1The adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of a substance  each adjective used in text presupposes relation to some noun. Unlike nouns, adjectives do not possess a full nominative value.

All the adjectives are traditionally divided into 2 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. wood – a wooden hut, history – a historical event). The nature of this relationship in adjectives is best revealed by definitional correlations: e.g. a wooden hut – a hut made of wood; a historical event – an event referring to a certain period of history.

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 (e.g. a difficult task – a very difficult task).

The adjective functions are ‘evaluative’ and ‘specificative’. One and the same adjective, irrespective of its being relative or qualitative, can be used either in one or the other function.

e.g. good is basically qualitative, but used as a grading term in teaching it acquires the specificative value (bad, satisfactory, good, excellent).

On the whole, the number of adjectives which can be recog­nized as such by their suffix seems to be insignificant as compared with the mass of English adjectives. The only morphological problem concerning adjectives is, then', that of degrees of comparison.

The degrees of comparison

3 degrees of comparison

Positive – comparative - superlative

The positive degree is not marked. We may speak of a zero morpheme. The comparative and superlative degrees are built up either synthetically (by affixation or suppletivity) or analytically (with the help of word-morphemes more and most), which depends mainly on the structure of the stem.

Some authors treat more beautiful and the most beautiful not as analytical forms, but as free syntactical combinations of adverbs and adjectives. One of the arguments is that less and least form combinations with adjectives similar to those with more and most: e.g. more beautiful – less beautiful, the most beautiful – the least beautiful.

In order to prove that more beautiful is an analytical form of the comparative degree, we have to prove that more is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme –er.

1.More an –er are identical as their meaning of ‘a higher degree’.

2.Their distribution is complementary. Together they cover all the adjectives having the degrees of comparison. Those adjectives which have comparative opposites with suffix –er have usually no parallel opposites with more and vice versa.

e.g. beautiful – more beautiful (not beautifuller),nice – nicer (not more nice)

One must not forget that more and most are not only word-morphemes of comparison. They can be notional words. They are polysemantic and polyfunctional words. One of the meanings of most is ‘very, exceedingly’ (a most interesting book).

The notional word more in the meaning ‘to greater extent’ can also be used to modify adjectives, as in It’s more grey than brown. More grey here is a combination of words.

The positive degree does not convey the idea of comparison. Its meaning is absolute.

2Numerals in English is a part of speech that defines the number or the order of items. The definition of the numerals, classification, examples and the functions of numerals in a sentence.There are simple numerals (1-12), derivative numerals (13-19) and composite numerals (for example: 21, 67, 147).There are cardinal and ordinal numerals in the English language.1) Cardinal numerals show the number of certain items. They correspond to the interrogative word “How many?”2) Ordinal numerals are used to show the order of items. They correspond to the question starting with the word “Which?”Example:Such words as “a hundred”, “a thousand” and “a million” are nouns, not numerals. If these words are used in a singular form, they always go with the indefinite article “a” or the numeral “one”.Let’s give some examples:These words are not used with the plural ending:Still, the following words could have the plural ending:Thus, words “a hundred”, “a thousand” and “a million” could have the plural ending, if they are followed with the “of” preposition and a noun.3) In a sentence numbers are usually used as attributes.4) Numerals could have any function in a sentence if they don’t have any defined words.Numerals include all numbers, whether as words or as digits. They may be divided into two major types. CARDINAL numerals include words like:    nought, zero, one, two, 3, fifty-six, 100, a thousandORDINAL numerals include    first, 2nd, third, fourth, 500th We classify numerals as a subclass of nouns because in certain circumstances they can take plurals:  five twos are ten  he's in his eightiesThey may also take the:    the fourth of July   a product of the 1960sAnd some plural numerals can take an adjective before them, just like other nouns:    the house was built in the late 1960s   he's in his early twenties   the temperature is in the high nineties In each of our examples, the numerals occur independently, that is, without a noun following them. In these positions, we can classify them as a type of noun because they behave in much the same way as nouns do. Notice, for example, that we can replace the numerals in our examples with common nouns:  Numerals do not always occur independently. They often occur before a noun, as in   one day,  three pages , the fourth day of July

