1. GRAMMAR AS A PART OF LANGUAGE.

Padadigmatic and syntagmatic units

Stratification of Language
We should distinguish between language as an abstract system of signs (meaningful unite)
and speech as the use of language in the process of communication. Language and speech
are interconnected. Language functions in speech. Speech is the manifestation of language.
The system of language is constituted by 3 subsystems: phonetics, vocabulary, grammar.
Grammar may be defined as a system of word changing and other means of expressing
relations of words in the sentence. The 3 constituent parts of language are studied by the
corresponding linguistic disciplines: phonology, lexicology, grammar. Main units of
Grammar are a word and sentence. A word may be divided into morphemes, a sentence may
be divided into phrases (word- groups). A. morpheme, a word", a phrase and a sentence are
units of different levels of language structure. A unit of a higher level consists of one or
more units of a lower level.Grammar as a part of Language is a system presenting
meaning through oppositions of variants of units.
Grammatical units enter into two types of relations: in the language system
(paradigmatic relations) and in speech (syntagmatic relations).
In the language system each unit is included into a set of connections based on different
properties. For example, word forms child, children, child's, children's have the same lexical
meaning and have different grammatical meanings. They constitute a lexeme.
Syntagmatic relations are the relations in an utterance:
I like children.Paradigmatic relationships reflect the ability of a unit to substitute for
other units in the same position, and the only question they can give answer to is “What units
can substitute for the selected unit and for what units can the selected one substitute?”
Syntagmatic relations exist in speech, paradigmatic relations exist in the system of the
language, but yet they are interdependent. As formulated by F. de Saussure, the paradigmatic
relations are curtailed syntagmatic relations and the syntagmatic relations are curtailed
paradigmatic relations.
Stratification .the Grammar of Language embraces all its levels and units. The problem is:
how many and what sorts of units must we recognise to be sure that our model of language
(i.e. the theory of language) should be its correct representation?
Language is a means of communication. the main aim of language due to its definition
is to create conditions for communication. So the biggest structure language should provide
us with is dialogue. Then it must give us a possibility to show our position in the event we
speak about. So the next structure is a communicativepart (role). Then we have to inform
each other about the matter we speak of. So the next structure is an utterance or, in other
terms, text. And language provides us with a sentence. Sentences, being models of
fragments of states of things, must represent relations of things for which end language
provides us with members of sentence. Because relations can exist only if there are objects,
we need names of these objects. And language provides us with words. Then, to operate as
names, words need elements which we know as morphemes. And finally we find
phonemes, the material substance to make it all perceptible.
 2) GRAMMAR as a linguistic discipline. Variants of grammar. Types of Grammatical
analysis.
Grammar as a linguistic discipline may be practical {descriptive, normative) or
theoretical. Practical Grammar describes the grammatical system of a given language.
Theoretical Grammar gives a scientific explanation of the nature and peculiarities of the
grammatical system of the language. (Grammar as a linguistic discipline) cover
grammatical features of words and grammatical, communicative, semantic and structural
features of sentences. VARIANTS OF GRAMMARS Grammatical studies are usually done
with a certain aim in mind, and grammatical descriptions vary with them.There are two main
purposes why people describe the Grammar of a language. One type of descriptions is made
to understand it, and the other is made to teach it.
When people use a Grammar to learn or to teach a language they expect that it should
provide suggestions how to build and use forms of words, word combinations and sentences
Because such Grammars suggest rules they are known as prescriptive Grammars.
Prescriptive Grammars make selection of the facts presented by simple descriptions
declaring some of them correct, while the others are treated as ungrammatical. The variant of
prescriptive Grammars you know very well is the so-called practical Grammar designed
mostly for foreigners. Grammatical descriptions aimed at understanding the Grammar of a
language, and because of that attempting to register the facts as accurately as possible, are
called descriptive Grammars. The main purpose of such Grammars is stating the facts of a
language. The forms of such Grammars may be different due to the variant of linguistic
philosophy the author supports.Descriptive Grammars usually include different
interpretations of the facts registered in them. These interpretations present a third type of
Grammars known as the Theory of Grammar or grammatical theory (grammatology).
Analysis: one can start with collecting information about syntagmatic features, that is about
the positions units may occupy in speech chains. This information then can be used to
discover substitutional relations of units, paradigms of a language. This way of analysis is
called DISTRIBUTIONAL.
One can start with collecting information about paradigmatic features of units, that is
with their ability to substitute for each other and establish, as a result, the system of
language. afterwards we have to collect information about the positions the variants of units
may occupy. It is often called OPPOSITIONAL, or PARADIGMATIC or categorial. we
may base our grammatical analysis on the process of creating linguistic units. This type of
Grammar is known as Generative or Transformational. These three types of analysis
separately or in any combination are nowadays used to discover grammatical systems of
languages. descriptive Grammars can be:
a) according to the analytic procedures:1.Distributional (based on the analysis of the
positioning of units)2.Categorial (based on the analysis of the substitution of units)3/
Transformational (based on the analysis of procedures used to create units);
b) according to the purpose of description:1. Synchronic(We may describe Grammar to
understand how it operates in a certain language at a certain period of its existence) 2.
Diachronic or Historical (We may describe Grammar to understand how it changes with
time.) 3. Contrastive(we may use the information either to register the differences and
similarities of the languages compared) 4.Typological. (or we may use it to understand the
principles and possible rules of variability of grammatical systems)
3) Division of Grammar. Morphology and syntax

