- •Topic 1: General Account of the Grammatical Structure of the English Language under Theoretical Analysis
- •1.2. Basic notions of the grammatical description: grammatical form, grammatical meaning, paradigm, grammatical category
- •1.Pick out the word forms with common grammatical meaning to create appropriate grammatical categories. Do they correspond to the English variants?
- •2.Analyse the following pairs of words. What grammatical devices are used to denote grammatical meanings? Figure out cases in English:
- •3.Which grammatical categories are made up by the paradigm of the given grammatical forms?
- •1.3. Classification of words into parts of speech
- •1.Provide a suitable context to figure out the parts of speech these words belong to:
- •2.Recognize the following words as notional or structural parts of speech. Consider the grammatical form, lexical meaning and syntactical function (make up a phrase):
- •2.1. Categorial meaning, division of nouns into subclasses
- •1.Translate into Russian. Match the nouns with the items in the list: common, proper, abstract, collective, mass:
- •2.Think of the English equivalents to the given nouns. Recognise their subclasses:
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •2.2. Grammatical categories of the noun: number
- •1.Make up if possible singular and plural of the nouns. Compare them with the corresponding English word forms:
- •2.Supply a predicate in the singular or the plural as appropriate to the nouns used as subjects:
- •2.3. Grammatical categories of the noun: Case
- •1.Point out the grammatical content of the inflectional Genitive; translate into Russian:
- •2.Analyse the meaning of the ‘of-Genitive’. What are the corresponding Russian word forms? Do possible substitutions for ‘s-inflection:
- •3.Choose the correct case form in English. Note appropriate transformations in the translation:
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •3.1. Categorial meaning, grammatical forms and classes of the Verb
- •1.Point out notional and structural verbs:
- •2.Identify the verbs as stative, dynamic, transitive, intransitive:
- •3.Find phrasal verbs, identifying them as transitive/intransitive, separable/inseparable. Think of both grammatical and lexical differences:
- •4.Match modal verb forms in accordance with the given meanings: ability, possibility, probability, logical assumptions, permission, necessity, obligation, duty, prohibition:
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •Finite versus non-finite verb forms
- •1.Name the grammatical categories in which the verbals differ:
- •2.Consider different functions of the infinitive:
- •3.Consider different functions of the gerund:
- •4.Consider different functions of the participle:
- •5.Point out verbal constructions:
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •3.3. Grammatical categories of the verb: tense, taxis, aspect
- •1.What time (present, past, future) does the process denoted by the verb refer to?
- •2.Consider the following oppositions and account for the difference between the verb forms belonging to Continuous / Non-Continuous, Perfect / Non-Perfect:
- •3.Translate into English. Match the verb forms with the meanings indicating:
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •3.4. Grammatical categories of the verb: voice
- •1.Make as many active – passive transformations as possible:
- •2.Rewrite the following passages into Passive; wherever necessary translate into English:
- •3.Translate into English. Put the Passive voice wherever necessary:
- •3.5. Grammatical categories of the verb: mood
- •1.How do the underlined verbs differ grammatically? Is there difference in person? number? mood? tense? aspect? taxis? voice?
- •2.Match English and Russian verb forms of the Subjunctive in accordance with the given meanings; Work them out in the given sentences:
- •3.Think of possible similarities and differences in the choice of conjunctions:
- •4.Transform the situations by using the sentences with the Subjunctive Mood; recognize unreal meanings:
- •5.Translate into English. Are the verb forms equal? What is preferable in formal and informal speech?
- •Revision tasks for self-control
- •4.1. General remarks on syntactic problems
- •4.2. Syntagmatic connections in word-groups: types of syntactic relations
- •4.3. Syntactic relations and ways of their expression
- •1.Determine the type of syntactic relations between the components of word-phrases. Translate either into Russian or English:
- •2.Distinguish between the phrases; show differences in translation:
- •5.1. Predication, its types and expression
- •5.2. Classification of sentences: structural, semantic, communicative
- •1.Make difference between types of predication: explicit / implicit, single-headed / double-headed:
- •2.Point out structural types of sentences: one-member / two-member, extended / non-extended, complete / incomplete, simple / composite, quasi-sentences:
- •3.Distinguish between communicative types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, negative, exclamatory:
- •4.Consider semantic types of sentences: personal / impersonal, definite / indefinite, actual / relational / statal:
- •5.Look at the one-member Russian sentences and translate them into English:
- •5.3. Division of the sentence: principal vs secondary parts
- •1.Note the way how the predicative centre is formed in the English simple sentence; take care of inversion. Highlight different types of the predicate and the subject.
