
- •Introduction 220
- •§ 2. The phoneme, the morpheme, the word and the sen-Ic-nce are units of different levels of language structure. The phoneme is a unit of the lowest level, the sentence — of the highest.
- •Morphology
- •Introduction
- •The structure of words
- •§ 8. The word books-can be broken up in two parts: book-and -s. The content of the first part can be rendered by the
- •§ 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:
- •§ 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.) The Category of Number
- •§ 73. Since the 'singular' member of a number opposeme is not marked, the form of the opposeme is, as a rule, determined
- •§ 75. As a matter of fact, those nouns which have no number opposites are outside the grammatical category of number. But on the analogy of the bulk of English nouns they acquire
- •§ 77. As we have already seen (§62), variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses of a part of speech.
- •§ 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 morphology and syntax.
- •Noun Grammemes in Speech
- •§ 88. The frequency of the occurrence of different grarn-rnemes in speech ' is different. We have analysed several
- •§ 90. The representatives of 'singular' grammemes constitute the bulH of nouns found in an English text (more than
- •§91. Nouns representing 'plural' grammemes may denote:
- •§92. Nouns represent ing '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 opposites *.
- •§ 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.
- •§ 101. Let us compare the English noun with its Rir«ian ro'interpart. The five properties we use as criteria for distinguishing parts of speech will serve as the basis of comparison.
- •The adjective
- •§ 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.
- •§ 111. The table below shows the relative frequency of the occurrence of the four grammemes in some literary texts
- •§ 113. In certain speech environments adjectives can be 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.
- •The adverb
- •§ 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 place.
- •§ 128. The words of an adverb lexeme like soon — sooner— soonest represent three grammemes with one actual grammat-
- •The numeral
- •§ 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.
- •Pronouns
- •4 Хаймович и др
- •§ 143. Since pronouns form a class chiefly on the basis of their semantical peculiarities, it is but natural that the
- •§ 144. The personal pronouns "are the nucleus of the class. They are: / (me), thou (thee)1, he (him), she (her), it, we (us), you, they (them).
- •§ 155. Like the personal and the possessive pronouns, the reflexive pronouns distinguish the lexico-grammatical meanings of person, number and gender.
- •§ 157. Se//-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?
- •§ 163. The interrogative pronouns are used to form a definite type of sentence — special questions.
- •§ 181. Here belonged/- (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 generalizhig 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 ere not united by any morphological categories, or syntactical functions. So they cannot be regarded as a part of speech.
- •The verb
- •§ 187. Analysing the verb in Modern Russian, V. V. VI-nogradov characterizes it as "the most complex and capacious part of speech" j. Likewise, a. I. Smirnitsky 2 stresses the
- •§ 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:
- •§ 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 1.
- •§ 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.
- •§ 213. Linguists disagree as to the category the 'perfect' belongs to.
- •§ 216. Let us take an extract from j. Galsworthy's novel To Let:
- •The Category of Aspect
- •§ 219. The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. There is but little consensus of opinion about this category in Modern English.
- •§ 220. The categories of tense and aspect characterize an action from different points of view. The tense of a verb shows 1 the time of the action, while the aspect of a verb deals with
- •§ 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.
- •The Indicative Mood
- •§ 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 gram-memes.
- •§ 236. In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities.
- •The Subjunctive Mood
- •§ 239. Probably the only thing linguists are unanimous about with regard to the subjunctive mood is that it represents an action as a 'non-fact', as something imaginary,
- •§ 240. The development of the modal verbs and that of the subjunctive mood — the lexical and morphological ways of expressing modality ] — have much in common.
- •§ 243. The 'passive voice' and 'continuous aspect' meanings are expressed much m the same way as in the indicative mood system.
- •§ 245. The difference between the two sets of opposemes /had written (order)
- •§ 246. What unites all the grammemes above and distinguishes them from the homonymous grammemes of the indicative mood as a system is
- •The Imperative Mood
- •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 js 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).
- •§ 281. As a language unit it presents an action associated with the present (present tense), viewed in its development (continuous aspect) and preceding some situation in the present (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 1.
