- •1. Parts of speech: its classification.
- •2. The noun (or substantive).
- •1. Definition and origin
- •2. Number and meaning of articles
- •3. Functions
- •1. The definition and morphological composition
- •2. Classification of adjectives according to their meaning
- •3. Grammatical categories
- •4. Order of the adjectives
- •6. Function in the sentence
- •7. Substantivized adjectives
- •2. Regular and irregular verbs
- •3. Semantic classifications of the verb
- •4. Grammatical categories
- •1. Definition and function
- •2. Classification of adverbs
- •3. Morphological category
- •4. Verbs and adverb groups
- •Definition
- •2. Morphological composition and categorical characteristics
- •1. Phrase and clause
- •2. Types of phrases
- •1. Sentence: clauses: utterances
- •2. Definition of a sentence
- •It as the subject of the sentence.
- •The secondary parts of the sentence The object
- •The attribute
- •Semantic classes of adverbial modifiers:
- •1. Direct word order
- •2. Inverted word order
- •1. The compound sentence
- •2. The complex sentence
1. Definition and origin
The article is a structural part of speech used with nouns [Каушанская, 2006, с. 25].
The article is a form word that serves as a noun determiner. It is one of the main means of conveying the idea of definiteness and indefiniteness [Кобрина, 1999, с. 147].
M.Y.Blokh defines the article as: Article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the noun in communicative collocation [Blokh, 2000, p. 36].
Historically, they were included in adjectives, pronouns. The indefinite article a (an) has developed from the Old English numeral an (one), and as a result of its origin it is used only with nouns in the singular. The definite article has developed from the OE demonstrative pronoun se and in some cases it has preserved this demonstrative meaning in NE.
2. Number and meaning of articles
It has been a long debated question how many articles there are in English. Obviously there are only two material articles, the definite article the, and the indefinite article a (an): the language and a language. However, the noun language is also used without any articles: Language is a means of communication.
There are 3 variants of articles in English [Ilish, 1965, p. 53]:
the definite article the;
the indefinite article a (an);
zero article.
The definite article expresses the identification or individualization of the referent of the noun: the use of this article shows that the object denoted is taken in its concrete, individual quality.
The indefinite article is commonly interpreted as referring the object denoted by the noun to a certain class of similar objects.
The theory of “zero article” is closely connected with “zero morpheme”. It shows that the nouns are used in a general sense.
3. Functions
1. Morphological, it is used to determine a noun.
2. Syntactical, it consists of the determining the left border of the word combination: the leaves – the green leaves.
3. Semantic, it is the expression of the theme-rheme. The starting point of the communication is called its “theme” (the subject of a talk), while the central informative part is called its “rheme” (what is said about it).
Passing to the situational assessment of the article uses, we must point out that the basic principle of their differentiation here is disclosing the informational characteristics that the article conveys to its noun in concrete contextual conditions.
The definite article serves as an indicator of the type of nounal information which is presented as the "facts already known", i.e. as the starting point of the communication.
The indefinite article or the meaningful absence of the article introduces the central communicative nounal part of the sentence, i.e. the part rendering the immediate informative data to be conveyed from the speaker to the listener.
The typical syntactic position of the noun modified by the definite article is the "thematic" subject, while the typical syntactic position of the noun modified by the indefinite article or by the meaningful absence of the article is the "rhematic" predicative. Cf.:
The day (subject) was drawing to a close, the busy noises of the city (subject) were dying down. How to handle the situation was a big question (predicative). The sky was pure gold (predicative) above the setting sun.
Lecture 4. The adjective