- •Теоретическая грамматика английского языка
- •§ 2. The phoneme, the morpheme, the word and the sentence are units of different levels of language structure. The phoneme is a unit of the lowest level, the sentence — of the highest.
- •§ 5. The structure, classification and combinability of phonemes is studied by a branch of linguistics called phonology.
- •Morphology
- •Introduction
- •§ 10. The morphemes book- and -s differ essentially:
- •§ 13. Besides lexical and grammatical morphemes there exist some intermediate types.
- •§ 18. In accordance with their structure the following four types of stems are usually distinguished:
- •§ 25. All the words of a lexeme, both synthetic and analytical, are, as defined (§ 19), united by the same lexical meanings.
- •§ 26. Analytical words are closely connected with synthetic ones.
- •§ 28. As shown by a. I. Smirnitsky, words derived from different roots may be recognized as suppletive only under the following conditions:
- •§ 29. The above-mentioned criteria serve to prove the identity of lexical morphemes in spite of their difference in form. The same criteria can be used to prove the identity of any morphemes.
- •§ 30. We have already spoken (§§ 14, 15, 18) about lexico-grammatical morphemes and their functions as stem-building elements. Now we are to see their role in building up classes of words.
- •§ 31. Let us compare the following columns of words:
- •Parts of speech
- •§ 39. Lexemes united by the genera! lexico-grammatical meaning of "substance" are called nouns. Those having the general lexico-grammatical meaning of "action" are called verbs, etc., etc.
- •§ 43. It must be borne in mind, however, that not all the lexemes of a part of speech have the same paradigms.
- •§ 44. The influence of the category of number is obliquely felt even in a case like milk. The word milk is closer to the "singular" member of a number opposeme than to the "plural" one.
- •§ 48. In accordance with the principles described above it is possible to distinguish the following parts of speech in English:
- •§49. Many linguists point out the difference between such parts of speech as, say, nouns or verbs, on the one hand and prepositions or conjunctions, on the other.
- •§ 51. A similar distinction can be drawn between notional and semi-notional lexemes within a part of speech (see § 194) and between notional and semi-notional parts of speech.
- •§ 57. A. I. Smirnitsky defines conversion as a type of word-building in which the paradigm is the only means of word-building.
- •§ 63. The relations between these variants remind us of conversion:
- •§ 64. As follows from our previous discussion of the parts of speech in English, the noun may be defined as a part of speech characterized by the following features:
- •§ 66. Many nouns are related by conversion1 with lexemes belonging to other parts of speech:
- •§ 70. A noun may be used in the function of almost any part of the sentence, though its most typical functions are those of the subject and the object. (See Syntax.)
- •§ 79. Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form 3.
- •§ 80. Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same, lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.
- •§ 82. Case is one of those categories which show the close connection (a) between language and speech, (b) between mor-phology and syntax.
- •§91. Nouns representing 'plural' grammemes may denote:
- •§ 92. Nouns representing 'common case' grammemes express a wide range, of meanings, the exhaustive examination of which is hardly feasible. Here are some of them.
- •§ 93. As we have seen, 'possessive case' nouns occur a great deal less frequently than their opposites1.
- •§ 97. In the Russian language a noun in the genitive case may be adnominal and adverbial, I. E. It can be attached to a noun and to a verb.
- •§ 100. Let us compare the-English noun with its Russian counterpart. The five properties we use as criteria for distinguishing parts of speech will serve as the basis of comparison.
- •§ 101. Adjectives are a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:
- •§ 104. Suppletive opposemes are few in number but of very frequent occurrence.
- •§ 113. In certain speech environments adjectives can bе used to communicate meanings in some respect different from those of the grammemes they belong to.
- •§ 115. Following is a brief comparison of the basic features of English and Russian adjectives.
- •§ 116. The adverb is a part of speech characterized by the following features:
- •§ 123. Quantitative adverbs like very, rather, too, nearly, greatly, fully, hardly, quite, utterly, twofold, etc. Show the degree, measure, quantity of an action, quality, state, etc.
