3. Morphological category
Some adverbs have degrees of comparison: fast – faster - fastest
4. Verbs and adverb groups
Special attention has been paid by many scholars to groups of the type come in, go out, set up, put down, etc., groups consisting of a verb and an adverb so closely united in meaning that the adverb does not indicate a property of the action or a circumstances under which the action takes place.
The function of these post-positional elements is either to impart an additional aspective meaning to the verb-base, or to introduce a lexical modification to its fundamental semantics. E.g:. to bring about - to cause to happen; to reverse; to bring up - to call attention to; to rear and educate; to bring through - to help overcome a difficulty or danger; to save (a sick person); to bring forward - to introduce for discussion; to carry to the next page (the sum of figures); to bring down - to kill or wound; to destroy; to lower (as prices, etc.),
These groups have been treated by different scholars in very different ways.
Prof. I. Anichkov thinks they are a special kind of adverbs which he calls “adverbial postpositions”.
Lecture 7. The pronoun
Definition
Pronouns are deictic words which point to objects, their properties and relations, their local or temporal reference, or placement without naming them. They constitute a limited class of words (that is a closed system) with numerous subclasses. They are generally differentiated into noun-pronouns (substituting nouns) and adjective-pronouns (substituting adjectives) [Кобрина, 1999, с. 170].
The pronoun is a part of speech which points out objects and their qualities without naming them [Каушанская, 2006, с. 53].
2. Morphological composition and categorical characteristics
Pronouns may be of different structure: simple, compound, and composite.
Simple pronouns comprise only one morpheme - the stem: I, you, he, we, etc.; this, that, some, who, all, one, etc.
Compound pronouns comprise more than one stem: myself, themselves, somebody, everybody, anything, nothing, etc.
Composite pronouns have the form of a phrase: each other, one another.
Some pronouns have the grammatical categories of person, gender, case and number. The categories of person and gender (in the 3rd person singular) exist only in personal and possessive pronouns.
Semantically all pronouns fall into the following subclasses:
I. Personal pronouns are noun-pronouns, indicating persons (I, you, he, we, they) or non-persons (it, they) from the point of view of their relations to the speaker. Thus I (me) indicates the speaker himself, we (us) indicates the speaker together with some other person or persons, you indicates the person or persons addressed, while he, she, they (him, her, them) indicate persons (or things) which are neither the speaker nor the persons addressed to by the speaker.
Personal pronouns have the category of person, number, case (nominative and objective), and gender, the latter is to be found in the 3rd person only: masculine and feminine is he - him, she - her; neuter case-forms it - it coincide.
The nominative case form is generally used as subject of the sentence, or predicative in the compound nominal predicate in sentences like: I, he, she, it, we, you, they:
It was I who did it. However, in colloquial style the form of the objective case is preferable, especially in sentences of the type: It is me.
The objective case form is used mainly as an object (with or without a preposition), occasionally as an attribute in prepositional phrases: me, him, her, it, us, you, them:
Give me your hand; Were you speaking about me?; The better half of me protested.
Historically, the form you is the plural form, the singular form being thou (the objective case thee). It is no longer used nowadays except in poetry and other literary texts, where it produces a particular stylistic effect: “So”, said the messenger, “Then thou are the spokesman.”
The pronouns he (him), she (her) usually refer to persons, he - to male, she - to female. However some other phenomena are often referred to as he or she in poetry and fiction. Those referred to as he are: sun, wind, fear, love; those referred to as she are: earth, moon, ship, boat, car, hope, justice, modesty and some others. Also countries, especially native countries, are referred to as she: England, France, Italy, the USA, etc.: I was born in Ireland. She is the best country for me.
The personal pronoun it refers to non-persons, that is, to animals, things and abstract notions, as in:
The room was large. Somebody had already cleaned it.
We had no mutual understanding, and I wanted it badly.
The dog was sitting by him. Several times it had turned and looked up at the boy.
However when speaking of pet animals, especially cats and dogs, it is usual to refer to them as he or she depending on whether they are male or female, as in:
He is a very nice dog. He is my friend. He knows how I feel.
Possessive pronouns have the same distinctions of person, number, and gender as personal pronouns.
II. Possessive pronouns indicate possession by persons (my, mine, your, yours, their, theirs) or non-persons (its, their, theirs). They comprise two sets of forms:
- the conjoint forms - my, your, his, her, our, their, which always combine with nouns and premodify them as attributes;
- the absolute forms - mine, yours, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs, which do not combine with nouns, but function as their substitutes. Thus, they may be adjective-pronouns when used as conjoint forms and noun-pronouns when used as absolute forms:
My friends are waiting for me.
I liked this house and its wonderful garden.
Where are the dogs? — Mine is under the table.
The coat isn't mine, it’s yours.
Hers was a wonderful room.
A peculiarity of the English language is that possessive pronouns, not the article, are used with reference to parts of the body, personal belongings, relatives, etc.
I raised my eyebrows.
He rose up and put his hands in his small pockets.
Where are you going to spend your leave?
I can’t see my way ahead.