3THE ing-FORMS

So far we have spoken of the ing-forms as of two different sets of homonymous forms: the gerund (with its distinctions of correlation and voice) and the participle (with its distinctions of correlation and voice). As there is no external difference between the two sets (they are complete homonyms), the question may arise whether there is reason enough to say that there are two different sets of forms, that is, whether it could not be argued that there is only one set of forms (we might then call them ing-forms), which in different contexts acquire different shades of meaning and perform different syntactical functions.

The difference between the gerund and the participle is basically this. The gerund, along with its verbal qualities, has substantival qualities as well; the participle, along with its verbal qualities, has adjectival qualities. This of course brings about a corresponding difference in their syntactical functions: the gerundmay be the subject or the object in a sentence, and only rarely an attribute, whereas the participle is an attribute first and foremost.

We should also bear in mind that in certain syntactical contexts the difference tends to be obliterated. For instance, if in the sentence Do you mind my smoking? (where smoking is a gerund) we substitute me for my, in the resulting sentence Do you mind me smoking? the form smoking may, at least, be said to be the participle. Again, in the sentence Do you mind her smoking? where her may be the possessive pronoun, corresponding to my, or the objective case of the personal pronoun, corresponding to me, the gerund and the participle are practically indistinguishable. We may say, in terms of modern linguistics, that the opposition between them is neutralised.¹

If, on the other hand, we prefer to abandon the distinction and to speak of the ing-form, we shall have to formulate its meaning and its functions in such a way as to allow for all the cases of the ing-forms to be included. For instance, instead of distinguishing between substantival and adjectival qualities, we shall speak, in a more general way, of nominal qualities, so as to embrace both the substantival and the adjectival ones, and so forth. Such a view seems also quite possible, and the decision to be taken will, as we have seen above, depend on the general attitude one adopts in matters of this kind

4 The verb and its classification.

The verb is a notional part of speech expressing actions, processes presented dynamically. The grammatical meaning of the verb also includes different types of relations attitudes, states, etc. it is the most complicated part of speech

The verb is classified into certain types according to different principles and approaches taken by grammarians:

1. According to the category of finitude that is the ability to express the primary predication in the sentence verbs fall into finite and non-finite ones (infinitive, gerund)

2. According to the verb-form derivation verbs fall into regular and irregular ones. ( work-worked-worked-regular, go-went-gone-irregular)

3. According to outward structures they fall into a. simple,(go, write), b. expanded (with affixes built up – to enlarge, to predicate, undergo), c. composite verbs ( of two words – blackmail, whitewash), d. phrasal verbs ( eat up, go off, put up, have a smoke, make a move)

According to the presence or absence of lexical meanings verbs undergo the semantic classification and fall into a. full nominative verbs (notional) , b. partially nominative verbs (semi notional) include modal verbs, phrasal verbs (begin, start), link verbs ( be, becoming, remaining , being – be , become, appear, turn, go), auxiliary (be, have, will, should, would, вспомогательные глаголы). This verbs (phrasal link and auxiliary) can function as either notional verbs or semi-notional ones. He is in the house, he is clever. Bloch call them grammatical homonyms .

Full nominative (notional) verbs fall into the following subclasses:

1. According to the manner of action they fall into inchoative verbs (начинательные глаголы) – to start , commence, initiate, begin, etc.

2. Durative verbs ( to continue, go on, keep on, proceed)

3. Terminative verbs (завершительные) – to stop, finish, end, graduate, kill, terminate.

4. Iterative verbs ( действие состоит из отдельный частей ) verbs expressing the a succession of like acts. Walk, chew, breathe, haw-law, tap-tap, gingle-gingle.

