Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. Учебно-методическое пособие

The attribute is a part of the sentence which modifies nouns in the sentence. Its position in the system of parts of the sentence is thus very specific. Unlike objects and adverbial modifiers which are predicateoriented, the attribute is noun-oriented, i.e. it modifies a noun which can be used in any position in the sentence: subject, object, predicative or adverbial modifier. Attribute often defined as ‘a part of a part of the sentence’ thus stressing its subordinated character in the syntactic structure of the sentence. This position of attributes, in its turn, may be explained by the fact of their secondary derivational nature: most of the attributive relations can be traced back to predicative relations, e.g. a cold day - the day is cold. Attributes are usually optional parts of the sentence which is quite logical because, being noun-oriented, they are not necessitated by the valency of the verb. But they may become necessary for the semantic completeness of the sentence. E.g. My parents were working people. He was a fat boy with red cheeks. The deletion of attributes from these sentences would make the sentences semantically empty as the attributes carry the most important information.

The primary semantic function of the attributes is to express either a qualitative or a relative property of the substance named by the noun and like adjective the attributes can be classified into qualitative and relative. A qualitative attribute expresses a quality of the substance (a large room, a yellow pencil), or the speaker’s personal evaluation of the substance (a great man, a wonderful present). A relative attribute expresses the relation of the substance to other substances or actions (a silver case, the Presiden’s statement). There are also quantitative attributes which give a quantitative modification to the substance named by the noun or show the order of things or phenomena (three musketeers, the first president, the last inch).

According to their position to the head noun attributes may be prepositional and postpositional. Their position to the head noun is determined by the form of their expression. Attributes expressed by adjectives (a blue beard) ,cardinal numerals, expressing number of objects (two babies), ordinal numerals (the second son), nouns in the possessive case (the old man’s speech), nouns in the Common case (a milk bottle), single participles ( a flowering desert, a pre-paid reply)

8.Soon he came to regard her as his property (D. Steel).

9.He may have been eighty, but his mind was still sharp as a pin (F. Forsyth).

10.He had been in the eye of the storm and at some center point of some of the most disillusioning events of remembered history; and he seems to have emerged with a kind of distilled harm (E. Hoffman).

11.The house looked quite different from this side (A. Christie).

12.Probably the best thing to do would be to ask his wife, his widow rather (A. Christie).

II. State the syntactic and the semantic functions of the underlined words in the sentence.

1.During the Renaissance Latin was seen as the language of a golden age (L. Berk).

2.There was a sudden scraping of chairs (J. Fowles).

3.I took a long and a hot bath (G.Greene).

4.Weekends were usually lonely.

5.Seattle is often foggy.

6.I remembered that day of the picnic long back (R.P. Warren).

7.Forgetting serves a very important function, and it’s a by-product of learning.

8.Eastern parts of Britain will start the day dry and fairly bright with a touch of ground frost in some sheltered areas (MS).

9.Outrage greeted the Employment Secretary in the Commons as he announced a drastic shake-up in adult jobs for training (MS)

10.The 1940s and 1950s saw several desperate attempts to answer these and similar questions (R. Matthew).

11.When I got back from Hungary I did not have the ‘why do I live here in Moscow’ feeling.

12. Smoke curled thinly from one of the near chimneys (D. du Maurier).

13.She bade him a casual and demure good night (J. Galsworthy).

14.It was his nature to be communicative (D. du Maurier).

15.She smiles a pussy cat smile (M. Atwood).

The sentence is not composed of separate words but rather that words are first grouped into phrases and then these phrases serve as prefabs for making a sentence. If we compare a sentence with a building we may conclude that it is built not out of bricks (words) but rather out of prefabs (phrases). The phrase is usually defined a group of two or more syntactically related notional words within the structure of the sentence based on certain grammatical relations between its components, which itself is not a sentence. The definition points out two most important specific features of the -phrase:

1)it is a combination of two or more notional words, from which it follows that a combination of notional word with a functional word are considered to be not phrases, but the syntactic forms of the word.

2)the phrase is basically different from the sentence. The principal difference between the phrase and the sentence lies in the fact that the sentence is a unit of communication whereas the phrase is not. The sentence has a nominating function (it names an event or a situation of reality) and a communicative function (it is used with a certain communicative aim) whereas the phrase has only a nominating function.

Phrases present the object of study both for lexicology and grammar though the two branches of linguistics deal with different aspects of the phrases. Lexicology is concerned with the study of the words’ meanings and how these meanings are modified in different combinations of words. Grammar deals with the classification of phrases on different grammatical principles and grammatical means of combining words into phrases. Grammar studies the rules of combining words into phrases and the regularities of forming different types of phrases. The knowledge of these rules is important for understanding the specific structure of English.

