Реферат: Шпоры по теоретической грамматике английского языка

1. Grammatical category and its characteristic features.

M.Y. Blokh defines the grammatical category as «a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms». It’s a unity of form & mean-g. 1)The general notion on which a gram. category grounds is gram. mean-g. 2)The forms united into a grammatical category possess a common general meaning that gives a name to the category and each form possesses its own specific meaning that presents a specification of the general meaning and differentiates the form from the other form/forms within the category. The forms lives — lived — will live are united on the basis of the common general grammatical meaning of tense and constitute the grammatical category of tense. Within this category each form has its own specific meaning of tense: present, past and future. 3) gram. categories don’t nominate objects or units of lang., instead they express relations between lang. units. The grammatical category of tense presents a specific lingual expression of objective time, the grammatical category of case presents various relations between the action and its participants, the grammatical category of number in nouns reflects the quantitative relations between homogeneous objects of reality, the grammatical category of mood presents the relations between the action and reality as they are presented by the speaker etc. Such grammatical categories may also be called inherent (неотъемлемый, присущий). 4) Conceptual (понятийные) grammatical categories are universal, they exist in most of the languages though their volume and their scope may vary considerably in various languages. Gram. cat-s represent lang. realization of universal cat-s of human thinking. That’s why gram. cat-s typical of a particular lang. are unique. The grammatical category of number is the most universal grammatical category, all speech communities have linguistic means of encoding number, though these means differ greatly in different languages. 5) A grammatical category is constituted on the basis of contrastive grammatical forms which share a certain grammatical meaning correlated to some general concept (time, number) and differ in more concrete meanings within the scope of the same concept. Such contrastive grammatical forms are called oppositions and all grammatical categories are based on oppositions. The method of oppositional analysis was introduced by Trubetskoy. Now the method of oppositional analysis is widely used in lexicology and grammar.

2. The subject. Means of expressing the subject.

The subject is the independent member of a two-member predication, containing the person component of predicativity. The subject is generally defined as a word or a group of words denoting the thing we speak about. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex. As a word it can belong to different parts of speech, but it is mostly a noun or a pronoun. A word used as a subject combines the lexical meaning with the structural meaning of “person”. So it is at the same time the structural and the notional subject. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. The syntactical word-morphemes there and it may also function as secondary subjects (It being cold, we put on our coats. I knew of there being no one to help them). The analysis of sentences like He was seen to enter the house, is a point at issue. Traditionally the infinitive is said to form part of the complex subject (He…to enter). Ilyish maintains that though satisfactory from the logical point of view, this interpretation seems to be artificial grammatically, this splitting of the subject being alien to English. He suggests that only HE should be treated as a subject, whereas was sees to enter represents a peculiar type of compound predicate. Some grammarians (Smirnitsky, Ganshina) speak of definite-personal, indefinite-personal, impersonal sentences, but it is a semantical classification of subjects, not sentences. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them. In Russian the subject is characterized by a distinct morphological feature – the nominative case, in English it is indicated by the position it occupies in the sentence. In Russian the subject is much less obligatory as a part of the sentence than in English. In English the subject may be a syntactical word-morpheme, a gerund, or a complex, which is alien to Russian.

3. Means of form-building in modern English.

The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form which is a means of expressing a grammatical meaning. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation :suffixes –s,-ed, -ing, -er, -est, -en, -ren, -ne, -m (reads, shown, books, oxen, taken, mine ,them etc.), sound interchange/ morpho-phonemic alteration – a meaningful change of vowels or consonants within a morpheme (take — took, shine — shone) and suppletivity – the extreme case of morphophon. alteration, there happens a complete phon. change of the root, is not productive (go — went, be -was, good — better – best, I-me, we-us, she-her) .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language.

5. Synthetic means of form-building in modern English.

The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation: suffixes- -s, -ed, — ing, -er, -en, -m, -ne (reads, shown, oxen ,mine, taken etc.), sound interchange/morphophonemic alteration: a meaningful change of vowels or consonants within a morpheme (take — took, shine — shone) and suppletivity: the extreme case of morphophonemic alteration, there happens a complete phon.change of the root (go — went, be -was, good — better – best, I-me, we-us, she-her). .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong. There exist the so-called half-analytical structures and the analytical tendencies find their reflection in many spheres of the language.

