17. Statives. The category of State .

The Stative is built by the prefix and the root of a word. They are: awake, applause, ablaze (пылать – в прямом смысле, зд. быть взволнованным), afraid. The problem of the stative is controversial. The stative is not universally recognized as a separate part of speech. Traditionally it was classed together with adjectives, because stative has something in common with adjectives (points to some quantity, can be modified by an adverb, ex.: fast asleep). It differs from the adjective (has no degrees of comparison), it has only one function in the sentence - that of predicative (Ex.: The child is asleep). It cannot be used as an attribute.

Ильиш uses the 3 criteria principle in his analysis of the Stative and concluded that it is a separate part of speech. It differs from the adjective from the point of view of meaning, function and form.

1. Meaning.

It's meaning is that of the passing state a person or a thing happens to be in (not that of a quality).

2. Its form is unchangeable.

Usually the Stative follows a link verb and occasionally a noun (Ex.: man alive).

It can follow an adverb ( Ex.: fast asleep).

3. Its function is that of the predicative.

Бархударов и Блох also used the 3 criteria principle, but they arrived at different conclusions. As to its meaning ББ believe that like adjectives, statives express properties of nouns. They state that the Stative has a changeable form. It has degrees of comparison, though they are not synthetical but analytical.

Ex.: The one most aware of the situation.

The Functions of the Stative:

1. as the predicative

2. as an attribute, though a post positional attribute (E.g. man alive)

The statives in many respects are like adjectives.

Conclusion: the Stative belongs to the class of adjectives. It makes up a subclass of its own within the class of adjectives.

18. Morphemes.

Morpheme – is one of the central notions of grammatical theory, without which no serious attempt at grammatical study can be made. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of the language.

There are may be zero morphemes that is the absence of morpheme. It indicates a certain meanings (book-books). Zero morphemes indicate singular form, s-morpheme plurality.

In traditional grammar the study of the morpheme was conducted in the light of 2 criteria (positional and semantic). The combination of these criteria gives us a classification of morphemes.

According to their position-can be prepositional (prefix), central (root)&postpositional(suffixes & inflexions).

According to semantic criteria roots are the bearers of meaning. Prefix & suffixes-have lexico-semantic function.

Inflexions have no lexical meaning or function, however an inflexion morpheme can get a lexical meaning in some special cases (colour-colours // custom-customs)-lexicalization.

There are some cases when one and the same morpheme may function as an inflexion and suffix (morpheme-ing-as a suffix deriving verbal nouns has inflexion forming gerund/non-finite ver.forms.

Suffix-1.morpheme coming after the root. 2.suffix may be applied to derivation post root morpheme.

Inflexion-1.any morpheme deriving a form of a word and having no lexical meaning.

2.Inflexion is a morpheme expressing case & number in nouns and person & number in verbs.

Morphemes can be: -free & bound(Bound morphemes cannot form words by themselves, they are identified only as component segmental parts of words. On the contrary, free morphemes can build up words by themselves, i/e/ can be used “freely”. e.g. handful – the root hand is a free morpheme, the suffix –ful is a bound morpheme.)

-overt &covert (Overt morphemes are genuine, explicit morphemes building up words; the covert morpheme is identified as a contrastive absence of morpheme expressing a certain function. The notion of covert morpheme coincides with the notion of zero morpheme in the oppositional description of grammatical categories.

e.g. clock-s - 2 morphemes (a lexical morpheme and a grammatical one)

clock-Ø – 2 morphemes (the overt root and the covert (implicit) zero morpheme Ø)

-segmental & suprasegmental (Supra-segmental morphemes are intonation contours, accents, pauses.)

-additive (Additive morphemes are outer grammatical suffixes, as they are opposed to the absence of morphemes in grammatical alternation: e.g. look-ed; small-er

The sound alternation (replacive morpheme) a way of expressing grammatical category by changing a sound inside the root. Suppletive formation is building a form of a word by different stems: good-better/go-went

On the basis of linear characteristics, “continuous (linear)” morphemes and “discontinuous” morphemes are distinguished.

The discontinuous morpheme is a 2-element grammatical unit, which is the analytical from comprising an auxiliary word and a grammatical suffix:

• e.g. be … ing – is going (continuous)

• have … en – has gone (perfect)

• be … en – is taken (passive)

Continuous morpheme is uninterruptedly expressed.