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1 1. Language functions. Language and grammar. 2. Standard and non-standard English. The purpose of standardization. 3. Language varieties. Social and regional. Pigeon, creole. 4. Registers. Lexical and grammatical features. 5. Classification of grammar. General overview. 6. Grammatical units. World classes. 7. Prescriptive and descriptive grammar. 8. Structural grammar. 9. Transformational grammar. 10. Grammar in ancient Greece and Rome. 11. The noun. General characteristics. Classification and categories. 12. Common and proper nouns. 13.Collective units and quantifying nouns. 14. The category of number. 15. The category of gender. 16. The category of case. 17. The category of determination. 18. The verb. Semantic features. Classification. 19. Category of person and number. 20. Tense and time. 21. Aspect and mood. 22. Voice and order. 23. The deictic system. 24. The infinitive. 25. The gerund and the participle. 26. The adjective. Descripters and classifiers. 27. The category of comparison. Syntactic functions. 28. The adverb. 29. The pronoun. Deictic functions. 30. The sentence as the three level structure. 1. A means of conveying information. An instrument of action. Acting as a marker of groups. As an instrument of cognitive and conceptual development. This is the power of language to influence thinking. This is why we have many words that mean basically the same thing, because they all have slight differences or are used in different circumstances. As an art form, language can be purposed towards beauty for beauty's sake. Language is a System of conventional spoken or written symbols used by people in a shared culture to communicate with each other. A language both reflects and affects a culture's way of thinking, and changes in a culture influence the development of its language. Related languages become more differentiated when their speakers are isolated from each other. When speech communities come into contact (e.g., through trade or conquest), their languages influence each other. Most existing languages are grouped with other languages descended "genetically" from a common ancestral language (see historical linguistics ). Grammar is The systematic ways in which sentences of a language may be built. Grammar is typically studied independently of phonetics and semantics . Its two branches are syntax, or the way words make sentences, and

Transcript of Grammar Exams` Questions

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1. Language functions. Language and grammar.2. Standard and non-standard English. The purpose of standardization.3. Language varieties. Social and regional. Pigeon, creole.4. Registers. Lexical and grammatical features.5. Classification of grammar. General overview.6. Grammatical units. World classes.7. Prescriptive and descriptive grammar.8. Structural grammar.9. Transformational grammar.10.Grammar in ancient Greece and Rome.11.The noun. General characteristics. Classification and categories.12.Common and proper nouns.13.Collective units and quantifying nouns.14.The category of number.15. The category of gender.16. The category of case.17. The category of determination.18.The verb. Semantic features. Classification.19. Category of person and number.20. Tense and time.21. Aspect and mood.22. Voice and order.23. The deictic system.24. The infinitive.25. The gerund and the participle.26.The adjective. Descripters and classifiers.27. The category of comparison. Syntactic functions.28. The adverb.29. The pronoun. Deictic functions.30.The sentence as the three level structure.

1. A means of conveying information. An instrument of action. Acting as amarker of groups. As an instrument of cognitive and conceptual development.This is the power of language to influence thinking. This is why we have manywords that mean basically the same thing, because they all have slightdifferences or are used in different circumstances. As an art form, languagecan be purposed towards beauty for beauty's sake.Language is a System of conventional spoken or written symbols used bypeople in a shared culture to communicate with each other. A language bothreflects and affects a culture's way of thinking, and changes in a cultureinfluence the development of its language. Related languages become moredifferentiated when their speakers are isolated from each other. When speechcommunities come into contact (e.g., through trade or conquest), theirlanguages influence each other. Most existing languages are grouped withother languages descended "genetically" from a common ancestral language(see historical linguistics).Grammar is The systematic ways in which sentences of a language may bebuilt. Grammar is typically studied independently of phonetics and semantics.Its two branches are syntax, or the way words make sentences, and

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morphology, which includes the recognition of syntactically significant parts ofwords. A grammar that aspires to find categories and rules applicable to all(human) languages is a universal grammar. Grammar may be pursued invarious ways: a formal grammar aspires to the production of a proofprocedure or algorithm separating the well-formed sentences of a languagefrom other strings of words. The different levels of complexity of suchalgorithms defines the hierarchy of abstract structures for languagesdescribed originally by Chomsky. A descriptive grammar describes actualusages in a language, whereas a prescriptive grammar legislates for correctand incorrect usage. See also generative grammar.

2. Standard English is a variety of the English language that is used indictionaries, grammas, universities. It is codified. Used by major publisher inthe world. Spoken English includes grammatical characteristics which can beused in different dialects. Features are different from written forms.Standardizing – forming a version of a language. Non-standard English isrestricted from people of particular social groups. Reasons: to understand oneanother better, to eliminate diversity, to eliminate certain grammas frompolitical power. Differences – variation of standard English is widely used indifferent dialects, however varieties of dialects can not be found. The mostnoticeable variety is in pronunciation (British & American)

3. varieties: american, Australian , black south african, Canadian, cockney,Indian, scots. Social variety(what social class they belong to(upper, lower,middle. Regional(geographical) it depends where you live)Pigeon – is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purposesuch as trading(prekybe) among groups of people who had a lot of contactbut who did not know each other’s language. When a pigeon developesbeyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the firstlanguage of a social community. It is described as a creole. A creole as thefirst language of the children of pigeon.