4. The predicate as the main means of expressing predication. Types of predicates.

The Predicate is the part of the sentence which expresses a predicative feature attributed to the subject of the sentence. Like the subject, the predicate also carries out a triple function in the sentence: structural, semantic and communicative. Its structural function consists in establishing the syntactic relations with the subject and other parts of the sentence. The semantic function of the predicate finds its expression in attributing certain features to the subject. Its communicative function is manifested in the fact that through the predicate and the expression of predication the sentence becomes a minimal unit of communication. The predicate is 'the structural and semantic centre of the sentence’. In the structure of a simple, two-member sentence the predicate usually carries out the function of the rheme, He disappeared.According to the form of expression predicates are divided into verbal and nominal: The moon rose. The moon was pale. There existsa phraseological predicate (presents a combination of such verbs as have, get, give, take and a verbal noun (give a look, take a bath, have a smoke). From the grammatical point of view the most important characteristic of this type of predicate is not so much its phraseological but its analytical character (all analytical structures are characterized by idiomaticity of their components). The verb expresses the grammatical meaning and the verbal noun expresses a lexical meaning. The two formal types of the predicate correspond to the two main semantic types: process predicate which expresses the action, the state or the existence of the subject and qualification predicate which expresses the quality (property) of the subject. The process predicate can be further subdivided into several types in accordance with the semantic types of verbs: existential (There was a tavern in the town), statal(He slept), locative (The elephant lives in <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:country-region w:st=«on»>India</st1:country-region></st1:place>), relational (He had a small ranch) and actional (The car broke down). The qualification predicate has three subtypes: identifying (So you are the man we have been looking for), classifying (My friend is a student) and characterizing (My wife is a bit of an actress. He was too German).Structurally the predicate may be divided into simple and compound. We said good- bye — a simple verbal predicate; It was a lovely place -simple nominal predicate. The predicate is compounded by the introduction of modal or aspective components. We started saying good-bye — a compound verbal predicate; It must be a lovely place — a compound nominal predicate.

6. Secondary parts of sentence. Difficulties of their classification.

The theory of the secondary parts (SP) is one of the last developed sections of linguistics. The object is a SP of the sentence, referring to a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a substan’tival pronoun, an adj., a numeral, or an adv., and denoting a thing to which the action passes on, which is a result of the action, in reference(относительно) to which an action is committed(совершено) or a property(св-во, кач-во) is manifested(про<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>вл<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>тьс<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>), or denoting an action as object of another action. An object can refer to any part of speech capable of being a part of the sentence. Attribute is a SP of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, a substantival pronoun, a cardinal (колич.) numeral, and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing named by these words as to its quality or property. The attribute, as distinct from the object, cannot modify (определ<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>ть) a verb, an adj, an adv, the attribute expresses a property while the object expresses a thing, but they both can modify a noun, a pronoun, a numeral. Adv. modifier is a SP of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a verbal noun, an adj, an adv, and serving to characterize an action or a property as to its quality or intensity, or to indicate the way an action is done, the time, the place, cause, purpose, condition, with which the action or the manifestation of the quality is connected.

7. Suffixation as a means of form-building in modern English.

The grammatical meaning finds its expression in a grammatical form. There are several types of form-building in English. The main subdivision of form-building types is into synthetic and analytical. In a synthetic type a grammatical meaning is expressed within a word, in an analytical type a grammatical meaning is expressed with the help of auxiliary words (plus suffixes). The synthetic types of form-building in English include affixation (reads, shown, books, theirs etc.), sound interchange (take — took, shine — shone) and suppletivity (go — went, be -was, good — better – best). .The only productive type in the present-day English is affixation, but the other two types are no less important, if only because they occur in words which are most frequently used.The number of inflectional suffixes in modern English is very small: ‘s’ – the plural forms of nouns, the Genitive case, used to build the 3 person singular; ‘ed’ – the past tense, Part II in regular verbs; ‘ing’ – Part I, the Gerund; ‘er’ – the comparative degree of the adj.; ‘ist’ – the superlative degree – they are fairly productive in modern English; ‘en’ – the plural form of the noun ox – oxen, the past participle in irregular verbs; ‘ren’ – the plural form of the noun child; ‘ne’ – mine; ‘m’ – to build the objective case of the personal pronouns – him, them – they are non-productive. The number of suffixes is small, but the frequency of their use is high. Many English words are characterized by the absence of any inflectional suffixes. The analytical type of form-building occupies a very important place in the grammatical structure of English as the language has evolutionized from being mainly synthetical to becoming more and more analytical, and analytical tendencies in the present day English are very strong.

