Теоретическая грамматика (английский язык). Практикум

3.Such a sure hand my son has with his people!

4.What a gullible lot we are.

5.Brave though he is in facing adult audiences, the result is a bit of a cringe.

Exercise 2. Subject-verb inversion and subject-opera- tor inversion.

Underline the example of inversion in each of the following examples, and tell what type of inversion it is: subject-verb inversion or sub- ject-operator inversion.

Note: When the same word has a role both as main verb and as operator, the inversion can be described either as subject-verb inversion or as subject-operator inversion. Which examples are like this?

1.On the sideboard stood a decanter of Haut Brion, and another of old Lanning port.

2.The number of Chinese Characters soared to 23,000 in the twelfth century and to almost 49,000 in the eighteenth. Equally striking is the high proportion of semantic-phonetic compounds relative to the other three categories

3.Such has been the success of the piece on a short provincial tour, that it has been snapped up by The Globe in the center of London’s theatreland.

4.Kelly finished fourth overall, and came close to losing the King of the Mountains honour. Only on the final climb of Sally Gap did he clinch victory as his rival, Gary Backer, was struggling back from two punctures.

5.“Hold it, darling”, interrupted Khalehla.

6.Hide your ankle boots and put away your sensible lace-ups when summer arrives. Now is the time for cool, light shoes that you can slip straight on your feet.

7.What are you eating?

8.Had she known that he was looking for her, she thought, she would not have let herself sit there.

9.Can the health service cope with the growing needs of older people?

10.Into this circle stepped Captain Bierce, confident, huge, beaming, straight-speaking, simple and uncomplicated as only a man in uniform can appear to be. He courted her.

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Exercise 3. Conditions for inversion.

Inversion takes place only in special conditions. Identify the conditions for inversion that apply to the examples in previous exercise. Choose from the following conditions:

a)yes/no questions

b)wh-questions

c)fronted adverbial of place/time

d)fronted predicative

e)degree expression

f)negative or restrictive opening element

g)hypothetical or tentative conditional clause

h)dependent interrogative clause

i)reporting clause

Exercise 4. Quiz yourself.

Answer each of the following questions on existential there.

1)What is the syntactic role of existential there in it’s clause?

2)What is the noun phrase following existential there + be called?

3)Which of the following illustrates existential there? Which illustrates place there?

Oh look, there’s that bird. There is nothing wrong really.

4)After be, what is the most common verb that occurs after existential there in academic prose?

5)Which of the following statements relating to discourse functions of existential clauses are true?

a)Existential clauses are always used when new elements are introduced into the discourse.

b)Existential clauses are useful in focusing on a new topic.

c)Existential clauses help the information flow principle.

d)Existential clauses hardly ever occur in the series.

e)The notional subject rarely begins with the.

f)Existential there cannot occur in a question tag.

Exercise 5. Classify each of the sentences below according to their structure and fulfill the complex analysis of each sentence.

1)Great Britain is a small island, but it is reach in minerals.

2)What an interesting book I bought yesterday!

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12. COMMUNICATIVE SYNTAX

Part 1

Цель: рассмотреть грамматическую категорию числа, рассмотреть понятия communication, interlocutor, actual division of the sentence, theme, сформировать навыки идентификации коммуникативных типов предложения.

Знания и умения, приобретаемые студентами: студенты должны усвоить основные принципы грамматической категории числа, уметь идентифицировать коммуникативные типы предложения.

Формируемые компетенции: ОПК-3.

Актуальность темы определяется тем, что в ее рамках осваиваются основные понятия communication, interlocutor, actual division of the sentence, theme, основные принципы грамматической категории числа, а также формируются навыки идентификации коммуникативных типов предложения.

Теоретическая часть Theoretical part

The category of person is viewed in grammars as morphological category realized either in the oppositions of verb forms: speak – speaks, have been speaking – has been speaking or has lexico-mor- phological realization by personal pronouns: I, we, you, he, she, it, they. In the verb the category of person has only formal character, but in the class of personal pronouns this category has meaningful character.

As conversation is communication and communication is impossible without speakers interlocultors, the appropriate positions are marked by the pronoun of the first person (addressant of speech) and the pronoun of the second person (addressee of speech). But the third person either is excluded from analysis, or is determined to the latter only in negative form, as the person who doesn’t take part in communication.

