The general properties of the noun and the verb. Lecture #2.

Plan:

1. The general properties of the noun, gender, case, number.

Nouns constitute the most open class. They have full lexical meaning of thingness: substances, phenomena and abstract concepts.

Words of other classes can be easily nominalised. Even technical and functional words can be nominalised for a given occasion.

There are too many ifs and buts in your answer. Nouns are declinable having inflexions of number and case.

The category of gender

In old English gender was a morphological category, but in present there are no grammatical means to express gender in English, but

Suffix: – ess (huntress)

Word-building: he-cat, man-servant, lady-driver,

Semantic oppositions: king – queen

Gender-sensitive pronouns: he, she, it

Gender divides the calls of English nouns into:

Non-human (mountain)

Human (male, husband, woman)

Common human (person, child, parent, artist)

But names of countries and cities are femine;

Poets and writers are free to ascribe (приписывать) words to any gender: Moon, Sun, ocean are feminine.

Gender is lexico-semantical category in English

The category of number

The category of number is represented by the opposition of singular and plural. The singular paradigmatically expresses oneness. The plural –more –than –oneness, multitude, quantity.

Some scholars believe that the meaning of singular is indiscreetness (неразделимость) and the meaning of the plural is discreteness.

Nouns are divided into counts and uncount-s. The morpheme of plurality manifests itself in a number of allomorphs.

E.g. cat-cats, boy-boys, man-men.

Words of foreign origin are marked for the singular and plural:

Phenomenon-phenomena, but some of them havegot assimilated into English formula-formulae-formulas.

1) The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness discreteness is expressed: cat-cats ?

2) The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicity but by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context.

Uncount nouns are subdivided according to their meaning and for.

Singularia tantum Pluralia tantum

Proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns names of the sciences (mathematics)

3) The nouns with homogenous (однородные) number forms.

Look! A sheep is eating grass! Look! The sheep are eating grass.

Division into singular and plural is justified by meaning, form and combinability of nouns. But meaning and form can be at variants: singular in form can be plural in meaning (police are).

In english logical agreement prevails over meaning. Singular noun may combine with a plural predicate (police are) and plural noun combines with a singular predicate “physics is”.

Along with paradagmitic meaning of multitude or more-than-oneness plural develops a syntagmatic meaning. For example, emotiveness, intensiveness, expressiveness, negative or positive evaluation (оценка).

The category of case (падеж).

Case – the change of a form of a noun to denote grammatical relations to other parts of a sentence.

English nouns denoting living beings (and some nouns denoting lifeless things) have 2 cases, an uniflected form called the common case and inflected for – the genitive (родительный) case.

The genitive case fall under: the Dependent genitive and the absolute genitive.

Dependent Genitive. There are a number of genitive constructions which are classified according to different criterion:

1) dependence:

Dependent: student’s answer. Independent (absolute): “This student’s was the best answer.

2)number of constituents (составляющих)

Single word Genitive: boy’s bike

Double Genitive: “My father’s pipe”

Triple Genitive: brother’s friend’s bride’s hat

Groups Genitive: Prince of Denmark’s kingdom

3) Semantic relations between N’s N:

- possessive Genitive” my son’s bike (My son has a bike)

- agentive (subjective) Genitive: the boy’s applications=>the boy applied

-objective genitive: the boy’s expulsion=>the boy was expelled

-ambiguous genitive: the writer’s invitation (writer invites – subjective. The writer was invited – objective)

-Genitive of origin:: the girl’s story=>the story told by the girl

-descriptive Genitive: a mother’s love

-genitive of destination: children’s room

-genitive of extend: day’s work

-Temporal (временный) genitive: a mitute’s success

-Genitive of measure: the absence of 2 days.

All these synthetic genitive can be replaced by analytical genitives (Francia’s vine – synthetic, Vine of France – analytical form)

Absolute genitive (independent) without noun.

Anaphorical genitive (used instead of a noun and represents the noun previously used to avoid repetition). “Render on (отдавать, воздавать) to Caesar those things which are God’s.

Even the double genititve can be used anophorically. A voice a housekeeper’s husband’s shouted.

The partitive (разделительный) genitive:

An opera of Verdy’s=>one of the Verdy’s opera

The local genitive: I met him at my aunt’s=?at my aunt’s place

Lecture 3. Sentence: General

Plan:

1. Syntax: types of syntax

2. Definition of a sentence

3. Classification of a sentence

Syntax studies how words are combined into phrases and simple sentences, how simple sentences are combined into compound (ССП) and complex(СПП) sentences and how supraphrasal (text) units are organized and generated.

