- •1. Language and speech, their levels
- •2. Morpheme, its definition and classifications. Allomorphs
- •3. Word forms and its types
- •4. Grammatical meaning
- •5. Grammatical category
- •6. Definition of the noun
- •7. Classes of nouns
- •8. The category of number. The system of opposemes of the category
- •9. Singularia tantum and Pluralia tantum
- •10. The system of opposemes of the category of case
- •11. Double nature of the category of case
- •12. Declinables and indeclinables
- •13. The problem of analytical cases in Modern English
- •14. The peculiarities of the “–‘s” morpheme
- •15. Relational meanings expressed by Genitive
- •16. General characteristics of the verb
- •17. Semantic classification of Verbs
- •18. The category of tense, its correlation with the objective category of time
- •19. The problem of «perfect" in English. Category of order. Meanings rendered by perfect forms
- •20. The category of aspect. Aspect & manner of action. Neutralization of continuous forms
- •21. The category of voice. Morphologo-syntactic nature of the voice category. Number and kinds of voices in me. The problem of reflexive, reciprocal and middle voices
- •22. Syntax as a part of grammar
- •23. Basic syntactic notions: syntactic unit, syntactic form, syntactic meaning, syntactic function, syntactic relations, syntactic position, syntactic valence
- •26. Classification of subordinate word-combinations according to their heads
- •24. Phrases (word-combinations), syntactic constructions (complexes), clauses, sentences, texts as units of syntax
- •25. Syntagmatic relations in syntax. Syntactic relations & syntactic connections
- •27. Predicative word-combinations. Primary and secondary predication. Infinitival, participial and gerundial construction, their function in the sentence
- •28. Nexus and its types
- •29. Syntactic processes of extension, expansion, replacement, representation, complication, substitution and ellipsis
- •30. Sentence, its categories and aspects
- •31. Different approaches to the study of sentences (traditional analysis, distributional analysis, transformational, oppositional analysis, ic-analysis)
- •32. Communicative classification of sentences
- •33. Functional sentence perspective (actual division of the sentence)
14. The peculiarities of the “–‘s” morpheme
The case morpheme –‘s in the English language differs in some respects from other grammatical morphemes in English and from case morphemes of other languages. As emphasized by Ilyish “-‘s” is no longer a case inflexion in the classical sense of the word because unlike classical inflexions it may be attached – firstly – not only to the nouns but to other parts of speech – substantivized adverbs because it behaves like noun.
today’s, yesterday’s
Secondly, It can be attached not to a single noun but to a whole group (Ex. Mary and John’s house)
Thirdly, it can also be attached to the whole clause (Ex. The man I saw yesterday’s son)
Besides these, there are some other peculiarities: 1) the use of “-‘s” is optional: her brother’s bicycle=the bicycle of her brother; 2) “-‘s” may be used both in the singular and in the plural. Such phenomenon is not characteristic to other languages. 3) “-‘s” occurs in very few plurals, namely those with irregular formation of the plural form. Ox – oxen -> oxen’s feed, ox’s feed. 4) “-‘s” doesn’t make an inseparable part of the structure of the word. It may be placed at some distance from the head noun of an attribute group. Ex. deputy minister’s office
All those peculiarities testify that the system of case is still undergoing changes.
15. Relational meanings expressed by Genitive
All in all there are 8 relational meanings:
1. Genitive of possessivity (possessional relations): Christine’s living-room; 2. Genitive of “organic possession” (portative relations): John’s leg. The hotel’s lobby;
3. Subjective Genitive expressing subject-predicate relation: the President’s arrival, Champion’s win – implies an active doer.
4. Genitive of patient expressing the recipient of the action or process denoted by the head noun: the champion’s great defeat. The noun in Genitive is the recipient of the action
5. Genitive of destination (functional relations): women’s footwear, children’s literature.
6. Genitive of dispensed qualification, denoting some characteristic of qualification: woman’s voice. Expresses some characteristic of the noun.
7. Genitive of adverbial expressing time and place of the event: today’s newspaper, yesterday’s newspaper, tomorrow’s meeting.
Absolute genitive – a kind of the latter when the head word is missing.
Ex. the barber’s shop – the barber’s, St. Paul’s cathedral – St. Paul’s. McDonald’s, the watchmaker’s etc.
8. Genitive of quantity denoting the measure of quantity.
Ex. three miles’ distance, a day’s trip, 100 tons’ load.
16. General characteristics of the verb
As a part of speech the verb is characterized by the following features: 1) Its lexico-grammatical meaning of action, process and state; 2) Certain typical stem-building elements such as - suffixes: -ize (organize), -en (widen), -ify (clarify), -ate (communicate) etc, - lexico-grammatical word-morphemes: up (bring up), in (give in), off (put off), down (touch down), out (give out), on (switch on) etc. 3)Grammatical categories: 8 categories altogether – tense, aspect, order, voice, mood, person, number, finitude. Three out of 8 categories are found not only in finites but also in the verbals as well: voice, order and aspect. Non-finite forms – participle, gerund and infinitive. Gerund and participle - no category of aspect. Voice: to ask – to be asked, asking – being aksed. Order: asks – has asked, to ask – to have asked, asking – having asked. Aspect: to ask – to be asking.
4) Combinability – verbs can be associated with nouns denoting the doer/ agent or recipient of the action. It’s usually modified by adverbs. 5) Syntactical functions – the predicate. According to stem structure verbs fall into the following groups: - simple verbs (to write, know, maintain), - derived – with affix (to organize, rewrite, waterpool), - compound – 2 stems (to broadcast, whitewash), - composite (give up, give away, give out etc).