- •2. The parts of speech.
- •§ 11. As a result of the undertaken analysis we have obtained a foundation for dividing the whole of the lexicon on the upper level of classification into three unequal parts.
- •4. The Noun, its categories
- •6. The Adjectiv, degrees of comparsion
- •§ 7. Let us examine now the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective.
- •§ 8. Having considered the characteristics of the category of comparison, we can see more clearly the relation to this category of some usually non-comparable evaluative adjectives.
- •9. The Verb, its categories
- •1. Categories of Person and Number
- •2. Category of Tense
- •3. Category of Aspect
- •4. Category of Voice
- •5. Category of Mood
- •11.The Infinitive
- •14. The Gerund
- •17. The Participle
- •19.The Modal Verbs
- •22.The Subjunctive Mood
- •Summary of forms
- •Table of forms
- •24. The Types of English Sentence
- •27.Types of Clauses
- •28. Complex Sentence
- •§ 10. Complex sentences which have two or more subordinate clauses discriminate two basic types of subordination arrangement: parallel and consecutive.
- •29. Simple Sentence
1. Categories of Person and Number
The finite forms of the verb make up a very complex and intricate system; its intricacy is caused by the fact that they are directly connected with the structure of the sentence, the finite verb functioning as its predication centre.
The morphological study of the English finite verb includes the study of its categories, those of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood.
Person and number are treated by scholars as closely related categories. In their treatment two approaches are contrasted: traditional and modern.
In accord with the traditional approach to these two categories, scholars point out to the existence in English of three persons and two numbers.
In modern linguistic works on the problem it is also stressed that the categories of person and number are closely interwoven in English and should be considered together. At the same time it is particularly emphasized that these categories are specific because they don't convey the inherently "verbal" semantics. It means that the categories of person and number have a "reflective" character: the personal and numerical semantics in the finite verb is the reflection in the verb lexeme of the personal and numerical semantics of the subject referent.
The semantic and formal analysis of the person-number forms of the verb shows that in the strictly categorial sense one should speak of personal pronouns set consisting of six different forms of blended person-number nature - three in the singular and three in the plural.
The intermixed character of the numerical and personal forms of the finite forms of the verb finds its expression both at the formal and functional levels of analysis in different subsystems of verbs. The peculiarity of expressing person-number distinctions in the English verb lies in the deficiency of the finite regular verb for there exists the only positive person-number mark of the finite regular verb - the morpheme of the third person singular. This deficient system cannot and does not exist in the language by itself: in fact, the verbal person-number system only backs up the person-number system of the subject. Due to it the combination and strict correlation of the English finite verb with the subject is obligatory not only syntactically but also categorially.
2. 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 absolutive 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.