There are several ways of classifying phrases based on different principles.

The structural, or formal classification. It is based on the presence or absence of a head word in the phrase. Accordingly all phrases fall

into two types: headed, or endocentric (e.g. fish soup) and non-headed, or exocentric (e.g. side by side).

The morphological classification is based on the belonging of a head word in an endocentric phrase or the components of an exocentric phrase to a certain part of speech. According phrases are classified into nominal, or substantive ( e.g. a silver spoon), verbal (e.g. run quickly), adjectival (e.g. exceeedingly greeedy), adverbial phrases (e.g. too seldom). This principle of classifying phrases is most widely spread.

The semantic classification is based on the semantics of a headword which serves to unite words derived from the same root, e.g. to love books, love for books, a lover of books, a book lover, loving books.

The derivational classification is on their derivational history. In this classification all phrases fall into two large classes: primary, or nonderivational and secondary, or derivational. Primary phrases are those which are not derived from sentences, they are not results of transformation over sentences (e.g. my old friend, a perfect idiot). Such phrases are not derived from sentences which is easily verified by the fact that they cannot be used in the position of predicatives. Secondary, or derivational phrases are phrases derived from sentences by means of the syntactic process of nominalization and are correlated structurally and semantically with the sentences from which they are derived.

The secondary, or derivational phrases fall into two groups according to the degree of nominalization: completely nominalized and partially nominalized. Completely nominalized phrases are those in which the verb of the basic sentence is deleted, e.g. The smile is sweet – a sweet smile. Partially nominalized phrases include infinitival gerundial and participial structures. E.g. You are wise – to be wise, being wise

Nominalization plays a very important role in the grammatical structure of English. The English language has a marked tendency towards nominalization. Nominalization serves as a means of compression in English. A sentence with a gerundial or an infinitival structure is always more economical than a corresponding complex sentence.

Nominalization enriches the synonymic potential of the language. Infinitival, gerundial and participial and infinitival phrases serve as

functional synonyms to the corresponding subordinate clauses, so the speaker has at his/her disposal a variety of syntactic means to express the same idea.

Nominalization is also a means of enriching the vocabulary of the language. Many compound nouns are traceable back to sentences, i.e. they can be treated as results of nominalization and their meaning can be interpreted only with the help of sentences with which they are structurally and semantically correlated. E.g. a long -liver – a person who lives long; a stay-at-home – a person who prefers to stay at home etc.

In the process of building a phrase the components of a phrase are not just put together but the relations between them are based on certain types of grammatical relations characteristic of a particular language. There are four grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of a phrase: agreement, government, adjoining and connection (the arrangement of a phrase with the help of functional words). The distribution and the significance of these four types varies across languages and depends on the type of the language. In inflexional languages with highly developed morphology the most important role is played by agreement and government. The difference between the agreement and government consists in the following: in the case of agreement the subordinated word has the same grammatical form(s) as the subordinating word. In the case of government the form of the subordinated form is not the same as that of the subordinating word, but it is determined by the subordinating word. In English due to the loss of inflexions agreement and government have a relict character and are limited to just a few cases: agreement exists between the head noun and demonstrative pronouns: this table – these tables and government is limited to the choice of Objective case in personal and interrogative pronouns: He saw them – They saw him; Who saw you?).

Language as a system presents an integral whole in which everything is interconnected and interdependent, so nothing can happen in one place without echoing in another. The loss of the significance of agreement and government as the grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of a phrase which was the result of the loss of inflexions was compensated by the growing significance of the two other means: adjoining and connection.

Adjoining and connection became the leading grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations in English. If in Russian adjoining is actually defined negatively as absence of both agreement and government in English the essence of adjoining consists in the position of the subordinated word (preposition or postposition) and is actually related to the fixed word order which as we already know came to replace the free word order after the loss of inflexions.

Connection, i.e. the expression of syntactic relations with the help of functional words is another very important means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of a phrase. The role of connection also grew after the loss of inflexions when the morphological means of expressing case relations were replaced by syntactic means: position in the sentence and prepositions. As prepositions came to replace the morphological markers of case, it is possible to speak about prepositional government in English, especially in the case of the so called verbs with inherent prepositions, e.g. look at, approve of, remind of, depend on etc. Connection and adjoining are interrelated as the use of a preposition is related with the position of components within a phrase. These two means of expressing syntactic relations play the main role in the English language as a language with marked isolating and analytical tendencies.

