so that
each word of the class expresses the corresponding
grammatical meaning together with its individual, concrete
semantics.
The lexical meanings of such words as “a table”, “a pen” are
different but the grammatical meanings are the same because
both of them are nouns of the same number and case.
• Comparing word-forms of one and the same verb:
go, goes, going, went, gone we observe that they
possess different grammatical meanings of tense,
person, but in each of this forms we find one and the
same semantic component denoting the process of
movement.
• Lexical and grammatical meanings are closely
interrelated, both make up the word-meaning as
neither can exist without other.
Two parts of Grammar: Morphology & Syntax.
There are two main parts of grammar – morphology and syntax.
Morphology deals with the internal structure of words,
peculiarities of their grammatical categories and their
semantics. The morphological system of a language reveals its
properties through the morphemic structure of words. It
follows from this that morphology as part of grammatical
theory faces the two meaningful units: the morpheme and
the word.
Syntax deals with the structure, classification and combinability
of sentences.
The sentence is the immediate integral unit of speech built up of
words according to a definite syntactic pattern and
distinguished by a relevant communicative purpose.
The grammatical category
It is a system of expressing a generalised grammatical meaning
by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms.
• Such words a table, a book and tables, books have the
different grammatical forms : a table, a book means singular
and the form tables, books – plural.
Such abstract meanings of plurality and singularity, which are
additional to the main lexical meaning, can be regarded as
grammatical categories.
Any verb combines its individual lexical meaning with the
grammatical meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote
actions or states. The verb is characterized by the system of
grammatical categories: tense, aspect, mood, voice, person
and number.
An adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the
grammatical meaning of the whole class of adjectives –
qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities.
Adverbs possess the grammatical meaning of adverbiality – the
ability to denote quality of qualities. Some adverbs indicate
time or place of an action (yesterday, here, tomorrow).
Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical
grammatical meanings that have the same form (e.g. singular
– plural) and correlate with the conceptual categories with
the objective reality.
THE NOUN
General characteristics.
The noun is the central lexical unit of language. The noun as a
part of speech has the categorial meaning of “substance or
thingness”. It is the main nominative unit of speech.
As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by
three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the
form and grammatical categories) and syntactical (functions,
distribution).
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the
grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality.
According to the semantic structure and the type of
nomination nouns fall into the following groups:
• proper and common: (Jack, Spain, Astana); (woman, dog )
• abstract and concrete: (art, love, beauty, belief),( girl, table,
door, painter)
• collective nouns denote a group of people: (team, family,
group, government).
According to the form of existence nouns may be animate and
inanimate (people, cat, student –tree, bus, computer) where
animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human
(boys, children, lion, horse, rabbit).
• According to their quantitative structure nouns can be
countable and uncountable which are divided into concrete
and abstract.
• Look at the scheme with the different types of
nouns.
Mary
cattle
• 1. Proper
1. Common
• 2. Animate
2. Animate
• 3. Countable
3. Uncountable
This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table
because of the different principles of classification.
• Morphological features of the noun.
In accordance with the morphological structure of
the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple,
derived (stem + affix, affix + stem – thingness);
compound (stem + stem – armchair ) and composite
(the Hague).
The noun has morphological categories of number
and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the
category of gender.
• Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used
in the sentence in all syntactic functions but
predicate.
The category of number.
The number category is realized through the opposition of two
form-classes: the plural form, the singular form.
The category of number in English is restricted in its realization
because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness. The number category is
realized only within subclass of countable nouns
The singular form may denote:
a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);
b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a
domestic animal);
c) indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness ) money, milk, cheese.
The plural form may denote:
the existence of several objects (cats);
All nouns may be subdivided into :
• discreteness/countableness;
• indiscreteness /uncountableness.
The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the
plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun.
Some ways of creating the plural forms of nouns:
• its productive formal mark being the suffix -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz ] as
presented in the forms: dog — dogs, clock — clocks, box —
boxes.
• in a few nouns the first component is made plural: passer-by –
passers-by, father-in-law – fathers-in-law, sister-in-law –
sisters-in-law etc.;
• in compound nouns the final components make the plural:
bookcase- bookcases, postman-postmen, forget-me-not –
forget-me-nots;
• if the noun has the ending in letter f – fe, in plural
form it is changed into – (-ves). For example, leaf –
leaves, wolf – wolves, wife – wives. There are some
exceptions: chiefs, handkerchiefs, roofs, safes.
• another way of producing the plural form when the
noun has the ending in letter – o, if the noun has the
endings: consonant and – o, we add –‘es’ (potatoes,
heroes, tomatoes). There are some exceptions:
photos, kilos, pianos, Eskimos.
• If the noun has two vowel letters in the end, we add
only –‘s’ (radios, stereos, zoos, tattoos).
• Note: some nouns having the ending –‘o’ can have two ways
of plural forms: (mosquitos/mosquitoes, volcanos/volcanoes,
tornados/tornadoes, zeros/zeroes etc)
•
•
•
•
Non-productive ways of expressing the number
opposition are:
vowel interchange in several relict forms, e.g.
man — men, woman — women, tooth — teeth;
the archaic suffix -(e)n supported by phonemic
interchange in a couple of other relict forms, e.g. ox –
oxen, child – children, cow – kine, brother – brethren;
the correlation of individual singular and plural
suffixes in a limited number of borrowed nouns
which usually have Latin and Greek origins:
E.g.: formula (s) – formulae (pl), phenomenon (s) –
phenomena (pl),
• stimulus (s) – stimuli (pl), datum(s) – data (pl),
criterion(s) – criteria (pl), analysis (s) – analyses (pl),
basis (s) – bases (pl),crisis (s) – crises (pl);
• when the first component is man or woman the
plural may be expressed twice e.g., man servant –
men servants, woman doctor – women doctors;
• in some cases the plural form of the noun is
homonymous with the singular form, e.g. sheep,
deer, fish, swine, code, species, craft, etc
Countable and Uncountable Nouns
• Nouns can be divided into countable and uncountable.
