Theory of Grammar. Учебное пособие
.pdf
3.1. Verb General
PART 3. VERB
3.1. VERB GENERAL
QUESTIONS
1.Why is the verb the most complex part of speech?
2.How is the categorical meaning of the verb presented?
3.What functions do finite and non-finite verbs present in the sentence?
4.What is the division of verbs according to their semantic features? Give examples of semi-notional and functional verbs.
5.Name the three main grammatically relevant categorizations.
6.What do actional and statal verb express? Give examples.
7.What is the division of verbs according to the inner properties of the process? Give examples.
8.What does syntactic valency mean?
9.What are the types of valency? Explain the difference.
10.What are the verbal complements and verbal supplements?
11.What does verbal transitivity mean? Give examples.
12.What does verbal objectivity mean? Give examples.
13.What is the division of complementive/uncomplementive verbs. Give examples.
14.What is the difference between monocomplementive and binocomplementive verbs?
EXERCISES
1. There are about 3200 verbs in Modern English. Study the following classification.
I. Lexical Verbs or Main Verbs are divided into three groups:
1)Statal Verbs - be, stand, know.
2)Action Verbs − do, act, make.
They can be complimentive (transitive and intransitive) or uncomplimentive (personal and impersonal)
a) Transitive Verbs are subdivided into: Mono transitive verbs: I know the answer.
Di transitive verbs: I told him (indirect) the answer. (direct)
41
Part 3. Verb
Complex Transitive Verbs: They have painted their house purple. (complement)
b) Intransitive Verbs: My brother never smokes in the house. Note: Some verb can be transitive, intransitive and linking verbs. She could smell the smoke. (Transitive Verb)
The rose smells sweet. (Linking verb) Your feet smell. (intransitive)
Primary meaning – transitive (I’m reading) Primary meaning – intransitive (He walks his dog every evening)·It’s difficult to say which meaning is primary (The weather changes. The Dean changed the timetable)
3) Linking Verbs (appear, be, become, feel, get, grow, keep, look, make, prove, remain, seem, smell, sound, stay, taste and turn etc.) e. g. The soup smells good.
II. Auxiliary Verbs
1)Primary auxiliaries: be, have and do. I have bought a new car.
2)Modal auxiliaries: can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should
and must.
III. Reflexive Verbs: He warmed himself at the fire.
IV. Performative Verbs: (promise, swear, apologize, thank, confess. e.g.) I promise I will go there.
V. Strong Verbs (regular – irregular): arise arose arisen. − Weak Verbs: worked.
VI. Phrasal verbs:
1)With adverb: Get back the papers.
2)With prepositions: (at, by, for, into, of, on and with) What are you looking for?
3)With adverb and prepositions: put up with, run out of, go in for, do away with.
VII. Finites – non-finites She teaches English. − I hate telling lies.
VIII. Terminative – non-terminative (durative – non-durative) e.g. close, shut, put, take – sleep, walk, love, live e.g. We are building a cottage – We have built a cottage.
In other classifications: limitive (close,arrive) and unlimitive (behave,move).
42
3.1. Verb General
2. Define the subclasses of the verbs below:
To think, to arrive, to show off, to come back, to go, to be, to seem, to send, to cross, to turn, to spend, will (would), to grow, to feel, to take, to turn around, to maintain, to look, to check, to do, to walk, can, to expect, to continue, to prove, to fall, to have, to repair, to do, to have, to link, to mention, to write, to put off, to taste, to get.
3. Comment on the aspective characteristics of the verbs below:
To bring, to belong, to consist, to catch, to exist, to discover, to escape, to fall, to feel, to enjoy, to jump off, to move, to lie, to lay, to talk, to spring up, to pass, to finish, to walk.
4. Exemplify the double aspective meaning of the following verbs (limitive/unlimitive):
To do, to read, to hear, to pour, to show, to translate, to understand, to
write.
5. Think of the actional counterparts for the following statal verbs:
to carry – ... , to hear – .... |
; to go – ....; to lie – ....; to look for – ...; to |
speak, to see – to look; to rise – .... |
; to talk – ... . |
6.Determine if the verbs in the given sentences are transitive or intransitive. If transitive, indicate the object of the verb.
1.The birdcage swung from a golden chain.
2.Margaret angrily crumpled her letter in her fist.
3.Someone answered that question.
4.He shuddered with fright during the scary part of the movie.