8)Classific-n of subord. clauses:

2 approaches: (1) shows correlation of clauses with parts of the sentence => a) the subject clause, b) the predicative, c) object, d) adverbial, e) attributive.

(2) correlates clauses with parts of speech & distinguishes: a) substantive clause – corresponding to subj., predic. & object clauses, b) adverbial clauses, c) adjectival clauses – corresponding to attribute cl. These 2 classifications correlate!!!

9. The subject matter of theoretical grammar. The grammatical structure of the language.

Language — is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language incorporates 3 constituent parts which form a unity.

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Phonological

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Lexical

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Grammatical systems

The grammatical system is studied by Grammar.

Grammar- is the structure of the language. All lang-s have grammar. Theoretical grammar is the science of the structure of the lang. It’s a part of the ling. theory & exists for those lang-s that have been theoretically investigated. Parts of grammar: morphology, syntax, phonology, semantics. 2 main aims of the course: 1) to provide a description of the gram. structure of the lang. as an organized system.2) to look analytically at the unit making a gram. struct. of English; to provide a critical review of the existing scientific theories. The grammatical system of a language helps arrange lexical units into coherent utterance (членораздельноевысказывание): it expresses a certain complete thought and is marked at all the lingual levels: phonetic, lexical, the level of combinability, grammatical level. In speech words are connected into utterances, that are built up sent-s. Means that form gram. structure: 1) word-change (I see/saw a book). 2) word-order (The dog beat the man./The man beat the dog.) 3) functional words: prepositions, articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions (He lives in/outside London.) 4) intonation (They are students. They are students?really?) In one sent. all the 4 means, or 2 or 3 may be used.

The main unit of the grammatical system is the grammatical category. The grammatical category is an opposition of at least two forms of one and the same lexical unit based on a certain general meaning which is more abstract than the meaning of the members of the opposition. It’s the unity of form & mean-g.

The grammatical form is the lexical nucleus + a grammatical marker. Sometimes they are referred to as word forms (словоформы) The grammatical meaning is that which distinguishes one member of a paradigm from another.

Another approach to the analysis of language as a kind of system, language can be looked upon as a hierarchy of levels: Level of text, it's the main linguistic unit. Phrasemic level (Phrases are word combinations, they nominate complex phenomena) Leximic level (Words are nominative units, because they nominate things and phenomena. They are built up by morphemes.)Morphemic level (Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units built up by phonemes or one phoneme.) Phonemic level (Phonemes are meaningless units, their function is differential.) 2 levels are central: words level and sentence level. They are studied by morphology and syntax. Thus, morphology deals with morphemic structure and combinability, classification of words. Syntax — with sentences.

49. Cohesion as the main text property and means of expressing cohesion in English

Cohesion is the main property of a text. The concept of it was first developed by Michael Halliday. It’s the relations existing among the sentences & clauses of a text. They are signaled by certain gram.& lex. means that are called cohesive. They mark which sentences are related & in what manner. It’s not a sufficient condition for the creation of the text.

Cohesion is characterized by 2 types of relation: 1) logical-semantic, 2) anaphoric. Each of them have various gram.& lex.-gram.means of expressing these relations.

1)

between sent-s in a paragraph can be of different types: of cause & consequence condition, time, concession… They may be implied or explicitly expressed. Ex. She didn’t go to school. She had been ill for 2 days. The can be expressed with the help of conjunctions (because,etc.)

2)

between 2 or more items in cohesive sent-s, which refer to the same thing. These items often form cohesive chains.

Text cohesion & its relations may be realized through dif. means:

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Lexical: the repetition of the item, the use of synonyms, words of the same root.