Countable nouns are those that can be counted and they can
have the articles –a, an, the – before nouns and these nouns
have singular and plural forms.
•
Uncountable nouns are those that cannot be counted (milk,
flour, snow) and these nouns cannot be used with the articles
–a, an because these nouns haven’t the plural form (cheese,
petrol, rain, education, peace, rubbish etc.).
There are two groups of uncountable nouns:
• Nouns which are used only in the singular form.
They cover different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract
nouns, material nouns, collective nouns, e.g. sand, oil, wine,
wool, hair, curiosity, progress, knowledge, friendship,
happiness.
The uncountable nouns take the singular verb.
• e.g., There is much sugar in cakes. Your advice was really
good. The news is bad. But in some cases/situations many
nouns can be used as countable and uncountable nouns,
usually with a difference in lexical meaning. Compare:
• e.g., There’s a hair in my soup! (one single hair). She has very
long hair. I prefer tea to coffee. Three teas, please (cups of
tea).
• Nouns which are used only in the plural form
It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts:
• names of things, tools or clothes (trousers, scales, shorts,
scissors);
• names of sciences (mathematics, economics, physics);
• names of diseases (diabetes, measles, rabies);
• sports and games (billiards, athletics, gymnastics, draughts),
etc.
Usually these nouns take a plural verb.
• Eg.: These scissors are very sharp. Your trousers are too long.
But some nouns always end in –‘ics’ “s” and take the
singular verb.
The academic disciplines: mathematics, economics,
physics, linguistics.
• Eg. Politics is popular at this university. Statistics was
always my best subject.
• Economics has recently been recognised as a
scientific study. Diabetes is a serious illness. Measles
is a serious childhood disease. Gymnastics is my
favourite sport.
The category of case.
The category of case correlates with the objective category of
possession. The case category in English is realized through
the opposition: The Common Case: The Possessive Case (sister:
sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term “genitive
case” is used instead of the “possessive case”.
The inflexion – “s” is pronounced [z] after vowels and voiced
consonants, e.g. boy’s, girl’s; [s] after voiceless consonants,
e.g. student’s, wife’s; [iz] after sibilants, e.g. price’s, judge’s.
The inflexion “s” is added to singular nouns and also to
irregular plural nouns, e.g. men’s, children’s, women’s,
people’s.
A noun in the genitive case generally precedes another noun
which is its headword. The relation between the noun in the
genitive and its headword may be of two kinds:
1. The noun in the genitive case may denote a particular
person or thing, as my mother’s room, the man’s voice. This
kind of genitive case is called the specifying genitive which
may indicate the owner of a thing, the doer of action etc. : my
uncle’s car, the minister’s speech, my sister’s illness. The
specifying genitive may be replaced if necessary by an ofphrase, e.g. the father of the boys.
2. The noun in the genitive case may refer to a whole class of
similar objects. This kind of the genitive case is called the
classifying genitive, e.g. sheep’s eyes (which means eyes of a
certain kind but not the eyes of a particular sheep), a doctor’s
degree, a soldier’s uniform, a doll’s face, an hour’s walk,
summer’s day, etc.
The Functions of Nouns in the Sentence.
The most characteristic substantive functions of the nouns are
these of the subject and object in the sentence. Other
syntactic functions, i.e. attribute, adverbial, and even
predicative are not immediately characteristic of its
substantive quality.
e.g. Life consists in accepting one’s duty – (subject).
You did such splendid work – (direct object).
He handed the man his medal – (indirect object).
She won’t listen to any advice – (prepositional object).
The place was in disorder – (prepositional predicative).
The Article determination.
Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the noun
in communicative collocation.
The definite article expresses the identification or individualisation of
the referent of the noun: the use of this article shows that the object
denoted is taken in its concrete, individual quality.
E.g.: But look at the apple-tree! – But look at this apple-tree!
The water is horribly hot. – This water is horribly hot. It's the girls who
are to blame. – It's those girls who are to blame.
The indefinite article, as different from the definite article, is
commonly interpreted as referring the object denoted by the noun to
a certain class of similar objects; in other words, the indefinite article
expresses a classifying generalisation of the noun referent, or takes it
in a relatively general sense. A door opened in the wall. – A door (not
a window) opened in the wall
Seminar Tasks.
• Define countable and uncountable nouns. Write them into two
columns.
Wool, air, weather, knife, tooth, work, advice, garden, crisis,
mice, peace, ocean, water, sea, meat, passer-by, snow,
opinion, rubbish, person, love, coffee, postman, paper
(бумага, газета), ship, stamp, information, equipment,
luggage, wealth, umbrella, traffic, foot.
Give the plural forms for the following nouns and analyze them.
• Hero, goose, son-in-law, handkerchief, ox, a Chinese, life,
match, path, dress, half, mouse, safe, thief, belief, thesis,
criterion, datum, cliff, wolf, waitress, proof, kilo, potato,
studio, agendum, tattoo, a Japanese, shelf, basis.
3. A self-study work. Write down ten sentences with: zero
article, the definite article the with plural or uncountable
nouns.
THE VERB
The verb is a part of speech which denotes an action or state.
English verbs may be used as notional words and as structural
words.
Notional verbs always have a lexical meaning of their own and
can have an independent syntactic function in the sentence.
When verbs are used as structural words or as semi-notional
verbs they are hardly isolatable. They may preserve or lose its
lexical meaning.