- •§ 124. Circumstantial adverbs serve to denote various circumstances (mostly local and temporal) attending an action. Accordingly they fall under two heads:
- •§127; Circumstantial adverbs are mostly used in the function of adverbial modifiers of time and placer
- •§ 130. The numeral as a part of speech is characterized by
- •§ 131. The lexico-grammatical meaning of 'number' is not to be confused with the grammatical meaning of 'number'.
- •§ 133. In our opinion, the pair ten — tenth forms an oppo-seme of the grammatical category of numerical qualification.
- •§ 135. As to their stem structure English numerals fall into
- •§ 136. Numerals are easily substantivized, acquiring noun features. •
- •§ 144. The personal pronouns are the nucleus of the class. They are: I (me), thou (thee)1, he (him), she (her), it, we (us), you, they (them).
- •§ 157. Self-pronouns are often used in apposition for emphasis. Dickson's view on the Middle Ages themselves would have to wait until another time. (Amis).
- •§ 159. Demonstrative pronouns can be:
- •§ 162. The pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun which has a case opposite, whom, as in Whom did you meet?
- •§ 180. Most quantitative pronouns form opposemes of comparison:
- •§ 181. Here belong other (others, other's, others'), another (another's) and otherwise.
- •§ 182. The pronoun one stands somewhat apart, outside the classification discussed above.
- •§ 183. As an indefinite pronoun it is usually a pro-adjective with the meaning "a certain" and refers to both living beings and inanimate things.
- •§ 184. As an indefinite or generalizing personal pronoun one indicates only a person. It is a pro-noun. It has a case opposite one's and is correlated with the reflexive pronoun oneself.
- •§ 186. Summing up, we may say that the pronouns are hot united by any morphological categories, or syntactical functions. So they cannot be regarded as a part of speech.
- •§ 188. As a part of speech the verb is characterized by the following properties:
- •§ 194. Semantically verbs divide into notional and semi-notional (see § 50).
- •§ 196. Modal verbs are characterized:
- •§ 198. Verbs are divided into subjective and objective, depending upon their combinability with words denoting the subjects and the objects of the actions they name (see § 191).
- •§ 200. As usual, variants of a verb lexeme may belong to different subclasses (see § 62).
- •§ 201. Verbs can be classified in accordance with the aspective nature of their lexical meanings into terminative and non-terminative.
- •§ 202. As usual, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses. When meaning '(to) engage in physical or mental activity', the verb (to)work is non-terminative.
- •§ 208. Participle II may have left-hand connections with link-verbs.
- •The Category of Order (Time Correlation)
- •§ 213. Linguists disagree as to the category the 'perfect' belongs to.
- •§ 216. Let us take an extract from j. Galsworthy's novel To Let:
- •§ 219. The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. There is but little consensus of opinion about this category in Modern English.
- •§ 222. Besides those properties that characterize the verb as a whole, the finites possess certain features not shared by the verbids.
- •§ 224. Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.
- •§ 229. The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system including all the categories of the verb.
- •§ 233. The correlation of time and tense is connected with the problem of the absolute and relative use of tense grammemes.
- •§ 236. In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities.
- •§ 240. The development of the modal verbs and that of the subjunctive mood — the lexical and morphological ways of expressing modality1 — have much in common.
- •§ 243. The 'passive voice' and 'continuous aspect' meanings are expressed much in the same way as in the indicative mood system.
- •§ 245. The difference between the two sets of opposemes
- •Verb Grammemes in Speech
- •§ 252. The systems of different moods, as we know, contain different grammemes. We shall therefore discuss the grammemes of the indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods separately.
- •Indicative Mood Grammemes
- •§ 254. The action it denotes may either coincide with the moment of speech or cover a more or less lengthy period of time including the moment of speech.
- •§ 255. In a context showing that reference is made to the past, the present non-continuous non-perfect may be used to denote past events, mostly presented as the speaker's reminiscences.
- •§ 274. The present non-continuous perfect is regularly found in adverbial clauses of time and condition when the connotation of priority is implied.