Main grammatical units, a word and a sentence, are studied by different sections of
Grammar: Morphology (Accidence) and Syntax. Morphology studies the structure, forms
and the classification of words. Syntax studies the structure, forms and the classification of
sentences. In other words, Morphology studies paradigmatic relations of words, Syntax
studies syntagmatic relations of words and paradigmatic relations of sentences.
There is also a new approach to the division of Grammar into Morphology and Syntax.
According to this approach Morphology should study both paradigmatic and syntagmatic
relations of words. Syntax should sludy both paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of
sentences.Syntactic syntagmatics is a relatively new field of study, reflecting the functional
approach to language, i.e the description of connected speech, or discourse.Some linguists
oppose Morphology as the study of words and their forms to the study of sentences and their
parts which they name Grammar or Syntax. This use of the term is in clear contrast to the
ancient, original employment of the term. Initially Grammar only meant what we now call
Morphology, while the study of word combinations was called Accidence. But the most
popular at present usage of the term unites Morphology (the study of words and their forms)
and Syntax (the study of word combinations and sentences) under one heading Grammar..
Syntactic syntagmatics is a relatively new field of study, reflecting the functional approach
to language, i.e the description of connected speech, or discourse. But the most popular at
present usage of the term unites Morphology (the study of words and their forms) and Syntax
(the study of word combinations and sentences) under one heading Grammar.Morphology
and syntax as two parts of linguistic description.
As the word is the main unit of traditional grammatical theory, it serves the basis of
the distinction which is frequently drawn between morphology and syntax. Morphology
deals with the internal structure of words, peculiarities of their grammatical categories and
their semantics while traditional syntax deals with the rules governing combination of words
in sentences (and texts in modern linguistics). We can therefore say that the word is the main
unit of morphology.
It is difficult to arrive at a one-sentence definition of such a complex linguistic unit as
the word. First of all, it is the main expressive unit of human language which ensures the
thought-forming function of the language. It is also the basic nominative unit of language
with the help of which the naming function of language is realized. As any linguistic sign the
word is a level unit. In the structure of language it belongs to the upper stage of the
morphological level. It is a unit of the sphere of ‘language’ and it exists only through its
speech actualization. One of the most characteristic features of the word is its indivisibility.
As any other linguistic unit the word is a bilateral entity. It unites a concept and a sound
image and thus has two sides – the content and expression sides:conceptand sound form.
 4) GRAMMATICAL MEANING, Grammatical form
The basic notions of Grammar are the grammatical meaning,the grammatical form
and the grammatical category.
The grammatical meaning is a general, abstract meaning which embraces classes of
words.
The grammatical meaning depends on the lexical meaning and is connected with
objective reality indirectly, through the lexical meaning.
The grammatical meaning must have a grammatical form of expression (inflexions,
analytical forms, word-order, etc,). Compare the word forms
walks, is writing. Both forms denote process, but only the second form expresses it
grammatically.
The term form may be used in a wide sense to denote all means of expressing
grammatical meanings. It may be also used in a narrow sense _to_ denote means of
expressing a particular grammatical meaning (plural, number, present tense, etc.).
Grammatical elements are unities of meaning and form, content and expression. In the
language system there is no direct correspondence of meaning and form. Two or more units
of the plane of content may correspond to one unit of the plane of expression (polysemy;
homonymy). Two or more units of the plane of expression may correspond to one unit of the
plane of content (synonymy). The oppositive character of grammatical meaning is evident
in the fact that any grammatical meaning is not only revealed through opposition but cannot
simply exist outside it. grammatical meanings are relative, which means that they are
determined by the system of oppositions in which they are found.Dependence of
grammatical meanings means that they always accompany some other meanings. Most
evident is this fact in the morphological meaning: the grammatical meaning of Number
cannot be found in English without a Noun; the grammatical meaning of the Superlative
Degree cannot be realised without an Adjective. . But the same is true of the syntactical
meanings – the grammatical meaning of interrogation cannot be seen without the referential
meaning of the sentence used in the interrogative form. Grammatical meanings are
abstract. Obligatory.This feature means that a grammatical meaning determines its
importance for the system of language. The grammatical meaning may be explicit and
implicit. The implicit grammatical meaning is not expressed formally (e.g. the word table
does not contain any hints in its form as to it being inanimate). The explicit grammatical
meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker. In the word cats the
grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the form of the noun; cat’s – here the
grammatical meaning of possessiveness is shown by the form ‘s;
The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and dependent.
The general grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part of
speech (e.g. nouns – the general grammatical meaning of thingness). The dependent
grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part of speech. The most
important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it influences the realization
of grammatical categories restricting them to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical
meaning of countableness/uncountableness influences the realization of the grammatical
category of number as the number category is realized only within the subclass of countable
nouns, the grammatical meaning of animateness/inanimateness influences the realization of
the grammatical category of case, teminativeness/non-terminativeness - the category of
tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the category of voice.
 5) GRAMMATICAL category. The notion of opposition as the basis of
gram.categories.
grammatical category is a general meaning realised through a formal and meaningful
opposition of variants of one and the same unit and is obligatorily expressed by all units of
the class. It means that a category consists of at least two forms. We shall call these forms of
a unit opposed to each other categorical forms.woman’s represents two categorical forms –
the Possessive Case and the Singular Number. This definition makes it possible to describe
specific features by which we can recognise the grammatical category.
1. Every grammatical category must be represented by at least two forms.
2. Not a single categorical form can be found in all forms of a unit, because it must be opposed
at least to one other categorical form of the same unit.
3. One grammatical form can represent several categorical forms belonging to different
categories, example: the sentence THE DAY WAS NICE unites two categorical forms –
Declarative (opposed to the Interrogative WAS THE DAY NICE?) and Neutral (opposed to
the Exclamatory NICE WAS THE DAY!).
4. No grammatical form can represent two (or more) categorical forms of the same category
simultaneously.
5. Every grammatical form of a unit represents at least one categorial form.
6. grammatical category shows one meaning more than there are members of the opposition
constituting it. If we take the category of Number of Nouns, we have the meaning of the
Singular, of the Plural and of Number.
Grammar is based on oppositions. In the system of language grammatical elements are
connected on the basis of similarity and contrast.Any grammatical category must be
represented by at least two grammatical forms). The relation between two grammatical forms
differing in meaning and external signs is called opposition – book::books (unmarked
member/marked member). e.g. the grammatical category of number is realized through the
opposition singular::plural. ,Means of realization of grammatical categories may be
synthetic (near – nearer) and analytic (beautiful – more beautiful). A minimal (two-member)
opposition is called binary.
Oppositions may be of three main types:
1) privative: one member has a certain distinctive feature. This member is called
2)marked, or strong (+). The other member is characterized by the absence of this
distinctive feature. This member is called unmarked, or weak (-): speak–– speaks+
2)equipollent: both members of the opposition are marked:am+ – is–
3)gradual: members of the opposition differ by the degree :good – better – best
Most grammatical oppositions are privative.
Grammatical forms express meanings of different categories. The form goes denotes
present tense, 3rd person, singular number, indicative mood, active voice, etc.
But grammatical forms cannot express different meanings of the same category. So if a
grammatical form has two or more meanings, they belong to different categories.
In certain contexts the difference between members of the opposition is lost, the
opposition is reduced to one member. Usually the weak member acquires the meaning of the
strong member: We leave for Moscow tomorrow.
This kind of oppositional reduction is called neutralization.
On the other hand, the strong member may be used in the context typical of the weak
member. This use is stylistically marked: He is always complaining.
This kind of reduction is called transposition.
6) The word as the smallest naming unit and the main unit of morphology
1. The main task of morphology is the study of the structure of words. The smallest
significant {meaningful) units of grammar are called morphemes.
Morphemes are commonly classified into free (those which can occur as separate words)
and bound.According to their meaning and function morphemes are subdivided into lexical
(roots), lexico-grammatical (word-building affixes) and grammatical (form-building affixes,
or inflexions). Morphemes are abstract units, respresented in speech by morphs. Most
morphemes are realized by single morphs: un-self-ish. Some morphemes may be manifested
by more than "one morph according to their position. Such alternative morphs, or positional
variants of a morpheme are called allomorphs: cafe [s], dogs. \z], foxes [iz],
Morphemic variants are identified in the text on the basis of their co- occurence with
other morphs, or their environment. The total of environments constitutes the distribution.
There may be three types of morphemic distribution: contrastive, non- contrastive,
complementary. Morphs are in contrastive distribution if their position is the same and
their meanings are different: charming — charmed. Morphs are in noncontractive
distribution if their position is the same and their meanings are the same. Such morphs
constitute free variants of the same morpheme. Morphs are in complementary distribution
if their positions are different and their meanings are the same: speaks — teaches. Such
morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme. Grammatical meanings may be expressed by
the absence of the morpheme. Compare: book — books. The meaning of plurality is
expressed by the morpheme -$. The meaning of singularity is expressed by the absence of
the morpheme. Such meaningful absence of the morpheme is called zero morpheme.
The function of the morpheme may be performed by a separate word. In the
opposition work — will work the meaning of the future is expressed by the word will. Will is
a contradictory unit. Formally it is a word, functionally it is a morpheme. As it has the
features of a word and a morpheme, it is called a word morpheme.
2. Means of form-building and grammatical forms are divided into synthetic and
analytical. Synthetic forms are built with the help of bound morphemes, analytical forms are
built with the help of semi-bound morphemes (word morphemes).Synthetic means of form-
building are affixation, sound interchange (inner inflexion), suppletivity.
Sound interchange may be of two types; vowel and consonant- interchange. It is often
accompanied by affixation: bring — brought.
Forms of one word may be derived from different roots: go — went, I — me, good — better.
This means of form-building is called suppletivity. Different roots may be treated as
suppletive forms if:
1. they have the same lexical meaning;
2. there are 110parallel non suppletive forms;
3. other words of the same class build their forms without suppletivity.
3. Analytical forms are combinations of the auxiliary element (a word morpheme) and
the notional element: is writing.
Analytical forms are contradictory units: phrases in form and wordfofms in
function.
In the analytical form is writing the auxiliary verbbe is lexically empty. It expresses the
grammatical meaning. The notional element expresses both the lexical and the grammatical
meaning. So the grammatical meaning is expressed by the two components of the analytical
form: the auxiliary verbbe and the affix -irig. The word-morpheme be and the inflexion -ing
constitute a discontinuous morpheme.
 7) PARTS of speech. Different approaches to the classification of parts of speech.
The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain
characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classesThe
problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most
controversial problems in modern linguistics. There are four approaches to the problem:
1. Classical (logical-inflectional)
2. Functional
3. Distributional
4. Complex
1)Theclassical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin
grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided
dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. This system was
reproduced in the earliest English grammars. The first of these groups, declinable words,
included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. it cannot be applied to the English language
because the principle of declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical
languages.2) new approach to the problem was introduced in the 19 century by Henry Sweet.
He took into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined
as 2)functional. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative
units and particles. To nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-
pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun,
adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles),
while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles.3)
A distributional approach to the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by the
classification introduced by Charles Fries. He established a classification of words based on
distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of different
types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was not taken into account. . In this
way, he introduced four major classes of words and 15 form-classes.
It turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same as traditional nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his
investigation of 15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first linguist
to pay attention to some of their peculiarities.
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic,
formal and functional. This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion
presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical
meaning). 4)The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical
categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The
functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in the sentence and their
combinability. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its
semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities.
 8) Criteria for establishing parts of speech:semantic,formal.notinal and functional P. of
S.
Parts of speech are grammatical classes of words distinguished on the basis of three criteria:
semantic, morphological and syntactic, i.e. meaning, form and function.
MEANING Semantic Properties Each part of speech is characterized by the general
meaning which is an abstraction from the lexical meanings of constituent words.Semantic
properties of a part of speech find their expression in the grammaticall properties. To sleep, a
sleep, sleepy, asleep refer to the same phenomenon of objective reality, but they belong to
different parts of speech, as their grammatical properties are different. So meaning is a
supportive criterion which helps to check the purely grammatical criteria, those of form and
function.FORM(Morphological Properties'!.This criterion is not always reliable as many
words are invariable and many words contain no derivational affixes. Besides, the same
derivational affixes may be used to build different parts of speech:ly can end an adjective, an
adverb, a noun: a daily;-tian can end a noun and a verb: to position.Because of the limitation
of meaning and form as criteria we mainly rely on a word's function as a criterion of its
class.FUNCTION (Syntactic Properties^Syntactic properties of a class of words are the
combinability of words (the distributional criterion) and typical functions in the sentence.The
three criteria of defining grammatical classes of words in English may be placed in the
following order: function, form, meaning. The linguistic evidence drawn from our
grammatical study makes it possible to divide all the words of the language into:
a) those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding
references in the objective reality – notional words;(nouns,verbs,adj,adverbs)
b) those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only
as grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – function words, or grammatical
words.(prepositions,conj,articles,particles) features: very general, and weak lexical
meaning2)obligatory combinability3)the function of linking and specifying words
The division of language units into notion and function words reveals the interrelation of
lexical and grammatical types of meaning. In notional words the lexical meaning is
predominant. In function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one
 9) GENERAL characteristics of the noun. Morphological, semantic and syntactic
properties of the noun. Gramatically relevant classes of nouns
Nouns denote things and other entities presented as substances: beauty, progress,
etc.The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech.
As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the
meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical catrgories) and syntactical (functions,
distribution).
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness,
substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several
subclasses:
1. According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;
2. According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in
their turn fall into human and non-human.
3. According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable.
This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles
of classification.
Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the
stems all nouns can be classified into: simple,derived( stem + affix, affix + stem –
thingness); compound ( stem+ stem – armchair ) and composite ( the Hague ). The noun has
morphological categories of number and case. Some scholars admit the existence of the
category of gender.
Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used un the sentence in all
syntacticfunctions but predicate. Speaking about noun combinability, we can say that it can
go into right-hand and left-hand connections with practically all parts of speech. That is why
practically all parts of speech but the verb can act as noun determiners. However, the most
common noun determiners are considered to be articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and
nouns themselves in the common and genitive case.
10. Morphological categories of Noun (number, case)
The category of number is proper to count nouns only.
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective
category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-
classes: the plural form & the singular form. The category of number in English is restricted
in its realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only within subclass of
countable nouns. Uncountable nouns can be singular OR plural. Subclasses of
uncountablenouns constitute a lexical-grammatical opposition: singular only (snow, news)
&plural only (contents, police).
The singular form may denote: oneness (individual separate object); generalization (the
meaning of the whole class ); uncountableness - money, milk, gold).
The plural form may denote: the existence of several objects (cats); the inner discreteness
(pluraliatantum: jeans, trousers).
To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:
1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed :
cat::cats;
2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by
syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are 2 groups here: Singulariatantum -
covers different groups of nouns: proper names (Wales), abstract nouns (advice,knowledge),
material nouns (gold), names of sciences (physics), names of diseases (measles), games (darts)
Pluraliatantum - covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), collective nouns
(clergy, police, the rich, the poor)& some other nouns(clothes, outskirts, contents, customs).
3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is not expressed
formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in the context:sheep
The category of case.
Case is a morphological category, which has a distinct syntactic significance as it expresses
the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s coat). The
case category in English is realized through the opposition: The Common Case :: The
Possessive Case (sister :: sister’s). Other meanings are expressed by word order &
prepositions. In modern linguistics the term “genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive
case” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. the
Genitive Case is the following: Possessive Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a father,
Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived, Objective Genitive :
The man’s release – The man was released, Adverbial Genitive : Two hour’s work – X
worked for two hours, Equation Genitive : a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,
Genitive of destination: children’s books – books for children,Mixed Group: yesterday’s
paper, Nick’s school, John’s word
. Different scholars stick to a different number of cases.
1. There are 2 cases. The Common one and The Genitive;
2. There are no cases at all, the form with `s is optional because the same relations may be
expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;
3. There are 3 cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of
objective pronouns me, him, whom;
11. Article in English. Number and meaning of articles. The problem
The article is a function word, which means it has no lexical meaning and is devoid of
denotative function. Semantically the article can be a significator,a linguistic unit
representing some conceptual content without naming it. If analyzed in its relation to the
conceptual reality, the article proves to be an operator,a marker of some cognitive
operation, like identification and classification. there are two articles in English: the definite
article “the” and the indefinite one “a”. It has become a tradition to also single out the so-
called “zero” article, which is found in the contexts where neither the definite nor the
indefinite article is used.
FUNCTIONS OF THE ZERO ARTICLE In most cases the zero article performs the same
functions as the indefinite one. The difference is that the combinability of the latter is
restricted to the group of countable nouns used in the singular form, whereas the zero
article combines with uncountable nouns and countable nouns in the plural.e.g. It was a
large room with many windows Still there are situations where the zero article is used in
its specific functions which are different from those of the indefinite article. When used
with the zero article, the noun loses its general grammatical meaning of thingness to a
certain degree and acquires the meaning of qualitativeness. For example, the nouns “day”
and “night” used with the zero article stand for “light” and “darkness” rather than time
units.