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Lexical-grammatical: a) pronouns of dif. classes (he, she, they…); b) articles (“aan” points to the center of communication; “the” – anaphorically used)

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Grammatical(the order is connected with actual division of the sent. The rheme of the previous sent. becomes the theme of the following one: ex. I saw a man. The man was tall.) Word-order as a syntactic means of sent. connection shows that the structure of the sent. depends on the structure of another.

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Conjunctions/ conjunct. words( join not only composite sent., but also utterances within a text. Ex. Then, there…)

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Incomplete sent-sof the sintagmatic type can be understood with the help of the context.

50. Means of expressing gender in Modern English

It’s doubtful whether the grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English. Gender doesn’t find regular morphological expression. The distinction of male, female and neuter may correspond to the lexical meaning of the noun:

Masculine(names of male beings) — boy, man, husband, cock, bachelor

Feminine(names of female beings) – girl, woman, wife, cow, hen

Neuter(names of inanimate objects) – table, house.

Gender may be expressed by word-formation:

a)

feminine suffixes –ess ( actress, hostess, tigress), -ine (heroine), -ette (usherette)

b)

compounds of dif.patterns: 1. N+N stem (boy-friend-girl-friend; a Tom-cat- a Tabby-cat; a doctor-a woman-doctor; a landlord- a landlady); 2. Pronoun+ N (a he-wolf- a she-wolf; a he-cousin-a she-cousin); 3. oppositions of lexemes ( niece-nephew, bull-cow, girl-boy).

From the point of view of gender distinctions English nouns can be divided into 2 groups: person-nouns(neuter) & non-person nouns ( which are subdivided into feminine & masculine), but this opposition is not absolute and doesn’t embrace the whole class of nouns. There are a lot of nouns in English, that belong to the so-called “common gender” (person, cousin, parent, president, friend, doctor).

There are also some traditional associations of certain nouns with gender:

a)

moonand earth are referred as feminine, sun- as masculine.

b)

the names of vessels(ship, boat, ice-breaker, steamer) are referred to as feminine.

c)

the names of vehicles(car, carriage, coach) may also be referred to as feminine, especially by their owners.

d)

the names of countries, if the country is not considered as a mere geographical territory, are referred to as feminine.

All these arguments speak in favour of treating the category of gender in English nouns as not a purely grammatical, but a lexico-gram. category, because gender finds a lexical (special suffixes & lexemes) and a gram. expression in the language ( replacing nouns by personal pronouns)

51. The problem of homonymity in the system of English moods

The category of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions and has been treated in so many ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less acceptable conclusion. The only points in the sphere of mood which haven’t been disputed are the following: 1) there is a category of mood in Modern English ( Mood- is the grammatical category of the verb, which expresses the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker’s point of view); 2) there are at least 2 moods in the modern English verb, one of which is the indicative. (The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it’s the most developed system including all the categories of the verb. Semantically it’s a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It’s the most objective of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact: Ex. Water consists of oxygen.)

Linguists differ greatly in the understanding of this category, especially in the number of grammatical forms of the mood they find in English. Thus, Smirnitsky, Vasilevskaya, Akhmanova find 6 moods (‘indicative’, ‘imperative’, ‘subjunctive1’, ‘subjunctive2’, ‘conditional’ and ‘suppositional’), Ilyish, Ivanova find only 3 moods ( indicative, imperative, subjunctive), Barkhudarov and Shteling distinguish only the ‘indicative’ and the ‘subjunctive’ moods. Max Deutschbein finds 16 moods.

Such a variety of opinions lies in the complexity of the category itself and also 2 other phenomena. The first is the problem of drawing a borderline between polysemy and homonymy. Both permeate (пронизывают) the structure of the English language at all levels and sometimes the borderline between them is hard to draw. Ex. He stopped doing it. – He wish he stopped doing it. (here me can’t say clearly, if it’s one polysemantic form or two morphological homonyms). The other reason for the controversy of opinions about the scope of the category of mood is the fact that the grammatical category of the mood is a component of the functional-semantic category of modality- a complex & heterogeneous category, which includes other means of expressing various modal meanings. Some linguists include the combination of modal verbs with Infinitive into the system of grammatical moods and in this case the number of moods grows considerably.

