- •Main Morphological Notions of Theoretical Grammar
- •1. General notions
- •2. General principles of grammatical analysis
- •3. Morphology and syntax as 2 parts of linguistic description
- •4. The notions of grammatical meaning
- •5. Types of grammar
- •The Structure of Morphemes
- •1. The definition of a morpheme
- •2. Word-form derivation
- •3. The notion of oppositions
- •Parts of Speech
- •1. Classification of word classes
- •The Noun
- •1. The noun (general characteristic)
- •2. Grammatical category of number
- •3. Grammatical category of case
- •4. Grammatical category of gender
- •Determiners
- •1. The definition of the article
- •2. Functions of articles
- •3. The category of determinedness and indeterminedness
- •Adjectives
- •1. The definition of the adjective
- •2. Classes of adjectives
- •3. The degrees of comparison
- •Irregular forms of comparison
- •4. Substantivization of adjectives
- •5. Adjectivization of nouns
- •6. The problem of statives
- •1. The verb. Problems of classification
- •The Verb. The Category of Aspect and Tense
- •The Verb. The Category of Phase (order, correlation)
- •The Verb. The Category of Voice
- •1. The definition of the voice
- •The Verb. The Category of Mood
- •The Verbals
- •Pronoun
- •1. Semantic characteristics of pronouns
- •2. Morphological characteristics of pronouns
- •3. Syntactic characteristics of pronouns
- •5. New approach to pronouns
- •Preposition
- •The Conjunctions. Semantics of Conjunctions
- •Numerals
- •Syntaxes
The Verbals
The verbals (infinitive, gerund and participle) make up a part of the English verbal system. They have some features in common with the finite forms of the verb, but they have some peculiarities of their own. They have a system of verbal categories, but they have only some of them and lack some others. None of the verbals has any category of person, or mood, or number.
With reference to aspect, we shall have to examine each of the verbals separately.
In the infinitive there is an opposition between two sets of forms,
E.g. speak - be speaking, have spoken - have been spoken
This opposition can be found in the sphere of finite forms between 'speak - am speaking', 'spoke - was speaking'. The infinitive has the category of aspect or, to be more exact, there is a distinction between the common and the continuous aspect,
E.g. He seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot.
With the gerund and participle, things are different. They exhibit no such distinction. Occasionally, however, a continuous participle may be found,
E.g. The younger miss Thorpes was being also dancing.
The category of tense and correlation
In the infinitive we find the following oppositions 'speak - have spoken', 'be speaking - have been speaking'. And in the gerund and in the participle we find oppositions 'speaking - having spoken', 'being spoken - having been spoken'. We can see that in each pair one item is unmarked both in meaning and in form, whereas the other (the perfect) is marked both in meaning (expressing precedence) and in form (consisting of the pattern 'have + participle 2).
The category of correlation (phase) is much more universal in the Modern English verb than that of tense. Correlation appears in all forms of the English verb both finite and non-finite, except the imperative, while tense is only found in the indicative mood and nowhere else. Since the verbals are hardly ever the predicate of a sentence, they do not express the category of tense in the way the finite verb forms do. Thus, it seems pointless to argue that there is a present and a past tense in the system of verbals. We can endorse the view that the opposition between 'speak - have spoken', 'speaking - having spoken' is based on the category of phase (correlation).
Voice
Like the finite forms of the verb, the verbals have a distinction between active and passive, as will be seen from the following oppositions 'read - be read', 'have read - have been read, 'reading - being read', 'having read - having been read'. If we deny the existence of reflexive, reciprocal and middle voices in the finite forms, we must also deny the existence of these voices in the verbals.
All the verbals have the categories of phase and voice, the infinitive, in addition, has the category of aspect, and none of the verbals has the categories of tense, mood, person and number.
The second participle presents many peculiar difficulties for analysis, while analyzing we are to emphasize that we are analyzing the meaning and the use of participle 2, when it does not make of an analytical verb form, because in analytical verb forms it loses some of its own characteristics. We also exclude the cases where it has been adjectivized (changed into adjectives) and no longer a participle,
E.g. written work, devoted friend ('devoted' does not designate an action, but a property).
The use of participle 2 outside the analytical formations is comparatively limited. We find it either as a predicative in such cases 'the door is shut', when it does not denote an action (compare 'the door is shut at 9 p.m. every day), but a state of things or as an objective predicative, or as an attribute following a noun,
E.g. This is a new machine invented by our engineers.
The grammatical categories of the second participle of transitive verbs are as follows: the only category which is expressed in it is that of voice (namely the passive voice), the other categories, namely aspect, tense, correlation, mood, person, number find no expression in it. As far as voice is concerned, the second participle of transitive verbs (invited) joins the other passive participles (being invited, having been invited) as against the active participles (inviting, having invited).
11.04.13