ARTICLE DETERMINATION
Many scholars recognize the category of definiteness/indefiniteness (article
determination). Though the article is used as the morphological marker of the noun, it can
hardly be treated as a word-morpheme. The position of the article may be occupied by other
words (demonstrative and possessive pronouns, etc ) Words, which have a distribution
including the article position, are called determiners. The role of determiners is to specify the
range of reference of the noun by making it definite or indefinite.
Meaningful absence of the article, or zero article, presupposes generalization.
In discussing the use of the articles it is essential to distinguish between specific, or
particular reference, and generic reference:
The telephone is broken. (Specific reference)
The telephone к useful. (Generic reference)
The distinctions, which are important for countable nouns with specific reference,
disappear with generic reference:
1) A telephone is useful.
2) The telephone is useful
3) Telephones are. useful.
The article plays an important role in structuring information. It is one of the means of
distinguishing between facts already known (the theme) and new information (the rheme).
The definite article is the marker of the theme, the indefinite article is the maker of the
rheme.
Certain determiners (articles, demonstrative pronouns) can be used to show that a noun
phrase is referentially equivalent to a previous noun phrase: Students are free to select
optional courses. The options are popular. In such cases the article expresses no-reference,
which is one of the means of sentence- connection.
12. Adjective. Classes. Statives
Adjective is a part of speech characterized by the following typical features: 1) The lexico-
grammatical meaning of “attributes (of substantives)”. By attributes we mean different
properties of substantives, such as their size, colour, position in space, material, psychic state
of persons, etc. 2)The morphological category of the degrees of comparison.3) The
characteristic combinability with nouns (a beautiful girl), link verbs (…is clever), adverbs,
mostly those of degree (a very clever boy), the so-called “prop word” one (the grey one).
4)The stem-building affixes –ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc. 5)Its functions
of an attribute and a predicative complement.
All the adjectives are traditionally divided into 2 large subclasses: qualitative and relative.
Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct
relation of the substance to some other substance (e.g. wood – a wooden hut, history – a
historical event). Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various
qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their
correlative quantitative measure. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low,
adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive (e.g. a difficult task –
a very difficult task).
The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes (long –
longer – longest) showing qualitative distinctions of qualities. More exactly it shows whether
the adjective denotes the property of some substance absolutely, or relatively as a higher or
the highest amount of the property in comparison with that of some other substances.->
‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ degrees.The positive degree is not marked. We
may speak of a zero morpheme. The comparative and superlative degrees are built up either
synthetically (by affixation or suppletivity) or analytically (with the help of word-
morphemes more and most), which depends mainly on the structure of the stem.
Statives.
It was L.V. Scerba and V.V. Vinogradov who singled out such words as холодно, сыро,
весело, жаль into а separate part of speech
Blokh:Among the words signifying properties of a nounal referent there is a leximic set
which claims to be recognied as a separate part of speech, a class of words different form the
adjectives in its class-forming features. These are words built up by the prefix a- and
denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid,
agog, adrift, ablaze. These are treated as predicative adjectives in traditional grammar.
Semantically, statives are marked by the presence of a seme of state, as opposed to adjectives
that express non-temporal property, e.g.: ... he had been asleep for some time... (J.K.
Jerome), which means that he had been in a state of sleep for some time.
Morphologically, statives seem to stand apart from adjectives, for they have a specific
prefix a- and lack the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On closer inspection,
the absence of degrees of comparison does not prove anything. On the one hand, there are a
lot of adjectives that stand outside the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On
the other hand, some of the so-called statives form degrees of comparison just like most
qualitative adjectives, e.g.:
The two main meals of the day, lunch and dinner, are both more or less alike
13. The adverb. Classes. Degrees of comparison
is usually defined as a word expressing either property of an action, or property of another
property, or circumstances in which an action occurs.
The above definition, approaching the adverb as a word of the secondary qualifying
order, presents the entire class of adverbial words as the least self-dependent of all the four
notional parts of speech.
the adverb is characterised by its own, specific nominative value, providing for its
inalienable status in the system of the parts of speech.
§ 2. In accord with their categorial meaning, adverbs are characterised by a combinability
with verbs, adjectives and words of adverbial nature. The functions of adverbs in these
combinations consist in expressing different adverbial modifiers.
§ 3. In accord with their word-building structure adverbs may be simple and derived.
Simple adverbs are rather few, and nearly all of them display functional semantics,
mostly of pronominal character: here, there, now, then, so, quite, why, how, where, when.
The typical adverbial affixes in affixal derivation are, first and foremost, the basic and
only productive adverbial suffix -ly (slowly, tiredly, rightly, firstly), and then a couple of
others of limited distribution, such as -ways (sideways, crossways), -wise (clockwise), -
ward(s) (homewards, seawards, afterwards). The characteristic adverbial prefix is a- (away,
ahead, apart, across).
§ 4. Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial.
By qualitative such adverbs are meant as express immediate, inherently non-graded
qualities of actions and other qualities. The typical adverbs of this kind are qualitative
adverbs in -ly. E. g.:The little boy was crying bitterly over his broken toy
The adverbs interpreted as "quantitative" include words of degree. These are specific lexical
units of semi-functional nature expressing quality measure, or gradational evaluation of
qualities. They may be subdivided into several very clearly pronounced sets.
The first set is formed by adverbs of high degree. These adverbs are sometimes classed as
"intensifiers": very, quite, entirely, utterly, highly, greatly, perfectly, absolutely, strongly,
considerably, pretty, much. The second set includes adverbs of excessive degree (direct and
reverse) also belonging to the broader subclass of intensifiers: too, awfully, tremendously,
dreadfully, terrifically. The third set is made up of adverbs of unexpected degree:
surprisingly, astonishingly, amazingly. The fourth set is formed by adverbs of moderate
degree: fairly, comparatively, relatively, moderately, rather. The fifth set includes adverbs
of low degree: slightly, a little, a bit. The sixth set is constituted by adverbs of approximate
degree: almost, nearly. The seventh set includes adverbs of optimal degree: enough,
sufficiently, adequately.
The category of the degrees of comparison of adverbs is similar to that of adjectives. It is
a system of three- member opposemes (soon — sooner — soonest] actively — more actively
— most actively) showing whether the characteristic the adverb contains is absolute or
relative. The 'comparative' and 'superlative' members of the opposeme are built up either
synthetically (by means of affixation or suppletivity), or analytically (by means of word-
morphemes). The synthetic and analytical forms are in complementary distribution ' like
those of the adjective, only the number of 'synthetic forms is smaller inasmuch as there are
fewer monosyllabic and disyllabic adverbs. Cf. lazy — lazier — (the) laziestf
lazily — more lazily — most lazily.
W i t h regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adverbs (like adjectives) f a l l
i n t o comparables a n d non-comparables. The number of non-comparables is much
greater among adverbs than among adjectives. In other words, there are m a n y adverbs
whose lexemes contain but one word (yesterday, always* northward, upstairs, etc.)
14. Verb. Classification

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 befound.
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.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), stress-replacive (import - to import, , 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. 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. Syntactic classifications. According to
the nature of predication (primary and secondary) all verbs fall into finite and non-finite.
Functional classification. According to their functional significance verbs can be notional
(with the full lexical meaning), semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries
15. The Category of Tense. Problem of future. Future in the past

The category of tense in English (as well as in Russian) expresses the relationship between
the time of the action and the time of speaking.
The time of events is usually correlated with the moment of speaking. The three main
divisions of time are present (including the moment of speaking), past (preceding it), acid
future (following it).Events may be also correlated with other events, moments, situations
(for example, in the past or in the future). They may precede or follow other events or
happen at the same time with other events.
Accordingly time may be denoted absolutely (with regard to the moment of speaking) and
relatively (with regard to a certain moment).
1.2. Languages differ as to the means of the grammatical expression of time. Time may be
expressed by one category, the category of tense (Russian) or by several categories
(English)In Modern Russian the category of tense denotes time both absolutely and
relatively:
(1) Он работает на заводе.
(2) Он сказал, что работает на заводе.
In sentence (1) the present form denotes an action, correlated with the
moment of shaking, hi sentence (2) it denotes an action, correlated with a moment in the
past. In both sentences the action include (the moment with which it is correlated
In Modern English the category of tense denotes time only absolutely:
(3) He works at a plant.
(4) He said he worked at a plant.
In both sentences the action is correlated with the moment of speaking, fn sentence (3) it
includes the moment of speaking, fn sentence (4) it precedes the moment of speaking.
So the category of tense in Modem Russian denotes the relation of an action to the moment
of speaking or to some other moment. The category of tense in Modern English denotes the
relation of an action to the moment of speaking. Relative time is expressed by special forms
(future-in - the-past, perfect forms, sometimes continuous forms), which are very often also
treated as tenses.

The two main approaches to the category of Tense in Modern English are: 1) there are
three tenses: present, past, future; 2) there are two tenses: present and past (O.Jespersen,
L.SBarkhudarov) According to the second view shall, will + infinitive cannot be treatedas
analytical forms, as shall and will preserve their modal. However the recognition of the
analytical forms of the future does not mean the recognition of the three-tense system,
because in Modern English there are two correlated forms, denoting future actions: future
and future in the-past. Future-in-the past correlates an action not with the moment of
speaking, but with a moment in the past, so it cannot be included into the system of tenses.
Moreover, if it is treated as a tense form, there will be two lenses in one form (future and
past), which is impossible. On the other hand, future and non-future forms constitute an
opposition: comes — will come came — would come. This opposition reveals a special
category, the category of posteriority (prospect). Will come denotes absolute posteriority,
would come ~ relative posteriority.
16. The place of continuous forms in the system of the English verb. The category of
aspect
English verbs have special forms for expressing actions in progress, going on at a definite
moment or period of time, i.e. for expressing limited duration — continuous forms.
When I came in he was writing.
Continuous forms, have been traditionally treated as tense forms, (definite,
expanded, progressive) or as tense aspect forms. Consider the opposition:
comes — is coming
Members of the opposition are not opposed as lenses (tense is the same). They show
different character of an action, the manner or way in which the action is experienced or
regarded: as a mere fact or as taken in progress. The opposition common — continuous
reveals the category of aspect.
Tense and aspect are closely connected, but they are different categories, revealed
through different oppositions: comes — came; comes — is coming.
The fact that the Infinitive has the category of aspect (to come — to be coming) and has
no category of tense also shows, that these are different categories.
The category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning. R.Quirk divides
the verbs into dynamic (having the category of aspect) and stative (disallowing the
continuous form). Stative verbs denote perception, cognition and certain relations: see,
know, like, belong. Dynamic verbs may be terminative (limitive), denoting actions of limited
duration: close, break, dome, and durative (unlimitive), denoting actions of unlimited
duration: walk, read, write, shine. With durative verbs the aspect opposition may be
neutralized.
When I came in he sat in the coner.

When I came, in he was sitting in the corner.

17. The place of perfect forms in the system of the English verb. The category of order
(phase, correlation)
In Modern English there are also special forms for expressing relative priority — perfect
forms. Perfect forms express both the time (actions preceding a certain moment) and the way
the action is shown to proceed (the connection of the action will) the indicated moment in its
results or consequences). So the meaning of the perfect forms is constituted by two semantic
components: temporal (priority) and aspective (result, current relevance). That is why perfect
forms have been treated as tense-forms or aspect forms.
Consider the oppositions: comes — has come, is coming — has been coming.

Members of these oppositions are not opposed either as tenses or as aspects (members of
each opposition -express the same tense and aspect). These oppositions reveal the category
of order (correlation, retrospect, taxis).
Tense and order are closely connected, but they are different categories, revealed
through different oppositions:
comes — came,comes — has come.