The domain of syntax is the syntagmatics of words, phrases and sentences, their arrangement combinability and function.

Types of syntax:

1. Traditional syntax. It’s sentential. It’s primary concerned is a sentence and its grammatical organization.

2. Hypersyntax. It goes beyond the border of the sentence into discourse or text. It studies the structure, generation (порождение текста), cohesion (связь) of discourse (it’s structural semantic and communicative completeness)

3. Pre-suppositional syntax (describes semantic implications (подразумевание). It means that a sentence presupposes another sentence. “Bill is tall but he can’t play basketball” (It’s implied that all tall guys can play basketball. “I rang him, but he was out” (it’s implied that I came to the phone picked up the handset, dilate (?) the number).

4. Logical-semantic syntax. It studies the semantic structure of a sentence which is described in terms of proposition, argument, predicate and a number of deep-cases (падежи с глубоким смыслом о_о). “A hammer broke the window (a hammer – instrumental case). I have the flu (a patient case).”

5. Functional-communicative syntax is concerned with the functional sentence perspective or communicative dynamism. It means distribution of information among the elements of a sentence into given and new information.

6. Paradigmatic syntax. It studies a paradigm of the sentence which is constituted by all possible transformations of a sentence ( when the kernel sentence is transformed we deal with syntactical paradigm). “He has a car/She has a car/She had a car” Al these sentence constitute the paradigm.

7. Structural syntax studied bare structure disregarding ambiguity (двусмысленность) implicit relations and complexity of relations in discourse.

8. Transformational generative syntax. It studies the relations between the surface and deep structures. It operates with transformational analysis. “The invitation of the writer surprises me (the writer invited somebody or writer was invited?)

Definition of a sentence.

We are distinguish: a sentence (a grammatical unit of written language), a clause (is a constituent of a sentence the higher rank unit) and an utterance (is a speech act a pragmatic unit, высказывание). Sentences contains lower structures -clauses.

Scholars have failed to achieve a general acceptable definition of a sentence. There exist hundreds of definitions, but none of them is found adequate.

A sentence is a polyfunctional unit which possesses many aspects: structure, communicative dynamism (that is distribution of information among the elements of a sentence), modality, predicativity and intonation.

Definitions of a sentence: Logical: as sentence is an expression of a complete though or judgment.

Graphical: a sentence is an utterance which makes as long communication as the speaker has intended to make before given himself a rest.

Semion Potrer

Sentence is a minimum complete utterance, a structure. It’s analyzed into morphemes, words, phrases, clauses. It’s a segment of speech flowing between pauses; it’s binary unit.

Sentence ia s communicative unit made up of words and word-mprphemes in accordance with their combinability structurally united by intonation and predicativity (Khaimovich).

Blokh attempts to cover all aspects: structure, nominative quality, intonation, predicativiti, modality, pragmaticity and communaicative dynamism.

Sentence is a unit of speech, built of words; unlike the words a sentence doesn’t exist in a system of a language as a ready-made unit, it’s created by the speaker in the course of communication, It’s intonationally coloured, characterized by predicativity, possesses a nominative aspect, has a contextually relevant communicative purpose.

Classification of a sentence

There exist thee types of sentences (with structural variants): simple, compound, complex (composite – сложные предложения).

Descriptivists introduced the following terms:

The single free utterance minimum and extended (распространённый) (that is a simple sentence)

The duplication of the pattern or multiplication (corresponds to a compound sentence) “He was young, the weather was beautiful and Europe was in war”.

Sequence with included utterances (a traditional complex sentence) “We don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow”.

Lecture #4.

The simple sentence. The principal and the secondary parts.

Plan: 1. The simple sentence and its classifications

2. General properties of the simple sentence (two-member extended)

3. Members of the sentence

4. The principal parts

5. The secondary parts

There are several classifications of a simple sentence:

1. Structural

2. communicatiove

3. semantic

4. pragmatic (the study of a relationship between linguistic units and the users of those units in done by pragmatics)

Communicatively the following types of sentences are distinguished:

1. Declarative (повествовательное): affirmative and negative

2. Interrogative

3. Imperative

4. Exclamatory

Structurally simple sentences are classified into:

1. one-member (single-nucleus). It’s a sentence having only one member which is neither the subject nor the predicate. This doesn’t mean that the other member is missing, for the one member makes the sense complete.

Two-member (double-nucleus). It’s a sentence that has two members – a subject and a predicate. If one of them is missing, it can be easily understood from the context.

More frequent are two-member sentences carrying a subject and a predicate and secondary pards. They can be extended and nonextended.

