- •1) The theoretical course of grammar. Relationships between theoretical and normative grammar. Language and speech.
- •5) The transformational method and its application to the English grammar.
- •2) Grammar and phonetics. Grammar and lexicology.
- •3. Methods of grammatical investigation. The distributional method and its application to the English language
- •4) The method of Immediate Constituents and its application to the English language
- •7) Morphology and syntax. Their relationship and boundary lines between them
- •6) The notion of opposition in grammar (nouns, verbs, adjectives)
- •8) The notions of grammatical meaning and grammatical forms as applied to the English language.
- •9) Grammatical categories in Modern English
- •11. Types of word-form derivation in English. Inflectional morphemes, sound alternation, zero morpheme.
- •10) The basic morphological notions: word-morpheme, morph, allomorph.
- •12. Analytical forms, suppletivity, grammatical homonymy.
- •14) Controversy in Parts of speech. Classification of parts of speech.
- •15) Charles Fries classification of words and its character
- •16) The noun. Its definition, grammatical meaning, morphological characteristics, syntactical functions.
- •17) The noun. Its grammatical categories. Problem of gender in Modern English
- •18) The noun. The category of number and its peculiarities in the English noun. Singularia tantum and pluralia tantum.
- •19) The noun. The category of number and its peculiarities in the English noun. Collective nouns and nouns of multitude.
- •35. The Sentence. Classification of sentences according to their structure.
- •20) The noun. The category of case. Different approaches to the category of case in Modern English. Mutual relations of number and case.
- •40. The Predicate. Types of predicates. Simple and compound Nominal Predicates.
- •38. The main parts of the sentence. Their definition.
- •22) The verb. Its definition, grammatical meaning and morphological classification of verbs,
- •23) The verb. Semantic-syntactical classification of verbs.
- •29. The Verb. The category of Voice, its definition. Different views on the problem. Relationship of voice and transitivity and intransitivity of verbs.
- •37. The Sentence. Types of complex sentences and their structure.
- •24. The Verb. The problem of aspect. Definition of this category. English and Russian aspects compared.
- •30. The Verb. The category of Voice, its definition. Different views on the problem. The question of the reflexive voice.
- •28. The Verb. The category of Mood. Definition, different conceptions of the mood system in English and objective reasons for the existing controversy.
- •25. Controversy concerning the category of aspect. Assessments of different approaches to continious forms.
- •27. The verb. The perfect. Controversy concerning the essence of perfect forms. Assessments of different views on the problem. The category of time correlation.
- •26. The Verb. The category of tense, its definition. System of tenses in the English Verb.
- •41.The Predicate. Types of predicates. Compound Verbal Predicates. Mixed types.
- •31. The problem of the subject matter of Syntax. Basic syntactical notions. The phrase and the sentence.
- •39.The Subject. Types of the subject.
- •32. Syntax. The phrase definition, types of phrases.
- •36. The Sentence. Types of coordination within the compound sentence.
- •33. The Phrase. Ways of expressing syntactical relations within a phrase (agreement, government, adjoinment, enclosure)
1) The theoretical course of grammar. Relationships between theoretical and normative grammar. Language and speech.
The purpose of the theoretical course of English grammar is to acquaint the students with many linguistic problems connected with the grammatical structure of the English language.
While practical grammar gives rules which help us to read, speak and write English correctly, the task of theoretical grammar is to give an analysis of the grammatical structure of the language as a system.
Language and speech. A language was first treated as a system by the grammarians of 17th century. Later this view of language structure was abandoned until the beginning of the 20th century when the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure acknowledged the study of a system of a given language in his book on general linguistics. The distinction between language and speech, which was first introduced by him, has since become one of the cornerstones of modern linguistic. Ferdinand de Saussure defined language as the system phonological, lexical and grammatical. It is the source which every speaker and writer has to draw upon if he is to be understood by other speakers of the language.
And speech is the manifestation of language or its use by various speakers and writers of the given language. a scholar can get at language only through its manifestation in the speech. Thus, the scholar’s task is to analyze speech facts so that to get through them to the language system without which they couldn’t have been produced.
5) The transformational method and its application to the English grammar.
We should use the transformational method in order to distinguish the sentences of the following type: ‘Monika is difficult to speak’ and ‘Monika is eager to speak’. The derivational tree, which is used in the method of Immediate Constituents, shows that these sentences have the same structure, but the sentences are quite different in meaning. In the 1st sentence Monika is the object of the action, while in the 2nd sentence ‘Monika’ is the subject. Only the transformation of these sentences can show that the relations between the elements of these sentences are different.
The 1st sentence can be transformed into “It’s difficult to speak with Monika’. This transformation shows that Monika is the object of the action. The 2nd sentence can be transformed into – ‘Monika eagerly speaks with people’. So we see, that Monika is the subject of the action.
Thus, the transformational method is used for distinguishing syntactical homonyms. It shows how kernel sentences are transformed into other types of sentences.
2) Grammar and phonetics. Grammar and lexicology.
As language is a sound language, any element of its structure can exist only in its sound integument, but sometimes sound phenomena can play a special grammatical role. For example, the sound alternation (or interchange) can change the grammatical meaning of the word in following cases:
1. In irregular words (come – came, meet- met, see- saw, build- built);
2. In the formation of the plural (woman – women, foot – feet, tooth- teeth).
3. In changing the stress. Unless we learn the right stress of the words, we can’t refer them to a definite part of speech. The change of stress can bring about the change in the grammatical meaning of the word – for example – Export (noun) – expOrt (verb), Import (noun) – impOrt (verb);
4.The change of intonation can also play a certain grammatical role as it can change the type of the sentence.(for ex. “He has nothing to say” – it is said with a falling tone, that’s a statement; ‘He has nothing to say’ – it is said with a rising tone, that’s why it expresses doubt. This type of sentences is called semi-interrogative.)
Grammar and lexicology. Language consists of words and all grammatical phenomena can exist only in words and word combinations. The grammatical meaning of a word to a certain degree depends on its lexical meaning.
Thus, transitive verbs, such as ‘take, give’ require a direct object, because they are incomplete in their lexical meaning. They take a direct object so as to complete their meanings, for example – ‘Give a pen to me’, give what? – a pen. ‘A pen’ is a direct object without preposition.
Thus, we see, that language is a system phonological, lexical and grammatical. There exist a certain kind of relationships between grammar and phonetics on the one hand, and grammar and lexicology on the other.