They are comparatively few in number but of very frequent
occurrence, and include three peculiar groups:
• modal verbs;
• link-verbs;
• auxiliary verbs.
Modal Verbs
Modal verbs are a special group of verbs which cannot be used
without additional words, though they have meaning of their
own. Modals are used to express the speaker’s attitude
towards the action or state denoted by the infinitive with
what they are grammatically associated. According to the
meaning modal verbs can be classified into several groups:
• verbs expressing obligation, necessity – must, have to, be to,
shall, should, ought to;
• verbs denoting supposition, ability, possibility, certainty
/uncertainty – may (might), can (could), should, ought to, will;
• verbs expressing permission, requests, offers, invitations –
may (might),will(would), can (could);
• verbs denoting willingness – will, would.
Link-verbs are verbs which to a smaller or greater extent
have lost their meaning and are used in the compound
nominal predicate.
The common specifying link-verbs fall into two main groups:
those that express perceptions and those that express nonperceptional, or "factual" link-verb connection.
The main perceptional link-verbs are seem, appear, look, feel,
taste.
The main factual link-verbs are become, get, grow, remain,
keep. E.g.: She felt embarrassed when she saw him. He
became a doctor.
Auxiliary verbs are used with other verbs to form questions,
tenses, negative forms or passive phrases: to be, to do, to
have, shall, will, should, would.
E.g.: We have arranged to meet in the usual place. Do you take
these books? She will go there. They are reading a book.
According to their morphological structure verbs are divided
into:
• simple verbs: write, known, love, live;
• derived verbs, having affixes: organize, rewrite, magnify,
decompose;
• compound verbs, consisting of two items: to broadcast, to
whitewash;
• composite verbs or phrasal verbs made up of a verb with a
lexical grammatical word and morpheme attached to it (give
up, go away, look up, take off, put on.).
All English verbs fall into two groups:
transitive verbs require an object followed by a noun or
pronoun. The object completes the meaning of the
verb and in most cases a transitive verb cannot be
used without it, e.g. He raised prices on some goods.
She laid a book on the table.
intransitive verbs do not require any object, e.g. He
lived in a small town.
But polysemantic verbs may be transitive in one
meaning and intransitive in another.
e.g. He has changed his car – (transitive). I was glad to
see her she hadn’t changed at all – (intransitive).
According to the way on which the Past Indefinite and
Participle II are formed, verbs are divided into 3 groups:
regular verbs, irregular verbs and mixed verbs.
Regular verbs are those which form their past tense and past
participle by means of the inflection – d (- ed).
Love – loved – loved
Verbs which do not form the past tense and past participle
according to that general standard are called irregular.
Three classes: consonantal, vocalic and unchangeable.
Consonantal verbs are formed by adding the consonantal
inflexion – d (-ed) Eg.: Pay – paid, tell – told.
Vocalic verbs are formed by a vowel-change without addition of
any consonant – en (n). To speak – spoke – spoken
Unchangeable verbs: to cut – cut – cut.
• Mixed verbs show a mixture of consonantal and
vocalic inflexion. These verbs form the Past indefinite
according to regular type and the past participle –
according to the irregular type: to show – showed shown; to sew – sewed – sewn.
The grammatical categories of the verbs.
English verbs are characterized by a great variety of forms which
can be divided into two main groups according to the function
they perform in the sentence:
The Finite forms and Non-Finite forms.
The Finite forms have the function of the predicate in the
sentence and may also be called the predicative forms
(личные или предикативные формы).
The Non-Finite or non-predicative forms (неличные или
непредикативные формы) can have various functions. These
forms are often called the Verbals or Verbids.
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Finite forms
The grammatical categories of the verbs:
Person and Number
Tense and Aspect
Voice
Mood
The categories of person and number.
There are two numbers in the verb: singular & plural
and three persons: first, second and third. The
second person singular is not used in Modern
English.
The only personal inflexion of the verb is the
inflexion – s (-es) of the third person singular in the
present tense of the indicative mood.
The verb “to be” has three forms for person and
number in the present indefinite: am/is/are; and two
forms of the past indefinite; singular “was” and
plural “were”.
The categories of Tense and Aspect.
Tense is the form of the verb which indicates the time of the
action. The main divisions of time - present, past and future,
are represented in English by the three primary tenses:
present, past and future. These three tenses are expressed in
two aspect forms: the common and the continuous.
The category of aspect shows whether the action is taken in its
progress or development ("continuous" aspect) or it is simply
stated ("non-continuous" or "common" aspect).
The common aspect: She speaks English fluently. He came an
hour ago. I will call on you tomorrow.
The continuous aspect: He is working at his English. She was
writing when I came in. I will be preparing my lessons if you
come at seven.
The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. One
meets with different lines of approach to English aspect,
which can be briefly summarized as follows:
1. Aspect is interpreted as a category of semantics rather than
that of grammar.
2. Aspect is not recognized at all as a category of Modern English
grammar.
3. Aspect is blended with tense and regarded as an inalienable
part of the tense-aspect system.
4. Aspect and tense are recognized as two distinct grammatical
categories.
The category of Voice.
Voice is the grammatical category of the verb that
shows the relation between the subject and the
predicate verb in the sentence.
There are two voices in English: the Active and the
Passive.
The Active voice indicates that the subject of the
sentence acts, that it is the doer (agent) of an action:
He is writing a letter. She gives English lessons.
The Passive voice indicates that the subject of the sentence is
acted upon, that it is the recipient of an action: The letter is
being written. English lessons are given by her sister.
The Passive voice is an analytical form which is built up by means
of the auxiliary verb to be in the required tense-aspect form
and the particle of the notional verb:
• the Present Indefinite – is (am, are) done;
• the Past Indefinite – was (were) done;
• the Future Indefinite – will (shall) be done;
• the Present Perfect – has (have) been done;
• the Past Perfect – had been done;
• the Future Perfect – will (shall) have been done;
• the Present Continuous – is (am, are) being done;
• the Past Continuous – was (were) being done.
