Foreword

The book is mainly written as a self-study book, but may also be used in class with a teacher. It revises some of the most difficult points of grammar that third-year students have already studied; it will also introduce them to many more features of English grammar appropriate to an advanced level of study.

The book consists of two parts: Morphology and Syntax. There are 15 large units in the book. Each one covers a particular area of grammar and contains some smaller units, helping to present the information in a systematized way. The book concentrates on the areas students need to pass the exams and gives thorough explanations of them. Special attention is given to those points which are often a problem for students: Noun, Articles, Adjective, Adverb, Oblique Moods, Subject-Predicate Agreement, Simple and Composite Sentences, Predicative Сomplexes.

The main aims of the book are as follows:

• to help the students improve their knowledge of English grammar so that they could use English at a near-native level of grammatical competence;

• to raise their awareness of how the English language works and to be able to speak on the use of grammar structures in English using appropriate examples;

• to raise the students’ awareness of the creative use of grammar;

• to ensure the students that they can communicate efficiently with a number of grammar patterns they learn;

• to develop the students’ ability to translate from Russian/Belarusian into English using appropriate grammar structures.

All the grammar rules are lavishly supplied with explanations and examples.

The book is supplied with the glossary (p. 122), where there are all the linguistic terms and their Russian equivalents.

Contents

MORPHOLOGY

THE NOUN 6

The Category of Number 8

The Genitive Case 12

Types of the Genitive Case 13

THE ARTICLE 16

Functions of the Article 17

The Use of Articles with Abstract Nouns 21

The Use of Articles with Material Nouns 24

The Use of Articles with Predicative Nouns and Nouns in Apposition 26

The Use of Articles in Some Set Expressions 28

The Use of Articles with Some Semantic Groups of Nouns 30

Articles with Names of Seasons and Parts of the Day 30

Articles with Names of Meals 31

Articles with the Nouns school, college, prison, jail, church, hospital 32

Articles with Names of Parts of the Body 33

Articles with Names of Specific Periods 33

The Use of Articles with Proper Names 34

Names of Persons 34

Geographical Names 36

Calendar Items 37

Miscellaneous Proper Names 38

THE ADJECTIVE 40

Morphological Composition 40

Semantic Characteristics 41

The Position of Adjectives 42

Degrees of Comparison 43

Patterns of Comparison 44

Intensifiers of Adjectives 47

Substantivized Adjectives 48

Adjectives and Adverbs 50

OBLIQUE MOODS 53

Temporal Relations within the Oblique Moods 55

Subjunctive II 56

The Conditional Mood 59

The Suppositional Mood and Subjunctive I 61

THE SENTENCE 67

The Simple Sentence. Structural Types 68

Communicative Types of Sentences 69

THE SUBJECT 75

Ways of expressing the Subject 75

Structural Types of the Subject 76

“IT” and “THERE” as Subjects 78

THE PREDICATE 80

AGREEMENT OF THE PREDICATE WITH THE SUBJECT 85

Grammatical Agreement 85

Pronouns as Subjects 86

Agreement with Homogeneous Subjects 87

Notional Agreement 88

THE OBJECT 91

Types of Objects 91

Structure and Ways of Expressing 94

Predicative Constructions that Function as Objects 94

THE ATTRIBUTE 96

THE APPOSITION 99

THE ADVERBIAL MODIFIER 100

Structural Types of the Adverbial Modifier 101

Semantic Characteristics of the Adverbial Modifier 102

ABSOLUTE NOMINATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 104

THE COMPOSITE SENTENCE 107

The Compound Sentence 107

The Complex Sentence 110

Nominal Clauses 111

Attributive Clauses 112

Adverbial Clauses 114

WORD ORDER 117

Glossary of Linguistic Terms 120

List of Books 123

Who climbs the grammar tree distinctly knows

Where noun and verb and participle grows

Dryden