5.The rats chewed their way into the old house.
6.Acorns drop from the trees every fall.
7.Charlie combed his hair nervously before the dance.
8.We bought paper napkins for the picnic.
9.Zelda smiled at the thought of a parade in the snow.
10.Fish and potatoes sizzled in the pan.
7.Tricky Transitives Exercise: think of the omitted object:
1.You wash and I'll dry.
2.Are you ready to order?
3.Do you drink?
43
Part 3. Verb
4.Who scored?
5.It's your turn to deal.
6.I'll weed and you can water.
8.Underline the direct object and the object complement in the following sentences.
1.We appointed George the chairman.
2.She placed the ice-cream in the freezer on Sunday.
3.Sione made Mele very sad yesterday
4.Mele laid the dress on the bed.
5.Sione was chosen captain at the meeting.
6.Mele called Sione an idiot.
7.Stand the candles on the mantel near the fireplace.
8.He found her very beautiful in that dress.
9.Mele imagined Sione a rich man.
10.Sione proved Mele wrong in the research.
REFERENCES
1.Блох, М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка [Текст] / М. Я. Блох. − Москва: Высшая школа, 2003. − С. 95−112.
2.Блох, М. Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка [Текст] / М. Я. Блох, Т. Н. Семенова, С. В. Тимофеева. – Москва: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 141–143.
3.Иванова, И. П. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка [Текст] / И. П. Иванова, В. В. Бурлакова, Г. Г. Почепцов. − Москва: Высшая школа, 1981. – С. 46–50.
3.2. PERSON AND NUMBER
QUESTIONS
1.Why are the categories of person and number closely connected with each other?
2.Are these verbal categories immanent or reflective? Why?
3.How is the verbal category of person presented in the present / future/past tense? Analyze the forms.
44
3.2.Person and Number
4.Why is the category of number not featured in English from the morphemic point of view?
5.What is the opposition in the categorical sphere of person and
number?
6.What does the deictic function of lingual units consist in?
7.What is the semantic content of the first/second/third person?
8.What is the essence of the grammatical category of person?
9.Why is the category of number of personal pronouns so peculiar?
10.What does the first/second/third person indicate?
11.Why can we speak about the system of six persons?
12.What oppositional identification expressed in Modern English?
13.What is the indicator of verbal person and number?
14.Can the zero-representation of the subject give expression to the verbal person-number category?
15.Are the combinations of the subject-pronoun with the finite verb analytical person-number forms?
16.Give examples of forms when the verb agrees not with the form of the subject morphemically, but with personal-numerical interpretation of the referent?
17.Compare the category of person and number in the Russian and the English languages. What features do they share? What is the difference?
EXERCISES
1. Analyse the usage of the verb forms.
1. This afternoon our panel are three male singers. (Metropolitan Opera broadcast) 2. The acoustics influence design considerations. 3. Returning to the woody undergrowth, Jake found his traps had caught half a dozen rabbits, enough for his hungry companions back at the house. 4. The settlers often trapped rabbit that year, which were their only source of fresh meat. 5. Those who study dust estimate that 43 million tons of it settle over the U.S. every year. About 31 million tons of this is natural and the other twelve million manmade. 6. With only two hundred bears roaming the park lands, ten bears is a significant number. 7. ‘My only hope for the future is my children.’ /‘My only hope for the future are my children’ 8. ‘More nurses is the next item on the agenda. / ‘More nurses are the next item on the agenda.’ 9. ‘The majority are
45
Part 3. Verb
Moslems’ 10. ‘Her father is a member of Lloyd’s.’ 11. ‘More than 40 Conservative MPs are members of Lloyd’s.’ 12. The majority agrees with me. 13. ‘What we need most are books.’/ ‘What is needed most are books’ 14. ‘I’m all ears.’ 15. ‘Their rows is the only entertainment they have.’ 16. ‘Verbs and their tenses was a large area in which Shakespeare had a choice of usage.’
17.‘The second thing we must concentrate on are the word’s connotations.’