- •§ 297. The invited, wrote, were, etc. Grammemes of the subjunctive mood system and all the grammemes containing
- •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
- •§ 309. The functions of the verbids in the sentence are different from those of the finite verb. The latter regularly
- •§ 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:
- •§322. The gerund, like the infinitive, combines verbal and noun features, yet the gerund is more of a noun than the infinitive, which is to some extent explained by the fact
- •§ 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.
- •The response words
- •§ 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.
- •The interjection
- •The preposition
- •§ 345. As elsewhere the lexico-grammatical meaning of prepositions is an abstraction from their individual lexical meanings. Let us compare the following combinations of words:
- •§ 348. Bilateral combinability is typical not only of prepositions but of other linking words as well: conjunctions, link-verbs and modal verbs. But the combinability of prepo-
- •§351. The combinability of at in th'e last example resembles, to some extent, that of an adverb. Cf. To be laughed away (off).
- •The conjunction
- •§ 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 lexio-al 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.
- •The article
- •§ 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.
- •The particle
- •§ 376. As a rule, the combinability of particles is unilateral and variable. They can specify different classes of words or clauses. Most of them precede the unit they specify, but some
- •§ 377. Like most particles not can be used with different classes of words or clauses (not he, not the student, not beautiful, not forty, not yesterday, not to see, not seeing, not when he comes).
- •Introduction
- •§ 381. Within a sentence, the word or combination of words that contains the meanings of predicativity may be called the predication.
- •§ 384. The main parts of the sentence are those whose function it is to make the predication. They are the subject and the predicate of the sentence.
- •§ 389. In the sentence Birds fly, as we have seen, the syntactical and the lexical meanings of the subject and the predicate go together. But English has a system of devices to separate them.
- •§391. Let us now consider the grammatical word-morphemes do, does, did in sentences like Does she ever smile"? We do not know him, etc.
- •§393. Every predication can be either positive or negative.
- •Ial complex»
- •§ 396. As defined (§ 3), when studying the structure of a unit, we find out its components, mostly units of the next lower level, their arrangement and their functions as parts of the unit.
- •§ 397. The development of transform grammar (Harris, Chomsky) and tagmemic grammar (Pike) is to a great extent
- •§ 401. Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups — the group of the subject and the group of the predicate 1.
- •A. As to Their Structure
- •§ 403. Sentences with only one predication are called simple sentences. Those with more than one predication have usually no general name 3. We shall call them composite sentences.
- •§ 404. The clauses of a composite sentence may be joined with the help of connective words (syndetically) or directly, without connectives (asyndetically).
- •§ 405. A simple sentence or a clause containing some words besides the predication is called extended. An unextend-ed sentence (clause) contains no other parts but the subject and the predicate.
- •§ 409. Not all interrogative sentences are syntactical opposites of declarative sentences.
- •§ 411. The sentences below form opposemes of some syntactical category.
- •§ 415. Let us compare the following pairs of sentences:
- •Combinations of Sentences
- •§ 418. We find no predication in the second sentence of the following dialogue.
- •§ 419. The sentence-words yes and no are regularly used as adjuncts of some head-sentences.
- •The simple sentence parts of the sentence
- •§ 421. The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.
- •§ 425. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex.
- •§ 430. The predicate is the member of a predication con taining the mood and tense (or only mood) components of predicativity. "
- •§ 431. The predicate can be a word or a syntactical word-morpheme. When it is a notional word, it is not only the structural but the notional predicate as well.
- •Predicative Complements (Predicatives)
- •Objective Complements (Objects)
- •§ 448. Like other parts of a simple sentence (clause), objective complements may be expressed by complexes and are then called complex objects.
- •Adverbial Complements (Adverbials)
- •§ 454. Below are some specimens of quantitative adverbial complements.
- •§455. Circumstantial adverbials, or as a. I. Smirnitsky calls them, adverbials of situation, comprise:
- •§ 457. As follows from the string of examples given above, in simple sentences adverbial complements are usually adverbs, nouns (mostly with prepositions), verbids and verbid complexes.