- •§ 275. What makes the present non-continuous perfect fundamentally different from the past non-continuous non-perfect can be briefly summarized as follows:
- •§ 276. As a unit of the language system it presents an act in the past (past tense) unspecified as to its character (non-continuous aspect) and preceding some situation (perfect order).
- •§ 277. When used with terminative verbs it may acquire a distinct connotation of resultativity, as in
- •§ 278. The past non-continuous perfect may be inclusive in meaning if supported by the context.
- •§ 280. As a part of the verb system it presents a future action (future tense), unspecified as to its character (non-continuous aspect) and prior to some situation in the future (perfect order).
- •§ 285. The past continuous perfect has much in common with the present continuous perfect, the main difference between them being that of tense.
- •§ 286. Like the present continuous perfect it may be inclusive if supported by the context or else exclusive as in
- •§ 287. The future perfect continuous is actually nonexistent.
- •Voice Grammemes
- •§ 292. It has often, been claimed that passive structures can be regarded as transforms of certain active structures 1.
- •§295. Representatives of subjunctive I grammemes can be distinguished from their indicative and imperative mood homonyms as follows.
- •§ 296. Following are some types of clauses in which should grammemes and their synonyms are regularly used.
- •Imperative Mood Grammemes in Speech
- •§ 303. Besides the features common to the English verb as a whole (see § 188) the verbids have certain features of their own distinguishing them from the finite verb.
- •§ 306. The verbids do not possess many of the categories of the finite verb, such as number, person, tense and mood.
- •§ 307. Here is a table presenting the paradigms of the verbids.
- •§ 308. The combinability of the verbids is of mixed nature. Partly, as we have seen, it resembles that of a finite verb. But some models of combinability are akin to those of other parts of speech.
- •§ 311. The infinitive is a verbid characterized by the following features:
- •§ 317. The participle is a verbid characterized by the following properties:
- •§ 319. As we have already mentioned, the adjectival and the adverbial features of the participle are connected with its combinability.
- •§ 321. The gerund is a verbid characterized by the following features:
- •§ 324. The gerund, which is a peculiarity of the English language, is very extensively used as the centre of complexes (nexuses) synonymous with subordinate clauses. Compare:
- •§ 326. In compliance with the system adopted we shall now work out the comparison of the basic features of the English verb with those of the Russian verb.
- •The adlink (the category of state)
- •§ 327. In Modern English there exists a certain class of words such as asleep, alive, afloat, which is characterized by:
- •The modal words (modals)
- •§ 329. As a part of speech the modals are characterized by the following features:
- •§ 331. The relatively negative combinability of modal words manifests itself in various ways.
- •§ 332. Functioning as a parenthetical element of a sentence, a modal word is usually connected with the sentence as a whole.
- •§ 333. The usage of modals depends upon the type of sentence. They are found almost exclusively in declarative sentences, very rarely in interrogative and almost never in imperative sentences.
- •§ 334. The response-words yes and no are characterized as a separate class by
- •§ 335. Practically every notional word can alone make a sentence in a certain situation of speech.
- •§ 336. Their lexical meanings are those of 'affirmation' and 'negation'. Their lexico-grammatical meaning is that of 'response statement'. They confirm or deny a previous statement.
- •§351. The combinability of at in the last example resembles, to some extent, that of an adverb. Cf. To be laughed away (off).
- •§ 359. The combinability of subordinating conjunctions is somewhat different from that of coordinating ones.
- •§ 360. The division of conjunctions into coordinating and subordinating ones is chiefly based on their lexical meanings and the types of units they connect.
- •§ 361. According to their meanings coordinating conjunctions are divided into
- •§ 362. Though for and so are considered coordinating conjunctions, they are in fact intermediate between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
- •§ 363. The conjunctions are not numerous, but of very frequent occurrence in speech.
- •§ 364. The two words a(n), the form a separate group or class characterized by
- •§ 367. Some grammarians speak of the 'zero article' 1 or the 'zero form of the indefinite article' 2. We are definitely against these terms.
