Foreword

The book is mainly written as a self-study book, but may also be used in class with a teacher. It revises some of the most difficult points of grammar that third-year students have already studied; it will also introduce them to many more features of English grammar appropriate to an advanced level of study.

The book consists of two parts: Morphology and Syntax. There are 15 large units in the book. Each one covers a particular area of grammar and contains some smaller units, helping to present the information in a systematized way. The book concentrates on the areas students need to pass the exams and gives thorough explanations of them. Special attention is given to those points which are often a problem for students: Noun, Articles, Adjective, Adverb, Oblique Moods, Subject-Predicate Agreement, Simple and Composite Sentences, Predicative Сomplexes.

The main aims of the book are as follows:

• to help the students improve their knowledge of English grammar so that they could use English at a near-native level of grammatical competence;

• to raise their awareness of how the English language works and to be able to speak on the use of grammar structures in English using appropriate examples;

• to raise the students’ awareness of the creative use of grammar;

• to ensure the students that they can communicate efficiently with a number of grammar patterns they learn;

• to develop the students’ ability to translate from Russian/Belarusian into English using appropriate grammar structures.

All the grammar rules are lavishly supplied with explanations and examples.

The book is supplied with the glossary (p. 122), where there are all the linguistic terms and their Russian equivalents.

Contents

MORPHOLOGY

THE NOUN 6

The Category of Number 8

The Category of Case 12

Types of the Genitive Case 13

THE ARTICLE 17

Functions of the Article 18

The Use of Articles with Abstract Nouns 21

The Use of Articles with Material Nouns 25

The Use of Articles with Predicative Nouns and Nouns in Apposition 27

The Use of Articles in Some Set Expressions 28

The Use of Articles with Some Semantic Groups of Nouns 31

Articles with Names of Seasons and Parts of the Day 31

Articles with Names of Meals 32

Articles with the Nouns school, college, prison, jail, church, hospital 33

Articles with Names of Parts of the Body 34

Articles with Names of Specific Periods 34

The Use of Articles with Proper Names 35

Names of Persons 35

Geographical Names 37

Calendar Items 38

Miscellaneous Proper Names 39

THE ADJECTIVE 41

Morphological Composition 41

Semantic Characteristics 42

The Position of Adjectives 43

Degrees of Comparison 44

Patterns of Comparison 45

Intensifiers of Adjectives 48

Substantivized Adjectives 49

Adjectives and Adverbs 51

OBLIQUE MOODS 54

Temporal Relations within the Oblique Moods 56

Subjunctive II 57

The Conditional Mood 60

The Suppositional Mood and Subjunctive I 62

THE SENTENCE 68

The Simple Sentence. Structural Types 69

Communicative Types of Sentences 70

THE SUBJECT 76

Ways of expressing the Subject 76

Structural Types of the Subject 77

“IT” and “THERE” as Subjects 79

THE PREDICATE 81

AGREEMENT OF THE PREDICATE WITH THE SUBJECT 86

Grammatical Agreement 86

Pronouns as Subjects 87

Agreement with Homogeneous Subjects 88

Notional Agreement 89

THE OBJECT 92

Types of Objects 92

Structure and Ways of Expressing 95

Predicative Constructions that Function as Objects 95

THE ATTRIBUTE 98

THE APPOSITION 101

THE ADVERBIAL MODIFIER 102

Structural Types of the Adverbial Modifier 103

Semantic Characteristics of the Adverbial Modifier 103

ABSOLUTE NOMINATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 105

THE COMPOSITE SENTENCE 108

The Compound Sentence 108

The Complex Sentence 111

Nominal Clauses 111

Attributive Clauses 113

Adverbial Clauses 115

WORD ORDER 118

Glossary of Linguistic Terms 121

List of Books 124

Who climbs the grammar tree distinctly knows

Where noun and verb and participle grows

Dryden