53. Controversial problems of the part of speech classification: VERBALS

The verb has finite & non-finite forms, the latter are called verbals. They have some features in common with the finite forms, but also some peculiarities of their own. They don’t express person, number or mood. But like the finite forms the verbals have aspect (infinitive), correlation and voice distinctions. There is a present & a past tense in the system of verbals.

There are 3 verbals in English: the participle, the gerund and the infinitive. In Russian we also have three non-finite forms (причастие, деепричастие, инфинитив), but they don’t fully coincide with those in the English language.

Lexicallynon-finites don’t differ from finite forms. Grammatically the difference between them lies in the fact that they denote a secondary action, a process related to that expressed by the finite form.

The characteristic traits of the verbals are as follows:

1)

They have a double nature, nominal & verbal. The participle combines the characteristics of a verb with those of an adjective; the gerund & the infinitive combine the characteristics of a verb with those of a noun. The verbal meaning of “action, process” is presented as some kind of “substance” (gerund, infinitive), or “quality” (participle).

2)

They have some peculiar morphemes: -ing (gerund & participle I); -(e)d, -(e)n (participle II), to (infinitive).

3)

Syntacticallythe verbal character of the non-finites is manifested mainly in their combinability. They form connections with adverbs, nouns, pronouns (denoting objects of action) like finite verbs, and they connect with finite verbs, like nouns or adverbs. They are very seldom used as predicates, but they are used in almost any other function in the sent.

52. The theory of speech acts

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, and so on. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising.

The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic (классифицированна<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>) and partly explanatory. It must systematically classify types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail. It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique. For example, the sentence 'This is a pig sty' might be used nonliterally to state that a certain room is messy and filthy and, further, to demand indirectly that it be straightened out and cleaned up. Even when this sentence is used literally and directly, the content of its utterance is not fully determined by its linguistic meaning. A major task for the theory of speech acts is to account for how speakers can succeed in what they do despite the various ways in which linguistic meaning underdetermines use. In general, speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker's intention, the attitude being expressed.

SPEECH-ACT THEORY AND RHETORIC

In his famous work, «How to do Things with Words,» J. L. Austin outlined his theory of speech acts and the concept of performative language, in which to say something is to do something. To make the statement “I promise that p” (in which p is the propositional content of the utterance) is to perform the act of promising as opposed to making a statement that may be judged true or false. Performatives cannot be true or false, only felicitous or infelicitous. <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:City w:st=«on»>Austin</st1:City></st1:place> creates a clear distinction between performatives and constantives, statements that attempt to describe reality and can be judged true or false, but he eventually comes to the conclusion that most utterances, at their base, are performative in nature. For <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:City w:st=«on»>Austin</st1:City></st1:place>, what the speaker is doing is creating social realities within certain social contexts. For example, using an explicit performative, to say “I now pronounce you man and wife” in the context of a wedding, in which one is marrying two people, is to create a social reality, in this case a married couple.

 <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:City w:st=«on»>Austin</st1:City></st1:place> described three characteristics, or acts, of statements that begin with the building blocks of words and end with the effects those words have on an audience. Locutionary acts: “equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain ‘meaning´ in the traditional sense.” Illocutionary acts: “such as informing, ordering, warning, undertaking. Perlocutionary acts: “what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading and even surprising or misleading”. <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:City w:st=«on»>Austin</st1:City></st1:place> focused on illocutionary acts, maintaining that here we might find the “force” of a statement and demonstrate its performative nature. For example, to say “Don´t run with scissors” has the force of a warning when spoken in a certain context. This utterance may be stated in an explicitly performative way, e.g., “I warn you, don´t run with scissors.”

54. Modality. Means of expressing modality.

The category of modality is one of the most complicated linguistic categories which has various forms of its expression in the language. It has also a lot of various definitions & interpretations. In the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary modality is defined as a functional-semantic category which expresses different types of relations between the utterance and reality as well as dif. types of subjective evaluation (оценка) of the information contained in the utterance. Modality expresses 2 types of relations and includes 2 levels. That’s why the linguists usually differentiate between 2 types of modality: objective (or primary) and subjective (or secondary).Ch. Bally considered that each utterance consists of two parts, the part which presents information ( he called it 'dictum') and the part which presents the speaker's evaluation of this information (he called it 'modus').