4. There are 4 registers in English: Conversation (spoken, interactive), Fiction(written, restricted, global), News (written, no interaction, no situation,information) and Academic Prose ( written, no interaction, no situation,information, explanation). They are different in Mode, Interactiveness, Domain(field), Communicative Purpose and Topic.Conversation register differs from other three, because it’s spoken andinteractive. Topic – life, interest of the speaker. Speakers share the samecontext, have the same background, knowledge. Other 3 registers are allwritten. Not directly interactive. There’s no addressy. Purpose – not related topersonal things of the reader.Fiction includes dialogues. Purpose – pleasure of reading, new information.News/Academic Prose – give new information (focus on information).Fiction/News – written for wide public, audience. Academic Prose – written forspecialist. Conversation/News – can be local and regional. Regional varietycan be used.Subregisters – News (review, aditorial), Academic Prose (linguistics, naturalscience), Fiction (adventure, classics, romance).

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5. Theoretical grammar explains the rules of convey information, in the light ofthe newest achievements. Grammar can be diachronic and synchronic.Diachronic - deals with the development of language. It can be: comparative(comparing 2 or 3 languages) and historical (analysis history of thedevelopment). Synchronic – deals with the particular period of grammar (oldeng., modern eng.). It can be: prescriptive, descriptive, structural,transformational generative, universal, pedagogical, reference (for findinginformation about characteristics), pragmatic (grammatical things, related tocertain life situations), typological (classification of language, according totypes), contrastive (differences between language).

6. Grammatical units have meaning : lexical or grammatical.Units:discourse

SentenceClausePhrase (eg.wash up, somebody else…)Word (if, I , all, this..)Morphemes ( eg. Somebody- 2 morphemes(some and body)Phoneme [i:] / grapheme I ( a letter)

Grammatical units can be characterized in four main ways:Structure (sentences are structured into clauses.(eg. I know what you did.(2clauses)Syntactic role (word position in the sentence. It can be SPO, SPOadverbial…and so on)Meaning (according to relation word and outside phenomena)Distribution and discourse function (word ability to combine another word. Thevalance of the word ‘look’ . nepasakysi gramatiskai ‘to look a table’ becauseits not joined semantically.

There are 3 major word classes:Lexical words (the main carriers(nesejai) of meaning. In speech they arestressed. They also present information. The number of lexical words inlanguage are constantly changing. New phenomena appearing. There are 4main class of lexical words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.Functional words .These words are means building text together(priemonessurisancios). Serve 2 major functions: Indicate relation between words; howto interpret lexical words. Function words belong to closes system ( number ofwords doesn’t change. Function words:Determiners, pronouns, auxilaries, prepositions, particles, conjunctions,numerals.Inserts . newly recognized class. These words freely inserted in the text.They are distinguished by intonation, pauses and writing and they carryemotional meaning. Eg: hm, m, em, ah, oh.In communication they play important role.Inserts: interjections, greetings, discourse makers(right, well) , attentionsignals( hey look). Responses(yea, all right), hesitations(erm), apologies.

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7. Prescriptive grammar could be characterized by the following features:Pattering after latin in classifying words into word classes and establishinggrammatical categories; Reliance of meaning and function definition;Approach to correctness: the standards of correctness are logic, which wasidentified with Latin, and the past; Emphasis on writing rather than speech.As prescriptive grammarians were concerned with the rules for the correctuse of English, the could be called the first standardizers of English.Unfortunately, their ‘standardization’ work was often based on subjectivecriteria and other languages. However, not all works written in the prescriptiveera ignored actual usage. Those which did not paved the way to StandardEnglish, which has today become an objective standard for correct English.Those grammarians who adhere to the norms of Standard English (theEnglish of government, education, broadcasting, news publishing, and otherpublic discourse) are also prescriptivists – prescriptivists in a good sense.Non-stuctural descriptive grammar: Unlike prescriptivists, descriptivists focustheir attention on actual usage without trying “to settle the relative correctnessof divergent usages”; Descriptivists rely on English of the best authors of theirday as well as the English of the past. To them, change in language is notassociated with corruption; Similar to prescriptivists, descriptivists usemeaning and function in their definition of parts of speech.