The fact that verbals have the category of order (to come — to have come, coming —
having come) and have no category of tense also shows the difference of these categories.
The meaning of perfect forms may be influenced by the lexical meaning of the verb
(limitive/unlimitive), tense-form, context mid other factors.

So temporal relations in Modern English are expressed by three categories:

tense {present — past)
prospect (future — non future) order {perfect — non-
perfect).
The central category, tense, is proper to finite forms only. Categories denoting time
relatively, embrace both finites and verbals.
The character of an action is expressed by two categories: aspect (common —
continuous) and order.
18)The category of voice in English. General ch-tics. The problem of the number of
voices.

The category of voice is revealed through the binary opposition "active — passive":

loves— is loved. Voice shows the relation of the action towards its subject and object (doer
and recipient, agent and receiver). Active voice denotes an action issuing from its subject.
Passive voice denotes an action directed towards its object: ex. He loves.He is loved

In other words, voice denotes the direction of an action as viewed by the speaker.
Voice is a morphological category but it has a distinct syntactic significance. Active voice
has obligatory connections with the doer of the action! Passive voice has obligatory
connections with the object of the action. In the active construction the semantic and the
grammatical subject coincide. In the passive construction the grammatical subject is the
object of the action.The category of voice characterizes both finite forms and verbals:
to love — to be laved; loving — being loved. Participle I may be also opposed to participleII:
loving(active) —loved (passive)But participle II may also have perfect meaning:
writing(non-perfect) — written (perfect)
Meanings rendered by participle II depend on transitivity/intransitivity and terminativity\
durability:
The category of voice is closely connected with lexico-syntactic properties of verbs.
According to the number and character of valencies verbs fall into subjective and objective,
the latter being transitive and intransitive.
Subjective Objective
Intransitive Intransitive
Transitive
In Russian voice is connected with transitivity. In English all objective verbs have the
category of voice:
He was laughed at.
It should also be noted that transitivity in Russian is a property of the verb and in English it
is a property of the lexico-semantic variant of the verb. Compare:
Я жгу бумагу. 1 burn the paper.
Бумага горит. the paper burns.
2.The main difficulty in defining the number of voices, in modern English is the
absence of direct correspondence between meaning and form. Three more voices have been
suggested in addition to active, and passive:
1)reflexive: He hurt himself.
2)Reciprocal: They greeted each other.
3) Middle: The door opened.
It is obvious that reflexive and reciprocal meanings are expressed by corresponding
pronouns which perform the function of the direct object.
In sentence the verb is intransitive and it has no category of voice. Consider also:
The water boils. The book sells well. The figures will
not add.
19. The category of mood in English. General characteristics. The problems of
Subjunctive.
The category of mood denotes modality, or the relation of the contents of the
utterance to reality as viewed by the speaker. Modality is a wide notion which
characterises every sentence and which may be expressed by different means: lexical
(modal verbs), lexico grammatical (modal words), morphological (mood), syntactic
(structure of the sentence), phonetic {intonation). Linguists distinguish between objective
modality (expressed by mood-forms) and subjective modality (expressed by lexical and
lexico-grammatical means).
The category of mood is proper to finite forms of the verb and is closely connected
with the syntactic function of the predicate. The category is revealed both in, the
opposition of forms and syntactic structures. So the category of Mood has a strong
syntactic significance.
Mood is one of the most controversial categories — linguists distinguish from 2 to 16
moods in Modern English The reasons for the divergence of view are as follows:
1) The category of mood is in the state of development. Some forms have a limited Sphere
of use {he be), new forms are coming into the system {let).
2) There is no direct correspondence of meaning and form. in Modern English there are no
special forms for expressing unreal actions (with the exception of the forms he be, he
were). The same forms are used to express facts and non- facts: should/would, do, did.
They are treated either as homonymous or as polysemantic.
3) It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between mood auxiliaries and modal verbs:
may, let.

Practically all the scholars recognize the opposition of 2 moods: indicative and
Imperative. Indicative is represented by a system of categories (tense, order, aspect, voice,
etc.). It is a fact-mood or a direct mood. Imperative is represented by one form, which is
used in sentences with implied subject
Problematic and unreal actions are expressed in Modern English by 4 sets of forms: 1)
he be/come 2) he should come 3)he were came 4)should have been come
The form (he) be/come/take, expressing a problematic action, is the only form which
differs from the forms of the indicative. There is one more form of the verb to be, different
from the forms of the indicative: (be were. But this difference disappears in all other verbs,
and besides, the form (he) were is now being replaced by the form (he) was. The
combinations (he) should be, (he) should have been do not differ from modal phrases.
Forms expressing unreal actions, are the same as the forms of the past indicative: (1)
They were here.
(2) I wish they were here.
(3) 1 said I should do it.
(4) Tn uour place I should do it.
These forms are often treated as polysemantic, i.e. forms of the indicative, which
express unreal actions in certain syntactic structures (R.Quirk, L.S.Barkhudarov). Forms of
the past indicative denote actions, not connected with the moment of speaking, not
"relevant" for the speaker, '"not real" now. That is why they may be used to denote
unreality. In this case
Subjunctive will be represented by 2 forms of the verb to be: (he) be, (he) were and I
form of other verbs: (he) do, come, go.
 20) Finite and non-finite forms of the verb. Category of representation
In linguistics, a non-finite verb (or a verbal\verbids) is a verb form that is not limited
by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked
inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person. As a
result, a non-finite verb cannot serve as a predicate and can be used in an independent
clause only when combined with an auxiliary verb (e.g., "He can write" but not "He to
write"). Rather, it can be said to be the head of a non-finite clause. As such, a non-finite verb
is the direct opposite of a finite verb.
By some accounts, a non-finite verb acts simultaneously as a verb and as another part of
speech (e.g., gerunds combined with articles or the possessive case); it can take adverbs and
certain kinds of verb arguments, producing a verbal phrase (i.e., non-finite clause), and this
phrase then plays a different role — usually noun, adjective, or adverb — in a greater clause.
This is the reason for using the term verbal; non-finite verbs have traditionally been
classified as verbal nouns, verbal adjectives, or verbal adverbs.
silk screening. (The infinitive phrase to learn silk screening is the object of wanted.)
Finite Verbs
A finite verbis a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and
categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses,
which can stand on their own as complete sentences.

The finite forms of a verb are the forms where the verb shows tense, person or number.
Non-finite verb forms have no person or number, but some types can show tense.
Finite verb forms include: I go, she goes, he went
Non-finite verb forms include: to go, going, gone
In the Indo-European languages (such as English), only verbs in certain moods are finite.
These include: the indicative mood (expressing a state of affairs); e.g., "The bulldozer
demolished the restaurant," "The leaves were yellow and stiff."the imperative mood (giving
a command); e. g., "Come here!", "Be a good boy!" the subjunctive mood (typically used in
dependent clauses); e. g., "It is required that he go to the back of the line." (The indicative
form would be "goes".) the optative mood (expressing a wish or hope). Non-existent as a
mood in English.