5. Super completed verbs – to overdo, overestimate, overcome, surpass, exceed, etc.

6. Under completed verbs – underdo, underestimate.

7. Momentary verbs – glance, clap, jump.

8. According to the aspective characters verbs fall into limitive verbs, unlmitive ones. And verbs of double aspective nature which can be either limitive or unlimitive due to certain lexico-syntactic contexts. Limitive verbs express actions which can not be continued after a certain boarder line which can be actualized by the meaning of the verb and the context – to breake, come, stop, kill, etc. Unlimitive verbs have no meaning of a boarder line in their semantic structures. For example – to continue, live, love, hate,etc. the verbs of double aspective nature such as to see, feel, bear, etc, can be limitive or unlimitive due to the context. For example – after a days work I felt tired – unlimitive; I felt somebody approaching me – unlimitive. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my side.

9. According to the relation of a subject of the action to the denoted process verbs fall into actionall and statal ones – actional- play, write, read, which can be used in the conti nious from. Static verbs – sit, lie, which can be used in the finite forms.

10. According to the combining power of verbs based on syntactic valency. According to this feature verbs fall into

A.COMPLEMENTIVE (требуют после себя дополнительных слов) which falls into:

1. non-objective :

A. predicative (become a teacher, tired, to be, turn red)

B. adverbial types ( to leave, stay, go,act)

2. objective:

1. monocomplemantive (buy, take, forget, look at, cost, belong)

2. bicomplementive (pay, hand, show, to teach,excuse)

2. UNCOMPLEMENTIVE ( холостяк)which fall into:

1.personal (He is sleeping - есть лицо кто совершает действие)

2. impersonal ones (rain, snow, drizzle)

The words which are obligatory after complementive verbs are called complements, and words which are optional are called supplements. Both may be of three types (supplements and complement) – objective, predicative and adverbial types. For example –

objective complement – I bought a new BOOK.

Objective supplement – I bought a book FOR YOU.

Predicative complement – she may be a good TEACHER. It became DARK.

Predicative supplement – The night air DARK and DREARY.

Adverbial supplement – I see a house IN THE DISTANCE.

Adverbial complement – she is behaving like a child. He went to London.

Among the objective complementive verbs they distinguish two classes of verbs: transitive (переходные) and intransitive ones. Transitive verbs take non-prepositional objects – for example to see a house, to read a book, etc. Intransitive verbs take prepositional objects – to think of smth, to listen to smth, insist on smth, surprised at, busy with/in.

Non-finite forms of the verb also have the same features as the finite ones and can be complementive, uncomplementive and so on.

5 The category of tense in ME

While the existence of the aspect category in English is a disputed matter, the tense category is universally recognized. This category denotes the relation of the action either to the moment of speaking or to some definite moment in the past or future (it expresses the relations between the time of the action and the time of the utterance). So the three main divisions of time are represented in the English verbal system by the three tenses. Each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous aspect. Thus we get 6 tense-aspect forms. Besides these 6, however, there are 2 more, namely, the future-in-the-past and the future-contin.-in-the-past. These forms are used chiefly in the subordinate clauses depending on the main clause having its predicate verb in one of the past tenses: ex. It meant for him that even death wouldn’t part them.

The time of the action can be expressed lexically with the help of such wds and combinations as yesterday, next week, a year ago, at half past seven, on the fifth of May, in 1980, etc. All grammarians believe that the English lang. has the present tense (it denotes actions taken place at the moment of speaking. It may denote very prolong & timeless actions: ex. I hear a noise. I’m writing a lecture. The Earth moves round the Sun.; it may be used for past actions- historical or dramatic present- ex. Yesterday I entered the room and who do you think I see? It can express future actions (planned): ex. The train leaves at 5 tomorrow.; in complex sent-s the present tense is bound or structurally dependent: a) adv. clauses of time, condition, concession… when, if, whenever; b) certain types of object clauses after the expressions to see to smth, to take care, to make sure: ex. I’ll make sure he comes on time.) The mean-g of the past tense (by Barhudarov): “it denotes an action, which is prior to the moment of speaking & that is not correlated with the moment of speaking. Non-past tense denotes actions which are outside the past tense sphere. The present & past tense forms create an opposition: take- took- is/was taking. Within this opposition the past tense form is the marker member. It’s marked by the suffixes in reg. verbs & in speech the suffix is represented by a number of allomorphs [t, d, id]. In irregular verbs it’s represented by dif. morphologically conditioned allomorphs – sing/sang.” The future tense (pr. Smirnitskiy, Ilyish) this tense form is analytical. It’s made up by the auxiliary verb shall/will & the inf. Which is the lex. part. Many grammarians even now believe that English has 2 tenses only- the present & the past (Jesperson, Shtelling, Barhudarov), and shall/will+ inf. Should be treated as a modal combination. However it doesn’t mean that the future actions can’t be expressed at all (it can be expressed by a number of other lex., gram. & contextual means).