- •§ 458. Comparing English adverbials with those in Russian one can see that despite some common features (meaning, types), they are in a number of points different.
- •Attributes
- •§ 459. Attributes are secondary parts of the sentence serving to modify nouns or noun-equivalents in whatever functions they are used in the sentence.
- •§ 460. Attributes are formally indicated only by the position they occupy, save the demonstrative pronouns this, these, that, those which, besides, agree in number with the uord they modify.
- •§ 466. We do not dwell here on the so-called loose appositions because the latter (as well as other loose (detached) parts of the sentence) are discussed in detail elsewhere. 2 Extensions
- •Connectives
- •§ 469. Connectives are linking-words considered as a secondary part of the sentence. They are mostly prepositions and conjunctions.
- •9 Хаймовнч и др.
- •§ 473. Parenthetical elements are peculiar parts of the sentence.
- •§ 474. In accordance with their meanings parenthetical elements fall into four major groups:
- •§ 475. In a simple sentence parenthetical elements may be expressed by individual words (modal words, adverbs, nouns) and word-combinations of different nature.
- •§ 476. In most cases parenthetical elements are connected, in sense with the sentence as a whole, that is why they have no fixed position in the sentence.
- •§ 477. We have already dwelt upon the fact that in Modern "English syntactical relations of words in the sentence are very often indicated by the position the words occupy in the sentence.
- •II. The Position of the Object
- •§ 479. The direct object is usually placed after the verb unless the indirect object precedes it.
- •§ 480. Sometimes the object is pushed to the front of the sentence. It occurs:
- •§ 482. The indirect object cannot be used in the sentence without the direct object. The indirect object is regularly put before the direct object as in That gave me a new idea.
- •§ 483. In most cases they follow the direct object, though for stylistic purposes, I. E. For emphasis and expressiveness, they may be placed at the head of the sentence.
- •§ 487. The position of an attribute depends both on the head-word a nd on the attribute. If the head-word is a pronoun, the attribute is, as a rule, postpositive.
- •§ 488. In postposition attributes often acquire what we might call a 'semi-predicative' connotation.
- •§ 489. If there are two or more prepositive attributes to one and the same noun their order is dependent upon a number of factors which appear to be semantic and stylistic rather than grammatical. :
- •§ 491. As to the position of the other parts of the sentence, see the combinability of the corresponding parts of speech.
- •The compound sentence
- •§ 497. The compound sentence usually describes events in their natural order, reflecting the march of events spoken of in the sequence of clauses. '2
- •The complex sentence
- •§ 498. The principal clauses of complex sentences are usually not classified, though their meanings are not neutral with regard to the meanings of the subordinate clauses.
- •§ 502. Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pronouns or asyndetically.
- •§ 506. The mood of the predicate verb of a subordinate clause depends on the principal clause to a greater extent than its tense.
- •§ 507. The subject clause is the only one used in the function of a primary part of the sentence.
- •Complement Clauses
- •§ 519. A variety of attributive clauses is the appositive clause, which formally differs from an attributive clause in being introduced by a conjunction (that, if, whether].
- •Extension Clauses
- •§ 520. Extension clauses are postpositive adjuncts of adjectives, adverbs and adlinks.
- •Parenthetical Clauses
- •§ 521. Most authors who do not regard parenthetical elements as parts of the sentence treat It is past ten, I think as a simple sentence 1. We do not find this view convincing. -
- •§ 522. In most cases parenthetical clauses are introduced asyndetically, though now and again the conjunctions as, if, etc, are used.
- •§ 523. Sometimes subordination and coordination may be combined within one sentence, in which case we may have compound-complex and complex-compound sentences.
- •Direct and indirect speech
- •§ 524. Among the composite sentences of English and other languages we find a peculiar type differing from the rest.
- •§ 525. There is no agreement as to the syntactical nature of a sentence like He said, "I love you".
- •§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.
- •§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ grammatically from the conventional types of sentences.
- •§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
- •§ 532. The abundant use of grammatical word-morphemes compensates the English verb system for the scarcity of inflexions. This is another striking feature of English, as com-
- •§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
- •§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.