8. Structural Descriptive grammar: The father of American structuralism iscalled Leonard Bloomfield, he said: “The study of language can be conductedanly so long as we pay no attention to the meaning of what is spoken”.English was regarded as a language having its specific structure, and the taskof a linguist was to reveal it by using scientific methods of analysis. Tostructuralists, language is a highly organized affair, where the smaller unitsare built into larger units, which in turn are built into larger ones, until thelargest unit is reached. Such building-blocks are phonemes and morphemes.The structures that we build out of the ‘bricks’ are lexemes. Lexemes build thelargest unit – sentence. Structural grammarians pointed out four devices usedin English to indicate structural meaning: word form, function words, wordorder ant intonation and accent.9. Unlike the structural grammarian, the t-g grammarian is not content withdescribing what he finds in a corpus of sentences collected from nativespeakers. He is interested in possible sentences, the speaker’s – hearer’sknowledge of a language (competence), rather than in his actual use of it(performance). There are two types of transformational grammar: the Harris -Chomsky and the Chomsky. The first one, according to Harris, languageconsists of a limited number of kernel sentences ( structurally the most simplesentences).Transformational - generative grammar does not teach us how to analysesentences; it teaches us how sentences are generated in a language.Sentences and languages which are quite different on the surface often showmany similar features in their deep structures. Transformational – generativegrammar can account for any structural ambiguity by relating ambiguousconstructions to two (or more than two) structures. Ambiguity is the result ofthe neutralization of the deep, or underlying, relations.

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10. Thrax was the first to present a comprehensive grammar of Greece. Hedistinguishes two basic units of description, and the world, which is theminimal unit of grammatical description. The sentence is defined as“expressing a complete thought”. He also distinguishes noun, verb, participle,article, pronoun, preposition, adverb and conjunction. Each defined class ofwords is followed by a statement of the categories applicable to it. Thraxrefers to them as pareponema. By pareponema he means grammaticalrelevant differences in the forms of words which include both inflectional andderivational categories. The parreponema of the verb includes mood, voice,type, form, number, person, tense and conjugation. Three basic timereferences are distinguished: present, past and future.The first latin grammar was written by Varro. His De lingua Latina

distinguished derivation and inflection. Inflectional formations do not vary in useand acceptability from person to person and from one word root to another.Inflectionally contrasting classes: with case inflection (nouns includingadjectives), with tense inflection (verbs), with case and tense inflection(participle), with neither (adverb).

11. The noun is one of the most important parts of speech: its arrangementwith the verb helps to express a predication, the core of the sentence. Thecategorical meaning of the noun is 'substance' or 'thingness'. As a part ofspeech, the noun is characterized by a set of formal features, or markers.a) word-building affixes such as -ment, -tion, -sion, -age, -al, -ancel-ence, - (e)ry,-ure, etc. E.g. engagement, destruction, marriage, arrival, allowance,persistence, bribery, enclosure;b) the categories of number, case, gender, and determination (restriction). It isalso characterized by the syntactic functions it performs in the sentence. Nounsmay function not only in the core of the sentence, i.e. as Subject, but also outsidethe core of the sentence - as Objective and subjective Complements andAdjuncts (The old woman is resting (Subject). Please give that man some money(Objective Complement). Washington was the first President of the US(Subjective Non- circumstantial Complement). Mary lives in London (SubjectiveCircumstantial Complement). Mary is working in London (Circumstantial Adjunct).We can distinguish the following grammatically relevant semantic classes ofnouns: Countables and.Uncoutables; Derived uncountables and underiveduncountables; Proper nouns Common nouns; Animate nouns and Inanimatenouns; person and non-person nouns.

12. Common and proper nouns.Common nouns denote non specify objects. Proper nouns were derived fromcommon nouns

13.

14. A grammatical category is linguistic meaning expressed by the opposition ofmutually exclusive forms. The mutually exclusive, or opposed, forms mustpossess 2 types of features: common and distinctive. The category of number is

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the opposition of the pl of the noun to the sing form of the noun. The pl form isthe marked member of the opposition while the sing form is the unmarkedmember. The marked member of an opposition must have a marker in thesurface structure. The markers of plurality are the inflection -(e)s: dog - dogs,clock - clocks, box-boxes. The sing form has no material marker, it has a 'zero'inflection. The other, non-productive ways of marking plurality are: 1) internalvowel changes in several relict forms (man - men, woman - women, foot - feet,mouse - mice, 2) the use of the archaic inflection -(e)n (ox-oxen, child-children,cow-lane, brother- brethren). Some words borrowed from Latin and Greekpreserve their classical pl forms (formula -formulae, phenomenon -phenomena,crisis - crises, criterion - criteria, etc.). There is an increasing tendency for regular-s plurals to alternate with classical plurals, e.g. memorandum - memoranda/memorandums. The tendency to use the classical pl form is still strong in thelanguage of science. The Eng form is preferred in fiction and spoken Eng. Insome cases the pl form of the noun is homonymous with the sing form (sheep -sheep; deer-deer; swine - swine).The category of number is based on countable nouns, i.e. nouns having numeric(discrete) structure. Uncountable nouns have no category of number, for theyhave quantitative (indiscrete) structure. Two classes of uncoutables can bedistinguished: singularia tantum (only sing) and pluralia tantum (only pl).The absolute sing is characteristic of the names of abstract notions (love,courage, beauty, etc.), the names of the branches of professional activity(philology, linguistics, mathematics, and pragmatics), the names of materials(steel, iron, water, and gas), the names of collective inanimate objects (foliage,fruit, and furniture), the names of some diseases (measles, mumps).As already indicated, some uncountables can be used in both sing and pl. Whenused so, they mean either different sorts of materials or a separate aspect, or amanifestation of the properties denoted by the uncountable noun (She shoutedwith joy. vs. It was a joy to see her again. Who can resist the joys of spring?)It will be noted that the absolute sing can also be used with countable nouns, i.e.countables can be turned into uncountables: The refugees needed shelter. Thebaby does not like apple. Man is mortal. We had chicken for lunch.As for the absolute pl, it is characteristic of uncountable nouns which denoteobjects consisting of 2 halves (trousers, jeans, scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.),nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning (outskirts, clothes, earnings,contents, police, cattle, poultry, etc.).Special mention should be made of absolute, non-distributive plurals expressedby the so-called collective nouns (This family is friendly vs. This family are earlyrisers).Languages may differ with respect to the count/non-count distinction: what iscountable in one language may be uncountable in another. In Eng, for instance,the basic noun for dust, sand, wheat and grass is a non-count noun denoting thesubstance, just like water. In Lith, however, these entities can be individuated:Dulkelė, dulkytė, smiltelė, kvietys, and žolelė/žolytė/žolė. If we want to talk aboutindividual particles, we have to use appropriate words expressing discreteness: aparticle of dust, a grain of sand, an ear of wheat, a blade of grass.