“The Sun shines (the subject + the predicate)

“A Robot robots a robot (the subject + the predicate + the object)

Morphological varieties of one-member sentences (in descriptive and emotional speech):

1. Nominal (nounal and adjectival) “Women! The men of property! Silence! Wonderful!” Noun of noun: “Perfect beauty of sunflower”.

2. Infinitival (stylistic alternatives to sentences with finite verb predication). Forget al so soon! To love her. To be loved by her” (variants constitute a paradigm of infinitive sentences)

In a one-member sentence neither subject, nor predicate is the main part.

A two member sentence can be:

1. complete (there’s a subject and a predicate)

2. elliptical (on part or both are missing, the meaning can be understood from the context).

General properties of a simple sentence (two-member extended):

Within the sentence we distinguish:

1. Primary/secondary

2. independent/dependant elements

3. the structural nucleus / its adjuncts

There exist several syntactic ties (синтаксические связи) within a sentence:

1. The primary predicative tie: it makes a sentence, it realizes itself in the changes of the verb for person, number, tense voice, mood, aspect, time, relation;

2. the secondary predication tie cane be revealed transformationally, it doesn’t make a sentence, it’s concealed in infinitival, gerundial, participial, constructions, predicative constructions with noun, adjectives, statives.

“I saw him running: (complex objective participial construction)

3. The coordinating tie establishes syntactic (синтаксический) homogeneity (однородность) = parataxis

4. The subordinating tie establishes syntactic dependence of nuns and pronouns upon verbs. There are certain preposition before nouns which are demanded by verbs “consists of”.

5. The attribute – completive tie: a modifier expressed by an adjective or an adverb doesn’t merely modify the noun or verb, it completes a sentence. “He behaved strangely”

Lecture #

Members of sentence.

A simple sentence has a grammatical structure, which is analysed in terms of the members of the sentence, in terms of secondary and primary parts (второстепенные и главные челны предложения).

It has a semantic structure, which is analysed in terms of the predicate, arguments and deep cases.

It has a communicative structure, which is analysed in terms of communicative dynamism that is in terms of rheme and theme (рема и тема). The theme is the starting point (the old or given information) and the rheme is the goal (a new information). To rhematize – to put in the final position. “I opened the door”

The grammatical structure: the subject, the predicate, the object

The semantic structure: the agent – the action – the object

The communicative structure: the theme – I; the rheme – opened the door.

Principle parts

The subject denotes something that is spoken about, it’s the principal part of a two-member sentence which is grammatically independent of the other parts of the sentence and of which the second principal part (the predicate) is granatically dependent. The predicate agrees with the subject with number and person.

It’s subdivided into:

1) a group subject (extended)

2) a complex subject (expressed by a predicative construction). “For me to do it is dangerous; His having done that surprised me”.

3) a formal subject: “It’s strange he’s doing that” (introduces the genuine subject)

4) an impersonal subject: It rains

5) a rhematic subject: “A woman entered the room”

6) the thematic subject: “The woman came up to the window”

‘It’ as the subject of the sentence.

1) a notional subject (a living being or a thing)

The personal ‘it’ (a definite thing or a an abstract idea) “I want to buy it”

The demonstrative ‘it’ (близко к ‘this’ – это)

2) a formal subject (doesn’t represent any living being or a thing)

The impersonal ‘it’

To denote natural phenomena (weather): “it’s cold in winter”. To denote time and distance.

The introductory or anticipatory ‘it’ (introduces the real subject): “It is no use disguising facts”

It – the real subject, is no use disguising the facts – the predicate.

The emphatic it (for emphasis): It was he who had done it.

Note: There is nothing on the table (There – a part of the predicate, nothing – the subject)

The predicate.

The predicate denotes the action, state or property of the thing designated (indicated) by the subject. It’s grammatically dependent opon the subhect.

The predicate us classified into simple and compound. The simple predicate can be:

1. Simple verbal (expressed by a verb) 2. simple nominal: “He clever!?” (Adjective) He a general?! (Noun)

3. Infinitival: Mr Dinby to divorce his wife! (invinitive)

4. Phraseological predicate: He was probably loosing his marbles = going crazy (to have a smoke, to give a laugh – of the 1^st type; to get rid, to make fun – of the 2^nd type)

Compound predicate:

1. nominal predicate (СИС): link verb (a verb of incomplete predication) + predicative (the nominal part of the predicate). ‘He aws going mad. He grew more cheerful. He got(link) nervous(predicative).