- •§ 369. In accordance with its meaning 'one of many' the indefinite article is used to denote one thing of a class and is therefore a classifying article.
§ 135. As to their stem structure English numerals fall into
a) simple or root numerals, such as one, two, three (up to twelve),
b) derivative numerals formed with the help of the suf-fixes -teen (from thirteen to nineteen), -ty (from twenty to ninety),
c) compound numerals (from twenty-one to ninety-nine) and
d) composite numerals, such as nine hundred and three. It is owing to the remarkable way of forming composite numerals that an unlimited multitude of numbers can be named with the help of a limited number of words.
It has been pointed out that numerals have a peculiar manner of building up compound and composite stems not observed in any other part of speech.
When a numeral of a lower rank follows a higher numeral their numbers are added, as in eighty-one = eighty + one.
If the order is reverse, the numbers are multiplied. E. g. five hundred = five X hundred. In too hundred and nine multiplication and addition are combined.
§ 136. Numerals are easily substantivized, acquiring noun features. •
Let us by way of illustration take the following sentence from a school text-book in arithmetic: "In order to add two numbers add the units of one number to the units of the other, the tens to the tens, the hundreds to the hundreds, etc." Неге the numerals tens, hundreds have many features in common with the noun units. They have the lexico-grarnmatical meaning of 'substance', the 'plural', suffix -s; they have left-hand connections with articles, prepositions; they are used in the functions of objects. Other instances of the substantivization of numerals are: Arrival of Moscow eleven. (The Worker). Two can play at that game. We are seven. Form fours!
§ 137. The analysis of numeral grammemes in speech presents a picture largely similar to that displayed by adjectival grammemes. The frequency of their occurrence in the analyzed modern literary texts is as follows:
cardinal grammemes — 84 per cent
ordinal grammemes — 16 per cent,
the unmarked members of the opposeme as less specific (here as elsewhere) constituting the bulk of numerals used in speech flow.
Below are combinability patterns of numeral grammemes arranged in tabular form.
Pattern |
Cardinal grammeme (per cent) |
Ordinal grammeme (per cent) |
art. + num. + noun |
80 |
98 |
noun + prepos. + num. |
8 |
- |
link-verb + num. |
8 |
1 |
other models (page ten, one of them, etc.) |
4 |
1 |
§ 138. English and Russian numerals are similar as to their lexico-grammatical meanings, ways of stem-building, combinability and syntactical functions, but they differ greatly as regards their grammatical categories.
1) Unlike their English counterparts, Russian numerals possess the categories of gender (пятый — пятая — пятое) case (четыре — четырех — четырем, etc.) and number (первый —первые).
2) There is a great difference between ordinal and cardi-nal numerals in Russian as far as their categories are concerned. Ordinal numerals resemble adjectives not only in having the categories of number, gender and case, but in the forms of the grammatical morphemes as well.
Cf. пятый — красный пятого — красного пятому — красному
пятая — красная пятые — красные
Cardinal numerals do not possess the categories of number and gender (with the exception of один, два). The case inflections are also different.
Cf. десять — десяти — десятью
знать — знати — знатью
It is no wonder, therefore, that some linguists separate cardinal and ordinal numerals in Russian and regard the "latter as adjectives. But this is certainly no reason why the same should be done in English (§ 132) where conditions are quite different.
PRONOUNS
§ 139. It has been shown above that words fall into classes known as parts of speech in accordance with their lexico-grammatical meanings, morphological categories, typical stem-building elements, combinability and functions.
The peculiarity of pronouns as a class of words is that they are not united by any of the above-mentioned features. True, they have certain grammatical peculiarities, but what unites them is the way they denote reality.
Pronouns are words serving to denote substances, qualities, quantities, circumstances, etc. not by naming or describing them, but by indicating them.