18.‘The fifth reason [Quite significantly, here the student had crossed out ‘is’.] are technical vs common words.’ 19. ‘The presence of foreign armies on its soil and the suborning of its communities by regional superpowers is a consistent theme.’ 20. ‘The flights that circle Kabul every quarter of an hour are a morale booster for the hard-pressed population.’ 21. ‘Opinion polls show that most
Filipinos want the bases, which are the biggest employer after the government, to stay.’ 22. ‘Insults and conflicting interests are the truth of the situation, and the way lies through them, not around.’ 23. ‘Both the debaters on the Arab side are that presently rare thing on which Grossman pins his hopes: Palestinians prepared to explore the possibilities of Israeli identity.’ 24. ‘Today, ecological and women’s issues are the equivalent of Ostpolitik for us.’ 25. ‘Since there are six million Xhosas – one million more than the entire white population of South Africa – they are potentially a serious force for Mr de Klerk to reckon with.’
2.Comment on the use of the verb in the singular or in the plural.
1.... His people in Oughterard were written to. (Joyce).
2.After all it was his own fifty pounds ... (Coppard).
3."Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland."
(Joyce).
4.There ... stand three young men ... (Shaw).
5.The fleet drops behind ... (Shaw).
6."... We found that the band had arrived, and were standing about in the hall rather pink in the face. ... The band were to be our guests for the night, and after we had welcomed them the band were borne off to their quarters ..." (Du Maurier).
7.Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off. (Dickens).
8. ... Before Brodie could speak he added: "How are all the family?" (Cronin).
9. "The Mungo Clothing Company have taken the shop next door to your husband ..." (Cronin).
46
3.3.Verb Tense
10."Oh, you [the unemployed] weren't to have been paid. The NorthEast [Company] never pay their crowds." (Mansfield).
REFERENCES
1.Блох, М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка [Текст] / М. Я. Блох. − Москва: Высшая школа, 2003. – С. 138–149.
2.Блох, М. Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка [Текст] / М.Я. Блох, Т. Н. Семенова, С. В.Тимофеева. – Москва: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 166–167.
3.Иванова, И. П. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка [Текст] / И. П. Иванова, В. В. Бурлакова, Г. Г. Почепцов. − Москва: Высшая школа, 1981. – С. 50–51.
4.Ильиш, Б. А. Строй современного английского языка [Текст]: учебник / Б. А. Ильиш. – Ленинград: Просвещение, 1971. – С. 123–125.
3.3. VERB TENSE
QUESTIONS
1.What is the difference between the general notion of time, the lexical denotation of time, and the grammatical temporality?
2.What are the lexical expressions of time divided into?
3.What does the absolutive/non-absolute time denotation distribute?
4.What does the category of primary time express?
5.What is the difference of the category of the primary time from all other immanent verbal categories?
6.What does the category of prospective time express?
7.Why is the category of prospect similar to all other verbal categories?
8.What is the process of neutralization connected with?
9.What is the difference of the category of tense in English and in Rus-
sian?
EXERCISES
1. Comment on the tenses and the starting point:
Back in 15 minutes (a notice on the office door). Do it now.
He died this year.
47
Part 3. Verb
Today was his birthday.
The longest day in the Northern hemisphere occurs when the sun is in the tropic of Cancer.
Yesterday he comes to see me and...
You are now leaving the State of Alabama (the signpost on the high-
way).
2. Explain the use of the Present tense forms denoting future actions.
1."I'll come when you have no one else." (Eliot).
2."Promise you won't do anything, Jean, till everything else has failed." (Galsworthy).
3."Can we go now, Uncle Hilary?" – "It would be as well, Dinny, before you've quite vamped the foreman." (Galsworthy).
4."I shall leave it to the boatswain to do that when you're in the navy," said Clara. (Meredith).
5.I'll walk along the beach while you are bathing.
6."Show him into the study, Emily," he said. "I'll come as soon as I've finished my tea." (Maugham).
7."I'll see you before I go, Pyle." (Greene).
8."...I shall be glad to think I have your good will when all's been said and done." (Galsworthy)
3. Transíate into English.
1.Она отложила в сторону письмо, которое писала, и задумалась.
2.Она пошла на почту отправить письмо, которое написала накануне.
3.Все еще спали, когда зазвонил телефон. 4. В саду никого не было. Пахло свежескошенной травой. По-видимому, садовники косили. 5. Сад потерял свою прелесть: садовники скосили всю траву. 6. К счастью, он не заметил ее воспаленных глаз и не догадался, что она плакала. 7. Сью внимательно наблюдала за Джонси, когда та открыла глаза. 8. Сью, которая некоторое время наблюдала за своей больной подругой, подошла к ее кровати. 9. Она отложила в сторону книгу, которую читала. 10. Она написала письмо и читала книгу. 11. Пеготти уронила чулок, который она штопала. 12. Пеготти отложила чулок, который уже заштопала.