6The category of voice

The category of voice (which is found both with finite and non-finite forms) is one of the most formal grammatical categories, because this category doesn’t refer to any fragment of reality, doesn’t reflect any fragment of reality – it’s a way of describing a certain fragment of reality. The category of voice deals with the participants of a happening (doer, action, object) and how they are represented in the sentence (subject, predicate, object). The Active Voice shows that the grammatical subject of the sentence or the subjectival is the doer of the action, denoted by the verb, the Passive Voice shows that the subject or the subjectival is an object of the action. The frequency of occurrence of the English Passive Voice is very great, greater than in Russian. One of the reasons is that the number of verbs capable of forming the Passive Voice is greater in English than in Russian. In many languages: PV – transitive verbs, in English: PV – any object verb. In some cases the lex. character of the verb the subj. of the active construction can’t be regarded as the doer of the action. These cases are: ex. He lost his father in the war.; he broke his leg. Disagreement btw the gram. form of the verb and the lex. mean-g of the verb. Due to the lex. mean-g of the V the semantics of the construction becomes passive. In fact the subj. is not the doer, but the sufferer. Some grammarians treat these constructions as active due to the gram. form.

Opposition: active – passive. Passive – marked -> pattern “be + II participle”, active –unmarked

Forms of Fut.Cont, Present Perf.Cont, Past Perf.Cont, Future Perf.Cont – no parallel forms in passive.

Any other voices??? -> doubts and controversy

- the reflexive voice (eq.He dressed himself) – the agent and the object of the action simultaneously ;

- the reciprocal voice (They greeted each other) – not 1 person; action aimed at the other member of the same group;

- the middle voice (The door opened) – the form of the v is act, but the meaning is passive.

The active voice has a number of mean-gs: active, passive, middle, reflective, reciprocal.

Pr. Ilyish “ Eng. Has several voices. The classif-n is based on mean-g only.

Pr. Barhudarov calls the active voice non-passive.

The idea of the Passive voice is expressed not only by means of “to be + P2”, but by means of “get”, “come”, “go” + P2 and “get” + passive infinitive (ingressive meaning - He got involved; He got to be respected).

The existence of various means of expressing voice distinctions makes it possible to consider voice as a functional-semantic category with the grammatical category of voice as its center and other means of expressing voice as a periphery.

The category of ASPECT in modern English

Aspect – a gram.category which characterizes the way in which the action expressed by the verb is carries out.

In Russian – 2 aspects: imperfective (несов.), perfective (сов.)

Imperfective expresses an action or a state without indicating a limit beyond which this act/state can not continue - eq. я читал; Perfective denotes actions that have a limit beyond which this action can’t continue: eq. я прочитал книгу. In Russian aspect is a gram.cat. As each aspect has a certain meaning and form to express this meaning. There are certain markers of each aspect – eq. делать-сделать.

As the Eng.language grammarians of the past didn’t find aspective distinction of the v., instead they spoke about 4 groups of tenses: indefinite, continuous, perfect, perfect-continuous

The majority of grammarians believe the Eng.verb has aspect. They admit that this gram.category may be expressed:

• lexically aspect is expressed by the lex.character of the v. The verb falls into 2 groups:

1. terminative: apply a limit beyond which the action can’t continue (to break, to open);

2. non-terminative: the action may go on indefinitely (to love, to sit).

