Теоретическая грамматика английского языка = Theoretical Grammar of the English Language. Учебное пособие

The meaning of the weak member of the privative opposition is more general and abstract as compared with the meaning of the strong member, which is more definite and concrete.

In various contextual conditions one member of the opposition can be used in the position of the other. This phenomenon is called oppositional reduction, or oppositional substitution. E.g.: Tonight we start for London.-the weak member- Present tense-replaced the strong onethe Future tense. Such case is called neutralization of oppositions. E.g.: She is constantly grumbling. – It’s an exaggeration, not a continuous process. Here a strong member is used in the meaning of the weak member for stylistic purposes. This kind of oppositional reduction is called transposition (Blokh, 2000).

The means employed for building up member forms of categorial oppositions are traditionally divided into: 1.synthetical, 2. analytical. So the grammatical forms themselves are classed into synthetical and analytical grammar forms. Synthetical grammar forms are realized by inner morphemic composition of the word. Analytical forms are built by a combination of at least two words, one of which is an auxiliary, and the other – a notional word. Synthetical grammar forms may be:

–Inner-inflectional: goose-geese,

–Outer-inflectional:boy-boys,

–Suppletive: good-better-best, is -was, were-been.

The first type is not productive in Modern Indo-European languages, it is used in English in forms of irregular verbs: keep-kept-kept, forms of singular and plural: man-men.

Suppletivity is not productive either. It is based on the correlation of different roots: be-was, were-been.

Outer-inflectional forms belong to the productive means of affixation. There are quite a few grammar suffixes which are used to build up the number and case forms of the noun; the person, number, tense, participial and gerundial forms of the verb; forms of comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

The analytical grammar forms are traditionally considered to be a combination of an auxiliary and a basic word, and it’s one of the most typical ways of form-building.

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MODULE 2

Grammatical Classes of Words. Parts of Speech. Principles of differentiation

The entire vocabulary of the English language, like in all Indo-Eu- ropean languages, is divided into certain lexico-grammatical classes, called parts of speech ( Ivanova, 1989).

Prof. A.I.Smirnitsky calls these classes of words “lexico-grammati- cal categories”. The term “part of speech” is purely traditional and conventional, it was introduced in Ancient Greece. The theoretical study of language in the history of science began with the attempts to identify and describe grammatical classes of words called "parts of speech". The first classifications were made by ancient philosophers of Ancient Greece. They were hardly based on any clear criteria, it was a natural classification reflecting the result of the cognitive activity of a person. The grammatical system of European languages was formed on the basis of the grammatical teaching of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

The existence of such lexico-grammatical classes has never been a debatable issue among the linguists, although there are different views on the principles of classifications. The representative of the English scientific grammar H. Sweet stressed the need to take into account the meaning, form and function of words, but he emphasized the priority of the form over the other criteria. The representative of structuralism Ch.Fries emphasized the priority of the function (syntactic criterion).

In modern linguistics parts of speech are also differentiated either by a number of criteria, or by a single criterion.

Traditional classification

The polydifferential ("traditional") classification of words is based on the three criteria: semantic, formal, and functional. The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized (categorial) meaning of the words of the given part of speech. The formal criterion provides for the exposition of all formal features (specific inflectional and derivational) of all the lexemic subsets of a particular part of speech. The functional criterion concerns the typical syntactic functions of a part of speech. Contractedly the set of these criteria is referred to as "meaning, form, function" (Blokh, 2000).

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In accord with the traditional criteria of meaning, form, and function, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional.

Prof. Blokh calls the notional parts of speech the words of complete nominative value; in the utterance they fulfill self-dependent functions of naming and denoting things, phenomena, their substantial properties (Prof. Blokh). Opposed to the notional parts of speech are the functional words which are words of incomplete nominative value, but of absolutely essential relational (grammatical) value. In the utterance they serve as all sorts of mediators (Blokh, 2000).

To the basic functional parts of speech in English are usually referred the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection. Functional words are limited in number. On the lines of the traditional classification they are presented by the list, each of them requiring its own, individual description.