The category of Mood.
Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the
relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the
speaker's point of view. Thus the category of mood expresses
modality. There are the following moods in English:
1. Direct moods: Indicative. Imperative.
2. Oblique moods (косвенные): Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II,
Conditional.
If the speaker considers the fulfillment of the action or state
denoted by the predicate as something real, if he makes a
statement of an existing fact, the verb is in the indicative
mood: He speaks English.
The imperative mood expresses commands or request; it urges
the person addressed to fulfill an action: Open the window,
please!
If the speaker considers the fulfillment of the action only as
something desirable, possible, doubtful, depending on certain
circumstances, but not as a matter of fact, the verb is in one
of the oblique moods.
• First conditional shows the real conditions in the present and
future time. If she has a dictionary she will translate the text.
• Second conditional denotes the unreal, impossible conditions
in the present and future time.
If he were here he would help us (conditional mood).
• Third conditional shows the unreal impossible conditions in
the past. If you had left earlier, you wouldn’t have missed the
bus.
PHRASAL VERBS.
The term phrasal verb is commonly applied to two or three
distinct but related constructions in English: a verb and
a particle and/or a preposition combine the form with a single
semantic structure. This semantic unit cannot be understood
based upon the meanings of the individual parts in isolation,
but rather it must be taken as a whole.
• Phrasal Verbs are made up of a verb and a particle. A particle
can be: an adverb such as out or away. For example, go away,
go out, put away.
Eg.: Go away – to move or travel away from a person or place,
to leave home for a period of time. E.g. If he’s bothering you,
tell him to go away.
• A preposition such as on, in.
To be keen on – like doing something very much, with the great
desire. E.g. She is keen on most kinds of art. He is not very
keen on doing his home-task.
To lie in – to stay in bed in the morning for longer than usually.
• E.g. We usually lie in on Sunday.
Types of Phrasal Verbs
There are four main types of phrasal verbs:
• Intransitive phrasal verbs have no object. The verb and
particle always stay together, e.g. I grew up in the village.
• Transitive separable phrasal verbs have an object and the
verb and a particle can split. Object can come in two
positions: after the verb or after the particle. When the object
is a pronoun (me, it, this, them) it must go between the verb
and the particle, and cannot go after the particle.
• E.g.: We cut up all the vegetables into slices. We cut them up
into pieces. They picked up all toys. He picked it up.
•
• Transitive – inseparable phrasal verbs take an object
and the verb and particle cannot split, where the
object must come after the particle.
E.g. The baby takes after his mother. He got on the bus.
I bumped into your mother at the supermarket.
• Prepositional phrasal verbs have particles and
cannot split. Eg.: to look forward to, to get on with
(someone) means to have a friendly relationship with
someone, to look up to (someone) means admire and
respect someone.
• Transitive and Intransitive phrasal verbs are always used
together in passive form.
• E.g. The place has been cleaned up. The television had been
turned off. The book was laid out and illustrated.
The meanings of phrasal verbs are often very different from
the meaning of the verb that they are based on.
The semantic structure of a phrasal verb with a postposition is
usually idiomatic, that is, different from the literal meanings
of its components and can be used in different situations
instead of more specific verbs.
• E.g. The dog dug up an old bone. We dug up some interesting
facts.
• E.g. Burglars had broken into their house. She broke into
conversation.
Non-Finite Forms of the Verb or Verbals.
The verbals or non-finite forms of the verb have certain features
of their own distinguishing them from the finite forms.
• Their lexico-grammatical meaning is of dual nature. The verbal
meaning of “action, process” is presented as some kind of
“substance” (gerund, infinitive) or “quality” (participle).
• They have peculiar morphemes: -ing (gerund and PI), -ed (-d), en (-n) (P2), to (infinitive).
• There is duality in their combinability. They form connections
with adverbs, nouns, pronouns (denoting objects of action) like
finite verbs, and with finite verbs, like nouns or adverbs. There
are also other combinative models typical of verbals.
• Their syntactical relations are quite different from those of the
finite verb. They are very rarely used as predicates but they are
used in almost any other function in the sentence.
The Infinitive
• The infinitive is a categorially changeable form. It
distinguishes the three grammatical categories
sharing them with the finite verb, namely, the
aspective category of development (continuous in
opposition), the aspective category of retrospective
coordination (perfect in opposition), the category of
voice (passive in opposition). Consequently, the
categorial paradigm of the infinitive of the objective
verb includes the following forms:
The infinitive
Indefinite
Continuous
Perfect
Perfect Continuous
Active
Passive
to take
to be taken
to be taking
to have been taken
to have taken
to have been taking
-
The continuous and perfect continuous passive can only be used
occasionally, with a strong stylistic colouring.
•
The Participle
The Participle is intermediate between the verb and the adjective (it is a
verbal adjective) and partially between verb and adverb (then it is a
verbal adverb).
As an adjective the participle is connected with a noun-word in the
sentence, either as an attribute or as predicative.
A broken cup is lying on the floor (attribute).The cup is broken
(predicative).
In its attributive or predicative function, the English participle
corresponds to the Russian (причастие).
The rising sun - (восходящее солнце).
The participle has its own grammatical meaning which is closely
connected with the lexical character of the verb.
The participle is, in the main, formed from transitive verbs and has
passive meaning. E.g.: He had suits, coats, and shirts made to order. It
was a question put down by one of the correspondents.
The Gerund
The gerund is the non-finite form of the verb which, like the
infinitive, combines the properties of the verb with those of
the noun.