Most English verbs are polysemantic and may be terminative in one meaning and non-terminative in another. It’s never shown formally. There is no marker of belonging to this aspect. The meaning is clear from the context.

• grammatically an opposition of corresponding forms (take – be taken)

1. common – the form of the common aspect isn’t marked;

2. continuous – is marked by the discont.morpheme be + ing .

The terms used to describe aspect are not stable (progressive - perfective; generic – temporally)

The difference bw the aspect forms isn’t temporal. The tense is the same with both forms.

The cont.aspect has a specific meaning – it’s used for incomplete actions that are in progress at the moment under consideration or at a certain period: eq He was studying at 5 o’clock.

The common aspect shows the action in a general way, may denote a complete/incomplete action but the form doesn’t state it.

Prof.Barhudarov: common aspect = non-continuous.

Common aspect may denote:

1)a momentary action (eq she dropped the plate)

2)a recurrent/repeated action (eq.I get up at 7 o’clock every day)

3)an action occupying a long period of time (eq.he lived in St.-Pb from 1940 to 1965)

4)an action of unlimited duration (eq.The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea)

8THE CATEGORY OF MOOD

The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions and has been treated in so many ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less acceptable conclusion. The only points in the sphere of mood which haven’t been disputed are the following: 1) there is a category of mood in Modern English ( Mood- is the grammatical category of the verb, which expresses the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker’s point of view); 2) there are at least 2 moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the indicative. (The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it’s the most developed system including all the categories of the verb. Semantically it’s a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It’s the most objective of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact: Ex. Water consists of oxygen.)

2 groups of Moods (generally):

• the real or fact Moods

• the unreal, non-fact, oblique Moods.

The Indicative Mood is the only real mood in the English language. It represents an action as a real fact. The forms of the Ind. Mood are the tense-aspect forms of the verb.

There are 2 non-fact Moods in English: the Imperative Mood (represents an action as a command, urging, request. It’s a direct expression of one’s will. It’s much more ‘subjective’ than the ind. Mood. It’s modal mean-g is very strong &distinct: ex. Someone make an offer and quick!) and the Subjunctive Mood (it represents an action as a non-fact, as smth imaginary, desirable, problematic, contrary to reality: ex. I wish he were here now.)The hypothetic desirable in the form of advice, request, recommendation, order and so on. There is another point of view on the imperative Mood: (we don’t mark the action as real or unreal!) – Stelling (Штелинг) considers the Imperative form Mood the grammatical idiom.

The Subjunctive Mood represents an action as unreal: 2 degrees of reality: not quite real (Present, Future), quite unreal (for the Past).

Some linguists think that the past indefinite and the Past Perfect used to denote an unreal action are not mood forms at all, but tense forms.

The classification system of moods presented by A.I.Smirnitsky. It appears to be the most consistent because it is meaning-oriented and it also takes into consideration the difference between an analytical form and a free syntactic combination. His system of moods includes six moods: the Indicative, the Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, the Conditional Mood and the Suppositional mood.

9Noun The Categories of Gender and Number.

General characteristics.

The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic, morphological and syntactical.

Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:

1)According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;

2)According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.

3)According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and 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; compound and composite.

Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used un the sentence in all syntactic functions but predicate.

The category of number

The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form.

The singular form may denote:

oneness (individual separate object – a cat);

generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic animal);

indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness - money, milk).

The plural form may denote:

the existence of several objects (cats);

the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum, jeans).

To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:

1).The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed : cat::cats;

2)The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are two groups here:

A.Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;

B.Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.

3.The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.

10. The category of case.

Case expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s coat). 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” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following :

1.Possessive Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a father,

2.Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,

3.Objective Genitive : The man’s release – The man was released,

4.Adverbial Genitive : Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,

5.Equation Genitive : a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,

6.Genitive of destination: children’s books – books for children,

7.Mixed Group: yesterday’s paper

There is no universal point of view as to the case system in English. Different scholars stick to a different number of cases.