4 Хаймович и др
97
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 1, 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. Qf. now or then 2.
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
1 Op. cit, p. 195.
2 А. И. С м и p н и ц к и и,
op. cit., p. 195.
98
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
personal,
possessive,
reflexive,
demonstrative,
interrogative,
connective,
reciprocal,
indefinite,
negative,
generalizing,
quantitative,
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
§ 144. The personal pronouns "are the nucleus of the class. They are: / (me), thou (thee)1, he (him), she (her), it, we (us), you, they (them).
• The personal pronouns serve to indicate all persons and things from the point of view of the speaker who indicates himself or a group of persons including him by means of the personal pronouns of the first person — /, we. He indicates his interlocutor or interlocutors by means of the pronouns of the second person — thou (archaic) and you. All other persons or things are indicated by him with the help of the pronouns of the third person — he, she (for persons), it (for things), they (for both).
§ 145. Though all the personal pronouns are said to be noun pronouns or pro-nouns, it is only the pronouns of the third person thaLcan be used anaphorically, instead of a noun mentioned previously.
E. g. The dark thing was Ferse ... he was dead. (Galsworthy). The personal pronouns of the first and the second
Archaic.
99
person do not in fact replace any names. In the sentence / am sure of it the pronoun / is not substituted for any noun because no noun can be used with the verb am no noun can denote the first person.
/
§ 146. In Modern English the personal pronouns have the category of case represented in two-member opposemes. But these opposemes differ from the case opposemes of nouns. The general meaning of "case" manifests itself in the particular meanings of the "nominative" and "objective" cases.
Ps.
I
II
III
Sg.
I — me
thou — thee lie — him she — her it - it
PL
we — us you — you
they — them
Case, as we know, is a morphological category with syntactical significance. The opposition of the nominative and the objective case is realized syntactically in the opposition of the subject and the object of the sentence.
E. g. She asked her.
With nouns it is different because a noun in the common case fulfils the functions of both the subject and the object. The pronouns you and it having only one form for both cases seem to resemble nouns in this respect. But by analogy with the majority of the personal pronouns you and it may be interpreted as having two homonymous forms each.
The pronoun of the second person singular (thou — thee) was formerly used in address as a form of endearment and familiarity and so came to imply contempt and has been ousted by you. Thou is no longer used in everyday speech, but still lingers in poetry and elevated prose.
Hail to thee (a skylark), blithe spirit — Bird thou never wert.
(Shelley).
You was formerly the objective case, the nominative being ye. Ye is now used only in appeals and exclamations found in poetry and elevated prose.
Nor ye proud, impute to them the fault.
(Gray).
100
§ 147. Some facts point to serious changes in the correlation between the nominative and objective cases taking place in Modern English. The objective case pronouns seem to encroach on their case opposites. We observe a peculiar trend which is steadily gaining ground, to use the objective case instead of the nominative when the pronoun is used predica-tively or when it is separated from the predicate-verb, as in M e and my wife could have fed her anyhow. (Caldwell). // is т e (instead of Я is /) has established itself as a literary norm. // is him, her, etc. are still avoided by careful speakers '. / didn't leave little Sheila, 'it was her who left me (O'Casey).
The nominative case is regularly preserved when an unstressed personal pronoun is used with a verb as the subject of a sentence to show the person and the number of the agent the action of the verb is associated with.
In B. A. Ilyish's opinion, the unstressed personal pronouns in cases like lie read, t/геу worked are well advanced on the way towards becoming a kind of verbal prefixes 2 of person and number. B. A. Ilyish is inclined to think that Modern English gradually develops a system ol the personal pronouns similar to that of Modern French in which the unsteressed conjoint personal pronouns ('pronoms conjoints') je, tu, II, Us, directly precede the verb, and the stressed absolute per sonal pronouns ('pronoms absolus') mot, tot, lui, eux are used in all other cases, including the predicative function (c'est moi — it's me) and cases like Moi et топ pere, nous aimons ... — Me and my father, we
However that may be, at the present stage the unstressed personal pronouns can hardly be regarded either as being or as tending to become verbal morphemes similar to the -(e)s morpheme of the third person singular 8.