Similar to the infinitive, the gerund serves as the verbal name of
a process, but its substantive quality is more strongly
pronounced than that of the infinitive.
Namely, as different from the infinitive, and similar to the noun,
the gerund can be modified by a noun in the possessive case or
its pronominal equivalents (expressing the subject of the
verbal process), and it can be used with prepositions.
Noun-characteristics: in a sentence it is used as the subject or
object (direct or prepositional), an adverbial modifier, an
attribute, a part of a compound verbal predicate and a
predicative.
• Reading is my best occupation (subject).
• She intends leaving tomorrow (direct object).
• They spoke of organizing a library (prepositional object).
• In going down town I met my old friend (adv. mod. of time).
• It is the best way of doing it (attribute).
• Deciding is acting (predicative).
• She continued reading (a part of a compound verbal
predicate).
THE ADJECTIVE
Relative and Qualitative adjectives.
All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses:
qualitative and relative.
Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are
determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other
substance. E.g.: mathematics — mathematical precision; history — a
historical event; table — tabular presentation; colour — coloured
postcards; surgery — surgical treatment.
Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various
qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of
establishing their correlative quantitative measure. The measure of a
quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient
or insufficient, optimal or excessive. Cf.: an awkward situation — a very
awkward situation; a difficult task — too difficult a task; an enthusiastic
reception — rather an enthusiastic reception.
The Structural Types of Adjectives
Adjectives, according to the word-building structure, can be divided into:
simple, derived and compound.
Simple adjectives have only one stem, e.g. nice, good, small, big.
Derived adjectives are formed with the help of prefixes and suffixes, e.g.
unknown, friendly, useful.
Compound adjectives may be subdivided into three groups:
• Сompound adjectives with two or more stems and a hyphen between
them, e.g. light-blue, well-known, first-class, red-hot.
• Compound-derived adjectives are formed by adding the suffix – ed on the
second adjectives, e.g. blue-eyed, long-legged, bare-headed, bare-legged.
• Compound adjectives with numbers are combined with number and
noun. In the compound adjective, the noun is singular even when number
is two or more, e.g. a six-month-old baby – a baby who is six months old,
a two-week vacation – a vacation for two weeks.
Degrees of Comparison.
The category of adjectival comparison expresses the quantitative characteristic of
the quality of a noun referent. There are two methods of forming the
comparative and the superlative degrees.
The synthetical forms of comparison in -er and -(e)st coexist with the analytical
forms of comparison effected by the auxiliaries more and most.
The synthetical forms of comparison are used for one-syllable and two-syllable
adjectives, e.g. large-larger - largest, heavy-heavier-heaviest.
The analytical forms of comparison are used for three or more syllables adjectives,
e.g. careful - more careful - most careful, difficult - more difficult - most
difficult.
Some adjectives have two ways of comparison: clever, common, cruel, friendly,
gentle, narrow, polite, simple, stupid, quiet, pleasant are formed with – er/est
or more/most. E.g.: gentle – gentler– the gentlest also as: gentle – more gentle
– most gentle.
There are some adjectives that, on account of their meaning, do not admit of
comparison at all, e.g. perfect, unique, full, empty, square, round, middle,
wooden, daily, upper, major, pregnant, junior, senior, medical, dead, left and
some others.
Substantivization of Adjectives
Sometimes adjectives become substantivized. In this case they
have the functions of nouns in the sentence and are always
preceded by the definite article.
Substantivized adjectives may have two meanings:
1). They can indicate a class of persons in a general sense, e.g.
the poor = poor people, the dead = dead people.
Such adjectives are plural in meaning and take a verb in plural
form, e.g. The old receive pensions. The blind are taught in special
schools. The young are always romantic, aren’t they?
If we wish to denote a single person we must add a noun, e.g.
The old man receives a pension.
If we wish to refer to a particular group of persons (not the
whole class), it is also necessary to add a noun, e.g.: The young
are usually intolerant. The young men are fishing.
Some adjectives denoting nationalities are used in the same way,
e.g. The English are great lovers of tea. The Chinese like fishing.
The Russians arrived yesterday. Two Japanese take a car.
2). Substantivized adjectives may also indicate an abstract
notion. Then they are singular in meaning and take a singular
verb, e.g. The good in him overweighs the bad.
Syntactic Functions of Adjectives.
Adjectives may serve in the sentence as an attribute, e.g. Do you see the small green
boat? I have bought a red pencil.
There are two main roles an adjective may take in a sentence. The first role is to act
as a predicative adjective, in which the adjective modifies a preceding noun as a
predicate, linked by a verb.
1. a predicative, e.g. Her smile was almost professional. He looked mature, sober and
calm.
2. an objective predicative, e.g. I thought him very intelligent. She wore her hair
short.
3. a subjunctive predicative, e.g. The door was closed tight.
The second role an adjective may take as an attributive adjective in which it modifies
a noun by being linked directly to the noun as part of the noun phrase, e.g. I see the
small green boat. It was a cold autumn day.
It should be noted that most adjectives can be used both attributively and
predicatively, but some, among them those beginning with a-, can be used only as
predicatives (e.g. afraid, asleep, along, awake, ashamed and also content, sorry, well,
ill, due etc.).
THE ADVERB
The Word-building Structure of Adverbs.
The adverb is usually defined as a word expressing either property
of an action, or property of another property, or circumstances in
which an action occurs.
In accord with their word-building structure adverbs may be simple
and derived.
• Simple adverbs are rather few, and nearly all of them display
functional semantics: here, there, now, the, so, quite, how, why,
where, when.
• The typical adverbial affixes in derivation are the basic and only
productive adverbial suffix – ly (slowly, tiredly, rightly, firstly),
and then a couple of others of limited distribution, such as: ways (sideways, crossways), -wise (clockwise), -wards
(homewards, seawards, afterwards).