So, the third person is opposed to the first and the second on the basis of taking and not taking part in the act of communication. The fact of not-taking part in communication has very important consequence to subcategorization of the third person in the plan of its lingual (linguistic) realization: it can be expressed either by names, or corresponding personal pronouns.

In studying the structure of a sentence, we are faced with a problem which has been receiving ever greater attention in linguistic investigations of recent years. This is the problem of dividing a sentence into two sections, one of them containing that which is the starting point

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of the statement, and the other the new information for whose sake the sentence has been uttered or written. This has been termed “functional perspective”. It cannot be said that every sentence must necessarily consist of two such sections. Some sentences (especially one-member sentences) cannot be divided up in this way, and doubts are also possible about some other types.

Let’s first clarify some notions:

“Psychological subject”, “Psychological predicate” (proposed by the German scholar H. Paul) – what is objectively expressed in it, independently of a hearer’s personal views or tastes.

“Lexical subject”, “Lexical predicate” (proposed by prof. A. Smirnitsky) – analyze the function of a word or a word group within a sentence expressing a certain thought; their function, that is, in expressing either what is already assumed or what is new in the sentence uttered.

The terms “Theme” and “Rheme” are both derived from Greek, and are parallel to each other. The term “theme” comes from the Greek root the – “to set”, or “established” and means “that which is set or established”. The term “rheme” is derived from the root rhe – “to say”, or “tell” and means “that which is said or told”.

The means of expressing a thematic or a rhematic quality of a word or phrase in a sentence to a great extent depend on the grammatical structure of the given language and must differ considerably, according to that structure.

Thus, in a language with a widely developed morphological system and free word order, word order can be extensively used to show the difference between theme and rheme.

Russian: Старик вошел и Вошел старик.

English: The old man came in (We cannot make the words old man express the rheme without introducing further changes into the structure of the sentence).

In Modern English there are several ways of showing that a word or phrase corresponds either to the rheme or to the theme.

Вопросы, выносимые на обсуждение Points for discussion

1.What are the main principles of the actual division of the sentence?

2.What sentence elements can be called “thematic”?

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3.What language means mark the theme of the sentence?

4.What is understood by the rheme of the sentence?

Задания Exercises

Exercise 1. Define the theme and the rheme of the following sentences. Translate into Russian.

1)The examiner placed six slides before Andrew. Five of this slides Andrew named correctly, but the sixth he could not name.

2)The doctor said he was shifting – “That I know”.

3)The rainfall was measured with a rain gauge of the balance type. In this system, the water from the collecting cone goes into one side of the balance weighting system.

4)Historical data were obtained from weather station in the area. From these, histograms grouping rain rate as local duration were derived.

5)To us today Shylock’s rebuke of Christian anti-Semitism has a claim to our respect.

Exercise 2. Translate into English paying special attention to the actual division of the following sentences.

1)Он обернулся. Позади стоял Мартин.

2)Мы вошли в лабораторию. На стене висели портреты ученых.

3)Между электродами находилось ускоряющее напряжение.

4)Вниз по замерзшей реке двигались сани, запряженные соба-

ками.

5)Князь Багратион…сказал “хорошо” с таким выражением, как будто все то, что происходило, и что ему сообщали, было именно то, что он уже предвидел.

6)Но одна мысль о том, что он боится, снова подняла его.

7)Он посвящал музыке всё свободное время.

8)Он обнял Левина и, говоря с ним, не замечал Бронского, который встал и спокойно дожидался, когда князь обратиться к нему.

9)А где журнал для записи научных данных? – В шкафу.

10)Хотя эта статья старая, она всё ещё полезна.

Exercise 3. Dwell upon the actual division of the sentences and the language means used to mark it.

1. I must take some definite actions tonight.

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13. COMMUNICATIVE SYNTAX

Part 2

Цель: рассмотреть грамматическую категорию числа, рассмотреть понятия rheme, psychological subject, psychological predicate, communicative purpose, declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, сформировать навыки идентификации коммуникативных типов предложения.

Знания и умения, приобретаемые студентами: студенты должны усвоить основные понятия rheme, psychological subject, psychological predicate, communicative purpose, declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, а также основные принципы грамматической категории числа, уметь идентифицировать коммуникативные типы предложения.