The opposition between finite and non-finite forms of verbs expresses the category of
“finitude”. The grammatical meaning, the content of this category is the expression of
verbal predication: the finite forms of the verb render full (primary, complete, genuine)
predication, the non-finite forms render semi-predication, or secondary (potential)
predication. The formal differential feature is constituted by the expression of verbal time
and mood, which underlie the predicative function: having no immediate means of
expressing time-mood categorial semantics, the verbids are the weak member of the
opposition.
21) GENERAL ch-ics of syntax as a part of grammar
Syntaxis concerned with the external functions of words and their relationship to other
words within the linearly ordered units – word-groups, sentences and texts. Syntax studies
the way in which the units and their meanings are combined. It also deals with peculiarities
of syntactic units, their behavior in different contexts.Basic syntactic notions. Syntactic unit
is always a combination that has at least two constituents. The basic syntactic units are a
word-group, a clause, a sentence, and a text. Theirmainfeaturesare:
a) they are hierarchical units – the units of a lower level serve the building material for the
units of a higher level;
b) as all language units the syntactic units are of two-fold nature:
c) they are of communicative and non-communicative nature – word-groups
Syntactic meaning is the way in which separate word meanings are combined to produce
meaningful word-groups and sentences.
Syntactic form . John hits the ball – N1 + V + N2.
Syntactic function is the function of a unit on the basis of which it is included to a larger
unit. Syntactic position is the position of an element.(importance in analytical languages)
The syntactic position of an element may determine its relationship with the other elements
of the same unit: his broad back, a back district, to go back, to back sm.
Syntactic relations are syntagmatic relations observed between syntactic units. They can be
of three types –coordination, subordination and predication
Kinds of syntactic theories.
1) Transformational-Generative Grammar. The main point of the T-GGram is that the
endless variety of sentences in a language can be reduced to a finite number of kernels by
means of transformations. The following kernels are commonly associated with the English
language:NV, NVAdj, NVN – John is a man. NVNN – John gave the man a book.
NVPrep.N – The book is on the table.
2)Constructional Syntax. Constructional analysis of syntactic units was initiated by
Prof.G.Pocheptsov. This analysis deals with the constructional significance/insignificance of
a part of the sentence for the whole syntactic unit. The theory is based on the obligatory or
optional environment of syntactic elements. For example, the element him in the sentence I
saw him there yesterday is constructionally significant because it is impossible to omit it. At
the same time the elements there and yesterday are constructionally insignificant – they can
be omitted without destroying the whole structure.
3)Communicative Syntax. It is primarily concerned with the analysis of utterances from the
point of their communicative value and informative structure. It deals with the actual
division of the utterance – the theme and rheme analysis. Both the theme and the rheme
constitute the informative structure of utterances. The theme is something that is known
already while the rhemerepresents some new information. Depending on the contextual
informative value any sentence element can act as the theme or the rheme:
Who is at home? - John is at home. Where is John? – John is at home.
22)The problem of the definition of the phrase. Phrases and forms of word connection
Words within a sentence are grouped into phrases (word groups, word clusters, word -
combinations): So phrases are sentence constituents. But phrases can be also treated as units
built by combining words outside the sentence: a man —an old man; old—very old. Thus the
comhiliability of words, or valency, can be studied both under syntax and under
morphology.We should distinguish between grammatical combinability, i,e. syntaginatic
relations of classes of words (N+V, Adv ,+Adj.); lexical combinability, i.e. syntagmatic
relations of individual words(green jealousy, not blue jealousy) and lexico-grammatical
combinability, i.e. syntagmatic relationsof words (a sudden arrival, explosion, arrest, not
a sudden table, book, room)..2. At present there are two approaches to the definition of a
phrase. According to a narrower definition a phrase is a unity of two or more notional
words. According to a wider definition any syntactic group of words can be treated as a
phrase. Consequently, phrases may be built by combining notional words {an old
man),notional and functional words (in the corner); functional words (out of). Like a
word, a phrase may have a system of forms. Each component of a phrase may undergo
grammatical changes without destroying the identity of the phrase: a young man — younger
men.The naming function of the phrase distinguishes it from, the sentence, whose main
function is communicative. Therefore the structure "N+V" is traditionally excluded from
phrases.Thus a phrase is usually smaller than a sentence, but it may also function as a
sentence (N+V), and it may be larger than нsentence, as the latter may consist of one word.3.
Phrases may be classified partly by their inner structure (syntactic relations between the
components, morphological expression and position of components, or by order and
arrangement) and partly by their external functioning (distribution, functions of the
components).The components of the phrase can be connected by different types of •
syntactic relations. H. Sweet stated that the most general type of relation-is that of the
modifier and modified (head-word and adjunct), or the relation of subordination. He also
distinguished the relation of coordination.
The structural theory of word-groups, worked out by the American school of
descriptive linguistics, founded by L.Bloomficld, divides word groups into two main types:
endoceutric (headed) and exocentric (non-headed). The criteria for distinguishing
between them are distribution and substitution. An endocentric group has the same position
as its headword:An old man came in. ---- A man came in. The distribution of an exoccntric
group differs from the distribution of its components:A man came in. Thus we may single
out 3 types of syntactic relations within word groups: subordination, coordination,
interdependence. Accordingly, phrases are usually classified into subordinate, coordinate
and predicative. Sometimes a fourth type, appositive phrases, is mentioned: doctor Drown;
Mr.Campbell, the lawyer. Apposition resembles coordination syntactically, liking units of
the same level, but apposilives arc co-referenlial and semantically their relations are'closer to
subordination.
 23) General characteristics of the sentence. Predicativity. Predication.
.sentenceis the largest and most complicated unit of language and at the same time it is
the smallest unit of speech, or the smallest utterance. In speech sentences are not given
ready-made, they are created, by the speaker. But they are built according to patterns
existing in the language. So concrete sentences belong to speech. Patterns, according to
which they are built, belong to language.
A sentence has two basic meaningful functions: naming and communicative.
Sentences name situations and events of objective reality and convey information,
expressing complete thoughts or feelings. So the sentence is a structural, semantic and
communicative unity. Accordingly the three main aspects of the sentence are syntactic,
semantic and logico-communicative.
The syntactic structure of the sentence can be analysed at two levels: pre-function el
(sentence constituents are words and word groups] and functional (sentence constituents are
parts of the sentence). There is no direct correspondence between units of these levels.
John wrote a letter. NVN — SPO John had a snack. NVN — SP The semantic structure
of the sentence is a reflection of a certain situation or event which includes a process as its
dynamic centre. The semantic structure o f the sentence is often called deep structure,
the syntactic structure is called surface structure. There is no direct correspondence
between deeg and surface structure:John opened the door. NVN (SPO) - doer (agent),
action, object.The key opened the door.NVN (SPO) — instrument, action, object.These two
aspects characterize the sentence as a unit of language. Logico communicative
aspectcharacterizes the sentence as a unit of speech, or utterance. This division into two
parts, the theme and the rheme, is called the actual sentence division, or the functional
sentence perspective.There is one more aspect of the sentence as a unit of speech —So
sentences can be analysed from the point of view of the intentions of the speaker, the effect
of the utterance on the interlocuter, the appropriateness of the utterance in a given context.
This aspect is called pragmatic.The correlation of the thought expressed in the sentence with
thesituation of speech is called predicativity.Predicativity .has three main
components: modality, time and person, expressed by the categories of mood, tense and
person. So the predicate verb is the main means of expressing predicativity.
The person component of predicativity is also expressed by the subject. Thus
predicativity is expressed by the subject predicate group, or predication. Predication
constitutes the basic structure of the sentence.
Predicativity is also expressed by intonation, which is the essential feature of the
sentence as a unit of speech.
It should be noted, that some scholars use only one term — predication - to denote
both the relation of the sentence to reality and means of its expression. /
A sentence may contain primary and secondary predication: I heard someone,
sifiging. The group someone singing is called the secondary predication, as it resembles
the subject-predicate group,. The secondary predication is related to the situation of
speech indirectly, through the primary predications.
 24) Classification of sentences. Structural and communicative types of sentence.
As is well known, sentences may be classified on the basis of two main principles:
communicative (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory) and structural
(simple and composite, one-member and two- member,complete and elliptical).
In the language system certain sentence-patterns are correlated and are connected by
oppositional relations: STRUCTURAL TYPES OF SENTENCES depend upon the way the
most important features of the sentence, namely, predicativity, is reflected in their structure.
Since predicativity has three features, they might be embodied either together in one
component of a sentence, and such sentences are known as one-member sentences.Come
here! Or Stand up. The other two features of predicativity (temporal and modal) are
presented together in another component of the sentence. Such sentences in which the
predicativity features are distributed between two elements of a sentence are named two-
member sentences: It is cold. John speaks English. A dog runs.In case of two-member
sentences the elements formalising the the features of predicativity are known as the main
members .But a sentence may include either one predicativity centre or several. If a sentence
has only one predicativity centre we call such sentences simple. If a sentence has more than
one predicative centre we call it composite. But if we have two or more predicativity centres
within one structure, there must be some relations between these elements.We know two
types of relations: co-ordination and subordination. Coordination means that the
predicative centres are not dependent on each other,The subordinate relations exist if one
predicative group dominates and includes one or more other predicative groups as its
elements:as the Subject: as a part of the Predicate,as an Object,as an Attribute,as an
Adverbial Modifier .The structural types of sentences show only one of their aspects.
Sentences being elements of speech have their specific communicative functionsLets take a
simple sentence: 1) John will come tomorrow. 2) Will John come tomorrow? 3)
Come tomorrow, John!The difference of meanings corresponds to the difference of the
form of the sentences. It means that we observe here an opposition of forms reflecting a
certain meaning, which corresponds to the idea of a grammatical category. The semantic
basis of the category is the speaker’s influence upon the listener. This basis corresponds to
the illocutionary (побудительный) meaning of speech acts. If we compare these meanings
with the illocutionary classes we can see that they reflect two most frequent classes –
informatives and directives. The first sentence embodies the informative type of speech
acts and is called declarative. The other two belong to the directives. The second sentence
formally differentiates direction for a special type of action – informing the speaker and is
termed interrogative. The third sentence differentiates direction for an action and has the
name of imperative.We may expect that other classes of speech acts should also be reflected
in the system of sentences as grammatical categories. And we can really find an opposition
of the so-called exclamatory sentences to non-exclamatory ones.
25)The formal structure of sentences. The model of parts of the sentence

The method designed for showing as many functions as possible is known as the model of
members of the sentence. It states that a sentence includes the main members, namely
the Subject and the Predicate, and each of these may have dependent secondary members.
All elements subordinated to a noun are called attributes. The elements depending upon the
verb or the adjectiveare usually named objects, and the elements being adverbs or
prepositional phrases or sometimes nouns indicating time and measure are known as
adverbialmodifiers.we shall separately describe the four members mentioned
above1)SubjectWe defined the Subject as the element of a sentence that embodies the
personal feature of predicativity.the Subject occupies the first position in the sentence.
2)The Predicate embodies the temporal and the modal components of predicativity. Besides
it names the relationships between the nominal phrase incorporating the personal
component of predicativity and other nominal groups. the modal feature of predicativity is
often embodied in a special group of words known as modal verbs.The second element of
the Predicate might also be a noun or an adjective. In this case the modal and temporal
features of predicativity find embodiment in special lexical items known as link verbs.
3)The Object in English seems to be one of the most difficult problems. The difficulty is in
the fact that English Objects have no special forms to indicate their function. The only
formal feature is the position of the element functioning as an Object. 4)Attributes
Semantically and functionally, all attributes might be divided into those which give certain
information about the objects named by the noun and those which indicate general relations
of the noun and do not name its properties.Model of the parts of the sentIn order to state
general rules of sentence construction it is necessary to refer to smaller units. The process of
analysing sentences into their parts, or constituents, is known as parsing.The syntactic
structure -of the sentence can be analysed at two levels: pre-functional (constituents are
words and word-groups) and functional (constituents are parts of the sentence). Accordingly
we distinguish between principal parts of the sentence, constituting the predication, or the
basic structure of the sentence, and secondary parts of the sentence, extending, or expanding
the basic structure. Principal parts of the sentence are interdependent. Secondary parts of
the sentence are modifiers of principal and other secondary parts .Structurally parts of the
sentence may be of, three types: simple, expressed by words and phrases; compound,
consisting of the structural and notional part; complex, expressed by secondary predications.
26)The Problems of the Object, the Attribute, the adverbial modifier

1)TheObject in English seems to be one of the most difficult problems. The difficulty is in
the fact that English Objects have no special forms to indicate their function. The only
formal feature is the position of the element functioning as an Object. Objects cannot change
their position in the sentence while adverbial modifiers are movable. Further division is
within the Objects. We can divide Objects, according to the presence or absence of a
preposition, into non-prepositional and prepositional Objects. Semantically, Objects might
be divided taking into consideration the meaningful relation of the Object and the
Predicate..2)Attributes were defined as elements of noun groups. Forms and compositions of
Attributes are very variableThe form of the Attribute includes its position. Words having
nominal character, such as nouns and gerunds, often are used in post position to the noun
and are connected to it with a preposition. Words belonging to other groups normally take
the position before the noun. Some of them such as numerals, articles, possessive and
demonstrative pronouns may be found only in this position. Adjectives normally being in
preposition may be used after the noun in two cases. First, it concerns a small group of
certaintitles or names of organizations which follow the French manner of structuring
attributive groups (attorney general). The other reason for postpositive adjectives is their
logical stressing, and such Attributes have an additional idea of additional information: Her
eyes, green and sparkling, looked at him steadily.Semantically and functionally, all attributes
might be divided into those which give certain information about the objects named by the
noun and those which indicate general relations of the noun and do not name its properties.
The latter Attributes are never used in post-position. They are expressed by pronouns and
articles and open the whole noun group. These attributes are usually given a special
termdeterminersand are not considered as real Attributes.3) Adverbial Modifiersmight be
composed of adverbs, prepositional phrases, verbals and verbal constructions. Semantically,
Adverbial Modifiers are divided into types depending upon the kind of circumstances they
express. But from the grammatical point of view it is necessary to differentiate between
those that are directly connected with the Predicate (or verbs, or adjectives) naming their
specific features, and those that belong to the whole clause. The former are usually termed as
Adverbial Modifiers of manner or degree. The latter are actually circumstantial
modifiers, naming time, place, reason, cause, condition, etc. The formal difference between
these two groups is in the positions they may occupy in the sentence. The Adverbial Modifier
belonging to the former group can occupy the place between the first auxiliary and the other
elements of the verbal form. Adverbial Modifiers of manner or degree permit another type of
transformation. Adverbial Modifiers of this type expressed by adverbs with the suffix -ly are
transformed into adjectives if the verb they modify is transformed into a noun (He slowly
walked → He had a slow walk).
 27) The distributional model of the sentence. The model of immediate
constituents
Methods of structural linguistics are based on the notions of position, co-occurrence
and substitution (substitutability).
Position, or environment is the immediate neighbourhood of the element.Cooccurence
means that words of one class permit or require the occurrence of words of another
class.The total set of environments of a certain element is its distribution. The term
distribution denotes the occurrence of-an element relative to other elements. Elements
may be in: 1) non-contrastive distribution (the same position, no difference in meaning;
variants of the same element): hoofs — hooves 2) contrastive distribution (the same
position, different meanings):She is charming.She is charmed.3) complementary
distribution (mutual exclusiveness of pairs of forms in a certain environment; the same
meaning, different positions; variants of.the same elements).: cows—oxen.
The distributional model, worked out by Ch.Fries ("The Structure of English
shows the linear order of sentence constituents .The syntactic structure of the sentence is
presented as a sequence of positional classes of words:
Tho old man saw a black dog there.
a. D A N V D A2 N2Adv
1 1