The syntactic (monodifferential) classification of words is based on syntactic featuring of words only. The syntactic classification of words, in principle, supplements the three-criteria classification specifying the syntactic features of parts of speech. For the Russian language the basic principles of the syntactic classification of words were outlined in the works of A.M. Peshkovski. In English the syntac- tico-distributional classification of words was worked out by structuralists L. Bloomfield and his followers Z. Harris and Ch. Fries. The syn- tactico-distributional classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution tests. As a result of this testing, a standard model of four main syntactic positions of notional words was built up. These positions are those of the noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Pronouns are included into the corresponding positional classes as their substitutes. Words incapable to occupy the said main syntactic positions are treated as functional words.

The noun as a part of speech

The noun as a part of speech has the categorical meaning of “substance. The noun is characrerised by the syntactical function of a subject, object, predicative, adverbial modifier, attribute. Typical of nouns is the prepositional combinability with another noun, with adverb, and adjective. The noun is characterized by the following grammatical categories: gender, number, case and article determination (prof. Blokh).

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English nouns are divided into several subclasses.

Prof. Blokh states that the order in which the subclasses are presented is chosen by convention: the given set of subclasses cannot be structured hierarchically.

The category of gender

There are two approaches to the category of gender:

1.There is no grammatical gender in English, as there are no special grammatical forms to express it. This point of view is expressed by Profs. A.I.Smirnitsky, B.A.Ilyish, I.P. Ivanova, and others.

2.Other linguists (Strand, Blokh) recognize the grammatical category of gender in English nouns because it is possible to substitute a noun by a personal pronoun indicating sex.

According to Prof. Blokh, the category of gender is oppositional. It’s formed by two oppositions related to each other on a hierarchical basis:

The upper opposition

The scholar proves that the category of gender exists in the English language, but is is purely semantic, as different from the so-called “formal gender” synthetic languages (Russian, German).

There are some nouns in English which are referred to as nouns of common gender – they are capable of expressing both feminine and masculine person genders (person, friend, cousin, doctor, president). There are some nouns which can show the sex lexically: either

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by means of being combined with certain notional words used as sex indicators or by suffixal derivation: boy friend - girl-friend, he-bear - she-bear, lion-lioness, widower-widow, tom-cat - pussy-cat.

Sometimes we can come across grammatical personifying transposition ( ).

Thus, according to Prof. Blokh, gender can be considered a lexicogrammatical category.

The category of number

The category of number is expressed by the binary privative opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form. The strong member of the opposition is the plural; its formal mark is the suffix –

(e)s. It correlates with the absence of the suffix in the singular form. In the cases of oppositional reduction we have Pluralia Tantum

and Singularia Tantum nouns. The Pluralia tantum nouns have only plural form.

The Singularia tantum nouns have only singular form. With them the predicate is always in the singular. Sometimes nouns of substance can be used in the plural form or take an indefinite article denoting an object made of the material.

Collective nouns denote groups of human beings (family, government, police); they can be used to denote the group as a whole (singular) ( e.g. His family is friendly) or a group consisting of a certain number of individuals (plural) (e.g.: My family are having dinner now).

The category of case

There exist different views on the category of case.

1.There are two cases in English.

2.There are more than two cases.

3.There are no cases in English at all.

Case is the category of the noun expressing relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other things or properties or actions, and is manifested by some formal sign of the noun itself. The minimum number to form a category is two cases.

1. Such scholars as J. Nesfield, M. Deutchbein present the so-called theory of positional cases. They state that there are 4 cases expressed not only by – ‘s but by prepositions (of, to) and word order. Nominative, Vocative, Dative and Accusative are distinguished on the basis of

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the position occupied by the noun in the sentence. These cases are illustrated by the following examples:

1.Nominative case (subject to a verb): rain falls.

2.Vocative (address): Are you coming, my darling?

3.Dative (indirect object to a verb): I gave John a penny.

4.Accusative (direct object and object to a preposition): The cat killed a rat. The ground is covered with snow.

This theory substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of the word class (Blokh, 2000).

2.G. Curme presents the second viewpoint- the theory of prepositional cases. According to this theory combinations of nouns with prepositions should be viewed as morphological case forms. He distinguishes

a) the Dative case –to+N, for+N, b) the Genitive case-of +N.