1. They may be used not only as subjects — That was h e. It is s h e. John is taller than I.
1 But see Deskbook of Correct English by Michael West and P. F. Kim- ber, Л., 1963, p. 130: "It is I" should be used in all formal writing and where "/" is followed by "who" ("It's I who —"), but "It's me" may be used in conversational contexts where no relative clause follows. So also "It's her, — htm, — us, — them\"
B. A. Ilyish, op. cit, p 197, see also Л. С. Бархударов, Д, А. Ш т e л и h r, op. cit., p 78.
See А. И. С м и p н и ц к и и, op. cit., p 182—186.
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They can be coordinated with the help of conjunctions, which is not typical of morphemes. Neither h e nor I am likely to be present at the meeting (Hornby).
They can be coordinated with nouns. Ma and I both ran inside. (Caldwell).
They have some freedom of distribution. / forget. Do
1 ever forget? I do not easily forget, etc.
Neither can they be treated as word-morphemes participating in the formation of analytical words. This is proved by the absence of a personal pronoun when a verb has a noun-subject. Thus we have Tom came, but not * Tom he came, which would be natural, if he came were an analytical word.
Thus it seems in keeping with language facts to treat the'' unstressed personal pronouns in the nominative case as independent words
§ 148. As to the category of number, it should be Observed that strictly speaking, the personal pronouns have no category of number. / and we or he and they cannot be treated as number opposites inasmuch as they differ from each other not only grammatically, but lexically as well. We is not / + / but rather / and you, I and she, I and they, etc. They is not always lie + he, it may as well mean he + she. You is said to indicate both the singular and the plural. So it ought to be similar to cases like sheep, deer. But it is not.
2 sheep = 1 sheep + 1 sheep, in other words, sheep pi. = sheep sg. + sheep sg. With you it is different. You pi. does not always indicate you sg. + you sg. It may indicate you sg. + + he, you sg -|- they, etc.
Since / and we differ lexically, they do not belong to the same lexeme, they do not form an opposeme, and their number meanings are not grammatical. But /, he, she, it form a group of words whose combinability resembles that of "singular" nouns. Cf. /, he, she, it, John, the student ... was (not were). . The pronouns we, you, they, on the contrary, have the combinability of "plural" nouns. We may then regard the pronouns of the first group as singularia tantum, and those of the other group as pluralia tantum '. In other words, the personal pronouns possess oblique or lexico-grammatical meanings of number.
1 See "Nouns", § 74.
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Similarly, we may speak of the lexico-grammatical meaning of person. The words /, me, we, us (as well as pronouns of other groups: my, mine, our, ours, myself, ourselves) are united by their reference to the first person, the speaker. Of these only / has grammatical combinability with am. Only the "singulars" (7, me, my, mine, myself) refer to the first person alone. The "plurals" include, besides the first person, reference to the second (/ and you), or the third (/ and he, she, or they), or both.
The words you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves are united by their reference to the second person, the hearer. But all of them (except yourself) may include reference to the third person as well (you and he, she or they). So in fact they are united negatively by not including reference to the first person.
The words he, him, she, her, it, they, them (also pronouns of other groups) are united by their reference to the third person, the 'spoken-of 1, or negatively by not including reference to the first and second persons, the speaker and the hearer. Of these words he, she and it have explicit grammatical combinability (he speaks, she has ..., it is...).
The oblique grammatical meaning of 'third person' does not unite pronouns alone. All the nouns and noun equivalents are associated with this meaning.
Cf. He (she, it, John, Mary, rrtilk) is ..., not am.
This is the reason why nouns can be replaced by the pronouns he, she, it, they, but not by /, we, or you.
As to gender it is possible to discuss, for instance, the lexico-grammatical subclass of the masculine gender only in case we include pronouns of other groups, such as his, himself, besides he (him). ^
The pronoun it is the only "personal" pronoun which indicates lifeless things or "non-persons". Together with its, itself, what, which, something, etc. it forms a subclass opposed to another subclass indicating persons (/, he, she, my, his, myself, herself, who, somebody, etc.).