The Classification of Adverbs
Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and
circumstantial.
By qualitative adverbs are meant such adverbs which express
immediate, inherently non-graded qualities of actions and other
qualities.
The typical adverbs of this kind are qualitative adverbs in –ly.
e.g. The little boy was crying bitterly. He was cruelly punished for it.
The adverbs interpreted as quantitative include words of degree.
These are specific lexical units of semi-functional nature expressing
quality measure, or gradational evaluation of qualities.
They may be subdivided into several groups:
• The first group is formed by adverbs of high degree.
These adverbs are sometimes classed as “intensifiers”: very,
quite, utterly, highly, greatly, perfectly, absolutely, strongly,
pretty, much, etc.
• The second group includes adverbs of excessive degree (direct
and reverse) also belonging to the broader subclass of
intensifiers: too, awfully, tremendously, dreadfully, terrifically.
• The third group is formed by adverbs of moderate degree:
comparatively, fairly, relatively, rather.
• The fourth group is made up of adverbs of unexpected
degree: surprisingly, amazingly, etc.
• The fifth group includes adverbs of low degree: slightly, a
little, a bit.
• The sixth group is constituted by adverbs of approximate
degree: almost, nearly.
•
Circumstantial adverbs are also divided into notional and
functional.
The Notional adverbs of more self-dependent nature, they
include two basic groups: adverbs of time – today, tomorrow,
already, ever, never, recently, seldom, early, late;
adverbs of place – homeward, far, eastward, outside, etc.
• The Functional adverbs are words of pronominal nature.
They include adverbs of time, place, manner, cause,
consequence. These words are used as syntactic connectives and
question-forming functions, such words as now, here, when, so,
thus, why how.
Position of Adverbs
There are three main positions for adverbs which modify a verb:
• Front position = before the subject. Most types of adverb can go in front
position: connecting adverbs – as a result, similarly, finally; adverbs of time and
place – tomorrow, yesterday; comment and view point adverbs – presumably,
financially.
• Mid position = between the subject and verb, or immediately after be as a
main verb. The following types of adverbs usually go in mid position: adverbs of
indefinite frequency – always, never, hardly ever, often, rarely, seldom, usually;
degree adverbs – completely, quite, fairly, slightly, too, very much; focus
adverbs – just, even.
• End position = after the verb. Adverbs of time, which indicate a definite point
or period in time, or a definite frequency, usually go in front or end position. e.g.
I went to Paris yesterday – Yesterday I went to Paris.
The following adverbs daily, hourly, monthly, weekly etc. only go in end position.
e.g. The train leaves Astana station hourly.
The Degrees of Comparison
The degrees of comparison of adverbs are formed in the same way as those of
adjectives. Monosyllabic adverbs and the adverb early form the comparative
and the superlative degrees by adding the suffixes -er and –est. e.g. hardharder-hardest.
The degrees of comparison of all other adverbs are formed by placing more and
most before them, e.g. clearly – more clearly – most clearly.
The following adverbs often, quickly, slowly have two ways of comparison.
e.g. often –oftener (more often) – oftenest (most often)
quickly – quicker (more quickly) – quickest (most quickly)
slowly – slower (more slowly) – slowest (most slowly)
A few adverbs have irregular degrees of comparison.
e.g. well – better– best
badly – worse – worst
much, many – more – most
little – less – least
.
THE NUMERAL.
The Numeral in English is a part of speech that defines the number
or the order of items.
A numeral is a figure, a letter, a word (or their combinations)
representing a number.
Numerals include the categorical meaning of number: cardinal numerals and
ordinal numerals.
Cardinal numerals indicate number: one, two, twelve, twenty, thirty-three, a
hundred, a thousand, etc.
The numerals hundred, thousand and million are always preceded by the
indefinite article a or the numeral one.
The numerals hundred, thousand, million haven’t the ending “s”, if it is
preceded by other numerals, e.g. two hundred cars, four thousand workers,
three million people. But these numerals can take the ending “s” if they
function as a noun and used with the preposition of.
e.g. Hundreds of students were present at the meeting.
Ordinal numerals indicate order, e.g. first, second,
fifth, twelfth, eighteenth, two hundredth, three
thousandth they are formed by adding the ending -th.
Ordinal numerals are used with the definite article –
the, e.g. the second month, the sixth door, the twentyseventh book.
• Note: It is interesting to note the numerals are read differently in
American and British English.
• In British English, the conjunction “and” is used before tens in compound
numerals starting with hundreds: (123 – one hundred and twenty-three;
407 – four hundred and seven; 3,538 – three thousand five hundred and
thirty-eight).
• In American English, the conjunction “and” is generally not used in
compound numerals: (123 – one hundred twenty-three; 407 – four
hundred seven; 3,538 – three thousand five hundred thirty-eight).
• In British English, the conjunction “and” is also used before tens, or before
ones in ordinal numerals : (110th – one hundred and tenth; 3005th – three
thousand and fifth). But “and” is not used in American ordinals: (110th –
one hundred tenth; 3005th – three thousand fifth).
•
In American usage four-digit numbers that are multiples of 100 are
often named in the following way: (1100 – eleven hundred, 1600 – sixteen
hundred, 2300 – twenty-three hundred).
Fractional Numerals.
Fractional numerals can be subdivided into Common Fractions
and Decimal Fractions.
Common Fractions are read in the following way, if the
numerals are more than one they take the ending –“s”.
E.g. ½ = a (one) half, ⅓ = a (one third), ¼ = a fourth (a quarter),
⅛ = one eighth, ⅔ = two thirds, ⅜ = three eighths, ⅝ = five
eighths. 2 ½ tons = two and a half tons or two tons and a half).