1.There are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;

2.There are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;

3.There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of objective pronouns me, him, whom;

Case Grammar.

Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of the sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to different relations to nouns. There are 6 cases:

1.Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;

2.Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the door;

3.Dative Case (D) John believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected by the state of action identified by the verb);

4.Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged ( the result of the action or state identified by the verb);

5.Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;

6.Objective case (O) John stole the book.

11 Iinterjection In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker (although most interjections have clear definitions). Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections. Interjections are typically placed at the beginning of a sentence.

An interjection is sometimes expressed as a single word or non-sentence phrase, followed by a punctuation mark. The isolated usage of an interjection does not represent a complete sentence in conventional English writing. Thus, in formal writing, the interjection will be incorporated into a larger sentence clause. It also can be a reply to a question or statement.

Examples in English

Conventions like Hi, Bye and Goodbye are interjections, as are exclamations like Cheers! and Hooray!. In fact, like a noun or a pronoun, they are very often characterized by exclamation marks depending on the stress of the attitude or the force of the emotion they are expressing. Well (a short form of "that is well") can also be used as an interjection: "Well! That's great!" or "Well, don't worry." Much profanity takes the form of interjections. Some linguists consider the pro-sentences yes, no, amen and okay as interjections, since they have no syntactical connection with other words and rather work as sentences themselves. Expressions such as "Excuse me!", "Sorry!", "No thank you!", "Oh dear!", "Hey that's mine!", and similar ones often serve as interjections. Interjections can be phrases or even sentences, as well as words, such as "Oh!" or "Wowee!".

12Modal verbs. Should, would, shall, will, dare, need (c) elena s. Petrova

SHOULD; OUGHT TO

Meaning:

a) deductions

b) advisability; weaker obligation

WILL/WOULD

Expresses:

1) Determination

I will do it now (also linked with the sudden decisions).

1. Request (in interrogative structures)

Will you please open the window?

If-clauses: if you will (would) sit down for a minute, I’ll show you the catalogue (Будьте добры, пересядьте, пожалуйста…)

2. Regularly repeated actions

We would get up early and go fishing.

3. Universal truths

Boys will be boys.

4. Inanimal subjects

The car won’t start.

5. Assumption

The phone is ringing. This will be your brother.

SHALL

1) Promise, threat or warning

You shall suffer for this.

2) Commitment

(Formal documents)

The supplier shall be rElena S. Petrovaonsible for the safe delivery…

3) Obligation (very formal)

Each student shall take 5 elected courses.

DARE

a) used as an ordinary verb:

She didn't dare to tell him what had happened. He's a man who dares to say what he thinks.

b) used as a modal verb:

How dare you! Take your hands off me at once!

c) idiomatic uses:

1) I dare say / daresay you are ready for a meal.

2) Mummy! Can I draw a picture on the wall? - You dare! [BrEJ; Don't vou dare!

3) I dare you to run across the road with your eyes shut. (Children use this expression to challenge each other to do frightening things).

NEED

Usage:

You needn't pay for that phone-call. = You don't need to pay for that phone call [with

reference to a particular occasion].

You don't need to pay for emergency calls in most countries [with reference to habitual,

general necessity]

We didn't need to reserve seats [= we DIDN'T reserve seats because it was unnecessary] We needn't have reserved seats [= we DID reserve seats, but it was quite unnecessary]

13 THE ARTICLEThe article with one of the most difficult and intricate problems of language structure. Although a great number of philologists have treated the article both in English and in other languages, it will be only fair to say that even the most essential points concerning the theory of the articles still remain doubtful.

In embarking now on a study of the Modern English article, we should first of all eliminate those problems which are of no real scientific interest, though they have been occasionally discussed. Thus, we will not dwell on the problem whether the article is a separate part of speech, since neither an affirmative nor a negative answer would in any way affect the really relevant questions concerning the article. We have not included the article in our list of parts of speech; but this should not be taken to mean that it cannot be included in that list. The problem is irrelevant.