15. Gender in inflected languages is a grammatical category dividing nouns intoclasses for grammatical purposes, e.g. for declension, agreement, pronounreference. In Old Eng, nouns were divided into masculine, feminine, and neuter.

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Formal, or grammatical, gender disappeared with the loss of inflections. Thecategory of gender in modern Eng is inherently semantic, i.e. it divides nounsinto masculine (nouns denoting person males), feminine (nouns denoting personfemales), and neuter (nouns denoting non-persons). Persons are eithermasculine or feminine while non-person nouns arc neuter. Speaking of personnouns, the strong (marked) member of the opposition is the feminine member;the weak (unmarked) member of the opposition is the masculine member. Thecommon meaning, or the common semantic feature, is the meaning of person,the distinctive meaning is that of sex: masculine nouns are characterizednegatively as non-female persons while feminine nouns as female persons. Asalready indicated, the term unmarked suggests greater generality: when we donot know the sex or when we are indifferent to it, we generally use the masculinegender. To avoid the sexist bias, the speakers or writers of Eng use thedisjunctive coordinative construction he or she, which is more common inrelatively formal style, but can also be found in informal conversation. It isregarded as somewhat clumsy.

As for non-persons, they present two oppositions: living beings and non- livingbeings. They are of neuter gender, no matter which subclass they belong to.However, they can be subjected to the personification process, and whenpersonified, i.e. treated as persons, they may be either masculine or feminine: acat -> he or she. It will be remembered that the sex of an animal is not relevantgrammatically, i.e. the noun may refer to a female or to a male, yet it will betreated as being neuter. E.g. bull -> calf; cow calf~> it; Tom-cat -> it; lady-cat ~>it. This goes to say that sex and gender are different categories in non-personanimate nouns; only in person nouns, they are, as a rule, mutually related.

16. In present-day linguistics, case is used in 2 senses: 1) semantic, or logic, and2) syntactic. According to this theory, developed by C. J. Fillmore, case is thesemantic relation of the noun to the verb. Semantic cases may correspond tovarying forms in the syntactic structure of the sentence. In Eng, they are markedby the order of words and the use of the preposition with, but in Lith, they wouldbe marked by case endings: the Nominative, the Accusative and theInstrumental. The syntactic case concept dates hack to the grammars of AncientGreece and Ancient Rome. It is a case whose main role is to indicate arelationship between constituents. To put it otherwise, its role is to indicate aconstruction in syntax. Thus genitive is a case, which marks one noun asdependent on another, e.g. John’s car.

We adhere to the view that Eng does possess the category of case, which isrepresented by the opposition of the two forms - the genitive vs. the non-genitive, or the common. The marked member of the opposition is the genitiveand the unmarked the common: both members express a relation - the genitiveexpresses a specific relation (the relation of possession in the wide meaning ofthe word) while the common case expresses a wide range of relations includingthe relation of possession, e.g. Kennedy's house vs. the Kennedy house. Whilerecognizing the existence of the genitive case, we wish to say that the Enggenitive is not a classical case. Its peculiarities are:

1) the inflection - '.s- is but loosely connected with the noun (e.g. the Queen ofEngland's daughter; the man I met yesterday's son);

2) genitive constructions are paralleled by corresponding prepositionalconstructions (e.g. Shakespeare's works vs. the works of Shakespeare);

3) the use of the genitive is mainly limited to nouns denoting living beings;

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4) the inflection - is used both in the sng and in the pl (e.g. a boy's bicycle vs. theboys' bicycles), which is not typical of case inflexions.

The said peculiarities are often presented as facts demonstrating that Eng hasalready lost the morphological case.