48
3.3. Verb Tense
TRANSLATION TASKS
Переводческие трудности. Перевод глагольных временных форм обычно не представляет особых трудностей при переводе.
Analyze the way of translating future forms into Russian. Finish the translation:
The Wash (by Allan Patrick Herbert)
“I am quite clean enough for a doctor,”
I said. “I will be washed at noon, when I stop sleeping”. “You will be washed now,” she said, and, untucking all my snug bed-clothes, she piled them in a disorderly and draughty heap on my legs.
“Well, one of these days you will have an Abdominal dying of ablutions. Just because I have no appendix, I said, “you think you can humiliate and torment me how you like.
“If you will turn him over, Nurse Andrews,” she said, “I will do the back.”
“You will kindly leave the back alone,” I said. “And I will not be talked about as if I were something in butcher’s shop. I am a living soul, with aspirations and a future life, and you are not to keep speaking of the back and the leg – as if I were so many joints of beef”.
In fact, Nurse (making every allowance for the skill and attention of the medical and nursing professions) the conclusion is that, in order to be healthy and especially before an operation, a man should constantly absorb in enormous quantities all those poisons which modern civilization has made available, for this it is my habit to do, and you see the result; but you will find that long after I leave you the teetotalers and vegetarians and non-
Гигиенические процедуры (Аллан Патрик Герберт)
–Я и так чистый для врача, – сказал я, – а мыться
ябуду в полдень, когда перестану спать.
–Вы будете мыться сейчас, – сказала она, выдернув мое уютно подоткнутое одеяло и швырнув его мне на ноги неопрятным комом, изпод которого тянуло холодом.
–Ну, так скоро у вас полостной пациент умрет от омовений. Только потому, что у меня нет аппендикса, – сказал я, – вы воображаете, что можете как угодно унижать и мучить меня.
–Если вы его перевернете, сестра Эндрюс, – сказала она, – я вымою спину.
–Нет уж, пожалуйста, оставьте спину в покое, – сказал я. – И я не потерплю, чтобы обо мне говорили, будто я товар в мясной лавке. Я живой человек, с надеждами и будущим, и нечего мне тут: спина, нога –
явам не разделанная говяжья туша.
49
Part 3. Verb
smokers will be stretched upon their beds about this hospital, feebly complaining and constantly ringing the bell. Which is the worst case here, Nurse?
The night-nurse arranged upon the table a number of nasty-looking steel instruments.
“The doctor is coming before breakfast”, she said, “to take your stitches out. And”, she added wickedly, “I hope it hurts”
Вообще, сестра (с поправкой на мастерство и заботу врачей и медсестер) получается, что для того, чтобы быть здоровым и особенно перед операцией, надо как можно больше вкушать от яда цивилизации, что я обычно и делаю, и результат на лицо
REPORTS
1.Problems of modal colouring of the English future. Блох, М. Я. Теорети-
ческая грамматика английского языка [Текст] / М. Я. Блох. − Москва: Высшая школа, 2003.
2.Tense. H. Sweet. Иофик, Л. Л. Хрестоматия по теоретической грамматике английского языка [Текст] / Л. Л. Иофик, Л. П. Чахоян. – Ленинград: Просвещение, 1972.
3.Time and Tense. O. Jespersen. Иофик, Л. Л. Хрестоматия по теорети-
ческой грамматике английского языка [Текст] / Л. Л. Иофик, Л. П. Чахоян. – Ленинград: Просвещение, 1972.
4.The stylish purpose of the “historic present”. Блох, М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка [Текст] / М. Я. Блох. − Москва: Высшая школа, 2003. – C. 138.
5.The problem of the moment of speech in modern Linguistics. Comrie,
B.Tense. – Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985.
6.Deixis representation in the category of tense. Klein, W. Tenses as deictic categories// Essays on Deixis/ G. Rauh (ed.). − Tübingen: Narr, 1983. −
P.229–245.
7.The correlation between lexical and grammatical means of time rendering. Huddleston, R. D. Some observations on tense and deixis in English// Language. Journal of the linguistic Society of America / W. Bright. – Baltimore: Waverly Press Inc., 1969. – Vol. 45. − № 4. − P. 777−807).
8.Категория времени глагола в английском и русском языках. – Гуревич, В. В. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. Сравнитель-
50