Another problem, which, though not irrelevant, appears to have been frequently misstated, is this: is the article a word or a morpheme? It has been solved in different ways by different authors. There would always be some argument in favour of the article being a separate word, and some argument to show that it was a morpheme. ¹ This kind of approach, however, does not seem to be the right one. It would mean that we start examining the article, a very peculiar phenomenon, with ready-made notions of what a word and what a morpheme is. Instead we should first study the article as it actually exists and functions in the language, and only then see whether it will fit into any ready-made category. It may well happen that it will not; then we shall have to face the situation and take it for what it is worth.

With respect to the article we must state, in the first place, that there are languages which have no article. Besides Russian and most other Slavonic languages, the Latin language belongs here. Ancient Greek had only one article — the definite one. Many languages (Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, etc.) have two articles — the definite and the indefinite. As far as its form is concerned, the article is usually a separate unit which may be divided from its noun by other words, chiefly adjectives. However, in certain languages the article may also be a morpheme attached to the noun as a kind of suffix.

14PrepositionPrepositions (or more generally, adpositions, see below) are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations (such as the English words in, under, toward) or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles (such as the English words of, for).[1] In that the primary function is relational, a preposition typically combines with another constituent (called its complement) to form a prepositional phrase, relating the complement to the context in which the phrase occurs.The word preposition comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is usually placed before its complement. (Thus it is pre-positioned.)

It is sometimes said ¹ that prepositions express the relations between words in a sentence, and this is taken as a definition of the meaning of prepositions. If true, this would imply that they do not denote any relations existing outside the language. However, this is certainly not true, and two or three simple examples will show it. If we compare the two sentences: The book is lying on the table, and The book is lying under the table, and ask ourselves, what do the prepositions express here, it will at once be obvious that they express relations (in space) between the book (the thing itself) and the table (the thing itself). The next point is, the syntactical functions of prepositions. Here we must distinguish between two levels of language: that of phrases and that of the sentence and its parts. As far as phrases are concerned, the function of prepositions is to connect words with each other. ¹ On this level there are patterns like "noun + preposition + noun", "adjective + preposition + noun", "verb + preposition + noun", etc., which may be exemplified by numerous phrases, such as a letter from my friend, a novel by Galsworthy, fond of children, true to life, listen to music, wait for an answer, etc.

On the sentence level: a preposition is never a part of a sentence by itself; it enters the part of sentence whose main centre is the following noun, or pronoun, or gerund.

15THE essence of the PERFECT FORMS

The Modern English perfect forms have been the subject of a lengthy discussion which has not so far brought about a definite result. The difficulties inherent in these forms are plain enough and may best be illustrated by the present perfect. This form contains the present of the verb have and is called present perfect, yet it denotes an action which no longer takes place, and it is (almost always) translated into Russian by the past tense, e. g. has written — написал, has arrived — приехал, etc.

The position of the perfect forms in the system of the English verb is a problem which has been treated in many different ways and has occasioned much controversy. Among the various views on the essence of the perfect forms in Modern English the following three main trends should be mentioned:

1. The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category, i. e. a category which should be classed in the same list as the categories "present" and "past". This view was held, for example, by O. Jespersen. ¹

2. The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category, i. e. one which should be given a place in the list comprising "common aspect" and "continuous aspect". This view was held by a number of scholars, including Prof. G. Vorontsova.² Those who hold this view have expressed different opinions about the particular aspect constituting the essence of the perfect forms. It has been variously defined as "retrospective", "resultative", "successive", etc.³

3. The category of perfect is neither one of tense, nor one of aspect but a specific category different from both. It should accordingly be designated by a special term and its relations to the categories of aspect and tense should be investigated. This view was expressed by Prof. A. Smirnitsky. He took the perfect to be a means of expressing the category of "time relation" (временная отнесенность).⁴

