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§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.

"I've come home, Mum," he said. (Maugham).

"/ just called", Amos said, "to see my son". (Moore).

§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ gram­matically from the conventional types of sentences.

E. g. He said that he loved Mary (a complex sentence with an object clause).

What he said was that he had no intention to stay (a com­plex sentence with a predicative clause). He told me to stay (a simple sentence).

The only difference between He said he loved her and He knew he loved her is the lexical meaning of the verbs said and knew. Sentences of indirect speech usually contain the so-called 'verba dicendi'.

§ 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.

The first and the second person of the quotation in He said, "I love you" are third persons in relation to the author, hence the change of / to he and you to her.

The moment of speech of the first person of the quotation is in the past with regard to the moment of speech of the author, hence the change of love to loved in He said he loved her.

CONCLUSION

§ 530. We have made a survey of the morphological and syntactical systems of Modern English, resorting, where ap­propriate, to comparison with Modern Russian. Now, by way of summing up, we shall make an attempt to point out those

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basic features which make the grammatical structure of Modern English distinguishable from that of Modern Russian.

§ 531. We shall naturally begin with the word. One of the most striking features of English words as compared with Russian words is the scarcity of positive grammatical mor­phemes. The number of grammatical suffixes, for instance, does not exceed 13. But even these are often homonymous as, for example, /-s/ /-z/ /-iz/ in the nouns fathers, father's, fathers' and the verb fathers. Prefixes are not used as grammatical morphemes at all. In Russian the number of suffixes and prefixes used as grammatical morphemes exceeds 70.

This scantiness of grammatical morphemes in English is productive of certain characteristic sequels:

a) The proportion of zero morphemes is much greater in English than in Russian. The 'singular number, common case' grammeme in English, for instance, is (with the excep­ tion of a few 'foreign' nouns) characterized by a zero morpheme* whereas in Russian all case and number grammemes may have positive grammatical morphemes. .Similarly, the verb gram­ meme (7, we, you, they) go, come, live, stand, etc. has a zero morpheme, whereas in Russian similar grammemes have a number of positive morphemes. The 'positive degree' gram­ meme of adjectives has a zero morpheme in English and pos­ itive morphemes in Russian.

b) Grammatical combinability plays an incomparably smaller role in English than in Russian.

Cf. белая стена, белый потолок, белых потолков; мы, пишем, вы пишете, они пишут.

c) The number of words with oblique grammatical meanings is much greater in English than in Russian. For instance, there are but a few indeclinable nouns with oblique case mean­ ings in Russian (до метро, на такси), whereas in English there are more nouns with oblique than with actual case meanings.

d) Owing to the absence of positive case inflexions in about 98% of nouns in speech, the relations of nouns, the most numerous class of words, to other words in the sentence is not expressed by their forms, as in Russian.