2. Verbal: modal and aspect. ‘He came running’ (глаголы связки У Коушанской)

The compound Verbal Modal predicate can be expressed by:

1) modal verbs: must, etc;

2) modal expressions: to be/to have + infinitive; to be able, to be obliged, to be bound, to be willing, to be capable, to be going + the infinitive;

3) A verb with a modal meaning + the infinitive or Gerund (hope, expect, intend, try, endeavour);

4) The subjective Infinitive Counstrutcion (to be reported to, to be believed to, to appear not to, happen to know, seem to be)

The compound Verbal Aspect predicate can be expressed by:

1) begin, cease, start, fall, go on, keep on, continue, stop or Gerund;

2) would, used to + the infinitive (repeated actions in the past)

3. The double predicate: He married young (He married and he was young). It consists of two parts, which can be revealed transformationally.

4. The predicate of double orientation: He is said to have done it(Говорят, он сделал это). The practical grammar analyses it as an expression of the nominative with the infinitive construction. According to this point of view, He is a subject, is said t have done is a predicate of double orientation. One part is oriented upon the subject (to have done)l the other refers to the subject beyond the limits of the sentence (is said)

5. Mixed types of the predicate:

5.1 The compound modal nominal predicate (… was to be the means…,… longed to be the next heir.,. mean to be unkind..)

5.2 The compound Aspect Nominal predicate (..had ceased to be a house…, began to feel hungry…)

5.3 The compound Modal Aspect Predicate (…had to keep on resisting…, had to begin living…)

The Secondary Parts. (are facultative)

1. object is a secondary part of the sentence which completes or resctricts the meaning of a verb or sometimes an adjective, a word denoting state, or a noun, which depends upon the predicate.

a) direct (give me a pen)

b) indirect (give me a pen)

c) prepositional (Come with me)

d) Cognate (родственный): he smiled a winner’s smile

e) complex – expressed by predicative constructions with the infinitive, participle and Gerund: I remember my mother singing song to me.

f) Formal: I find it strange to go there (expressed by an introductory it; to go – an infinitival phrase)

According to semantic roles objects are divided into (Бурлакова, Иванова, Почепцов):

The object of the object (I read the book)

The object of the addressee: He gives it to me

The object of the subject: I was blackmailed (шантажирован) by him

2. The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which qualifies a noun, a pronoun, or any other part of speech that has a nominal character, it’s a noun – oriented, secondary or tertiary part of a sentence. It doesn’t enter the structural scheme of the sentence.

It’s very often facultative and can be easily omitted: A (beautiful) girl entered the (spacious room)

It can be complex – expressed by a predicative construction: This is a book for you to read.

O. Jespersen distinguishes secondary parts into secondaries and tertiaries.

3. An adverbial modifier (обстоятельство) is a secondary or tertiary part of the sentence, which modifies a verb, an adjective or an advoeb, We distinguish adverbial modifiers of: Time, frequency, place and direction, manner (образа действия), degree and measure, attendant circumstances, case, result of consequence, condition, comparison, purpose, concession)

Lecture #5.

Plan

1. The composite sentence

2. The compound sentence: types of coordination

3. The complex sentence

4. Classifications of subordinate clauses

The composite sentence

The composite sentence is a polypredicative structure based on coordination (parataxis), subordination (xypertaxis) or specification (explication)

Composite sentences based on coordination are called compound and sentences based on subordination are complex ones.

Composite sentences based on explication carry two parts based on the independent syntactic devices; the second part specifies the first, which is separated by the colon. ‘Real grief is ugly: the business of an actor is to represent it not only with truth but also with beauty”

The compound sentence is based on coordination (parataxis) and it consists in syntactical equality of two or more parts (clauses), which can be joined to each other syndetically (союзное) by means of coordinating conjunction conjunctions (an, or, else, but) or conjunctive adverbs (otherwise, however, nevertheless, yet, still, therefore), asyndetically (without a conjunction or a conjunctive adverb) or in a mixed way.

‘The birds sprang up in front your feet; the air was full of butterflies, the sweat fragrance rose from the wild grasses.” – asyndetically.

Types of coordination: (типы связи) (only compound)

1. copulative (соединит.) – conj. And, nor, neither…nor, not only…but(also)

2. disjunctive (разделит.) – or, else, or else, either…or, conj, adverb – otherwise

3. adversative (противит.) – conj: but, while (sometimes while m/b a subordinating conjunction introducing adverbial clauses of time)whereas; conj. Adverbs: nevertheless, still, yet

4. causative-consecutive (причинно-следств.) – conj: for, so, conj:adverbs: therefore, accordingly, consequently, hence (отсюда, следовательно)

Copulative coordination expresses simultaneous (DAFAK?) parallel actions. ‘I came home and my brother was there’

Adversative coordination denotes contrast. The second part contradicts what is expressed in the first part. For example: ‘Sorrow knocked at my door still I was afraid’

Disjunctive coordination expresses choice: ‘Did he not give her everything or was she not everything to him?