Seminar Class

1.Give the definition of the phrase and outline the main problems in the theory of phrases. Point out the principal difference between the sentence and the phrase.

2.Give the essence of the various classifications of phrases. Dwell on the derivational approach to the classification of phrases.

3.Speak about the process of nominalization. Describe the functions of nominalization. Give proof in support of the opinion that English is a nominalizing language.

4.Characterize the grammatical means of expressing the syntactic relations between the components of the phrase.

Exercises

I. Classify the following phrases on the morphological principle. ready to faint, to be about to depart, chapter five, a five-storey red-

brick, loosely joined limbs, vaguely familiar, high above, welcome news, unwelcome news, to wear nothing but a strip of red cotton round their loins, at five sharp, no sign of stopping, red in the face, a literary eleven, that net of yours.

II. Classify the following phrases into primary and secondary.

the Flying Dutchman, my dear Eddison, my old friend, an obvious lie, pure truth, mere nonsense, an enigmatic smile, a ghost of a smile.

III. Translate the sentences and comment on the difference between English and Russian in the sphere of nominalization.

1.The doctor made no answer.

2.On weekends they would do some shopping.

3.My husband is a forgetter. I am a rememberer.

4.He badly needed a bath and a shave.

5.There was a “Wet Paint” note on the bench which he did not

notice.

6.I hope he did not hear the tremble in my voice.

7.I am not good at guessing.

8.She was the talk of the town for quite a while and then completely forgotten.

9.My wife is a wonderful cook.

10.I can give you both a shake down if you like.

11.She had always had a perfect command of English.

IV. Define the grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of the phrase.

1.I happen to know these people.

2.You can’t get away from us.

3.She gave me her usual I-know- nothing smile.

4.He began to talk of one thing and another.

5.One could hardly recognize the once beauty of the village in that old bundle of rags.

I. Give the definition of the following phenomena:

the indirect object, primary phrases, prepositional government, metasemiotic transposition, adverbial object

II. State the syntactic functions of the underlined words:

1.He was the first to read my letter.

2.There is nothing to be alarmed about.

3.I wish I had somebody to talk to.

4.All I’m doing is trying to protect you.

5.I’d rather do it my own way.

III. Classify the following phrases into primary and secondary:

a friendly smile; a complete idiot, wonderful news, dear friend, a perfect example

IV. Define the grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of the phrase (agreement, government, adjoining and connection):

1.the Prime Minister’s speech

2.a know-nothing face

3.last poem of Shelley

4.tomorrow’s important conference

5.to go out for a breath of fresh air

The composite sentence is a polypredicative syntactic unit composed from two or more clauses (analogous in their syntactic structures to simple sentences) which constitute a syntactic, semantic and communicative whole. A composite sentence is built on the basis of simple sentences, but it is not a mere combination of simple sentences,

but a qualitatively new syntactic unit of a higher syntactic sublevel. Simple sentences united into the structure of a composite sentence have a special name in English – they are called clauses. Being a qualitatively new syntactic unit the composite sentence is characterized by certain structural, semantic and communicative peculiarities. From the structural point of view the composite sentence is characterized by the presence of two or more primary predicative lines. From the semantic point of view the difference between the simple and the composite sentence lies in the fact that the simple sentence denotes one situation of reality (unless it contains implicit predication) whereas the composite sentence denotes two or more situations of reality and expresses various relations between them which reflects various types of logical relations between events of reality perceived and conceptualized by our mind. From the communicative aspect the composite sentence may present a combination of two different communicative types of sentences but once they are combined within a composite sentence and become clauses they lose their independent communicative status and the communicative status of the resultative composite sentence is established on the basis of the clause which has the status of the principal clause.

Composite sentences are most characteristic of literary written speech rather than colloquial oral speech, but modern fiction as compared to classical literature is characterized by the tendency to use less complicated and shorter sentences.

According to the basic semantic difference in the relations between clauses, that of coordination/subordination the composite sentence is divided into two types: the compound sentence based on coordinative semantic relations between the clauses, and the complex sentence based on the semantic relations of subordination. Coordination reflects the most general types of logical relations between situations and events: conjunction, disjunction, juxtaposition, cause and consequence. Subordination reflects various relations of dependence between events: condition, result, cause etc. As a rule, the principal clause presents the main event and the subordinate clause – the dependent event which explains or modifies the main event. The meaning of coordination/subordination is manifested by special words – the conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs and pronouns which carry a