In Decimal Fractions all numbers are read separately.
e.g. 0, 25 = nought point two five, 2.35 = two point three five,
76,901 – seventy six point nine nought one.
Specialized numbers
•
•
•
•
•
•
A few numbers have special names.
0 – has several other names, depending on context:
Zero: formal scientific usage;
Naught/nought: mostly British usage;
Oh: used when spelling numbers (like telephone, bank account, bus line,
bus route;
Nil: in general sport scores, British usage (The score is two–nil);
Nothing: in general sport scores, American usage (The score is two to
nothing);
Zip (from Spanish – zilch, nada) is used informally when stressing
nothingness; especially in combination with one another (You know
nothing – zero, zip, nada) in American usage.
THE PRONOUN.
Pronouns include a miscellaneous group of words which function in the sentence as noun
pronouns or as adjective pronouns.
Etymologically, the word “pronoun” means “a word used instead of a noun”.
A pronoun usually refers to something already mentioned in a sentence or piece of text.
Pronouns are used instead of nouns and function as simple noun phrases, they are used to
prevent repetition of the noun to which they refer.
Pronouns fall into the following categories:
• Personal: Generally refers to people or animate nouns
• Possessive: Shows ownership
• Reflexive: Refers back to a noun within the same sentence, often functions as an object
• Reciprocal: Shows a “mutuality of action”
• Demonstrative: Indicates specificity
• Indefinite: Does not refer to a specific referent
• Relative: Refers to an antecedent that was previously established . Can initiate a relative
clause.
• Interrogative: Can be used to begin questions.
•
Various individual pronouns may have different grammatical categories.
The Personal pronouns.
The Personal pronouns of English can have various forms
according to gender, number, person and case.
Personal pronouns fall into singular and plural groups. Singular
personal pronouns refer to one person or thing and plural
personal pronouns refer to more than one person or thing.
The pronouns: I, we, you, he, she are mainly used for persons.
The pronouns: I, we, you are indifferent to gender, while he is
masculine and she is feminine. The pronoun it is used for
animals, concrete things and abstract notions, i.e. it refers to
neuter nouns. The pronoun they is used for persons, animals and
things and is indifferent to gender.
The Possessive Pronouns.
The Possessive Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in English are
often confusing because most of them are very similar in form
and one has exactly the same form for both the adjective and
the pronoun.
Possessive Adjectives serve to modify nouns in the sentence, i.e.
they function as adjectives,
e.g. The doctor usually came to his office at three o’clock.
From my place I could watch the people eating their lunch.
The Possessive Pronouns may function as nouns as well. They
are used in their absolute forms,
e.g. She put her arm through mine. Theirs is a very large family.
The Reflexive Pronouns.
The Reflexive Pronouns serve to show that the action performed by the person which
is indicated by the subject of the sentence and its object indicate the same person. In
this case the reflexive pronouns are weakly stressed. For example in the sentence,
“Nick hit himself with a hammer”; “himself” refers back to Nick.
The Reciprocal Pronouns.
There are two reciprocal pronouns in English: each other and one another. They show
that something is done mutually. Both pronouns are mainly used in the function of an
object (direct, indirect or prepositional) in the sentence.
e.g. My two aunts bitterly disliked each other.
The Demonstrative Pronouns.
There are four demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that such, same. They all may
be used as noun pronouns and as adjective pronouns.
The pronouns this and that have the category of number. Their corresponding
plural forms are: these and those. The pronouns this and these refer to what is near in
space, time or conception, that, those to what is farther off.
e.g. This young man is my brother. I usually work in that room.
The Indefinite Pronouns.
The Indefinite Pronouns express various degrees and various kinds of indefiniteness.
Indefinite pronouns are the opposite of demonstrative pronouns in that they do not
have a specific referent.
We find the following subgroups among them:
• indefinite pronouns proper – a) some, any, no, none, one; b) somebody, anybody,
nobody, someone, anyone, no one, something, anything, nothing.
• distributive pronouns – a) all, every, each, other, either, neither, both; b) everybody,
everyone, everything;
• quantitative pronouns – much, many, little, few, a few, a lot of, a great deal, a great
many, etc.
The Relative Pronouns.
The Relative Pronouns in English tend to initiate relative clauses. These pronouns
replace other nouns that function as the subject of the relative clause.
“Bob hit himself with the hammer that was used to build the barn.”
Relative pronouns are that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, and why. They
are used to join clauses to make a complex sentence. Relative pronouns are used at
the beginning of the subordinate clause which gives some specific information about
the main clause, e.g. This is the house that Jack built.
The Interrogative Pronouns.
The Interrogative Pronouns are who, whom, whose, what, which, how much, how
many. They are all used in forming questions.
The pronoun who asks about persons. It does not distinguish gender or number it
may be singular or plural in meaning. Who is the nominative case and it is mainly
used as the subject of the sentence. e.g. Who is coming with me?
The pronoun whose is a possessive interrogative pronoun. It is used as an
adjective pronoun, mostly in the function of an attribute.
e.g. Whose room is it going to be?
The pronoun what may be used as a noun pronoun and as an adjective
pronoun. When it serves as a noun, it asks the things. It may be singular or
plural in meaning.
e.g. What’s this? What are those strange objects in the distance?
The pronoun which can be used as a noun pronoun and as an adjective
pronoun.
It is used of persons and things and is invariable in form.
We use which, not who or what, in questions before one(s) and of.
e.g. Which one of us should tell Jean the news?.
SYNTAX
General Characteristics of Syntax.
The grammatical structure of language comprises two major parts:
morphology and syntax. These two areas are obviously
interdependent and together they constitute a study of grammar.
Syntax deals with the way words are combined. It is concerned
with the external functions of words and their relationship to
other words within the linearly ordered units – word-groups,
sentences and texts.