III. Reflexive pronouns indicate identity between the person or non-person they denote and that denoted by the subject of the sentence. They are: myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves, structurally derived either from the possessive pronouns (myself, yourself, ourselves, yourselves), or from personal pronouns (himself, herself, itself, themselves); the pronoun oneself is derived from the indefinite pronoun one:
Oh, I can do it myself. He felt himself grow hot to the roots of his hair.
They have the categories of person, number and gender in the 3rd person singular.
IV. Reciprocal pronouns indicate a mutual relationship between two or more than two persons, or occasionally non-persons (each other, one another) who are at the same time the doer and the object of the same action. Thus They loved each other means that the doer A loved the object В and at the same time the doer В loved the object A.
The pronoun each other generally implies that only two persons are involved, one another usually being preferred when more than two persons are involved.
Both of them are composite words and have only one grammatical category - the category of case (each other’s, one another’s).
Reciprocal pronouns in their common case form function as objects:
Now they hate each other. They often quarrelled with one another.
The possessive case forms are used as attributes:
They stood silent, in each other’s arms.
V. Demonstrative pronouns point to persons or non-persons or their properties: this (these), that (those), such.* The first two of them have the category of number. This (these) and that (those) function both as noun-pronouns and adjective-pronouns; such functions only as adjective-pronoun:
That is very kind of you. |
(noun-pronouns) |
|
This house is too large just for one person. She is such a silly little tiring. |
(adjective-pronouns) |
|
This
is my brother Rob.
VI. Indefinite pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or else their properties in a general way without defining the class of objects they belong to, class or properties they possess. They are: some, any, somebody, anybody, someone, anyone, something, anything, one.
Some and any are both noun-pronouns and adjective-pronouns; their compounds in -body, -one, or -thing, as well as the pronoun one, are only noun-pronouns.
Some, any, something, anything have no grammatical categories, somebody, anybody, someone, anyone, and one have the category of case (somebody’s, anybody’s, someone’s, anyone’s, one’s).
VII. Negative pronouns as the term implies render the general meaning of the sentence negative. They are: no, none, nothing, nobody, no one, neither. No is used only as an adjective-pronoun, none, nothing, nobody, no one as noun-pronouns, neither may be used as both adjective-pronoun and noun-pronoun.
Unlike Russian, in sentences with negative pronouns no other negative words can be used:
Я ему ничего не сказал. - 1 told him nothing.
Only two negative pronouns have the category of case: nobody – nobody’s, no one - no one’s. The other pronouns of this subclass have no grammatical categories.
No and none refer to all nouns denoting both persons and things, nothing refers to things, whereas nobody and no one refer to persons only. Nobody means to offend you. The pronoun neither refers to two persons or things and therefore correlates only with count nouns. It has a disjunctive force (ни тот, ни другой).
No trees could be seen. I will give you no trouble.
No means not ... a when premodifying count nouns are in the singular.
I have no pen. = I haven’t a pen with me. (ни одной ручки)
None refers to many people, therefore it agrees with the predicate verb in the plural.
None were present at the meeting.
I remember none of the stories.
Nothing happened. I could see nothing there.
Nobody answered. (Not anybody) No one stirred. (Not anyone)
Neither came back. Neither book interested me.
When neither is used as subject, the predicate verb is in the singular:
Neither was present.
Nobody and no one cannot be postmodified by an of-phrase. Only none can be used in this case.
None of my relatives came to our wedding.
VIII. Interrogative pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or their properties as unknown to the speaker and requiring to be named in the answer. Accordingly they are used to form special (or pronominal) questions. This subclass of pronouns comprises who, whose, what, which, whoever, whatever, whichever. Of these only the pronoun who has the category of case — the objective case is whom. However there is a strong tendency in colloquial English to use who instead of whom, especially with prepositions: Who did you get it from?
Who, whose, whoever have personal reference, what, whatever have non-personal reference, and which may have both personal and non-personal reference.
The pronouns what may be both a noun-pronoun (что?) and an adjective-pronoun (каков? какой?). It has mostly a non-personal reference, as in: What has happened? What book are you reading?
Which is both a noun-pronoun and an adjective-pronoun. It may have either personal or non-personal reference: Which of these men is your husband? Which colour do you prefer?
Which always implies a choice among a certain limited group of persons or things, corresponding to the Russian который, какой из: Which books would you like to buy?
IX. Conjunctive pronouns (whom, whose, what, which, whoever, whatever, whichever) refer to persons and non-persons. They are used to connect subject, predicative, and some adverbial clauses, or rather to indicate the subordinate status of these clauses, as the sentence may begin with the clause they introduce.
Who did it will repent. (who opens the subject clause)
I know who did it. (who opens the object clause)
They were what you call model girls. (what opens the predicative clause)
Whatever you may do you can’t save the situation. (whatever opens the adverbial concessive clause).
X. Relative pronouns refer to persons and non-persons and open attributive clauses which modify words denoting these persons or non-persons. They are who, whose, which, that. Who, like its homonyms, has the category of case (who-whom), the others have no categories: The man who stood at the gate was Jim. Then the man whose face I still could not see began singing.
XI. Defining pronouns are: all, each, every, everybody, everyone, everything, either, both, other, another.
Lecture 8
Syntax. Phrases