- •2.Point out the forms of secondary parts of a sentence, with a special focus on possible Russian equivalents:
- •6.1. Features of a composite sentence
- •6.2. Complex sentence
- •6.3. Semi-complex sentence
- •6.4. Compound sentence
- •6.5. Semi-compound sentence
- •1.Pay attention to the form of a subject and a predicate in clauses of composite sentences, highlighting logic focus on them. Translate into Russian:
- •2.In the given below semi-composite sentences point out cases of secondary predication, performing objective, attributive and adverbial function. Think of possible corresponding Russian variants:
- •3.Express the syntactic positions of subject, predicate, object, attribute and adverbial modifier by corresponding clauses, wherever possible:
- •4.Complete the structure of the semi-composite sentences, translating from Russian into English:
- •5.Translate into English; justify the choice either of a clause or a verbal construction:
- •Recommended literature
- •I. Engagement and comprehension activities:
- •1. Making predictions
- •2. Setting up expectations about the theme of the text
- •3. Making guesses about the author’s tone and intention
- •4. Deducing meaning and ideas
- •5. Making cross-cultural comparison
- •6. Vocabulary development
- •II. Activate activities:
- •2. Setting up expectations about thematic formation of the text
- •1. Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage?
- •2. Reassemble sequences of lines to provide cohesion and coherence of the text in the form of a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h:
- •3. Scan the text for keywords and phrases essential to your understanding of the theme?
- •4. The author recognizes the fact that
- •5. Which of the sentences best summarizes what the text is about?
- •5. Making cross-cultural comparison
- •1. Think of the associations you have with the word ‘stress’.
- •2. Do the following statements reflect the author’s attitude to gender differences in stress response:
- •3. Make cross-cultural connections:
- •Indicating purpose:
- •III. Summarizing statements on the given reading passage :
- •IV. Conclusive remarks:
- •1.Pick out the word forms with common grammatical meaning to create appropriate grammatical categories. Do they correspond to the English variants?
- •2.Analyse the following pairs of words. What grammatical devices are used to denote grammatical meanings? Figure out cases in English:
- •3.Which grammatical categories are made up by the paradigm of the given grammatical forms?
- •1.Provide a suitable context to figure out the parts of speech these words belong to:
- •2.Recognize the following words as notional or structural parts of speech. Consider the grammatical form, lexical meaning and syntactical function (make up a phrase):
- •1.Translate into Russian. Match the nouns with the items in the list: common, proper, abstract, collective, mass:
- •2.Think of the English equivalents to the given nouns. Recognise their subclasses:
- •1.Make up if possible singular and plural of the nouns. Compare them with the corresponding English word forms:
- •2.Supply a predicate in the singular or the plural as appropriate to the nouns used as subjects:
- •1.Point out the grammatical content of the inflectional Genitive; translate into Russian:
- •2.Analyse the meaning of the ‘of-Genitive’. What are the corresponding Russian word forms? Do possible substitutions for ‘s-inflection:
- •3.Choose the correct case form in English. Note appropriate transformations in the translation:
- •Topic 3: Morphological Features of the Verb as Part of speech
- •1.Point out notional and structural verbs:
- •2.Identify the verbs as stative, dynamic, transitive, intransitive:
- •3.Find phrasal verbs, identifying them as transitive/intransitive, separable/inseparable. Think of both grammatical and lexical differences:
- •4.Match modal verb forms in accordance with the given meanings: ability, possibility, probability, logical assumptions, permission, necessity, obligation, duty, prohibition:
- •1.Name the grammatical categories in which the verbals differ:
- •2.Consider different functions of the infinitive:
- •3.Consider different functions of the gerund:
- •4.Consider different functions of the participle:
- •5.Point out verbal constructions:
- •1.What time (present, past, future) does the process denoted by the verb refer to?