G. Curme considers these prepositions “inflexional prepositions”- equivalents to case forms. There are some objections to this theory. As any analytical language, English is characterized by extensive use of prepositions, many of which really require definite cases of nouns (prepositional case government). Prepositions render relations analogical to cases of nouns in declensional languages. But in this case all the other prepositional phrases in English must be regarded as “analytical cases”.

3.The third point of view was put forward by H. Sweet, O.Jespersen, Prof. A.I.Smirnitsky, and Prof. L.S.Barkhudarov. It is called “the limited case theory”. It was developed on the base of the oppositional approach. It differentiates two case forms: the possessive, or genitive form as the strong member of the opposition, and the common, or “non-genitive” form as the weak member.

4.There is another viewpoint of the problem of case differentiation in English, held by Russian linguists Prof.Vorontsova, Prof. Ilyish, Prof. Barkhudarov, Prof. Shteling and some others. It states that the English noun has completely lost its category of case in the course of its historical development. The relations thought as the ones rendered by the Genitive case are represented by a noun with a postposition which is similar to the noun with a preposition. This view is called “the theory of the possessive postposition”. To support this theory Prof. Vo-

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rontsova gives the example of possessive postposition “’s” attached not only to a single word, but to a phrase “ somebody else’s daughter”.

In Prof. Blokh’s opinion the phrasal use of the postpositional -’s has a stylistic colouring. Moreover, statistical data show that the –‘s is attached to individual nouns in 96% of its total use. Secondly, the –‘s has an obvious morphemic property; it is strictly postpositional, unlike the prepositions, and it’s not registered in dictionaries as a separate word.

To sum up, we share the viewpoint that there exists a two case declension of nouns in English. The sign- ‘s has a clear particle nature, it can be added both to individual nouns and nounal groups. Thus two types of Genitive can be differentiated: the word Genitive, and the phrase Genitive.

The category of article determination

The main formal element of the noun category of determination is the article (Blokh, 2000). The article is a determining unit of specific nature accompanying the noun. There are some other determiners in English, such as pronouns: this, any, some, which explicitly interpret the referent of the noun in relation to other objects or phenomena. The article just specifies the referent, defines it in the most general way. The use of the article is obligatory with nouns. There exist two basic approaches to the problem of the article status.

1.The article is a self-sufficient word which forms with the modified noun a syntactic syntagma;

2.The article is the morpheme-like element which builds up with the noun stem a specific morpheme.

The majority of linguists view the article as a unit of language intermediary between the word and the morpheme. The article can be viewed in terms of the oppositional theory. On the higher level the definite article is opposed to the indefinite article and the meaningful absence of article, the definite article being the strong member means identification. On the lower level the weak member of the upper opposition is regarded as an opposition of two types of generalization.

Thus, the system of articles in English is described as one consisting of three articles: the definite article expresses the categorial meaning of identification: the indefinite expresses relative generalization and the zero article expresses absolute generalization.

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Adjective as a Part of Speech

The adjective expresses the categorial semantics of property of substance. It means that each adjective used in the text denotes some characteristics of the noun referent (material, colour, etc.). According to Prof. Blokh, it follows from this that adjectives do not have a full nominative value like nouns (Blokh, 2000).

Adjectives are distinguished by a specific combinability with nouns, which they modify, usually in pre-position, and occasionally in post-position; by a combinability with link-verbs, by a combinability with modifying adverbs. In the sentence the adjective performs the functions of an attribute and a predicative. Of the two, the more specific function of the adjective is that of an attribute, since the function of a predicative can be performed by other parts of speech (noun, pronoun, numeral).

Substantivization of the adjective. Also adjectives can perform the syntactic functions characteristic of the noun: subject or object. Adjectives in these cases are used with the definite article and usually mean a lot of people: The rich and the poor will never understand each other.

To the derivational features of adjectives belong a number of suffixes and prefixes of which the most important are: -ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic; un-, in-, pre-. Among the adjectival affixes should also be named the prefix a-, constitutive for the stative subclass.