The primary modalityexpresses the relation of the contents of the sentence to reality as established by the speaker who, choosing the appropriate form of the mood presents the event as real, unreal or desirable. It is expressed bythe grammatical form of mood and thus it is a component of predicativity and as such it always finds a grammatical expression in the sentence. E.g. You are my wife. Be my wife. I wish you were my wife. Thus, primary modality as a component of predicativity is an obligatory feature of the sentence — we cannot make a sentence without expressing primary modality.

Secondary modalitypresents another layer of modality, built over the primary modality. It' does not always find an explicit expression in the sentence. Secondary modality is not homogeneous. It contains two layers and we can differentiate between two types of secondary modality. The first type expresses the relations between the subject of the sentence and the action. The action may be presented as possible, permissive, obligatory, necessary, desirable or unnecessary for the subject. It is expressed by the modal verbs in their verb-oriented meanings: ability, possibility, permission, necessity, obligation etc. E.g. Children must be seen but not heard. I can jump puddles. You may be free for today. The second type of secondary modality expresses the attitude of the speaker to the contents of the utterance or the speaker's evaluation of the event presented in the utterance. This type of modality can be expressed by: 1)modal words and modal adverbs and modal particles: maybe, probably, certainly, of course, perhaps, sure, evidently, supposedly, luckily, fortunately etc. ( E.g. This is probably thebest chance you have ever had); 2) by modal verbs in their sentence-oriented meanings: probability, doubt, supposition, certainty, disbelief (E.g. She couldn't have done it alone) ;3) by modalized verbs seem, to appear, happen, chance (She appeared to be holding something back from him); 4) by the so called performative verbs and phrases which name speech and mental acts: think, suppose, guess, doubt, be certain, be sure etc. (e.g. I guess you are right; I am afraid this is true); 5) by special syntactic structures like 'tag questions' (This is true, isn't it?), as well as 6) by intonation and word order. As we can see the modal verbs participate in the expression of two kinds of secondary modality.

56. The problem of analytical forms in the system of English Moods

Most analytical forms of the subjunctive mood are built by means of the auxiliaries which developed from the modal verbs should and would, plus the infinitive of the notional verb(indefinite or perfect). The auxiliaries, generally called mood auxiliaries, have lost their lexical meaning and are used in accordance with strict rules in certain patterns of sent-s or clauses. Ex. I wish you would stay with us some days more.; If he had known, he would have come.

Some linguist think that besides these 2 mood auxiliaries, analytical forms of the subjunctive mood may be built up with the help of mood auxiliaries may, might and less frequently shall and will. Ex. I went to <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:City w:st=«on»>London</st1:City></st1:place> that I might see June.; Though he may be tired he will go to the concert.

But it should be noted that not any combination of should and would with the infinitive is the subjunctive mood. When the verbs should and would preserve their lexico-modal meaning (should- obligation, would- volition) they form modal phases (compound verbal predicate): Ex. You should consult a doctor (= you ought to); He would come and sit with us for hours (repetition of the action).

Analytical forms may be divided into 3 groups, according to their use and function.

1)

the forms should+infinitive (for the first person singular & plural) and would+infinitive (for the other persons). This system coincides in firm with the future in the past and is parallel to the future indef.tense in the indicative mood. There is a strong tendency in Modern English to use would for all persons. These forms denote hypothetical actions, either imagined as resulting from hypothetical conditions, or presented as a real possibility. Ex. I shouldn’t praise the boy so much, he may get spoiled.; Would you help me if I need your help?

2)

The form would+infinitive for all persons, both singular & plural. This form is highly specialized in meaning; it expresses a desirable action in the future. Ex. I wish you would go there too.

3)

The form should+infinitive for all persons. This form stands apart in the system of the verb, as contrary to the general tendency to use either 2 forms –shall/should and will/would, or else to use 1 form- will/would for all persons.

Some linguists (prof. Vorontsova) are of opinion that Modern English possesses analytical forms of the imperative mood for the first and the third persons build up with the help of the semantically weakened unstressed let, as in Let us go, Let him come…Prof. Ilyish emphasizes that the “let-constructions” are therefore not in an way morphological phenomena. They belong to syntax.

