14. The Morphological Classification of Verbs in Old English.

Means of building the principal forms as the underlying principle of the classification.

Major groups: strong and weak verbs. Strong verbs their origin. Ablaut as the characteristic feature of strong verbs. 7 classes of strong verbs. Classes 1-5: the signs of classes and types of ablaut. Description of classes 6 and 7. Weak verbs as a Germanic innovation. The origin of the dental suffix. Classes of weak verbs, their stem-building suffixes. Irregular verbs of class 1. Class 2 as the only productive type. Minor groups of verbs: preterite-present verbs their origin and peculiarities; anomalous (suppletive and irregular verbs).

15. The Noun in Old English.

Grammatical categories of the OE noun: gender, number, case. Gender as a classifying (lexico-grammatical) category. Grammatical gender us “real” gender in the groups of animate and inanimate nouns. The system of cases in OE. The problem of the instrumental case. The expression of the category of number.

The system of noun declensions. The factors determining the type of declension. Strong and weak declensions. Productive/inducing and unproductive/noninducing stems. The characteristic features of the productive stems (-a-, -ō-, -n-). Peculiarities of -r-, -s-, root-stems. Homonymy of noun inflections as the sign of the decline of the system.

Stylistics

16. Stylistic Semaseology and Its Expressive Resources.

Analysis of semantics and use of semantic capacities of a word in stylistic purposes as a problem in Stylistics. The stylistic distinction of the content of a word in terms of denotation and connotation. Types of connotation distinguished: emotive, expressive, evaluative, stylistic, pragmatic, etc. Private and general emotive associations. Dictionary / contextual meaning. General rules and laws of shifts of meaning. Patterns of combination of meanings producing a certain stylistic effect.

17. The Classification of Functional Styles.

Functional perspective in Stylistics and the notion of functional style. General overview of functional style systems. Critical analysis of the criteria suggested for functional classification of styles by I.R.Galperin, Y.M.Skrebnev, I.V.Arnold and other Russian scholars. Sociolinguistic perspective of language variation.

18. Stylistic Stratification of the English Vocabulary System.

Construction of different yet interrelated classifications of the English vocabulary system based on the criteria of historical perspective, territorial restrictions and function (referential use in a particular communication area). The guiding role of confinement of words to various spheres of speech communication, which allows the distinction between stylistically neutral sphere of vocabulary and the two stylistically marked poles of stratification: literary and colloquial strata. Precise description of the above mentioned strata.

19. Norm and the Deviation from the Norm as a Stylistic Factor. Half-marked Structures and Their Expressive Resources.

Th distinction between the norm as an abstract idea and the norm realised in concrete texts. The notion of the literary norm. Admissible and inadmissible variations within the norm. Defeated expectancy principle. The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures. Half-marked structures as a variety of defeated expectancy.

Theoretical Phonetics