English adjectives have the category of comparison. Semantically all the adjectives fall into two subclasses: qualititative adjectives (showing the quality of the substance (big, good, beautiful, etc.) which can form the degrees of comparison, and relative adjectives (expressing a characteristic through a relation to an object: wooden, industrial, etc.) which do not form the degrees of comparison. However, in actual speech the described principle of distinction is not at all strictly observed. On the one hand, some qualitative adjectives can denote such qualities of substances which are incompatible with the idea of degrees of comparison. Here refer adjectives like extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed, etc. On the other hand, many relative adjectives form degrees of comparison, transforming the denoted relative property of a substance into such as can be graded quantitatively, e.g.: of a

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In order to overcome the demonstrated lack of rigour in the differentiation of qualitative and relative adjectives, Prof. M.Y. Blokh introduced an additional linguistic distinction which is more adaptable to the chances of usage. The suggested distinction is based on the evaluative function of adjectives. Thus, all the adjectives can be used either evaluatively or specificatively, depending on the context. Prof. Blokh states that it emphasizes the fact that the morphological category of comparison (comparison degrees) is potentially represented in the whole class of adjectives, and not only in the class of qualitative adjectives.

The category of adjectival comparison is constituted by the opposition of the three forms known under the heading of degrees of comparison: the basic form (positive degree), having no features of comparison; the comparative degree form, having the feature of restricted superiority (which limits the comparison to two elements only); the superlative degree form, having the feature of unrestricted superiority (Blokh, 2000).

At present there is a tendency to use analytical forms more and many two-syllable adjectives which used to form the degrees of comparison only synthetically (i.e. with the help of the suffixes ‘er’ for the comparative degree and ‘est’ for the superlative degree now can also form the analytical degrees of comparison, adding ‘more’ for the comparative degree and ‘most’ for the superlative degree. (E.g. quiet-quit- er-quitest or quietmore quiet – most quiet; handsome-handsomer- handsomest or handsome-more handsomemost handsome).

Elative Most-Construction

Prof. Blokh gives special consideration to the most-combination with the indefinite article (a most interesting). In his view this combination is a common means of expressing elative evaluations of substance properties and should be called the elative most-construction. E.g.: It was a most spectacular show. “The expressive peculiarity of the form consists in the immediate combination of the two features which outwardly contradict each other: the categorial form of the superlative, on the one hand, and the absence of a comparison, on the other” (Prof. Blokh).

Also Profs. Ivanova, Burlakova, Pocheptsov state that such adjectives as ‘much’, ‘many’, ‘little’, ‘few’ are morphologically close to adjec-

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tives, since they have degrees of comparison. But by their other properties, they are close to numerals and pronouns (Ivanova, Burlakova, Pocheptsov, 1989).

Adverb as a Part of Speech

Adverbs received an independent status of the notional part of the speech quite late. H. Sweet, O. Espersen referred the adverbs to the particles.

Our Russian scholars B.A. Ilish, A.I. Smirnitsky, L.S. Barkhudarov included an adverb into the system of notional parts of speech. They defined the adverb as a word expressing either property of an action, or property of another property, or circumstances in which an action occurs. This definition, according to Prof. Blokh, though certainly informative and instructive, fails to directly point out the relation between the adverb and the adjective as the primary qualifying part of speech (Blokh, 2000).

To overcome this drawback, Prof. Blokh defines the adverb as notional word expressing a non-substantive property, that is, a property of a non-substantive referent. This formula immediately shows the actual correlation between the adverb and the adjective, since the adjective is a word expressing a substantive property (Blokh, 2000).

Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial. Qualitative adverbs express immediate, inherently non-graded qualities of actions and other qualities. The typical adverbs of this kind are qualitative adverbs in -ly. E.g.: bitterly, plainly. The adverbs interpreted as "quantitative" include words of degree. These are specific lexical units of semi-functional nature expressing quality measure, or gradational evaluation of qualities, e.g.: very, quite; too, awfully; surprisingly; of moderate degree: relatively; a little; almost; unbearably; hardly.

Circumstantial adverbs are divided into functional and notional. The functional circumstantial adverbs are words of pronominal nature. Besides quantitative (numerical) adverbs they include adverbs of time, place, manner, cause, consequence. As for circumstantial notional adverbs, they include adverbs of time (today, never, shortly) and adverbs of place (homeward(s), near, ashore) (Blokh, 2009).

There are some debatable issues concerning the adverb: some adverbs, such as ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘since’ coincide in form with prepositions and conjunctions, differing only in the syntactic function and position

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