The genitive in Eng expresses a wide range of meanings. Two large groups:genitive constructions can be distinguished: non-descriptive genitiveconstructions and descriptive genitive constructions. The noun can be used intwo functions: it can refer to a specific (i.e. concrete, occurring in a real situation)entity or to a non- specific (i.e. abstract, occurring in a generalized situation)entity:The children's room vs. Children's room.Structurally, the genitive construction consists of two parts: Adjunct + Head-noun.In other words, it is a structure of modification: the genitive noun serves as amodifier of the other noun. Between the Adjunct and the Head- noun there obtainthe following semantic relations, the actual content of which being determined bythe semantic properties of the sentence the construction derives from:

1) Possessor + Possessed, e.g. Jane's doll; Peter's hand; John's sister. The 3constructions illustrate two types of possession: alienable (Jane's doll) andinalienable (Peter's hands; John's sister,)

2) Carrier + Attribute, e.g. Mary's vanity;3) Agent + Process, e.g. the President's arrival;4) Patient + Process, e.g. John's trial;5) Agent + Effected (Result), e.g. Smith's novel;6) Circumstantial attribute + Carrier, e.g. an hour's delay;7) Circumstance + Effected, e.g. yesterday's newspapers

17. The term determination means the actualization of the functions (semantic,grammatical, informational, and pragmatic) of the noun. . 1. Semanticdetermination of the noun 1. 1. Countable nouns Semantically, the noun presentsa dialectical unity of genus (class) and individual. It may be actualized as arepresentative of the class or a subclass as a whole or as an individual memberof the class or a subclass. 1. 2. Uncountable nouns Uncountable nouns do notmuch differ from countablcs as concerns the realization of the category ofdetermination: in the text they may be actualized as representatives of theentities as a whole or an individual manifestation of the entities. 2. Grammaticaldetermination of the noun The article is generally treated as a marker of the noun- full or partial, e.g. a man, the rich. However, not all nouns are invariably usedwith the 'material' article, e.g. strength. Even countables are not always precededby the material article, e.g. books. Besides the article, nouns are identified in thesentence by other determiners (pronouns, numerals), prepositions, by thepresence of appropriate affixes, their relative position (i.e. by the co-text). Therole of the article is often secondary, or supplementary. Besides the article, thenoun can be determined by pronouns (all, any, some, another, each, every,either, neither, no; this/that, these/those; my, your, his, her, its; our, their; much/many; little /a little; few /a few; several), numerals (one, two; first, second, etc.),and a genitive noun (John's coat).

18. Semantic Features of the VerbThe verb is a part of speech that denotes a process in the wide meaning of the

word. The processual meaning is embedded in all the verbs. We can distinguishthe following types of process: 1) processes of doing, or material processes, e.g.

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Maiy is writing a letter; 2) processes of happening, e.g. The old man is dying; 3)verbal, e.g. She told me the ti-uth; 4) mental, e.g. The student did not know theanswer; The woman did not see the lony driving at full speed;She did not feel the pain; 5) relational, e.g. John is clever; Mary is at home;Johnhas a new car; 6) existential, e.g. There is a dog under the table.Semantically, process-types are expressed by two types of verb: 1) hounded and2) unbounded. Unbounded verbs denote processes that go on without reaching alimit, i.e., there is nothing in them that can stop them; they can only be stoppedfrom the outside. So, for instance, when we say The earth turns round the sun.-boundedUnbounded processes can only be interrupted, but not finished. The word finishimplies a programmed end-point and, consequently, cannot be used with anunbounded process. However, theoretically and practically traditional unboundedverbs can all be used as bounded: the actual meaning of such verbs isdetermined by the co- text. Unbounded verbs can be of two types: stative anddynamic. Stative unbounded verbs express a static situation, i.e. a situation inwhich the entity is at rest while dynamic verbs express a situation in which theentity is engaged in some or other activity. To stative verbs belong: 1) cognitiveverbs (e.g. know, think, i.e. be of an opinion; understand, believe, remember); 2)perceptive verbs (e.g. smell, taste, feel); 3) affective verbs (e.g. like, love, hate);4) relational verbs (e.g. be, have, lack). Semantically, they generally present theresult of a bounded process. Dynamic unbounded verbs express a dynamicsituation, i.e. a situation in which the entity is engaged in some activity. Todynamic unbounded verbs belong: run, walk, swim, skate, play, sleep, stand (i.e.to keep an upright position), live, stay, etc. Bounded verbs constitute a muchlarger class. We can distinguish two sub- classes of the verbs: 1) punctual (e.g.shoot, promise, propose, fire, name); 2) non-punctual (e.g. boil, read, write, paint,peel, slice, kill). Punctual verbs have very short duration: the time occupied toexpress the process is longer than the time occupied to perform it.