Syntax studies the way in which the units and their meanings are
combined. It also deals with peculiarities of syntactic units, their
behaviour in different contexts.
The Sentence and its Classification.
The sentence is a communication unit made up of words in conformity with
their combinability and structurally united by intonation and predicativity.
It has its own features: it is a unit of speech, it is intonationally marked, it is a
predicative unit.
There are different types of sentences. According to the structure the
sentences can be divided into: Simple and Composite.
Simple sentences are subdivided into: unextended and extended sentences.
The unextended sentence can be one-member sentence, e.g. Fire! Come on!
or two-member sentence which consists of main parts: subject and predicate.
e.g. A month passed. The car stopped.
The extended sentence consists of more than two parts including the
subject, the predicate, the object, the attribute, adverbial modifiers.
e.g. The blue car stopped at the gate (blue – the attribute, at the gate –
adverbial modifier).
Sentences can be classified according to the purpose of the utterance/sentence. It
shows whether the sentence is presented as a statement or a question. They are:
• Declarative sentence. It states a fact in the affirmative or negative form.
e.g. She was waiting for her husband. I still couldn’t think why I didn’t see her.
• Interrogative sentence. An interrogative sentence asks a question. It is formed
by means of inversion. There are four kinds of questions:
a). General questions requiring the answer “yes” or “no” and spoken with a rising
intonation. (Do you like art?)
b). Special questions beginning with an interrogative word spoken with a falling
intonation. (Where do you live?)
c). Alternative questions indicating choice and spoken with a rising intonation in the
first part and a falling intonation in the second part. (Do you live in town or in the
country?)
d). Disjunctive questions requiring the answer “yes” or “no” and consisting of an
affirmative statement followed by a negative question, or a negative statement
followed by an affirmative question. The first part is spoken with falling intonation, the
second – with rising. (You speak English, don’t you?)
• The imperative sentence serves to introduce a person to do
something, or it
expresses a command, an order, a request or an invitation (Come
to the blackboard, please).
• The exclamatory sentence expresses some kind of emotion or
feeling. It often
begins with what, how and is spoken with a falling intonation
(What a lovely day!).
The Principal Parts of the Sentence.
The subject is the principal part of the sentence, it is
grammatically independent on the other parts of the sentence
and the predicate is usually dependent on it and agrees with the
subject in number, person.
The predicate is the second principal part of the sentence. It
expresses an action, state, quality of person or thing denoted by
the subject. It is grammatically dependent on the subject.
There are two types of predicates according to the structure and
meaning: the simple and the compound predicate.
The simple predicate is expressed by a finite form of the verb. It
generally denotes an action and sometimes a state.
e.g. I have been looking for you.
He gave Mary the local anaesthesia, when she was brought to
the hospital.
The compound predicate consists of two types: a finite verb and
some other part of speech – a noun, an adjective, a pronoun, a
verbal.
The first component expresses the verbal categories of number,
person, tense, aspect, voice, aspect. The compound predicate
may be nominal and verbal.
The compound nominal predicate (CNP). It denotes the state or
quality of the person or thing expressed by the subject or the
class of persons or things to which this person or thing belongs,
e.g. He is tired. He is a student.
The CNP consists of a link verb and a predicative (the nominal
part).
The link verb expresses grammatical categories and partly lost its
original concrete meanings. The most commonly used link verb
is to be.
The Secondary Parts of the Sentence.
The object is the secondary part of the speech which completes or
restricts the meaning of a verb or sometimes an adjective, a word
denoting a noun.
There are three kinds of objects in English:
• The direct object.
• The indirect object.
• The prepositional object.
The attribute qualifies a noun, a pronoun, or any other parts of
speech that have nominal characteristics. The attribute can be
either in pre-position or in post-position to the word it modifies. It
can be expressed in the sentence by: the noun, the adjective, the
participle, the numeral, the pronoun, the infinitive and the gerund.
e.g. The town library is closed on Sunday – (noun).
He wrote an important article yesterday – (adjective).
The Adverbial modifier is the secondary part of the sentence
which modifies a verb, an adjective or an adverb. According to
their meaning we distinguish the following kinds of adverbial
modifier of:
• time – We shall come tomorrow.
• frequency – Though they had never bothered them.
• place and direction – I found him in the garden.
• manner – He spoke slowly.
• degree – He has greatly changed.
• cause – I came back because of the rain.
• consequence – She is fond of the child to leave it.
• purpose – They opened the way for her to come to him.
The Composite Sentence.
The composite sentence is formed by two or more predicative
lines and expresses a complicated act of thought.
There are two types of composite sentences: the compound
sentence and the complex sentence. The basic difference
between these types of sentences would appear to be clear
enough:
• in compound sentences, the clauses of which they consist
have as it were equal rights, that is none of them is below the
other in rank, they are coordinated.
• in complex sentences, on the hand, the clauses are not on
equal footing, the complex sentence consisting of two clauses
only, one of these is the main clause, and the other is a
subordinate clause, that is, it stands beneath the main clause
in rank. There may be more than one clause and more than
one subordinate clause in a complex sentence.
The Compound sentence consists of clauses joined together by coordinating
conjunctions or without it. These are very few: and, but, or, for, yet, so etc.
e.g. He knew there were excuses for his father, yet he felt sick at heart.
The Complex Sentence is a poly predicative construction built up on the
principle of subordination. The complex sentence consists of a principal
clause and one or more subordinate clauses which can be linked by two ways:
Synthetically by means of variety conjunctions: when, after, before, while, till,
until; a number of phrases: as soon as, so long as, in order that etc.
Asyndetically without a conjunctions connective.
e.g. I wish you had come earlier.
I should like him to call me up.