5. New approach to pronouns

According to Shredova and Belousova, pronouns form the basis of the main notional categories in the language. The authors describe in detail 7 notional categories:

1) Who – animate being

2) What kind – property

3) Whose – possession

4) How many – number

5) Where – place where to, where from – direction

6) Which – choice

7) When – time

All the notional categories draw a distinction between three degrees of definiteness, indefiniteness, non-existence.

Lexicon, morphology, syntax, text structures and phraseology take part in the formation of notion categories. But each notional category has the pronoun as head word.

Who – animate being

Definiteness – I, you, he, she.

Indefiniteness – somebody, someone.

Non-existence – nobody, no one.

Whose – possession

Definiteness – my, your, his, her

Indefiniteness – somebody’s, someone’s

Non-existence – nobody’s, no one’s

In other words, pronouns are indispensable in building up the notional categories of all languages.

18.04.13

Preposition

The preposition is a word which has a very general meaning. It denotes the relations between the given object and other objects, phenomena or events. According to their meaning, prepositions are often divided into those of place and direction (on, in, below, under, at, to, from), and time (after, before, in, at), and cause (because of, owing to), and purpose (for, in order to), etc.

It will be necessary to mention that such classifications are hardly addictive, at least for two reasons:

1) The same preposition may be listed under two or more headings,

E.g. He went there for life (of time).

She shivered for coldness (of cause).

He did it for pleasure (of purpose).

2) Many prepositions (by, with, of, etc.) have such a general meaning which it will be impossible to define with any precision.

Morphological characteristics

Prepositions have one unchangeable form, they have no grammatical categories. In accordance with their structure, prepositions may be subdivided into simple and compound. Simple prepositions consist of one element (stem) (in, on, at, after, before). Compound prepositions consist of two or more elements, or stems (instead of, out of, owing to, etc.).

Syntactical characteristics

Prepositions generally form phrases with nouns or pronouns as the head of the phrase,

E.g. He went there for life.

He bought that for them.

Prepositions can also form part of an infinitive or gerundive phrase,

E.g. After living there for several years, he began to like the place very much.

Prepositions have no independent function in the sentence. They are found there as part of a phrase, the phrase functioning as a prepositional object, an adverbial modifier or sometimes as an attribute,

E.g. He went to Peter (object).

He went to Peter's place (adverbial modifier).

He was a man of great talent and ability (attribute).

Prepositions can't have an independent communicative function. They are generally used in the utterance to indicate the following relations:

1) Relations between two objects,

E.g. The cover of the book was very beautiful.

2) Between objects and an action,

E.g. He was invited by Peter.

He wrote with a pen.

3) Relations between the action and its circumstances,

E.g. He went to London in the morning.

4) Relations between an object and its quality,

E.g. He was a man of talent.