19. The Category of Person serves to associate the process with three deicticcategories in a comm act: the speaker, the addressee and the one notparticipating in a comm act. The speaker is 1st person (I, we); the addressee is 2pers (you) and the one is 3 pers (he). The deictic centre is the speaker that in theprocess of comm keeps changing: I- you-I.The three deictic categories arelexicalized(special words are used-personal pronouns),grammalicalized(a specialform of the verb additionally shows which pers is meant). In Eng, only the thirdperson present tense sng form expresses person grammatically.Special mentionshould be made of the modal verbs and the verb be. Modal verbs, with theexception of shall/should and will/would, do not show person grammatically. Cf.lcan speak Eng vs I shall speak eng.The verb be is more grammaticalized:Iam/was. It has two grammaticalized persons in the sing – 1 and 3 person - andno grammaticalized persons in the pl. In the past tense, the verb be does notdistinguish person - without a personal pronoun we cannot say which person theform expresses. The category of person is represented in Eng by 2 memberoppositions: 3 person singular vs. non-3 person singular. The marked member ofthe opposition is 3 person; the unmarked member is non-3 person (it includes theremaining forms - 1 person, 2 person forms - sing and pl).The Category of Number shows whether the process is associated with onedoer or with more than one doer, e.g. He eats three times a day. The sentenceindicates a single eater; the verb is in the sing despite the fact than more than

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one process is meant. The category of number is a 2-member opposition:singand pl. the category of number is blended with person. As person is a feature ofthe present tense, number is also restricted to the present tense. Cf. John goesto college, vs. John went to college. Goes is sing + 3 person; the remaining formsare not marked for number. The same holds good for the verb be used in thepresent tense:I am at home.John is at college now.The forms am, is are 1 and 3person sing; the remaining forms are not marked for number. Consider nowexamples in which be is used in the past tense:I was at home.John was atcollege. The form was, unlike is, is not blended with person: it marks only sing;the form were is not blended with person either. However, it can be used in bothsing and pl:You were at home.They were at home. Some verbs - modals - do notdistinguish number at all. Still others are only used in the pl because the meaningof 'oneness' is hardly compatible with their lexical meaning:The boys crowdedround him. vs. Thc boy crowded round him. The analysis of the examplesdemonstrates the weakness of the English verb as concerns the expression ofperson and number and its heavy reliance on the subject: it is the subject that isgenerally responsible for the expression of person and number in English.

20. The category of tense in English is a system of two-member oppositionsshowing the relation of the time of the process denoted by the verb to the presentmoment, or the moment of speaking. The existence of a future tense in English isproblematic. We will return to the problem when we have examined the presentand the past tense. The present tense is the unmarked member of theopposition: it is the least specific in meaning and therefore can be used toexpress a wide range of temporal meanings. The present tense is also unmarkedmorphologically: except for the –s inflection, its forms are identical with the formsof the ‘bare’ infinitive. The past tense is marked both semantically andmorphologically: it refers to a process that is visualized as remote, either in timeor as unreality, and in the vast majority of verbs it has a distinct past form.Tense forms can be of two types: absolute (primary) and absolute-relative(secondary). In absolute tenses the point of time from which we measure thetime of the process is the present moment only, i.e. the time of the speaker, e.g.John visited his mother yesterday. Here the speaker locates the process ofvisiting in the past. As for absolute-relative tenses, the point of time from whichwe measure the time of the processes are the present time and some other time.Typically they are expressed in a complex sentence. Relative tenses are typicallyused in subordinate clauses: object and temporal. One such change is a changeof the personal pronoun: I she; the other change concerns tense: the presentabsolute tense changes to the past relative tense to correspond to the deicticcenter established by the verb in the reporting clause. As the tense of thisutterance denotes a past time, the tense of the reported clause must also denotea past time.The correspondence between the tenses is called the sequence oftenses. It should be observed that the English sequence of tense rule is subjectto one interesting modification: even when the main verb is in a past tense, it ispossible to use the tense absolutely in the reported clause provided the contentof the reported clause still has validity. Cf. John said that he was ill. vs. John saidthat he is ill. In the first sentence, the speaker is not explicit as to whether John isstill ill or not; in the second sentence, the speaker is reporting an illness which hebelieves still has relevance.

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21. The Category of Aspect is concerned with the internal character of theprocess denoted by the verb: the process can be durative or non-durative; Johnwrote letters yesterday vs John wrote two letters yesterday. the form wrotedenotes two types of process: durative and non-durative. Depending on the co-text, write can denote either a process seen as developing or a process seen asaccomplished. Theoretical grammar is naturally concerned with grammaticalizedaspective forms. Eng is only in a position to express duration grammatically(completion is expressed lexically). Duration expressed by progressive formsdiffers from the duration expressed lexically:John wrote letters yesterday,vs.John was writing a letter when his wife returned. Traditional grammariansanalyze the sentence: the dur process of wrote is not tied to a specific moment,but the process of was writing concerns a specific moment - when his wifereturned. Non-progressive forms generally denote habitual situations (e.g. Johnwalks to work). The progressive form is used to present a durative situation asdynamic: John is working in the library. Dynamic durative situations are specific,i.e. they are tied to a particular moment: John is working in the library, weindicate what John is doing at the moment of speaking. Dynamic dur situationsare relatively limited duration, the limit being established by temporalcircumstances (now, today, this week,etc.). As for non-specific (i.e. habitual)durative situations, their duration is not restricted in this way:. John works in thelibrary every day, where every day indicates a multiple situation The category ofaspect consists of 2 members: progressive and non-progressive. Theprogressive form is marked and the non-progressive is unmarked. Outside theco-text, the unmarked form denotes non-specific duration:Mother read old lettersyesterday (non-specific duration).Verbs are divided into 2 categories: those thathave not aspect vs those that have. To the 1st category belongs to five verbs(mental, relational, and existential); to the second category belong process,achievement, and accomplishment verbs. That stative verbs arc not used in theprogressive form. However,theoretically, any verb can express specific dynamicduration. .Proccess verbs are dynamic verbs and can be used in the progressiveform. More problematic are achievement verbs (denoting the initial or the finalphase of the process):He started singing. The verb start denote relatively shortduration. When we wish to increase its duration, we can do it using theprogressive form:He is starting singing. The verbs arrive and win areachievement verbs: they denote the final phase of the process. Accomplishmentverbs implicate the middle phase of the process. The Eng progressive candenote the beginning phase, the middle phase or the terminal phase, the actualmeaning being determined by the co -text.

