16. Actual division of the sentence. Communicative types of sentences.

The sentence is the immediate unit of speech built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern & distinguished by a contextually relevant communicati­ve purpose. Therefore the primary classification of sentences must be based on the communicative principle. This principle is formula­ted in traditional grammar as the purpose of communication in acc. with which three cardinal sentence-types ha­ve long been recognized in linguistics: I. The declarative sentence. 2.The imperative (inductive) sentence. 3.The interrogative sentence. These communicative sentence-types st& in strict opposition to one another. The declarative sentence expresses a statement, either affirmative or negative. The imperative sentence expresses inducement, either affirmative or negative. The interrogative sentence expresses a question, i.e. a request for informa­tion wanted by the speaker from the listener. The interrogative sentence is natural­ly connected with an answer, forming together with it a question-answer dialogue unity. There are general, special, alternative & disjunctive questions. Alongside of the above-mentioned, another type of sentences is recognized in the theory of syntax, the so-called exclamatory sentence. It does not possess any complete set of qualities that could place them on one & the same le­vel with the three cardinal communicative types of sentences & its function is purely expressive. Each of the cardinal communicative sentence-types can be represented in the two variants: non-exclamatory & exclamatory. The notional parts of the sentence referring to the basic elements of the reflec­ted situation form, taken together, the nominative meaning of the sentence. The divisi­on of the sentence into notional parts can be called "the nominative division". Alongside of the nominative division of the sentence, the idea of the so-called actual division of the sentence has been put forward in theoretical linguistics. The purpose of the actual division of the sentence is to reveal the correlative significa­nce of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance.

17. The noun. Grammatical categories.

The Noun is a notional part of speech which names the subject, expresses the substance in the widest sense of the word. Nouns are divided into proper (individual) & common (class, collective, abstract & nouns of material), may be counted or uncounted. They possess two numbers: singular & plural (-s, -es, irreg.-man-men; foreign plural - phenomenon-phenomena). In case of coll., abstr. & material nouns the numeric definition is of no importance at all & it leads to such occurrences as singularia & pluralia tantum. The dual nature of coll. nouns is shown in diff. ways: by the number of the verb or by the referring pronoun. Sometimes the plural form of the material & abstract nouns is used for the stylistic purposes (synecdoche) or to denote large amounts or a high degree of smth. The case indicates the relation of the noun to the other word in the sentence& may be Common & Possessive (genitive). The Common case is of general & indefinite meaning & has no inflection. The Possessive case expresses possession with the various shades of meaning. With nouns denoting inanim. things & abstr. notions it’s formed by the of-phrase. With nouns denoting the living beings or time & distance, cosmic bodies, collective nouns, country, cities, days, months, in a few set expressions it’s formed by the ending –s. There is no gram-l gender in English as we have in Russian. We find gender distinctions only acc. to the biological category of “sex”. Gender finds its formal expression in the replacement of nouns by the pronouns he-male/animal; she-female/animal; it -inanim. thing/animal. He & she are used for animals when they are thought as having personal qualities of human beings; it – for animals or very young children; she – for inanim. things (ships) or for countries in polit. or cult. context. When sex is not known or specified he is used rather than she. The gender may be expressed lexically by means of different words (boy – girl), & suffix –ess is usually shows the feminine gender (actress).