23. The verb as a part of speech. Grammatically relevant subclasses of verbs (transitive/intransitive, terminative/nonterminative).

General characteristics

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all it performs the central role in realizing predication - connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance. Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories. Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions based on different principles of classification can be found.

Semantic features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of verbiality - the ability to denote a process developing in time. This meaning is inherent not only in the verbs denoting processes, but also in those denoting states, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.

Morphological features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and phase. The common categories for finite and non-finite forms are voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the English verb find their expression in synthetical and analytical forms. The formative elements expressing these categories are grammatical affixes, inner inflexion and function words. Some categories have only synthetical forms (person, number), others - only analytical (voice). There are also categories expressed by both synthetical and analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect).

Syntactic features. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can perform this function while non-finite forms can be used in any function but predicate. And finally, any verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.

Classifications of English verbs

According to different principles of classification, classifications can be morphological, lexical-morphological, syntactical and functional.

A. Morphological classifications..

I. According to their stem-types all verbs fall into: simple (to go), sound-replacive (food - to feed, blood - to bleed), stress-replacive (import - to im port, transport - to transport, expanded (with the help of suffixes and prefixes): cultivate, justify, overcome, composite (correspond to composite nouns): to blackmail), phrasal: to have a smoke, to give a smile (they always have an ordinary verb as an equivalent). 2.According to the way of forming past tenses and Participle II verbs can be regular and irregular.

B. Lexical-morphological classification is based on the implicit grammatical meanings of the verb. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity verbs fall into transitive and intransitive. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of stativeness/non-stativeness verbs fall into stative and dynamic. According to the implicit grammatical meaning of terminativeness/non-terminativeness verbs fall into terminative and durative. This classification is closely connected with the categories of Aspect and Phase.

C. Syntactic classifications. According to the nature of predication (primary and secondary) all verbs fall into finite and non-finite. According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be of obligatory and optional valency, and thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any directionality. In this way, verbs fall into the verbs of directed (to see, to take, etc.) and non-directed action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.):

D. Functional classification. According to their functional significance verbs can be notional (with the full lexical meaning), semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries.

24. Verbs of complete predication, link verbs, auxiliary verbs.

In these sentences each of the verbs walks and falls, is of itself the complete predicate of the sentence.

Verbs which may be used as predicates, without the aid of other words, are called verbs of complete predication.

E.g.: 1. The boy is sick. 3. The dog seems cross.

2. The man looks tired. 4. Hungry wolves are voracious.

Here the verbs is, look, seems, and are, require the use of other words in order to form complete predicates.

Semi-notional and functional verbs serve as markers of predication in the proper sense, since they show the connection between the nominative content of the sentence and reality in a strictly specialised way. These "predicators" include auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, semi-notional verbid introducer verbs, and link-verbs.

Auxiliary verbs constitute grammatical elements of the categorial forms of the verb. These are the verbs be, have, do, shall, will, should, would, may, might.

Link-verbs introduce the nominal part of the predicate (the predicative) which is commonly expressed by a noun, an adjective, or a phrase of a similar semantic-grammatical character. It should be noted that link-verbs, although they are named so, are not devoid of meaningful content. Performing their function of connecting ("linking") the subject and the predicative of the sentence, they express the actual semantics of this connection, i.e. expose the relational aspect of the characteristics ascribed by the predicative to the subject.

The linking predicator function in the purest form is effected by the verb be; therefore be as a link-verb can be referred to as the "pure link-verb". It is clear from the above that even this pure link-verb has its own relational semantics, which can be identified as "linking predicative ascription". All the link-verbs other than the pure link be express some specification of this general predicative-linking semantics, so that they should be referred to as "specifying" link-verbs. The common specifying link-verbs fall into two main groups: those that express perceptions and those that express nonperceptional, or "factual" link-verb connection. The main perceptional link-verbs are seem, appear, look, feel, taste; the main factual link-verbs are become, get, grow, remain, keep.

As is to be seen from the comparison of the specifying link-verbs with the verbid introducer predicators described above, the respective functions of these two verbal subsets are cognate, though not altogether identical. The difference lies in the fact that the specifying link-verbs combine the pure linking function with the predicator function. Furthermore, separate functions of the two types of predicators are evident from the fact that specifying link-verbs, the same as the pure link, can be used in the text in combination with verbid introducer predicators.

E.g.: The letter seemed to have remained unnoticed. I began to feel better. You shouldn't try to look cleverer than you are.

Cf. the use of verbid introducer predicators with the pure link-verb:

The news has proved to be true. The girl's look ceased to be friendly. The address shown to us seemed to be just the one we needed.

Besides the link-verbs proper hitherto presented, there are some notional verbs in language that

have the power to perform the function of link-verbs without losing their lexical nominative value. In other words, they perform two functions simultaneously, combining the role of a full notional verb with that of a link-verb. Cf.:

Fred lay awake all through the night. Robbie ran in out of breath. The moon rose red.

Notional link-verb function is mostly performed by intransitive verbs of motion and position. Due to the double syntactic character of the notional link-verb, the whole predicate formed by it is referred to as a "double predicate" (see Ch. XXIX).

25. Syntagmatic properties of verbs.

The inner qualities of any signemic lingual unit are manifested not only in its immediate informative significance in an utterance, but also in its combinability with other units, in particular with units of the same segmental order. These syntagmatic properties are of especial importance for verbs, which is due to the unique role performed by the verb in the sentence. As a matter of fact, the finite verb, being the centre of predication, organises all the other sentence constituents. Thus, the organisational function of the verb, immediately exposed in its syntagmatic combinability, is inseparable from (and dependent on) its semantic value. The morphological relevance of the combining power of the verb is seen from the fact that directly dependent on this power are the categorial voice distinctions.

The syntactic valency falls into two cardinal types: obligatory and optional.

The obligatory valency is such as must necessarily be realised for the sake of the grammatical completion of the syntactic construction. For instance, the subject and the direct object are obligatory parts of the sentence, and, from the point of view of sentence structure, they are obligatory valency partners of the verb. Consequently, we say that the subjective and the direct objective valencies of the verb are obligatory. E.g.: We saw a house in the distance.

The optional valency, as different from the obligatory valency, is such as is not necessarily realised in grammatically complete constructions: this type of valency may or may not be realised depending on the concrete information to be conveyed by the utterance. Most of the adverbial modifiers are optional parts of the sentence, so in terms of valency we say that the adverbial valency of the verb is mostly optional. For instance, the adverbial part in the above sentence may be freely eliminated without causing the remainder of the sentence to be structurally incomplete: We saw a house (in the distance).

According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be of obligatory and optional valency, and thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any directionality. In this way, verbs fall into the verbs of directed (to see, to take, etc.) and non-directed action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.):

Syntagmatic classification of English verbs

(according to prof.G.Pocheptsov)

V Vobj. She shook her head

Vaddr. He phoned me

V2 – V10 Vobj.-addr. She gave me her pen

V11 – V15 Vadv. She behaved well

V1 V2 – V24 V16 – V24 Vobj.-adv. He put his hat on the table