- •Grammatical structure of the english language
- •§ 1. Languages may be synthetic and analytical according to their grammatical structure.
- •§ 3. However, the structure of a language is never purely synthetic or purely analytical. Accordingly in the English language there are:
- •§ 4. Owing to the scarcity of synthetic forms the order of words, which is fixed in English, acquires extreme importance: The fisherman caught a fish.
- •§ 5. One of the marked features of the English language is the extensive use of substitutes. A word substitute saves the repetition of a word in certain conditions. Here belong one, that, do.
- •General classification of the parts of speech
- •§ 4. Morphological composition of nouns.
- •§ 3. The noun has certain syntactical characteristics.
- •§ 5. Classification of nouns.
- •§ 6. The category of number.
- •§ 7. The category of case.
- •§ 1. General notion.
- •§ 2. The use of the indefinite article with class nouns.
- •§ 5. With nouns of material used in a general sense, when a certain material as such is meant, no article is used.
- •§ 8. When abstract nouns are used in a general sense, no article is used.
- •§ 18. The use of the indefinite article with nouns in set expressions.
- •Use of articles with proper nouns
- •§ 12. Names of persons.
- •§ 13. Geographical names.
- •§ 14. Names of hotels, ships, newspapers and magazines.
- •§ 15. Names of cardinal points.
- •§ 16. Names of months and days.
- •§ 17. The use of articles with nouns modified by proper nouns.
- •§ 21. The use of articles with predicative nouns.
- •§ 22. The use of articles with nouns in apposition.
- •§ 23. Class nouns used in address take no article.
- •§ 24. Place of the article.
- •§ 25. Ways of expressing the meaning of the English articles in Russian.
- •Special difficulties in the use of articles
- •§ 26. The use of articles with the nouns day, night, morning, evening.
- •§ 27. The use of articles with names of seasons.
- •§ 28. The use of articles with the nouns school, college, bed, prison, jail.
- •§ 29. The use of articles with the noun town.
- •§ 30. The use of articles with the names of meals.
- •§ 31. The use of articles with names of languages.
- •Use of articles with nouns modified by certain adjectives, pronouns and numerals
- •§ 32. Most.
- •§ 33. Few, a few, the few; little, a little, the little.
- •§ 34. Two, the two; three, the three, etc.
- •§ 35. The second, a second.
- •§ 36. Another, the other.
- •§ 37. Last, the last.
- •§ 38. Next, the next.
- •§ 39. A number, the number.
- •§ 2. The adjective has the following morphological characteristics:
- •§ 3. Spelling rules.
- •§ 4. The adjective has the following syntactical characteristics: In a sentence the adjective may be used as an attribute or as a predicative.
- •§ 5. Morphological composition of the adjective.
- •§ 6. Classification of adjectives.
- •§ 7. Grammatical characteristics of qualitative adjectives.
- •§ 8. Grammatical characteristics of relative adjectives.
- •§ 9. Substantivized adjectives.
- •The pronoun
- •§ 2. Classification of pronouns.
- •§ 3. Personal pronouns.
- •§ 4. Possessive pronouns.
- •Conjoint forms of possessive pronouns
- •Absolute forms of possessive pronouns
- •§ 5. Reflexive pronouns.
- •§ 6. Reciprocal pronouns.
- •§ 7. Demonstrative pronouns.
- •§ 8. Interrogative pronouns.
- •§ 9. Relative pronouns.
- •§ 10. Conjunctive pronouns.
- •§ 11. Defining pronouns.
- •§ 12. Indefinite pronouns.
- •§ 13. Negative pronouns.
- •The numeral
- •§ 2. Cardinal numerals.
- •§ 3. The functions of cardinal numerals in a sentence.
- •§ 4. Ordinal numerals.
- •§ 5. The functions of ordinal numerals in a sentence.
- •The words of the category of state
- •§ 2. As regards form the words of the category of state have the prefix a-: ablaze, afire, aflame, afoot, afraid, asleep, awake, etc.
- •§ 3. They are mainly used in the function of a predicative.
- •§ 4. Words of the category of state can be modified by adverbs of degree:
- •The adverb
- •§ 1. The adverb is a part of speech which expresses some circumstances that attend an action or state, or points out some characteristic features of an action or a quality.
- •§ 2. As to their structure adverbs are divided into:
- •§ 3. Some adverbs have degrees of comparison.
- •§ 4. According to their meaning adverbs fall under several groups:
Grammatical structure of the english language
§ 1. Languages may be synthetic and analytical according to their grammatical structure.
In synthetic languages, such as for instance Russian, the grammatical relations between words are expressed by means of inflections: e. g. крыша дома.
In analytical languages, such as English, the grammatical relations between words are expressed by means of form words and word order: e. g. the roof of the house.
§ 2. Analytical forms are mostly proper to verbs. An analytical verb-form consists of one or more form words, which have no lexical meaning and only express one or more of the grammatical categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood, and one notional word, generally an infinitive or a participle: e. g. He has come, I am reading.
The analytical forms are:
1. Tense and Aspect verb-forms (the Continuous form: I am writing, the Perfect form: I have written, the Perfect Continuous form: I have been writing, the Future Indefinite: I shall write, all the other forms of the Future; also the interrogative and the negative forms of the Present and Past Indefinite: Does he sing? He does not sing).
2. The Passive Voice: I was invited to the theatre.
3. The analytical form of the Subjunctive Mood: I should go there if I had time.
In all these analytical forms the form word is an auxiliary verb.
(For detailed treatment see chapters on the verb.)
§ 3. However, the structure of a language is never purely synthetic or purely analytical. Accordingly in the English language there are:
1. Endings:
-s in the third person singular in the Present Indefinite: speaks;
-s in the plural of nouns: tables;
-s in the genitive case: my brother’s book;
-ed in the Past Indefinite of regular verbs: smoked.
2. Inner flexions: man — men; speak — spoke.
3. The synthetic forms of the Subjunctive Mood: were, be, have, etc.
§ 4. Owing to the scarcity of synthetic forms the order of words, which is fixed in English, acquires extreme importance: The fisherman caught a fish.
A deviation from the ‑general principle of word order is possible only in special cases.
(For detailed treatment see Chapter XVI, Word Order.)
§ 5. One of the marked features of the English language is the extensive use of substitutes. A word substitute saves the repetition of a word in certain conditions. Here belong one, that, do.
One replaces class nouns in the singular and in the plural:
Thanks for the compliment, if it is one.
The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had, and they
were not all happy. (London)
That generally substitutes nouns, especially abstract nouns and nouns of material followed by an attribute, mostly introduced by the preposition of:
He (Martin) watched the easy walk of the other in front of him, and for
the first time realized that his walk was different from that of other men.
(London)
Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for a ride in her own
car or that of Castleman. (Dreiser)
Do substitutes verbs:
You know your law better than I do. (Galsworthy)
Forgive me for speaking with brutal frankness, I only do so because I
care. (Alexander)