Seminar 6 Theoretical questions to be discussed

1. Determiners;

Determiners are either articles or adjectives that point toward a particular noun(s). Numbers can be determiners as well (in that case, they act as adjectives). There are multiple definitions of determiners. But there’s a common thread in all of them — determiners are words that point toward/indicate nouns.

The nine types of determiners are:

Indefinite article: a, an

Definite article: the

Pronouns and possessive determiners: his, her, their, my, mine

Demonstratives: that, those, these, this

Difference words: other, another

Numbers: one, two, forty, two thousand

Distributives: neither, either, half, both, all, every

Pre-determiners: what, quite, rather, such

Quantifiers: few, little, much, many, lot

2. Pronouns; general characteristics.

Pronouns fall under the following groups:

(1) personal pronouns: I, he, she, it, we, you, they.

(2) possessive pronouns: my, his, her, its, our, your, their; mine, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs.

(3) reflexive pronouns: myself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourself (yourselves), themselves.

(4) reciprocal pronouns: each other, one another.

(5) demonstrative pronouns: this (these), that (those), such, (the) same.

(6) interrogative pronouns: who, whose, what, which.

(7) relative pronouns: who, whose, which, that, as.

(8) conjunctive pronouns: who, whose, which, what.

(9) defining pronouns: each, every, everybody, everyone, everything, all, either, both, other, another.

(10) indefinite pronouns: some, any, somebody, anybody, something, anything, someone, anyone, one.

(11) negative pronouns: no, none, neither, nobody, no one, nothing.

There is no uniformity of morphological and syntactical characteristics in the groups of pronouns. Some pronouns have the grammatical categories of person, gender, case, and number. The categories of person and gender (in the third person singular) exist only in personal, and possessive pronouns.

Pronouns as well as nouns have two cases but whereas some pronouns (e. g., personal pronouns and the relative and interrogative who) have the nominative and objective cases, others (e. g. indefinite pronouns such as somebody, reciprocal pronouns such as one another, negative pronouns such as nobody) have the common and genitive cases.

The category of number is found in demonstrative pronouns (this and that) and the defining pronoun other.

Many pronouns are characterised by double syntactical use (they may be used as subject, predicative, object, and at the same time as attribute). Here belong demonstrative pronouns, possessive pronouns, etc.

3. Auxiliaries (primary and modal);

Auxiliary verb is also called “helping verb” that helps the main verb in different aspects of tenses, voices, and moods by being placed before them. It is a verb that adds context and functionality to clauses and sentences. Helping verbs are an important element of speech and writing, and in English grammar, they often work in concert with the main verb to form a complete verb phrase.

Types Of Auxiliary Verbs

There are two types of auxiliary verbs. They are:

• Primary Auxiliary verbs

• Modal Auxiliary verbs

Primary Auxiliary Verbs

Primary auxiliary verbs include “be,” “do,” and “have,” and they can be linked to form different tenses, voices, and moods. These verbs can also function as action verbs. Most commonly used primary auxiliary verbs in a sentence are be, have, do.

Functions Of Primary Auxiliary Verbs

The primary auxiliary verb has no meaning of its own. It helps the main verb to form tense.

• Helps to form interrogative sentences.

• Helps to form negative sentences.

• Helps to form sentences of Passive voice

• These verbs can also be used as the main verb itself, if necessary.

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

These types of verbs are used to show necessity, capability, willingness, or possibility in a sentence. Unlike most verbs, there is only one form of these verbs. Typically, verb forms change to indicate whether the sentence’s structure is singular or plural.

Modal auxiliary verbs include “can,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “shall,” “might,” “may,” “must,” “will,” “need,” “dare,” and the phrases “ought to” and “used to.” we cannot conjugate these kinds of verbs. Since modal auxiliary verbs do not have a past tense form, we can use the modal auxiliary along with the word ‘have’ and a past participle. past participles typically end in -d, -ed, -n, or -en, creating the past tense ‘wished, looked, taken,’ and so on.