- •Verb: Work, worked, working, works, am working, is working, was working, have worked, has worked, will work, would work, ….
- •Seminar 2. Parts of speech
- •The category of number
- •6. Collective nouns which denote a number or a collection of similar individuals or things
- •The category of case
- •The use of the article before the possessive form
- •The article
- •Use of articles with various semantic groups of nouns
- •Descriptive attributes and restricting/limiting/particularizing attributes
- •Special difficulties in the use of articles
- •Adjective
- •Irregular method: good – better – the best, bad – worse – the worst, little – less – the least, many / much – more – the most, far – farther / further – the farthest / the furthest.
- •It is pretty dark. / The children were prettily dressed.
- •The verb
- •Subjunctive Mood forms in English
- •Complex Subject (participle I):
- •I found him waiting for me,with his stick in his hand.
- •The gerund and the present participle compared
- •Modal Verbs
- •In name structures: It is John. It is a cottage.
- •The attribute.
- •Elliptical (incomplete) sentences
- •The complex sentence
Use of articles with various semantic groups of nouns
The indefinite article and the zero article when used with common countable nouns have the following meanings:
Nominating –naming the thing/things we have in mind: He bought a car. A man and a woman entered the room. I like children. I like reading books.
Classifying –assigning a thing/things to a certain class of similar objects: Her brother is a student of the higher school of economics. They are also students of this university. Sir Williams has always been a good neighbour to us. Life may be not very easy for beautiful girls.
Numeric – when the historic meaning of oneness becomes predominant: An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. Quin couldn’t hear a word she spoke. A hundred or so men, women and children were sitting around the fire. He bought a dozen ties at Woolworth’s.
Generalizing – when the noun denotes a typical member of a class: A cat is a domestic animal. A tiger is dangerous. Cats are domestic animals. Tigers are dangerous.
The definite article is used both with singular and plural nouns of all semantic classes. It has two meanings:
Specifying – singling out an object or a group of objects from all the other objects (people, animals, abstract notions) of the same kind.
The specification is carried out by means of
a restricting (limiting, particularizing) attribute: I’m sure David is the man we are looking for. The students in the next room are taking an examination. That was the end of my journey. The man standing by the window is my father.
The preceding context: They have bough a new car. The car is of the latest make. “My wife has left me.” Dick could hardly get the words out.
the situation (when two people understand what they are talking about because of the time and place and their background knowledge): (after visiting a theatre) I liked the acting and I enjoyed the music too. (after a flower exhibition) The flowers were splendid. (when at home) Go to the kitchen and switch off the gas the kettle is boiling.
the meaning of the noun, if it is a unique thing: the sun, the moon, the universe, the world, the horizon, the equator : The sun sank below the horizon. The sky is clear. He traveled round the world. Some cultural and historical places that are similar to unique things: The Tower, the British Museum, the Hermitage, The Red Square. The White House, the Black sea, the Thames and so on.
(2) Generic – the noun is looked upon as the representative of the whole class of objects of the same kind. The generic article suggests the highest degree of abstraction: The tiger is a wild animal and a dangerous one. He plays the piano very well. The rose is my favourite flower. Conan Doyle is a master of the detective story.
The nouns in the generic sense are used only in the singular.
Note: the nouns man and woman are generally used in their generic sense without any
article: Woman is physically weaker than man. Man sounds very proud.
Compare the generalizing meaning of the indefinite article and the generic meaning of
the definite article in the following sentences: A cat is a domestic animal. / Cats are
domestic animals. – The cat was domesticated many centuries ago.