§ 149. The combinability of the personal pronouns differs from that of nouns. The reference to a particular person or thing makes all descriptions and limitations unnecessary. Such phrases as * The handsome it or * the he sound uncommon.
E. Nida. Morphology. Ann Arbor, 1946.
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On the other hand, a personal pronoun usually replaces a noun with all its attributes.
You feel ill at ease when your old friend tells you that h e can't place his short stories. (Maugham).
When used in speech most of the personal pronouns (we, you, they, he) may acquire a generalizing force, as in the examples We don't kill a pig every day (proverb). У о и cannot get blood from a stone (proverb). They say she is breathtakingly beautiful. (The Times). H ё who pays the piper calls the tune (proverb).
Possessive Pronouns
§ 150. The possessive pronouns are usually treated as adjective pronouns, whereas they are in reality noun pronouns or pro-nouns, but they replace only possessive case nouns with which they are correlated. Cf. This is the teacher's (his, her) bicycle. This bicycle is the teacher's (his, hers).
The combinability and functions of the possessive pronouns and the 'possessive case' nouns are almost identical, which justifies the view that the pronouns in question are possessive case opposites of the personal pronouns. The only argument we can put forward against that view and in favour of the opinion that the possessive pronouns are a separate group, is as follows.
§ 151. Modern English differs from Old English and from other Modern Germanic languages in having two sets of possessive pronouns — the conjoint possessive pronouns my, thy, /us, her, its, our, your, their and the absolute possessive pronouns mine, thine, hit, tiers, ours, yours, theirs.
'Possessive case' nouns, as we know (§ 97) can also be used absolutely (the idea was George's), but with them it is only a matter of usage in speech, since it is not fixed in any language forms. It is quite different with the pronouns. The pairs my — mine, thy — thine, our — ours, your — yours, etc. can be regarded as opposemes of a grammatical category. It is difficult to find a name for that category, but it resembles the category of case. As shown (§ 82), a case opposeme belongs to the morphological system of the language, but it reflects speech combinability and syntactical functions The same can be «-aid about an opposeme like my — mine The difference between its members is in combinability and func-
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tion. My has right-hand connections with nouns and functions as an attribute. Mine has other connections and other functions in the sentence. Now if we assume that both my and mine are 'possessive case' opposites of /, we have then to speak of a case opposeme within the possessive case. Therefore, it would, probably, be more in keeping with language facts (a) to treat my (mine), tier (hers), our (ours), etc. not as the possessive case of personal pronouns but as a subclass of pronouns; (b) to regard my — mine, lier — hers, etc. as a kind of case opposemes. It is obvious that further research is vitally necessary.
§ 152. The possessive pronouns of the first and second persons (as well as the corresponding personal pronouns) do not in fact replace any nouns, but their usage does not differ from that of the third person pronouns.
The pronoun its has a much wider application than the possessive case of nouns denoting inanimate things.
Cf. The atmosphere of the room, rarely the room's atmosphere, but its atmosphere.
Its has no 'absolute' opposite. The 'absolute' and 'conjoint' his may be regarded as homonyms.
Cf. Her (his) friend, a- friend of hers (his).
§ 153. One of the peculiarities of Modern English is the extensive use of conjoint possessive pronouns. When used in cases like He entered with h i s eyes shining and h i s hair in disorder, they add very little information. In fact their function is to specify nouns in the way the definite article does. They might be treated as pro-articles, but (a) they are correlated only with the definite article, (b) the meaning of the definite article is much more general than that of his or her.
Reflexive Pronouns
§ 154. They are compound noun prono/ms whose second 'element -self expresses the anaphorical relation of the first element, i. e. it shows that the first element refers to the person mentioned previously in the sentence. Thus, / ... myself, thou .. thyself, he (or John) ... himself, she (or Mary) ... herself, it (or bird) . itself, we .. ourselves, you ... ^yourself (you/selves), they (or the chidren) ... themselves, one ... oneself.
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