In a sentence with a causative-consecutive coordination one clause expresses the cause of the consequence which is to be found in another clause. ‘Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind’

The complex sentence.

The complex sentence is a polypredicative construction build up on the principle of subordination and varies from the clause to a very loose connection with many gradations between. The constituents of the Complex sentence is divided into:

• A two-clause Complex Sentence

• -A multiclause Complex sentence

The complex Sentence of minimal components includes two clauses: the principle clause and the subordinate clause.

Subordinate clauses can be adjoined to the principle clause syndetically, asyndetically (without a conjunction or connective) or can be embedded (вставленным, замурованным :D) into the principle clause.

A conjunction only serves as a formal element connecting separate clauses. A connective serves as a connecting link has a syntactic function in the subordinate clause it introduces. ‘More and more she became convinced that some misfortune had overtaken Paul’ – conjunction

‘All that he had looked for and achieved seemed suddenly to have no meaning’ – connective.

The classifications of a subordinate clause.

There exist two competitive principles of classification and categorail.

The functional classification.

Subordinate clauses are classed on the analogy with the parts of the sipme sentence.

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

In accordance with the categorical principle subordinate clauses are classed by their nominative preoperties irrespective of their position in the sentence. It can be compared to the classes of words.

Nounal; adjectival; adverbial.

Subject clause occupy the position of the subject in a sentence. They are to be found either in the initical position, which is typical of the subject, or in a final position (they can be thematised or rhematised): ‘What is yours is mine. It was a miracle, how he managed to pull that off.’

The subject clause is thematised in a given example; it can be interpreted in two ways:

1. It is the formal subject (introductory “it”); the genuine subject is placed in the final position to be rhematised.

2. It is a genuine subject (the subject of the principal clause) and the subordinate clause is a predicative clause.

Predicative clause

The principal clause (the link-verb – part of the predicate) + Predicate clause = a Compound Nominal predicate.

The predicative clause occupies the position of the predicative accordingly and it can be introduced by the links be, look, become, happen, etc.

John has become what you would call a man of supreme and experience.

The commonest link is to be.

‘The moral I draw (principle clause) is (link verb) that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work.

A complex sentence can comprise a subject clause and a predicative clause simultaneously:

‘What gives an ideal beauty is that it is unattainable’ (недосягаемый)

The object clause.

There are several varieties of object clauses:

1. as to their being replaced by the noun. Such object clauses, which perform the function of an object and can be replaced by one word, are called object clauses proper (придаточные предложения дополнения). ‘He bought what he wanted. Tom may marry whom he likes.

2. as to the character of the verb in the main clause. After the berbs to say, to ask, to exclaim, to explain, to wonder etc very few nouns can be used, these verbs ordinarily are followed by clauses which are called speech rendering object clauses (or clauses of indirect speech according to Ilyish, and reportive clauses according to Blokh): ‘She could not say what it was. She exclaimed that it was true.

Attributive clause.

A noun or a pronoun in the principal clause is called the antecedent (антицидент) of the clause.

These clauses fall into:

1. relative (qualify the antecedent):

Restrictive (it cannot be removed without destroying the meaning of the sentence)

Non-restrictive (or descriptive) – some additional information.

Continuative clause (presents a situation on an equal domination basis with a principle clause). The antecedent – not one word but a whole clause; relative pronoun which (что). ‘His pictures were an immediate success, which was nothing to wonder’ (antecedent is the full second clause.

2. Appositive (discloses the meaning of the antecedent – an abstract noun)

Connected: only syndetically.

‘One suffers so much from the fact (antecedent) that beautiful words don’t always mean what they ought to mean.’ This subordinate clause is attributive and appositive.

Adverbial clauses.

1. time

Connectives: when, while, as, since, as soon as (no sooner, hardly, scarcely – in the principal clause);

2. Place: where, wherever (counj)

3. Cause (reason): as, because, since

4. Purpose: that, in order that, so that, lest (чтобы не)

5. Condition: 1) if, unless, suppose, in case, on condition that, provided)

2) asyndetically (inversion)

6. Concession: though, no matter how, however

7. result: so that,

8. manner : as

9. comparison: than, as, as…as, as if