b. D 3aA 2 D 3b1b 4
Showing the linear order of classes of words (their forms may also be indicated), the model
does not show the syntactic relations of sentence constituents. The sentence I saw a man
with a telescope is ambiguous, but the ambiguity cannot be shown by the distributional
model. This drawback is overcome by the IC-model.A sentence is not a mere sequence, or
string of words, but a structured string of words, grouped into phrases. So sentence
constituents are words and word groups. The basic principle for grouping words into phrases
(endo or exocentric) is cohesion, or the possibility to substitute one word for the whole
group without destroying the sentence structure. Applying the substitution test, {or the
dropping test, dropping optional elements) we define syntactic relations and can reduce
word-groups to words and longer sentences to basic structures:
{ I ) N P - > N poor John -> John,
The phrase is endocentric, the adjunct poor is optional, the head-word John is obligatory.
( 2 ) Theoldman sawа black dog there.
Word-groups are reduced to head-words and the sentence is reduced to the basic
structure, directly built by two immediate constituents — NP and VP.
When we know the rules of reducing the sentence to the basic, elementary structure, it
is not difficult to state the rules of extending/expanding elementary sentences:
So the sentence is built, by two immediate constituents (NP+VP), each of which may have
constituents of its own. Constituents which cannot be further divided, are called ultimate
(UC). The IСmodel exists in two main versions: the analytical model and the derivation
tree. The analytical model divides the sentence into IC.-s and UC-s:
VP
The derivation tree shows the syntactic dependence of sentence constituents:The old man
saw a black dog there.So the iС-model shows both the syntactic relations and the linear
order of elements.
 28). The transformational model of the sentence
Different sentence types are structurally and semantically related. the syntactic
structure of a given sentence may he described by making these relations explicit.
Sentences, in which all constituents are obligatory, are called basic structures, or
elementary sentences, or kernel sentences. Linguists single out from 2 to 7 kernel
sentences: 1) NV 2) NVN 3) NVPrepN4) N is N 5) N is A 6) N is Adv. 7) N is PrepN.
The structure of all other sentences may be explained as a result of certain changes,
or transformations of kernel structures. This analysis, showing derivational relations of
sentences, is called transformational (TM). TM is based on iC-model and it goes further
showing semantic and syntactic relations of different sentence types.
TM was first discussed by the outstanding American linguist N.Chomsky and it In
the course of the development of the model the focus of attention shifted from syntax to
semantics.
TM describes paradigmatic relations of basic and derived structures, or the relations
of syntactic derivation. Kernel sentences, which serve as the base for deriving other
structures, are called deep,or underlying structures, opposed to surface structures of
derived sentence types, or transforms. So both the deep and the surface .structure
belong to the syntactic level of analysis.
Transformations may be subdivided into intramodel, or single-base (changing the
kernel structure) and two-base {combining 2 structures).
Single-base transformations may be of two types: modifying the kernel structure And
changing the kernel structure:
1.She is working h a r d — S h e is not working hard.
She is working hard -- Her working hard —Her hard work. Some basic types of
intramodel transformations: substitution, deletion (Have you seen him?—-Seen him?) ;
permutation or movement (He is here-Is he here?), nominalization ( H e a r r i v e d — H i s
arrival); two-base transformations: embedding (iknow that he has come), word-sharing(I
saw him cross the street).TM shows that sentences with different surface structures
paraphrase, because they are derived from the same deep structure: He arrived—his arrival
—or him to arrive --his arriving.TM shows that some sentences are ambiguous, because they
derive from distinct deep structures: Flying planes can be dangerous— Planes are
dangerous— F l y i n g is dangerous.
So TM is an effective method of deciding grammatical ambiguity. A grammar which
operates using TM is a transformational grammar (TG).
29. Functional sentence perspective. The theme and rheme

sentence is a unit of language. The sentence is also a unit of' speech, a minimum free
utterance, whose main purpose is to convey information, to express thoughts and feelings.

Linguistic analysis of utterances in terms of the information they contain is called the
actual division or the analysis of the Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP). FSP was
thoroughly analysed by the representatives of the Prague School of functional linguistics.

FSP refers to the way the speaker structures the information, the way he identifies the
relative importance of utterance parts. Usually the utterance consists of two parts: the topic
of discussion: something about which a statement is made and the new information, which
adds most to the process of communication. These two sections are called the theme and
the rheme, or topic and comment. Some sentences contain only the rheme, they are
monorhemalic: It is getting dark. In the majority of sentences the constituents are either
rhematic or thematic. There are also transitional elements. Sentences containing the theme
and the rheme are called dirhematic.
Л sentence acquires FSP in the context, but it also has it, taken separately, as it reflects
certain contextual relations.
In Modern Russian the rheme is usually placed at the end and the main means of
expressing FSP is word-order. As the main function of word-order in 'English is
grammatical, English has other ways of expressing FSP. Thematic elements are indicated by
the definite article, loose parenthesis (as for me...), detached parts of the sentence; rhematic
elements — by the indefinite article,
particles (even, only), negations, emphatic constructions {It is he, who...).
*
But in the majority of sentences the rheme is also placed at the end, which is achieved by
changing the syntactic structure of the sentence. According to V.Y.Shevyakova, only 6% of
sentences have regressive structure Rh—Th, 94% have progressive structure Th—Rh. Some
means of preserving the progressive information structure:
1) passive transformations — UNESCO took the first steps. The first steps were taken by
UNESCO;
2) the use of conversives —
20 people, died in a crush. The crush killed 20 people.
3) The use of the personal subject and the nominal predicate — It was silent in the

room. The room turned silent.

Some means of making the subject rhematic: the constructions there is/there are., it is
necessary, inversion, etc.

Thematic elements contribute little to the meaning of the utterance as they reflect what
has already been communicated, in other words they have the lowest degree of
communicative dynamism (CD). Rhematic elements, containing new information which
advances the communicative process have the highest degree of CD.
30. The Semantic structure of the sentence. General Overview of Semantic Syntax

Every linguistic unit may be analysed either from the form to the meaning or from the
signification to the means of expression. Traditionally sentence analysis starts from syntactic
structure. Models of the analysis of semantic structure were worked out by the
representatives of a new school of linguistic thought, called generative semantics. One of
these models is Case Grammar devised by the American scholar Ch.Fillmore.
Transformational Model distinguished deep and surface structures within the syntactic
level. In Case-Grammar deep, or underlying structure is semantic and surface structure is
syntactic. Deep, or semantic structure has two main constituents: modality (features of
mood, tense, aspect, negation, relating to the sentence as a whole) and proposition
(tenseless set of relationships). The proposition is constituted bу the semantic predicate
(the central element) and some nominal elements, called arguments or participants. The
proposition is a reflection of situations and events of the outside world. The semantic
predicate determines the number of arguments, or opens up places for arguments.
Accordingly we may distinguish one-place predicates (She sang), two-place predicates
(She broke the dish) and so on. Arguments are in different semantic relations to the
predicate. These relations are called semantic roles deep cases. The choice of semantic
roles depends on the nature of the predicate. Semantic roles, or deep cases are judgments
about the events, such as: Who did it? Who did it happen to? What got changed? The most
general, roles are agent (doer of the action) and patient (affected by the action or state)-
Actions are accompanied by agents, states and processes — by patients; predicates,
denoting both actions and processes — by agents and patients: She broke the dish.
GENERAL REMARKS of semantic syntax
The sentence was defined as a model of some fragment of the world. Besides it is a word or
a group of words having predicativity. Predicativity was defined as reference of the content
of the utterance to reality. It means that alongside predicativity the sentence has some
content. The content should somehow correlate with some fragment of the outer world which
is its model. So a sentence along with its grammatical meanings (predicativity, functional
perspective and communicative types) has a referential meaning, which can be compared to
the lexical meaning of a word. Though this referential meaning cannot be treated as
grammatical, its analysis and description traditionally belong to the domain of grammar.
There are several ways of analysing and describing this meaning. They may be grouped into
five trends. These trends sometimes seem to be opposite to each other and even antagonistic,
but in fact they are either detailed elaboration of each other or they lay specific stress on
different aspects of this complex and complicated problem. The oldest and most popular up
till now is the method of members of the sentence. Much later and almost simultaneously
appeared two theories – the valency theory and generative (transformational) syntax. A
bit later, deep case grammar and, independent of it but logically close to it, syntaxemic
grammar were developed. All these approaches to the referential semantics of a sentence
were summarised in a theoretical framework called compositional syntax.
 31.VALENCY THEORY

The ability of the verb to predict the number and the functions of the nominal elements
of the sentence was named the VALENCY of the verb. The outcome of all this is that a
sentence might be reduced to its predicate, which is most often a verb. Different semantic
types of sentences are isolated on the basis of verbs having different valency. There are four
types of verbs and four semantic types of sentences.Verbs with zero valency usually name
natural phenomena like It snows, It is cold, etc. One-valency verbs usually name states,
processes or general activity, as John is clever, A candle burns, A dog runs, etc. Two-valency
verbs usually name relations and actions as Jane has a cat, John reads a book. We have to
take into consideration that the valency theory only counts the number of obligatory nominal
elements.And finally, three-valency verbs name actions that are performed with the use of
instruments or materials as John cut meat with a sharp knife. At this point the valency theory
might be criticised because actions presupposing three elements do not always presuppose
material or an instrument, for example John gave Jane a book, still all these verbs
presuppose that a sentence should have three nominal elements.

There are three different notions of valency: formal, or syntactical valency responsible for
the formal features of the nominal elements of the sentence, logical valency responsible for
the number and semantic functions of the nominal elements, lexical valency responsible for
limitations of lexical classes appearing in the positions predicted by the logical valency.

We may first state that though the three types of valency are autonomous, they are not
absolutely independent of one another. Secondly, we have to consider the valency theory
only as a descriptive but not an explanatory one. As we shall see below, there are statements
that are at least partially true for two other theories of the semantic sphere of the sentence.

