- •Class nouns
- •Names of persons
- •Geographical names
- •Miscellaneous proper names
- •Set expressions
- •Some syntactic relations
- •Parts of the day
- •Names of seasons and names of meals
- •"School, college, bed, prison, jail; sea; town, wind, weather, life"
- •Names of diseases and names of languages
- •Certain adjectives, pronouns and numerals
- •The oblique moods subjunctive I
- •Subjunctive II
- •The conditional mood
- •In complex sentences. Real conditions.
- •The suppositional mood
- •The verbals the triple nature of the participle, its tense and voice
- •The functions of p1 & p2
- •The objective participial construction
- •The subjective participial construction
- •The nominative absolute participial construction, the prepositional absolute participial construction
- •The absolute constructions without a participle
- •Double nature of the gerund, its tense and voice
- •Predicative constructions with the gerund
- •The use of the gerund
- •The functions of the gerund
- •The gerund & the participle. The gerund & the infinitive. The gerund & the verbal noun
- •The double nature of the infinitive, its tense, aspect and voice
- •The functions of the infinitive
- •The objective-with-the-infinitive construction
- •The subjective infinitive construction.
- •Syntax the word order
- •Position of the object, the attribute, the adverbial modifiers
- •The subject
- •"It" as the subject of the sentence
- •The predicate
- •The compound verbal predicate. Mixed types
- •Agreement of the predicate with the subject
- •The object
- •The complex object. The cognate object
- •The attribute
- •The adverbial modifier
- •Detached parts of the sentence. The independent elements
- •The simple sentence
- •The compound sentence
- •The complex sentence
- •Attributive and adverbial clauses
- •The rules of the sequence of tenses
- •Indirect speech (statements, questions)
- •Indirect orders and requests, offers, suggestions and advice, indirect exclamations
The gerund & the participle. The gerund & the infinitive. The gerund & the verbal noun
The differences between the G & the P: 1) The G may be preceded by a preposition; 2) The G may be modified by a noun in the possessive case or a possessive pronoun; 3) The G may be used in the function of subject, object and predicative; 4) The G and the P both can be used in the function of attribute and adverbial modifier, but the G is always preceded by a preposition. However, one should differentiate between "a dancing hall" (a hall where people dance – the purpose of the hall – G) and "a singing girl" (a girl that sings – an attribute of the girl – P).
The G & the I both can be used with such verbs and word groups as "to be afraid, to begin, to cease, to continue, can(not) afford, to dread, to fear, to forget, to hate, to intend, to (dis)like, to neglect, to prefer, to propose, to remember, to recollect, to start, to stop". But with some verbs and verb groups (like those underlined) the I is mostly used with reference to a special occasion, the G being more appropriate to a general statement (I hate to interrupt you; I hate interrupting you). The verb "to remember" used with the I refers to the future while the G refers to the past (Remember to post the letter; I remember posting the letter). The verb "to stop" used with the G forms part of a compound verbal aspect predicate, the I has the function of an adverbial modifier of purpose (She stopped knitting when he came in; She stopped to see who was in).
The differences between the G & the VN: 1) The G has nominal and verbal characteristics (the VN has only nominal ones); 2) The G is not used with an article; 3) The G has no plural forms; 4) The G of a transitive verb takes a direct object (the VN takes a prepositional object with the preposition "of"); 5) The G may be modified by an adverb (the VN – by an adjective).
The double nature of the infinitive, its tense, aspect and voice
The I (like the P and the G) has a double nature – nominal and verbal.
The nominal character is manifested through some of its functions: subject (To visit her was all that I needed), predicative (His job is to prevent destruction), object (He agreed to serve as witness).
The verbal characters are: 1) The I of a transitive verb can take a direct object (I began to feel the heat); 2) It can be modified by an adverb (He started to run rapidly); 3) It has tense (to take; to have taken) and aspect (to take; to be taking) distinctions; 4) The I of transitive verbs has voice distinctions (to take; to be taken).
The tense distinctions (like those of all the verbals) are not absolute but relative. The Indefinite I denotes an action simultaneous with that of the finite verb. Depending on the tense form of the finite verb it may refer to past, present or future (I was happy to hear about it; I'm glad to see you; I'll be delighted to meet you). The Continuous I also denotes an action simultaneous with that of the finite verb, but it's the action in progress (I happened to be standing there). The Perfect I denotes an action prior to that of the finite verb (I'm glad to have seen her). After the verbs "to mean, to intend, to hope" used in the Past Indefinite the Perfect Infinitive shows that the hope or intention was not carried out (the same meaning is conveyed by the Past Perfect of the finite verb + the Indefinite Infinitive) (I meant to have come to you; I had meant to come to you). The Perfect Continuous I denotes an action which lasted a certain time before the action of the finite verb (For some years he seemed to have been gathering his courage).
The voice distinctions can be observed in the I of transitive verbs (It's not easy to love and to be loved). In sentences with the construction "There is" the I of some verbs can be active or passive without any change in meaning (There's no time to lose; There's no time to be lost).