- •2.Consider the following oppositions and account for the difference between the verb forms belonging to Continuous / Non-Continuous, Perfect / Non-Perfect:
- •3.Translate into English. Match the verb forms with the meanings indicating:
- •1.Make as many active – passive transformations as possible:
- •2.Rewrite the following passages into Passive; wherever necessary translate into English:
- •3.Translate into English. Put the Passive voice wherever necessary:
- •1.How do the underlined verbs differ grammatically? Is there difference in person? number? mood? tense? aspect? taxis? voice?
- •2.Match English and Russian verb forms of the Subjunctive in accordance with the given meanings; Work them out in the given sentences:
- •3.Think of possible similarities and differences in the choice of conjunctions:
- •4.Transform the situations by using the sentences with the Subjunctive Mood; recognize unreal meanings:
- •5.Translate into English. Are the verb forms equal? What is preferable in formal and informal speech?
- •4.2. Syntagmatic connections in word-groups: types of syntactic relations.
- •1.Determine the type of syntactic relations between the components of word-phrases. Translate either into Russian or English:
- •2.Distinguish between the phrases; show differences in translation:
- •Topic 5: Sentence as a predicative unit: structural, semantic, communicative aspects
- •Practical assignments
- •1.Make difference between types of predication: explicit / implicit, single-headed / double-headed:
- •2.Point out structural types of sentences: one-member / two-member, extended / non-extended, complete / incomplete, simple / composite, quasi-sentences:
- •3.Distinguish between communicative types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, negative, exclamatory:
- •4.Consider semantic types of sentences: personal / impersonal, definite / indefinite, actual / relational / statal:
- •5.Look at the one-member Russian sentences and translate them into English:
- •1.Note the way how the predicative centre is formed in the English simple sentence; take care of inversion. Highlight different types of the predicate and the subject;
- •2.Point out the forms of secondary parts of a sentence, with a special focus on possible Russian equivalents:
- •Topic 6: Composite sentence: types, clauses, connectors
- •1.Pay attention to the form of a subject and a predicate in clauses of composite sentences, highlighting logic focus on them. Translate into Russian:
- •2.In the given below semi-composite sentences point out cases of secondary predication, performing objective, attributive and adverbial function. Think of possible corresponding Russian variants:
- •3.Express the syntactic positions of subject, predicate, object, attribute and adverbial modifier by corresponding clauses, wherever possible:
- •4.Complete the structure of the semi-composite sentences, translating from Russian into English:
- •5.Translate into English; justify the choice either of a clause or a verbal construction:
- •Recommended literature
Topic 1: General Account of the Grammatical Structure of the English Language under Theoretical Analysis
Levels of the grammatical description
Basic notions of the grammatical description: grammatical form, grammatical meaning, paradigm, grammatical category
Classification of words into parts of speech
Supplementary 1: Systemic nature of grammar: types of systematic relations
Supplementary 2: Morphemic structure of the word
Supplementary 3: Grammatical relevance of parts of speech
TOPIC 2: Morphological Features of Noun as Part of Speech
2.1. Categorial meaning, division of nouns into subclasses
2.2. Grammatical categories of the Noun: Number
2.3. Grammatical categories of the Noun: Case
Supplementary 4: Special views on the problem of Case
Supplementary 5: Morphological features of adjective as part of speech
Supplementary 6: Morphological features of adverb as part of speech
TOPIC 3: Morphological Features of Verb as Part of Speech
3.1. Categorial meaning, grammatical forms and classes of the Verb
3.2. Finite versus non-finite verb-forms
3.3. Grammatical categories of the Verb: Tense, Taxis, Aspect
3.4. Grammatical categories of the Verb: Voice
3.5. Grammatical categories of the Verb: Mood
Supplementary 7: Controversial points about future
TOPIC 4: Syntactic Domain of Grammar
4.1. General remarks on syntactic problems
4.2. Syntagmatic connections in word-groups: types of syntactic relations
4.3. Syntactic relations and ways of their expression
Supplementary 8: Theory of word combination
TOPIC 5: Sentence as a Predicative Unit