GENERATIVE SYNTAX Only a few words can be said about semantic syntax in Standard
Generative Theory, because N. Chomsky postulated that the kernel structures are abstract
and are semantic constructions of immediate constituents. Meanings of sentences are
imported through Lexicon, i.e. through words, taking certain positions as ultimate
constituents before performance, it means before the sentence acquires its phonetic form.
Still we may speak about some semantic overtones even in the Standard Theory. It is
generally assumed that structures having similar transformational histories are also similar
semantically. As a result, we may say that transformations can be used as a good criterion
for grouping syntactic structures having similar meanings or dividing syntactical
structures into groups having different meanings.
32.DEEP CASE THEORY
Transformational grammar was the starting point of a rather influential theory of sentence
meaning known as the Deep Case Theory, or the Frame Theory. It should be immediately
noted that this theory finally fused with the valency theory. The main idea of Deep Case
Grammar is that each verb has a specific set of functional positions for nouns. This set is
called a frame and the functional positions are termed deep cases. The term deep case
was used to indicate that only the meaning of certain syntactic relations is represented in
the frame. The Deep Case theory was a result of searching for kernel structures of the
transformational theory. The meaning of the sentence can be treated as a frame consisting
of deep cases, or nominal elements having specific meaningful functions, and the
predicate which determines this frame. The deep case frame, according to Ch. Fillmore,
is a description of some state of affairs. The formal structure of the sentence is a result of
formal (surface) operations aimed at making the frame perceivable for communicators.
Thus, the semantic structure of the sentence represents the structure of what we want to
speak about and is only indirectly reflected in the form of the sentence. The number and
meanings of the Deep Cases are unlimited. Compare the roles of the first position in the
case frame of the verb to open in the following four sentences: Nick opens the door, The
wind opens the door, The key opens the door and The door opens. In the sentence Nick
opens the door the first noun is the Doer who does the action consciously and can use an
Instrument to perform the action of opening. In the second sentence The wind opens the
door the first noun names a Phenomenon that cannot do anything and cannot use any
Instrument, thus it cannot be treated as a Doer. In the third sentence The key opens the
door the first noun names the Instrument used by the Doer; and in the fourth sentence The
door opens we find that the first noun names the Patient of the action. As a result, in these
sentences we find: Agent in the first sentence Nick opens the door; Elementative in the
second The wind opens the door; Instrument in the third The key opens the door; and
Patient in the fourth The door opens.
The thing named by the word cup in the sentence Nick broke a cup undergoes a radical
change as a result of which it disappears; the thing named by the word door in the
sentence Mike opened the door does not change radically, it only changes its position; the
thing named by the word house in the sentence Jack built a house does not undergo any
changes as a result of the action of building because it appears after the action is
completed; the thing named by the word book in the sentence Mary read a book does not
change in any way, rather it is Mary that changes as a result of reading.
The Deep Case theory is based on the assumption that the general meaning of the sentence
is determined by the type of the deep case frame and the latter is defined by the meaning
of the verb, the verb meaning or, more exactly, the structure of the situation named by the
verb is the general meaning of the sentence and the roles of the components of this
situation are the syntactical meanings of the nominal elements of the sentence.
33. Compositional Syntax

The concept named “Compositional Syntax” was first formulated and further developed in
Minsk State Linguistic University, and more exactly, at the Department of Grammar and
History of English.
This theoretical framework is an attempt to develop a united theory of Syntax. The
presentation of the semantics of the sentence is based on several assumptions following
from the general properties of the semantic aspect of the sign. These assumptions are:
1. The semantic sphere of any sign is divided into the significational and denotational
aspects. The significational aspect of the sign meaning is determined by the system
of signs and shows the way in which the Speaker presents the phenomenon she/he
speaks about. The denotational aspect of the sign meaning is determined by our
knowledge of the Universe and our complex idea of the phenomenon we speak
about and depends on our experience.
2. Because a sentence is a model of some fragment of the outer world, its semantics is
necessarily a construction, which means that both the significational and the
denotational aspects of the sentence meaning must be structures, relations of special
elements.
3. The structures of the significational and the denotational aspects of the meaning of a
sentence must be INDEPENDENT of each other. (The structure of the denotational
aspect, usually termed “situation” or “the state of affairs/things”, is thought to be the
first step of generalisation; and the significational aspect, usually termed as
“proposition” is believed to be the final step. It is believed that while creating a
sentence, the Speaker has in mind the structure of the situation and generalises it up
to the class of similar situations.
four types of proposition.

 Dynamic and directed. These propositions do not permit the transformation of

permutation and can be answers to the What happens? question. E.g. John gave Jane
an apple.
 Dynamic and non-directed. These propositions permit the transformation of
permutation and can be answers to the What happens? question. E.g. John met Dave.
 Static and directed. These propositions do not permit the transformation of
permutation and cannot be answers to the What happens? question. E.g. Jane has a
car.
 Static and non-directed. These propositions permit the transformation of
permutation and cannot be answers to the What happens? question. E.g. Mike looks
like Nick.
The meaning of the sentence is the result of co-ordination of these two structures.
These assumptions allow to unite the most important ideas of the four theories of sentence
meaning.The general meaning of a sentence is the result of composing the significational and
the denotational semantic structures, so the meanings of sentences and their components
should be described in two sets of terms and are actually combinations of significational and
denotational meanings
34. Pragmatic approach to the study of language units. Basic notions of pragmatic
linguistics.

The term ‘pragmatics’ was first introduced by Charles Morris, a philosopher. He contrasts
pragmatics with semantics and syntax. He claims that syntax is the study of the grammatical
relations of linguistic units to one another and the grammatical structures of phrases and
sentences that result from these grammatical relation, semantics is the study of the relation of
linguistic units to the objects they denote, and pragmatics is the study of the relation of
linguistic units to people who communicate.

In our everyday life we as a rule perform or play quite a lot of different roles – a student, a

friend, a daughter, a son, a client, etc. When playing different roles our language means are

not the same – we choose different words and expressions suitable and appropriate for the

situation. We use the language as an instrument for our purposes. For instance,

(a) What are you doing here? We’re talking

(b) What the hell are you doing here? We’re chewing the rag

have the same referential meaning but their pragmatic meaning is different, they are used
in different contexts. Similarly, each utterance combines a propositional base (objective
part) with the pragmatic component (subjective part). It follows that an utterance with the
same propositional content may have different pragmatic components. To put it in other
words, they are different speech acts. That is, speech acts are simply things people do
through language – for example, apologizing, instructing, menacing, explaining something,
etc.
On any occasion the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related
acts (a three-fold distinction):
1) locutionary act – producing a meaningful linguistic expression, uttering a sentence. If
you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and words to create a meaningful
utterance (because you are a foreigner or tongue-tied) then you might fail to produce a
locutionary act: it often happens when we learn a foreign language.
2) illocutionary act – we form an utterance with some kind of function on mind, with a
definite communicative intention or illocutionary force. The notion of illocutionary force
is basic for pragmatics.
3) perlocutionary act – the effect the utterance has on the hearer. Perlocutionary effect may
be verbal or non-verbal. E.g. I’ve bought a car – Great! It’s cold here – and you close the
window.
 35) The grammatical features of dialogues and communicative parts.

Dialogue – is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational

exchange between 2 or more people.Dialogues can be opposed to each other both meaningfully
and formally, and we may state that we can observe the main property of a grammatical category.
We can oppose the dialogues and discover a Grammar of Conversations.We cannot show possible
categories of this level in any dialogue because the majority of dialogues aren’t short or simple.
We only enumerate several categories that seem most important for the formation of units of this
level.The first and most general category is the category of social setting. The form of the
dialogues indicates whether they belong to a wide (open) social setting or a narrow (close) social
setting. The former type of the dialogues (open dialogues) presupposes a possibility of public
observation. The latter (closed type) dialogue presupposes that public observation of it is not
expected, participation in such dialogues is permitted only for members of closed groups such as
families, friends, colleagues, etc. The dialogue shown in this section is an example of the type.

The next very broad category regulates the number of participants and differentiates dialogues
with a fixed number of partners and those in which anyone can take part. Both dialogues
represented here belong to the first, or fixed type. An example of the second, or unlimited type,
can be mass media communication in which, at least officially, anyone can take part.

The next category is the category of social behaviour. This category opposes dialogues with
formal expression of politeness to those in which politeness is not formalized.

We may also isolate several more general meanings that may be found in different dialogues, but
their appearance in a dialogue changes it radically, thus creating a new one. For example,
dialogues might be differentiated into those in which one of the partners is the leader of the event
of communication and those in which none of the partners assumes the leading role. But such
dialogues are different in all their aspects and thus are opposed as different units but not as
variants of the same unit. That is why such oppositions cannot be treated as grammatical.

Communicative parts are seldom recognized as linguistic units. The reason is that dialogues or
events of communication are usually divided into steps of communication comprising normally
two or more remarks of different participants and united by a common topic. But even if we do it
like that, each of the participants has his or her own aim and, accordingly, exerts his or her
influence upon the partner. As shown in the section above, actual influence is exerted by a whole
series of utterances of a participant, or a communicative partner. But since the communicative
parts are not yet universally recognized, their analysis is done sporadically. As a result their
features that might be considered grammatical have not yet been described. Because of that, in
this section we shall not differentiate grammatical and non-grammatical features. Pragmatic
analysis in this sphere produced at least three descriptive theories. Two of them are known as
principles of communication and describe possible manners of performing communicative parts.
In fact, these two theoretical frameworks are designed to register and explain the verbal
behaviour of a communicant. The third system is aimed at defining and describing the strategic
or meaningful aims of a communicant and is known as the matrix of the communicant.
№36. Maxims of conversation. The Politeness Principle

There are times when people say (or write) exactly what they mean, but generally they are
not totally explicit. They manage to convey far more than their words mean, or even
something quite different from the meaning of their words. Paul Grice attempted to explain
how by means of rules (conventions) language users manage to understand each other. He
defined the guidelines named Cooperative Principle which presupposes that conversation is
governed by 4 basic rules, or Maxims of Conversation. They are:

1) the Maxim of Quality

do not say what you believe is to be false

do not say for what you lack adequate evidence

2) the Maxim of Quantity

make your contribution as informative as required

do not make your contribution more informative than it is required

3) the Maxim of Relevance

be relevant

4) the Maxim of Manner

be clear

be orderly

One more explanation of the fact why people are so often indirect was put forward by
Leech, who introduced the Politeness Principle which runs as follows: minimize the
expression of impolite beliefs, maximize the expression of polite beliefs. According to
Leech, this principle is as valid as Cooperative Principle, because it helps to explain why
people do not always observe Maxims of Conversation. Quite often we are indirect in
what we say because we want to minimize the expression of impoliteness.

Ex. 1) -Would you like to go to the theatre?

- I have an exam tomorrow.

2) –Do you like this dress?

- Its colour is flashy.
So we answer “No”, but indirectly, in order to be polite.
 37.Utterances and Texts. Speech Act theory

In our everyday life we as a rule perform or play quite a lot of different roles – a student, a
friend, a daughter, a son, a client, etc. When playing different roles our language means are not
the same – we choose different words and expressions suitable and appropriate for the situation.
We use the language as an instrument for our purposes. For instance,
(a) What are you doing here? We’re talking
(b) What the hell are you doing here? We’re chewing the rag
have the same referential meaning but their pragmatic meaning is different, they are used
in different contexts. Similarly, each utterance combines a propositional base (objective part)
with the pragmatic component (subjective part). It follows that an utterance with the same
propositional content may have different pragmatic components:
It’s hot can be the following: just mentioning of the fact, explanation, excuse, inducement to
do sth about it, menace.
To put it in other words, they are different speech acts (for ex. apologizing, instructing,
menacing, explaining something, etc.). It was the philosopher John Austin, who created this
speech act theory. Let us consider the following sentences:
I pronounce you man and wife; I declare war on France; I name this ship The Albatros; I bet
you 5 dollars it will rain; I apologize.
The peculiar thing about these sentences, according to J.Austin, is that they are not used to
say or describe things, but rather actively to do things. After you have declared war on France or
pronounced somebody husband and wife the situation has changed. That is why J.Austin termed
them as performatives and contrasted them to statements (he called them constatives). The
performative utterance, however, can really change things only under certain circumstances,
required for their success, specified as felicity conditions. In order to declare war you must be
someone who has the right to do it.
Performatives may be explicit and implicit. Let us compare the sentences:
I promise I will come tomorrow – I will come tomorrow;
I swear I love you – I love you.
On any occasion the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related
acts (a three-fold distinction):
4) locutionary act – producing a meaningful linguistic expression, uttering a sentence. If
you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and words to create a meaningful utterance
(because you are a foreigner or tongue-tied) then you might fail to produce a locutionary act: it
often happens when we learn a foreign language.
5) illocutionary act – we form an utterance with some kind of function on mind, with a
definite communicative intention or illocutionary force. The notion of illocutionary force is basic
for pragmatics.
6) perlocutionary act – the effect the utterance has on the hearer. Perlocutionary effect may
be verbal or non-verbal. E.g. I’ve bought a car – Great! It’s cold here – and you close the window.
1. Classifications of speech acts. Indirect speech acts.
It was John Searle, who proposed a detailed classification of speech acts. It includes five
major classes of speech acts:
Declarations – I pronounce you man and wife (S causes X)
Representatives – It was a warm sunny day. John is a liar (S believes X)
Expressives – I’m really sorry. Happy Birthday! (S feels X)
Directives – Don’t touch that (commands, orders, suggestions) S wants X
Commissives – I’ll be back (promises, threats, pledges) S intends X
J.Searle can also be merited for introducing a theory of indirect speech acts. Indirect speech
acts are cases in which one speech act is performed indirectly, by way of performing another: Can
you pass me the salt? Though the sentence is interrogative, it is conventionally used to mark a
request – we cannot just answer “yes” or “no”. According to modern point of view such
utterances contain two illocutionary forces, with one of them dominating.
38. Text linguistics. Grammatical aspects of the Text.