The essence of the grammatical category expressed by the perfect, and differing both from tense and from aspect, is hard to define and to find a name for. Prof. Smirnitsky proposed to call it "the category of time relation", which is not a very happy term, because it seems to bring us back to the old view that the perfect is a special kind of tense — a view which Prof. Smirnitsky quite rightly combated. Later it was proposed to replace his term of "time relation" by that of "correlation" (соотнесенность), which has the advantage of eliminating the undesirable term "time". This is decidedly the term to be preferred.

the definition of the meaning of the category presents considerable difficulty. Its essence appears to be precedence: an action expressed by a perfect form precedes some moment in time. We cannot say that it always precedes another action: the present perfect form is most commonly used in sentences which contain no mention of any other action

16 THE PRONOUN

More than Once in the history of linguistics the very existence of pronouns as a part of speech has been denied. ¹ However, attempts of this kind have not proved successful and in present-day grammars, both English and Russian, pronouns are recognised as a part of speech. This in itself seems to prove that they indeed have some peculiar features which cannot be "explained away".

Thus, the pronouns I, you, he, etc., though pointing to things (in the widest sense of the word) and in so far resembling nouns, cannot as a rule be modified by adjectives. (Phrases like poor me appear to be rare.) These pronouns differ from nouns in that they cannot be connected with any article, or modified by a prepositional phrase, etc. We will therefore start on the assumption that pronouns do constitute a separate part of speech, and proceed to investigate their grammatical properties.

We usually find in grammars a classification of pronouns into personal, possessive, interrogative, indefinite, relative, etc. It is clear, however, that some points in that classification are not grammatical at all. Thus, if we say, for example, that a pronoun is indefinite we do not characterise it from a grammatical but from a semantic point of view. There is no doubt that the pronoun something is indefinite in its meaning, but that indefiniteness of meaning is in no way reflected either in its morphological properties or in its syntactical functions. This is as much as to say that the indefiniteness of its meaning is irrelevant from the grammatical viewpoint. In a similar way, if we state that the pronoun nothing is negative, we characterise its meaning (and a most important characteristic it is, too), but, again, this is irrelevant for grammar, since it does not entail anything concerning the morphological or syntactical peculiarities of the word. Therefore, in proceeding to a study of pronouns, we will try to keep the grammatical viewpoint firmly in mind, though this will not always be an easy thing to do.

17 The Stative. Problem of Stative.

The Stative is built by the prefix and the root of a word. They are: awake, applause, ablaze (пылать – в прямом смысле, зд. быть взволнованным), afraid. The problem of the stative is controversial. The stative is not universally recognized as a separate part of speech. Traditionally it was classed together with adjectives, because stative has something in common with adjectives (points to some quantity, can be modified by an adverb, ex.: fast asleep). It differs from the adjective (has no degrees of comparison), it has only one function in the sentence - that of predicative (Ex.: The child is asleep). It cannot be used as an attribute.

Ильиш uses the 3 criteria principle in his analysis of the Stative and concluded that it is a separate part of speech.

It differs from the adjective from the point of view of meaning, function and form:

1.Meaning. It's meaning is that of the passing state a person or a thing happens to be in (not that of a quality).

2.Its form is unchangeable. Usually the Stative follows a link verb and occasionally a noun (Ex.: man alive). It can follow an adverb ( Ex.: fast asleep).

3. Its function is that of the predicative.

Blokh:Among the words signifying properties of a nounal referent there is a leximic set which claims to be recognied as a separate part of speech, a class of words different form the adjectives in its class-forming features. These are words built up by the prefix a- and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid, agog, adrift, ablaze. These are treated as predicative adjectives in traditional grammar.

Scherba and Vinogradov were the first to identify notional words signifying states and specially used as predicatives. They called the newly identified part of speech the “category of state“ (Russian words: тепло, зябко, одиноко, радостно, жаль, лень).

The term “words of the category of state” being rather cumbersome form the technical point of view was later changed into “stative words” or “statives”.

The part-of-speech interpretation of the statives is not shared by all linguists.