Foreword

The book is mainly written as a self-study book, but may also be used in class with a teacher. It revises some of the most difficult points of grammar that third-year students have already studied; it will also introduce them to many more features of English grammar appropriate to an advanced level of study.

The book consists of two parts: Morphology and Syntax. There are 15 large units in the book. Each one covers a particular area of grammar and contains some smaller units, helping to present the information in a systematized way. The book concentrates on the areas students need to pass the exams and gives thorough explanations of them. Special attention is given to those points which are often a problem for students: Noun, Articles, Adjective, Adverb, Oblique Moods, Subject-Predicate Agreement, Simple and Composite Sentences, Predicative Сomplexes.

The main aims of the book are as follows:

• to help the students improve their knowledge of English grammar so that they could use English at a near-native level of grammatical competence;

• to raise their awareness of how the English language works and to be able to speak on the use of grammar structures in English using appropriate examples;

• to raise the students’ awareness of the creative use of grammar;

• to ensure the students that they can communicate efficiently with a number of grammar patterns they learn;

• to develop the students’ ability to translate from Russian/Belarusian into English using appropriate grammar structures.

All the grammar rules are lavishly supplied with explanations and examples.

The book is supplied with the glossary (p. 122), where there are all the linguistic terms and their Russian equivalents.

Contents

MORPHOLOGY

THE NOUN 7

The Category of Number 9

The Genitive Case 13

Types of the Genitive Case 14

THE ARTICLE 17

Functions of the Article 18

The Use of Articles with Abstract Nouns 22

The Use of Articles with Material Nouns 25

The Use of Articles with Predicative Nouns and Nouns in Apposition 27

The Use of Articles in Some Set Expressions 29

The Use of Articles with Some Semantic Groups of Nouns 32

Articles with Names of Seasons and Parts of the Day 32

Articles with Names of Meals 33

Articles with the Nouns school, college, prison, jail, church, hospital 34

Articles with Names of Parts of the Body 34

Articles with Names of Specific Periods 35

The Use of Articles with Proper Names 35

Names of Persons 36

Geographical Names 38

Calendar Items 39

Miscellaneous Proper Names 40

THE ADJECTIVE 42

Morphological Composition 42

Semantic Characteristics 43

The Position of Adjectives 44

Degrees of Comparison 45

Patterns of Comparison 46

Intensifiers of Adjectives 49

Substantivized Adjectives 51

Adjectives and Adverbs 53

OBLIQUE MOODS 56

Temporal Relations within the Oblique Moods 58

Subjunctive II 59

The Conditional Mood 62

The Suppositional Mood and Subjunctive I 64

SYNTAX

THE SENTENCE 70

The Simple Sentence. Structural Types 71

Communicative Types of Sentences 72

THE SUBJECT 78

Ways of expressing the Subject 78

Structural Types of the Subject 79

“IT” and “THERE” as Subjects 81

THE PREDICATE 83

AGREEMENT OF THE PREDICATE WITH THE SUBJECT 88

Grammatical Agreement 88

Pronouns as Subjects 89

Agreement with Homogeneous Subjects 90

Notional Agreement 91

THE OBJECT 94

Types of Objects 95

Structure and Ways of Expressing 97

Predicative Constructions that Function as Objects 98

THE ATTRIBUTE 100

THE APPOSITION 103

THE ADVERBIAL MODIFIER 104

Structural Types of the Adverbial Modifier 105

Semantic Characteristics of the Adverbial Modifier 105

ABSOLUTE NOMINATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 107

THE COMPOSITE SENTENCE 110

The Compound Sentence 110

The Complex Sentence 113

Nominal Clauses 114

Attributive Clauses 115

Adverbial Clauses 117

WORD ORDER 120

Glossary of Linguistic Terms 123

List of Books 126

Who climbs the grammar tree distinctly knows

Where noun and verb and participle grows

Dryden