10. Syntax as part of Grammar. Main Units of English syntax.

There’s a debate about the precise (точный, определенный) status of syntax as a part of grammar.

1)

Some linguists state that it should deal with the function and the formation of word-groups within the sent-s. This approach is characteristic of early English syntax (18-19th cent.), which was concerned only with analysis of word-groups, their structure and relations between their elements.

2)

Other linguists think that syntax should study only the structure of sent-s.

3)

There’s also a group of scholars who think that syntax should deal with the structure of both word-groups and sent-s. It is the most reasonable one and has actually prevailed in modern linguistics.

Смирницкий: The analysis of the sentence structure must be regarded as the main problem of syntax; while the word-groups’ is secondary.

·

Joining the words into word-groups is only the 1st step which precedes the formation of a sentence.

·

A word-group is not complete either structurally or semantically => it can’t be used as a unit of communication.

·

A sent. can function as an independent utterance, but a word-group functions only as an element of a sent.

Therefore, sent-s are units of speech, while word-groups are bricks in a sentence structure.

The fundamental feature that distinguishes a sent. from a word-group is that sent. is always associated with a certain intonation pattern (it’s either a statement, or request, etc.) A sent. without intonation can’t function as a unit of speech; it remains a mere combination of words.

Basic English sentence patterns contain a verb in its finite form. The presence of a verb in a sent. is characteristic not only of English, but also of all other European lang-s. Sent-s without verbs are short and convey only fragmentary information, the thought can’t be developed and elaborated unless there’s a verb in the sent.

When the noun and the verb in the finite form follow each other in the sent., they become the subject and the predicate – the 2 main parts of which basic sent-s are built. They can accompanied by other words, and usually are, but this doesn’t change their status as the main parts of the sent. For this reason the combination of subject & predicate is excluded by many linguists from the domain of word-groups. Some linguists suggested calling this combination a clause(элемент.предложение) to distinguish it from a word-group.

In most general terms, a word-group is a logical and grammatical combination of 2 or more notional words which do not form a sent.

A sentence may be defined as the basic unit of communication, grammatically organized and expressing a complete thought. It is characterized by predication (correlation between the utterance & reality). The most universal means of expressing predication is intonation; under certain circumstances (a broader context) any word-gr. may become a sent. But in most cases predication is conveyed through the finite form of the verb (which expresses person, number, mood, tense, aspect, time correlation, voice).

Narrative analysisstudies lexical & grammatical means which help to organize the structure of a text. The part of narrative analysis, which is concerned with gram. means, is called text grammar.

So, these successive syntactic units form an hierarchy in the following order:

Word-groups => sentences => paragraphs

12. Text grammar as part of linguistics. Basic units.

Text grammaris a rather new branch of linguistics. It deals with the text. It considers the text the highest unit of speech. If we consider isolated sentences in a discourse, we find that it’s very rare that one sentence expresses the complete idea, which is clear without any context.

Textis an ordered sequence of sentences combined of various types of logical, lexical and grammatical cohesion conveying structurally organized info. Text is a product of oral and written speech. Galperin recognizes the existence only of written text.

Those who studied the text as a unit came to the conclusion that a text as a linguistic unit has its own semantic and structural categories:

The main semantic categories:

-

Information(Any text should carry complete information; it should express a certain communication.)

-

Profundity(the text should have some depth, some food for thinking, some idea, which may either be expressed, or may be understood implicitly)

-

Presupposition(there should be some level at which communicate otherwise there may be complete misunderstanding.)

-

Completeness(The text should be complete in meaning, it shouldn’t be abrupt)

Structural Cathegories:

1)

Integration (целостность)

-

use certain logical connections and connectors, a certain composition, a certain word order.

2)

Cohesion(св<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>зь)

-

necessary property of any text which differentiates it from disconnected utterances. There are various means of text cohesion (когези<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>): syntactic, semantic, stylistic.

-

BLOCH: gram.connectives. 1) Conjunction-like connectives – coordinative, subordinative conjunctions and adverbial and parenthetical sentence connectors such as: yet, then, however, moreover. 2) Substitutional connection – use of substitutes: pronouns.