Формируемые компетенции: ОПК-3.

Актуальность темы определяется тем, что в ее рамках осваиваются, основные принципы грамматической категории числа, а также формируются навыки идентификации коммуникативных типов предложения.

Теоретическая часть Theoretical part

In Modern English there are several ways of showing that a word or phrase corresponds either to the rheme or to the theme.

Rheme. A method characteristically analytical and finding its parallel in French is the construction it is… that (it is…who) with the word or phrase representing the rheme enclosed between the words it is and the word that (who, which).

For it is the emotion that matters (Emotion is in this way shown to represent the rheme).

Other constructions: though-clause.

It is….that (parentheses – (вводное слово) after all, possibly come in within the frame).

Particle (only, even, etc.) + a phrase or a word in question.

The indefinite article (owing to its basic meaning of “indefiniteness”the indefinite article tends to analyze the new element in the sentence, that which represents the rheme. The definite article tends to point out that which is already known, that is the theme).

There are also some other means to show the theme of the sentence:

1.Definite article.

2.A loose parenthesis introduced by the prepositional phrase.

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As for (as to), while the main body of the sentence there is bound to be a personal pronoun representing the noun which is the centre of the parenthetical as-for-phrase.

Communicative types of sentences

1. Declarative sentences or statements

A declarative sentence or statement is used when the speaker wishes to give someone some piece of information which the hearer is unlikely to know. It may be done in the form of an affirmative or negative statement.

He always comes late – he doesn’t come so late.

Declarative sentences are endless in their variety. We will consider the point of view of prof.V.V. Buzarov who says that there are sentence – patterns which are very common in everyday conversation. 1. The pattern Here/There comes our bus or Here/There it is. 2. The existential sentences of the pattern There + be + a noun-phrase. 3. Introductory

It-subject. 4. The pattern She is easy/a pleasure to teach. 5. He/John is sure / certain to like it. 6. Construction with correlative subjects or objects. 7. The pattern He/John was man enough to do … .

2. Interrogative sentences

Most interrogative sentences are formed by means of inversion, i.e. by placing the predicate or part of it before the subject. There are the following types of interrogative sentences:

-general (Yes/No) questions

-special questions

-alternative questions

-disjunctive questions

Every type of questions has its own features and rules of usage. 3. Imperative sentences

They are widely used in speech when the speaker induces the person(s) addressed to fulfill an action. This may be done in the form of a command, order, request, irritation, offer, entreaty, etc. The most common type of imperative sentences differs structurally from the declarative and interrogative sentences in several important points. Most imperative sentences normally have no overt grammatical subject.

4. Exclamatory sentences

Exclamatory sentences are primarily used for expressing the speaker’s own feelings or strong emotion (surprise, indignation, incredulity, disgust, ridicule and so on). They are characterized by emphatic intonation in speaking and by an exclamation mark in writing.

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Вопросы, выносимые на обсуждение Points for discussion

1.What language means are used to express the rheme of the sentence?

2.In what do you see the connection of the actual division of the sentence and the communicative sentence types?

3.What actual division pattern is typical of the declarative sentence?

4.What actual division pattern characterizes the imperative sentence?

5.What kind of rheme is peculiar to the interrogative sentence?

6.In what way does the actual division of the sentence help to reveal the differentiating features of intermediary communicative sentence types?

Задания Exercises

Exercise 1. Identify the matrix sentences and the position of the N- clauses in the following complex sentences back to the deep sentences:

1.What you are after is not here.

2.I wonder when they will come back.

3.That is just what I don’t understand.

4.Tell us where our customer went.

5.I feared you wouldn’t have returned in time to accompany me.

Exercise 2. Change the first, insert, sentence into an N- clause and then embed it in the NP-position in the matrix sentence. Choose the conjunctive by the underlined element, otherwise use ‘‘that’’.

Model: We shall meet in the park. – where we shall meet. Something must be decided now.

=Where we shall meet must be decided now.

1.Paul doesn’t write for some reason. It worries me.

2.There were going to manage it somehow. It seemed of no importance.

3.He’s gone somewhere. It is a mystery.

4.He suggests many things. It is always accepted.

5.She might come back any time. It doesn’t concern me any more.

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