Text is the unit of the highest (supersyntactic) level. It can be defined as a sequence of
sentences connected logically and semantically which convey a complete message. The text
is a language unit and it manifests itself in speech as discourse. Textlinguistics is concerned
with the analysis of formal and structural features of the text. Text linguistics takes into
account the form of a text, but also its setting, i.e. the way in which it is situated in an
interactional, communicative context.Text as a linguistic unit has become an object of
analysis in different linguistic disciplines known as “text linguistics”, “text grammar”,
“discourse grammar”.
Being a linguistic unit, it is understood as a unity of the plane of expression (form) and the
plane of content (meaning) and as such possesses certain properties known as text
categories. The “category” is understood as both any generalized characteristics of a group
of units and a group of units possessing some common essential properties. The number and
taxonomy of text categories differ from linguist to linguist and often involve argument as to
whether the meaningful and structural (formal) categories should be identified separately.
The latter causes quite a problem as they are closely interrelated: structural categories have
meaningful characteristics and semantic categories are revealed through formal structural
features. The properties often discussed as text categories are information, completeness,
continuity, coherence, cohesion, retrospect, structural and semantic “parsibility”. Hence,
cognitive (related to human knowledge) and contextual (related to speech act types)
information, as well as pragmatic, contextual and social types, etc. are identified. Explicit
and implicit information types are specified from the point of vie of the form in which
information is presented in a text.Explicit information about facts and events, real or
imagined, present, past or future, is termed factual information. Conceptual information
deals with the author’s individual understanding of the interrelations between events
described by means of factual information, their validity. Information is said to be closely
related to coherence which in its turn is often discussed together with another text property –
cohesion. Both refer to molding a text into a unit characterized by logical-semantic and
structural-semantic continuity. The two properties are differentiated when cohesion is
described as a manifestation of certain aspects of coherence. Or when coherence is
understood as a result of the interpreter’s knowledge about states of affairs mentioned in a
text, while cohesion is defined as the formal linguistic realization of semantic and pragmatic
relations between clauses and sentences in a text. Cohesion is a relational property in that it
is established when interpretation of one element in the text is dependent on another element.
Grammatical devices are related to temporal and aspective verb forms, the use of
conjunctions, pronouns, article determination, syntactical parallelism, ellipsis. Another
property which seems to be recurrent (i.e. repeated) feature is text structure. Since ancient
times three most general structural parts of the text have been defined: the Introduction, the
Main Body, the Conclusion. text categories of oppositional nature: speech agent
representation (репрезентативность), vector-direction (направленность) and stage-
inclination (целенаправленность).
39. General characteristics of the composite sentence. The compound sentence

A simple sentence contains one predication. It is monopredicative. A composite

sentence is polypredicative. It contains two or more predications, or clauses. Structurally a
clause may not differ from a sentence, and in many cases clauses can be turned into
sentences. Functionally they differ essentially: a sentence is an independent utterance, a
clause is part of the smallest utterance.
Clauses in a composite sentence are joined by coordination or subordination. Coordinate
clauses are equal in rank. A subordinate clause usually serves as an adjunct to some head-
word in the principle clause. There are also structures with coordination and subordination.
Besides simple and composite sentences there are structures which are called semi-
composite (осложненные). Here belong sentences with homogeneous subjects or predicates
(semi-compound) and sentences with secondary predications (semi-complex).

Clauses may be connected by special connective words (syndetically) or without them

(asyndetically). Connectives may be subdivided into two main groups: conjunctions and
conjunctive pronouns and adverbs (sometimes particles). Conjunctions perform the
connective function only. Conjunctive words, belonging to other parts of speech, are notional
constituents of clauses: 1 wonder who told you about it. (Who connects clauses and it is the
subject of the subordinate clause).
The distinction between coordination and subordination may be very vague, especially
in asyndetic sentences:
You are an architect. you ought to know all about it.
There is a view that coordination and subordination are clearly distinguished only in
syndetic sentences and asyndetic sentences cannot be divided into compound and complex.

Compound sentence Coordinate clauses are units of equivalent syntactic status. Each
of them has the force of an independent statement (proposition).
Main types of semantic relations between coordinate clauses (copulative, adversative,
disjunctive, causative, consecutive) can be also found between simple sentences. This has
given cause to some scholars to deny the existence of a compound sentence as a special
structural type and treat it as a sequence of simple sentences. This idea is usually rejected, as
a compound sentence is a semantic, grammatical and intonational unity. Each coordinate
clause functions as part of this unity.
As coordination reflects the logical sequence of thought, the order of coordinate clauses
is usually fixed:
He came at 5 and we had dinner together.
The opening clause is most independent structurally, the following clauses may be to a
certain extent dependent on the first clause — they may be elliptical, may contain anaphoric
pronouns, etc.
Coordinating conjunctions and meanings rendered by them are described in Practical
Grammar.
40. The Comlex Sentence. Principles of classification
Complex sentences are structures of subordination with two or more immediate constituents
which are not syntactically equivalent. There is much more to be said about the complex
sentences than about the compound ones, because the semantic relations which can be
expressed by subordination are much more numerous and more varied['vɛərɪd] than with
coordination, e.g.time, place, concession, purpose, etc.
Types of complex sentences: The notions of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and
exclamatory sentence appear to be applicable to some types of complex sentences as well.
Classification of clauses of complex sentences:
1. According to the functional principle we distinguish object, attributive, adverbial,
subject, predicative clauses, etc.
2. According to the categorial principle subordinate clauses are divided into 3 categorial
semantic groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial.
e.g.That they were justified in this she could not but admit. – That fact she could not but admit.
e.g.Ann had become aware of the fact that she was talking loudly. – Ann had become aware of
that fact.
e.g.I’ll deserve your confidence if you give me another chance. – I’ll deserve your confidence
on condition that you give me another chance.
The two classifications are mutually complementary:
- clauses of primary nominal positions (subject, predicative, object clauses);
- clauses of secondary nominal positions (attributive clauses);
- clauses of adverbial positions (adverbial clauses).
3. According to the degree of self-dependence of clauses complex sentences are divided
into monolythic and segregative sentence structures. Monolythic complex sentences are based
on obligatory subordinative connections of clauses, whereas segregative complex sentences are
based on optional subordinative connections.
Monolythic complex sentences can be:
1) merger(слияние) complex sentences, i.e. sentences with subject and predicative subordinate
clauses, where the subordinate clause is fused with the principal one.
E.g.The trouble is we are to change our plans.
2) valencymonolyth complexes, whose subordinate clauses are dependent on the obligatory
right-hand valency of the verb in the principal clause. Here belong sentences with object
clauses and valency-determined adverbial clauses.
E.g.I think a man like that is a real artist. – I think -…
e.g.Put the book where it belongs. – Put the book - …
3) correlation monolyth complexes, which are based on subordinate correlations. Complex
sentences with restrictive subordinate clauses are included into this subtype.
E.g.The girl played the piano with such feeling as you had never experienced.
4) arrangementmonolyth complexes, whose obligatory connection between the principal and
subordinate clauses is determined only by the linear ['lɪnɪə] order of clausal positions.
E.g. If you refused her present, it would upset her.
The connection between the clauses is obligatory. Rearrangement of clausal positions turns
the connection between the clauses into optional. It would upset her if you refused her present.
The connection between the subordinate clauses can be parallel (homogeneous,
heterogeneous) and consecutive (direct and oblique[ə'bli:k]).
1. Grammar as part of language. Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of grammatical
units. Stratification of Language.
2. Grammar as a linguistic discipline. Variants of grammar. Types of Grammatical
analysis.
3. Division of Grammar. Morphology and syntax.
4. Grammatical meaning, grammatical form.
5. Grammatical category. The notion of opposition as the basis of grammatical
categories.
6. The word as the smallest naming unit and the main unit of morphology. The
morpheme as an elementary meaningful unit. Synthetic and analytical means of form-
building in English.
7. Parts of speech. Different approaches to the classification of parts of speech.
8. Criteria for establishing parts of speech: semantic, formal and functional. Notional
and functional parts of speech.
9. General characteristics of the noun. Morphological, semantic and syntactic properties
of the noun. Grammatically relevant classes of nouns.
10. Morphological categories of Noun (number, case).
11. The article in English. Number and meaning of articles. The problem of the zero
article. The category of article determination.
12. The adjective as a part of speech. The category of degree of quality (degrees of
comparison) in English. The problem of adlinks (statives).
13. The adverb as a part of speech. Classes of adverbs and their characteristics. Degrees
of comparison.
14. A general outline of the verb as a part of speech. Classifications of English verbs.
15. The category of tense in Russian and English compared. The problem of the future
and future-in-the-past. The category of posteriority (prospect).
16. The place of continuous forms in the system of the English verb. The category of
aspect.
17. The place of perfect forms in the system of the English verb. The category of order
(phase, correlation).
18. The category of voice in English. General characteristics. The problem of the number
of voices. Peculiarities of English passive constructions.
19. The category of mood in English. General characteristics. The problems of
subjunctive.
20. Finite and non-finite forms of the verb. The category of representation (fmitude).
21. General characteristics of syntax as a part of grammar. Basic syntactic notions.
Modern syntactic theories: Transformational-Generative Grammar; Constructional Syntax;
Communicative Syntax.
22. The problem of the definition of the phrase. Phrases and forms of word connection.
23. General characteristics of the sentence. Predicativity. Predication.
24. Classification of sentences. Structural and communicative types of sentences.
25. The formal structure of sentences. The model of parts of the sentence.
26. The problems of the Object, the Attribute, the adverbial modifier in English sentences.
27. The distributional model of the sentence. The model of immediate constituents.
28. The transformational model of the sentence.
29. Functional sentence perspective. The theme and the rheme.
30. The semantic structure of the sentence. A general overview of Semantic Syntax.
31. Semantic syntax. Valency theory. Generative syntax.
32. Deep Case theory.
33. Compositional Syntax.
34. Pragmatic approach to the study of language units. Basic notions of pragmatic
linguistics.
35. The grammatical features of dialogues and communicative parts.
36. Maxims of conversation. The Politeness Principle.
37. Utterances and texts. Speech Act Theory.
38. Text linguistics. Grammatical aspects of the text.
39. General characteristics of the composite sentence. The compound sentence.
40.The Complex sentence. Principles of classification.