The Category of Mood is a grammatical category which expresses thespeaker's attitude toward the process, indicating whether it is regarded as 1. afact or as 2. a non-fact. 1. Presenting facts, the speaker may be categoric andnon-categoric: John's health is bad. vs.John's health must he bad. Facts areexpressed by the indicative mood and non-facts by the subjunctive mood. Cf.I goto university, vs. He suggests I (should) go to university. The fact, or theindicative mood, is expressed by indicative mood forms. Its modalized variety isexpressed by the use of appropriate modal verbs. The imperative variety of thenon-fact mood is realized by the use of the bare (i.e. unmarked) infinitive. 2. Thenon-fact, i.e. the subjunctive mood, linguists distinguish various semanticvarieties of the mood: subjunctive I, subjunctive II, conditional, suppositional.These moods are distinguished on the basis of meaning which is coloured by thelinguistic environment of the forms, i.e. these are 'modal' varieties of the

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subjunctive mood. The category of mood is represented by two oppositions: theindicative mood and the spective mood. The indicative mood is the basic mood ofthe verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system. Semantically, it is afact mood; it is the least subjective of all the moods. The spective mood, whichincludes the traditional imperative and the subjunctive mood, represents aprocess as a non-fact, i.e. as smth imaginary, desirable, problematic, contrary toreality. The imperative variety of the spective mood is morphologically the leastdeveloped mood: it is only expressed by the bare infinitive form. The subjunctivevariety of the spective mood makes use of 2 types of construction: 1) non- modal:a) the base form of a verb; b) were; c) forms identical with indicative mood forms;2) modal (modal verb + the base form of a verb). The problems that face theanalyst are: 1) the linguistic status of non-modal subjunctive forms;2) thelinguistic status of the modal forms shall/should, will/would, etc.

22. The Category of VoiceVoice is the grammatical category of the verb thatshows the direction of the process in regard to the subject: in the active-voiceconstruction, the process issues from the Subject; in the passive-voiceconstruction, the process issues from the Agentive Adjunct..1. The savant(Agent) beats the carpet (Affected) once a week.2. The carpet (Affected) isbeaten by the servant (Agent) once a week. What motivates the process ofpassivization? 1) the speaker's wish to use thcAgcnt as the 77icme (the activeconstruction)or {heAffected as the Theme (the passive construction).Consider:Who made this chair? My father did./This chair was made by my father.2) the speaker's reluctance or inability to use the Agent. The speaker may notwant to mention thcAgcnl for the sake of tact, or lie/ she may want to avoidmaking explicit reference to theAgent and thus give the writing a more objectiveflavour, or he/she simply may not know who carried out the process. Consider:Aman was killed yesterday. The room has not been cleaned.3) the speaker's wishto avoid semantic redundancy, i.e. to avoid non- informative constituents.Consider: Eng is spoken in many countries (instead of People speak English inmany countries). The passive voice is an analytic form: it is built up by means ofthe corresponding tense of the auxiliary verb be and the past participle of thegiven verb. The rules that are applied to the deep structure include: 1)Agentpostposing; 2) Recipient proposing; 3) verb passivizing. Passive-voicesentencesand active-voice sentences are syntactic synonyms: they have thesame cognitive meaning. Passive constructions present two types: full (non-elliptical) and elliptical. More common are elliptical passives, i.e. passives withoutiheAgentive Adjunct. Two types of passives: verbal and adjectival. Consider: Thedoor was closed by the janitor, vs. The door was closed. The door was closedcannot be treated as passive. M.Blokh thinks that if the participle expresses aprocess, then the whole construction is passive and if the participle expresses aresult, the whole construction is a nominal predicate. Get-passives and be-passives differ: 1.Get-passives are characteristically used in sentences involvingadversity or benefit (e.g. Kim got sacked, vs. Kim got promoted);2. Get-passivcstend to be avoided in formal style. Opinions differ as to the number of voices inModern English. Most linguists recognize only two voices - active and passive.Some speak of the reflexive voice which shows that the process passes on to thesubject, c.g.John is shaving himself. The other voices distinguished in Eng arereciprocal and middle. The reciprocal voice is expressed with the help ofreciprocal pronouns added to a verb, e.g. They kissed each other. The so-called'middle' voice1 can be illustrated by such sentences as The door opened.