5.1. Structural, semantic, communicative aspects
5.2. Predication, its types and expression
5.3. Classification of sentences: structural, semantic, communicative
5.4. Division of the sentence: principal vs secondary parts
Supplementary 9: Sentence Structure
TOPIC 6: Composite Sentence: Types, Clauses, Connectors
6.1. Features of a composite sentence
6.2. Complex sentence
6.3. Semi-complex sentence
6.4. Compound sentence
6.5. Semi-compound sentence
Recommended literature
TOPIC 1: General Account of the Grammatical Structure of the English Language under Theoretical Analysis
1.1. Levels of the grammatical description
English Grammatical Theory was historically developed within originally three linguistic schools, dependent on linguistic approaches and methodology of the grammatical analysis, namely: Classical Scientific Grammar (H.Sweet, G.Curme, E.Kruisinga, H.Poustna, O.Jespersen, F.Zandvoort, C.Onions); American Descriptive Grammar (started with E.Sapir and L.Bloomfield, continued by Ch.Fries, Z.Harris, W.Francis, K.Pike, R.Wells, E.Nida); Transformational Grammar (Z.Harris, N.Chomsky, P.Roberts, E.Bach, O.Thomas). Whatever linguistic science might be, its interest is centered on the insight into systemic character of language, with the grammatical system as its constituent part. It follows that Grammar, focused on the grammatical description of language, is aimed to present an outline of the grammatical system, i.e. to define grammatical categories and analyse the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in speech making. In the other way, grammar incorporates such notion as grammatical structure of language, defined in terms of a coherent dynamic system, with constituents related to one another (a morpheme, a word, a phrase, a sentence), reflecting the body of grammatical units and the regularities of their use in the process of sentence production. In this respect, Grammar is mainly concerned with principles of sentence formation that include the ways in which word forms with definite morphological categorical distinctions are arranged to create a phrase and a sentence, originating finally a text as the highest communicative unit. The text is made up of sentences, which are termed as meaningful communicative units, integrating phrases; phrases are defined as meaningful non-communicative structural units, integrating words, as nominative units, being built up by meaningful segmental components, morphemes, formed by phonemes and indivisible as to their function. Hence, the aspects of the grammatical description can be drawn up as the following: text-level, sentence-level, phrase-level, word-level, morpheme-level. As regards these features, Grammar is divided into Morphology and Syntax. The subject matter of Morphology is the grammatical classes and groups of words, their grammatical categories and systems of forms (paradigms), in which these categories actually exist. Syntax studies sentence-building, i.e. ways of connecting words and word phrases into sentences giving a rise to the text.
The type of grammatical structure of a language, synthetical or analytical, is dependent on the ways of expressing grammatical relations between words in word-groups and sentences. Take an example of synthetical Russian with the grammatical function of a word being expressed by inflection or affixation, and suppletivity. The extent to which Modern English makes use of inflection and suppletivity is scarce, if compared with Russian (e.g. works, worked, go/went, am/is/are, I/me, good/better). Being an analytical language, English has gradually developed other devices to perform the same function (говорю – am talking; пришел – has arrived; прочитаны – had been read). The distinctive features characterizing English as a mainly analytical language are the following:
-comparatively few grammatical inflections (ed; s/es; er/est; ing);
-scarcity of suppletive grammatical forms (be, were, me, worst, went);
-a wide use of functional words (auxiliaries, articles, prepositions) to create grammatical forms and to connect words in a sentence (will be taking, have been writing, much more interesting, the country, a chair, the title of the book, arrive at the airport, is keen on music);
-a more or less fixed word order to denote grammatical relations.
The distinguished number of analytically built grammatical forms makes the specific peculiarity of English as an analytical language: e.g. is translated, has been studying, will be running, more interesting, less expensive, could have bought, ought to arrive, etc.