As words of the vocabulary pronouns have extremely general meanings. But in speech pronouns indicate particular objects or qualities. When a speaker says I, he refers to himself, i. e. to a particular person of definite age, height, colour of hair, etc. When another speaker says I, he also refers to himself, but this time it is another person with other fea-tures. Thus, the meaning of I, general as it is, remains the same, but the objects referred to are different.
The meaning of the pronoun such is "of the same kind", but one speaker may use such to indicate a definite colour, ' another speaker may use it with reference to some size, a third qbe to indicate a particular temperature, etc.
On the other hand, one and the same person may be referred to as I, you or he, depending upon who speaks. This and that may indicate the same object, depending on the relative position of the speaker and the object. Thus, pronouns can be defined as words whose meanings are very general and stable, but whose references in speech are particular, variable and relative with regard to the speaker and the situation of speech.
We insist on the stability of meaning and the variability and relativity of reference, because many authors speak of the relative m e a n i n g of pronouns. But when we ask. What is this? referring now to the blackboard, now to a piece of chalk, we use the word this with the same meaning, "the object I point at" or "the object I demonstrate", and not with the meanings of "blackboard", "piece of chalk", etc. Those arе only the objects of reference and not the meanings of the word this.
§ 140. Etymologically the word 'pronoun' means "a word used instead of a noun". This meaning reflects, to some extent, the role of pronouns in language. Owing to the exceptional variability of reference a pronoun may replace hundreds of nouns with comparatively stable or limited references. This explains the fact that pronouns are used very frequently and form a considerable part of any text; though as a class of words they are not numerous.
But the role of pronouns is much greater than it can be inferred from the meaning of the word pronoun. It is not always that a pronoun is substituted for a noun. For instance, what noun does the pronoun it replace in It rains? But what is more important, pronouns can be substituted not only for nouns, but for other parts of speech as well. Traditionally, pronouns are divided into 'noun pronouns' and 'adjective pronouns'. In reality pronouns may also be used instead of numerals (Cf. twenty books — several books, many books) and adverbs (here, there, now, then). Using the prefix pro- in its meaning "instead of", we may, therefore, classify pronouns with regard to the parts of speech into pro-nouns, pro-adjectives, pro-numerals and pro-adverbs.
Thus, pronouns are a collection of words correlated with different parts of speech, which accounts for their not being united by any morphological categories or syntactical functions.
§ 141. Sometimes a pronoun is correlated with one part of speech only. But very often this is not so. In a part of speech, as we know, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses. The peculiarity of pronouns is that variants of the same lexeme may be correlated with different parts of speech. This in the sentence Is this the bike? (Saroyan) is a pro-noun, while in the sentence He gave me this bike? (Ib.) it is a pro-adjective. Here in He lives here is a pro-adverb, but in from here to Moscow it is a pro-noun.
§ 142. As pointed out by A. I. Smirnitsky, the boundaries of pronouns and those parts of speech with which they are correlated are rather fluid. The word this in this bike may be regarded both as an adjective pronoun and as a pronominal adjective, the word here — as a pronominal adverb and as an adverbial pronoun.
The relative references of the words to-day, yesterday, to-morrow are somewhat akin to those of pronouns, yet they are not relative enough because the words denote definite units of time, days. Cf. now or then.
It is no wonder, therefore, that there exist many words which are regarded as pronouns by some authors and as nouns or adjectives by others.
§ 143. Since pronouns form a class chiefly on the basis of their semantical peculiarities, it is but natural that the subdivision of pronouns into groups should be carried out on the same basis, though some grammatical peculiarities of each group are also taken into consideration.
Pronouns may be divided into
1) personal,
2) possessive,
3) reflexive,
4) demonstrative,
5) interrogative,
6) connective,
7) reciprocal,
8) indefinite,
9) negative,
10) generalizing,
11) quantitative,
12) contrasting.
It must be borne in mind, however, that a pronoun may belong to more than one group at the same time. The pronoun whose may be treated as interrogative (or connective) and possessive. The pronouns one, one's, oneself may be grouped together as indefinite personal, or they may be classified separately: one as personal, one's as possessive, oneself as reflexive, etc.
Personal Pronouns