Lecture 7 The adverb

The definition. The adverb is a part of of speech, which expresses some circumstance that attends an action or a state, or points out some characteristics features of an action or a quality. This definition fails to directly point out the relation between the adverb andthe adjec tives as a the primary qualifying part of speech.

Classification – there are several opinions about adverbs falling into several groups .There is also a simpler division into: 1.Qualatitative – advebs,which express immediate inherently non-graded qualities of actions and other qualities –bitterly, plainly,etc.2.Quantitave – words of degree – very,entirely,utterly,awfully,enough,etc.3.Curcumstantial –adverbs of this type may be divided into notional and functional .a. Functional include adverbs of time, place, manner, cause, consequence-here, where, so, how, thus etc.b.Notional include adverbs of place, time-today, shortly, recently, seldom,etc.

Form. (the morphological properties).The adverbs are divided into: Simple (long, enough, then, there, etc.), derivative (slowly, likewise, headlong,etc),compound (anyhow,sometimes,nowhere,etc.),composite(at once, at last,etc.).

Problems with form: 1.Blokh M.Y. considers that composite adverbs differ in principle from the one cited above. The difference consists in the fact that their parts are semantically not blended into an indivisible lexemic unit and present combinations of a preposition with a peculiar adverbial substance- a word ccupying an intermediately lexico-grammatical status between the noun and the adverb,e.g.

2. Of quite a different nature are "preposition- adverb-like" elements which, placed in post-position to the -verb, form a semantic blend with it. By combing with these elements, verbs of broader meaning are subjected to a regular, systemic multiplication of their semantic functions-Miss Amy Carnaby fell back, her hand went to her ample beat (A.Chrisite).

Grammatical categories: Only gradable adverbs can have degree of comparison. Adverbs are gradable when we can imagine degrees in the quality referred to and so can use it with words like — very , too, enough. The forms of comparison ore formed as follows: 1.If the adverb is a word of one syllable, the comparative degree is formed by adding -er and the superlative by adding -est: 2. Adverbs ending in ~ly form the comparative form by means of 1 more I and the superlative by means of { the most}: 3. Some adverbs have irregular forms of comparison - badly-worse-the worst.

The adverb, then, expresses either the degree of a property, or le property of an action, or the circumstances under which an action takes place. In that case, there would be only two types of degrees of comparison in adverbs: I) the suffix type, for instance, quickly, quicker, quickest, or fast, faster, fastest, and 2) the superlative type, represented by a few adverbs, such as well, better, best, or badly, worse, worst.

Lecture 8 The Numeral

Features of the numeral; 1) the categorical meaning of number; 2) the narrow set of simple numerals; the specific forms composition for compound numerals; the specific suffixal forms of derivation for ordinal numerals; 3) the functions of numerical attribute and numerical substantive.

Problems - with numerals, even more than with pronouns, it is difficult to keep the strictly grammatical approach and not to let oneself be diverted into lexical consideration. The lexico-grammatical meaning of "number" is not to be confused with the meaning of "number". There are two main view on this part of speech: it is either considered or not to be a separate parts of speech .Our scholars though distinguishing the numeral as a part of speech, argue about its features.

Semantics: a. Majority of scholars think that the numeral is distinguished only due to its semantic meaning different from other parts of speech and doesn't posses any specific morphological syntactic properties. That's why the scholars distinguish only subclasses of the numerals cardinal and ordinal b. L.S.Barhudarov and D.A.Steiling introduce one more class "Fractional" (1/3or1.15) [3,129J]. c. A.I.Smimitsky considers the ordinal numerals to be. adjectives [12,163] d. Foreign scholars either ignore this part of speech considering the words "one, two, etc" to be nouns, adjectives or pronouns depending on their function in a sentence or in order to avoid this ambiguity introduce the term "Quantifiers" –“ words or phrases which only modify nouns and show how many things or how much of something we are talking about" [15.88-96]. Some scholars call them just "numbers"

1. Morphological properties:

• Form: Those scholars who consider the numeral a part of speech distinguish the following forms: simple, derived, compound.They speak about such typical stem-building suffixes as -teen (sixteen),-ty(sixty) and –s(two-thirds).

Grammatical categories: a. Majority of scholars think that the numeral doesn't posses any grammatical categories; .B.S. Khaimovich and B.L. Rogovskaya distinguish a grammatical category of numerical qualification on the ground that the relation between ten boy-boy's , so this category is represented in the opposition of cardinal and ordinal numerals. [26,92]

2.Syntactic properties:

Combinability :a. Those who distinguish the numeral a part of speech consider Combinability as a specific feature of the numeral. It may combine only with the noun , or used absolutely, it cannot be modified by any other part of speech. This negative combinability is also a characteristic feature of the part of speech; b. Those who do not distinguish the numeral as a part of speech don't speak of any combinability

Function

Scholars say that the numeral does not have any specific function in a sentence. As for the function of the numeral we may say that adverbs, adjective and pronouns also do not have any special function.

N.B., Nouns also can denote the number of the objects. Such words as-hundreds ,a thousand, a million,a score, a dozen,etc.-though morphologically and syntactically nouns are close to numerals semantically e.g. There were half a dozen or more attractive houses hidden among the pines(Eyre).