3)

Retrospection & Prospection

-

(means of text cohesion). Retrospection refers the reader to the preceding events, prospection – to the following events

4)

Continuum

-

the text should continue without breaking, it shouldn’t be abrupt. Deictic (св<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>зующие) elements, tense forms, number forms, mood forms

5) Polyphony

— a good text usually has more than one line of thinking, of reasoning, which is most of all important for fiction

11. Correlation btw various means of form-building in ME.

There are two principal types of form-building means: synthetic and analytical.

The synthetic form-building means is the expression of the relation of words in the sentence by means of a change in the word itself. There are three types of the synthetic form-building means:

-

affixation

-

sound interchange (morphological alteration)

-

suppletion (suppletive means)

Affixationis the most productive means of expressing a grammatical meaning. The number of grammatical suffixes is small (8). They are:-s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -en, -m (him, them, whom), zero.

Sound interchangeis a change of a sound in the root of the word. There exist two kinds of sound interchange – vowel and consonant ones (spend – spent). This type of form-building means is non-productive.

In suppletive forms there is a complete change of the phonetic shape of the root. Suppletive forms belonging to the paradigm of a certain word were borrowed from different sources. Suppletive forms are found in the paradigm of such words as TO BE, TO GO, degrees of comparison of the adjectives GOOD, BAD and in case-forms of some pronouns (I-me, she-her, we-us). Блохnotes that suppletivity can be recognized in the paradigm of some modal verbs too: CAN – BE ABLE, MUST – HAVE TO, MAY – BE ALLOWED. Moreover, he says that it can be observed in pronouns (ONE – SOME), NOUNS (INFORMATION – PIECES OF INFORMATION, MAN – PEOPLE). Suppletive forms are few in number, non-productive, but very important, for they are frequently used

Analytical formswere described as a combination of an auxiliary and a notional word.

This definition is not precise enough and due to its ambiguity (не<st1:PersonName w:st=«on»>я</st1:PersonName>сность) such word-combinations as TO THE CHILD, MORE INTERESTING were treated as analytical forms. To define a true analytical form the theory of splitting (разделение) of functions should be taken into account. There must be a splitting of functions between the elements of an analytical form. The first (auxiliary) element is the bearer of a grammatical meaning only. It is completely devoid of lexical meaning, and it is the second (notional) element that is the bearer of lexical meaning.

This process can be complete (perfect form) or incomplete (continuous form). The idiomaticity of an analytical form is a characteristic of a true analytical form. An analytical form functions as a grammatical form of a word. Analytical forms are much more typical of ME. Synthetic form-building means are few in number but widely used. Some grammatical suffixes are very productive.Analytical forms comprise synthetic forms. Although sound interchange is non-productive it is extensively used through the paradigm of the irregular verbs. Though suppletive forms are found through the paradigm of very few words they are very frequently used words.

So we should conclude that English cannot be called a purely analytical language. It is mainly analytical.

13. Analytical forms and their role in form-building.

It’s more productive in Modern Eng. Traditionally an analytical form is defined this way: it consists of an auxiliary word and the basic element, which is a notional word. This definition is am’biguous (двусмыслен, неоднозначн.). And for that reason some strange forms are treated as analytical: Combinations of prepositions with nouns were treated as different analytical forms: to the child was treated as the Dative case of a noun. by the child was treated as the Instrumental case of a noun. Many linguists criticized this approach to defining analytical forms and certain theories have been worked out to differentiate analytical forms and free word-combinations.

1. The theory of the splitting of functions. According to this theory in a true analytical form the auxiliary element should be the bearer of the grammatical meaning only. It is devoid of lexical meaning. It is the notional word that is the bearer of lexical meaning. According to this approach there exist 2 types of analytical forms: complete and incomplete. In a complete analytical form the splitting process has completed and the aux.element is completely devoid of lex.meaning. e.g. In the form of the Perfect the verb to have has no meaning of possession. In an incomplete analyt.form the aux.element retains traces of its lex.meaning. e.g. The form of the Continuous where the auxiliary be retains traces (признаки) of it's meaning of the state.

2.Acc. to the second approach a true analyt.form is idiomatic in characterà

the overall meaning of the form is not immediately dependent on the individual meaning of its constituents. It’s not a sum of meanings of its components. Besides an analyt.form also functions as a grammatical form of a single word. If we proceed (исходить</span

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