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Semantically, this sentence reminds us of the passive sentence proper; yet itcannot be completed with the by-construction:

The Category of Order (the Perfect)The category of order is constituted by the opposition of perfect forms to non-perfect forms of the verb. The marked member of the opposition is the perfectform and the unmarked, the non-perfect form.The Eng perfect has been thesubject of a lengthy discussion. There are three views on the problem: 1) thetense-view; 2) the aspect-view, and 3) the specific category-view. The term "thecategory of order", which, according to the scholars, reveal the essence of thecategory. Theoretically, the use of the perfect is not necessary when theconnection to the deictic center or centers is expressed by the context or by theco-text: it could be replaced by non-perfect forms. Except for since and for, mostof the other past-to-present time expressions may be used informally with thepast tense. The perfect form is used when the speaker or writer wishes to showthe relevance of a past or a future event to the moment serving as the deicticcenter, or the reference point: the present perfect expresses the relevance of apast event to a moment of speaking; the past perfect expresses the relevance ofa past event to the moment in the past, and the future perfect expresses therelevance of a future event to a moment in the future. This is the generalmeaning of the perfect. In a specific context, however, the perfect acquires apragmatic meaning. Consider: You know, John has married Mary. The perfectform has married is used to show the relevance of a past event to the moment ofspeaking -John's marrying Mary is the news. When we use the perfect withunbounded (durative) verbs, we are often under the impression that the situationbeing described still holds at (lie time indicated by the reference point.eg: Hehas lived in London for many years now.

23.

24. Historically, the infinitive is a verbal noun. Hence its double nature:itcombines the features of the verb with those of the noun. It is the form of theverb which expresses a process in general, i.e. a process that is not restricted(i.e. concretized) by person, number, tense, and mood. Because of its general-process meaning, the infinitive is treated as the head-form of the whole paradigmof the verb. From the infinitive we derive all the forms of the verb.The infinitivehas two presentation forms: marked and unmarked. The marked infinitive is ananalytic grammatical form. The oilier form of the infinitive is unmarked; it istraditionally called the bare infinitive. It is used in various analytic forms (non-modal and modal), with verbs of physical perceptions, with the verbs let, bid,make, help (optionally),with a few modal phrases (had better, would rather, wouldhave, etc.), with therelative why.The Verbal Features of the Infinitive. Like thefinite form of verb, the infinitive distinguishes the categories of aspect, voice,and

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order..As to their meaning in the co-text, the infinitives can be divided into twogroups: non-factive- it denotes only a hypotheticalprocess, and factive -it denotesanaccomplished process. .The Nounal Features of the Infinitive.Semantically andmorphologically, the infinitive is much more similar tothe verb than to the noun:its verbal features outweigh its nounal features. What reminds us of the noun isthe syntax of the infinitive. Similar to the noun, the infinitive can be used as thesubject or part of the subject, part of the objective complement, the predicative,and the attribute.eg:To see his children again will make him very happy.

25. The gerund is originally a verbal noun in -ing. Similar to the infinitive, thegerund is the name of a process but its substantive meaning is more stronglypronounced than that of the infinitive: unlike the infinitive, the gerund can bemodified by a noun in the genitive case or by the possessive pronoun and usedwith prepositions. If the gerund is an abstract name of a process, why is then theinfinitive, not the gerund, the citation, or standard, form of the verb in general?There are several reasons: 1) it is more substantial than the infinitive; 2) it doesnot take part in the conjugation of the verb: 3) structurally it is more complex thanthe infinitive - it has an inflectional form(-wig).The verbal features of the gerund.Like the verb, the gerund distinguishes the categories of voice and order: writing(non-passive, non-perfect) – being written (passive, non-perfect), having written(non-passive, perfect) – having been written (passive, perfect).

The Participle is a term applied to adjectival forms of verbs. It is a form that'participates' in the features of the verb (e.g. The girl is sitting there) and of theadjective (e.g. The girl sitting here).There are two types of participle: the presentparticiple and the past participle. The present participle may be misleading sincethe participle does not express tense distinctions. It is a traditional term, originallyapplied to adjectival forms of verbs in Ancient Greece which were inflected fortense, aspect, and case. It was borrowed from Greek grammar through Latingrammar and uncritically applied to English verbal forms which had an adjective-like use. The present participle expresses a process simultaneous with or prior tothe process of the finite verb: it may denote present, past, and future.

26. The adjective expresses the property of an entity. In the sentence, theadjective performs the functions of an attribute and a predicative. Of the two, themore typical function is that of an attribute since the function of a predicative canalso be performed by other parts of speech. The young man vs. The man isyoung. In the latter example, the adjective is syntactically the complement of theverb be, but semantically they both constitute the predicate. As a lexeme, be haslittle meaning; it performs the function of predicativety; it expresses the verbalcategories of person, number, tense, etc. The combination of be + adjective isthen comparable to a verb with its own lexical content. All the adjectives can bedivided into two large groups: gradable and non- gradable. Gradable (also calleddescriptive, or qualitative) adjectives denote properties of entities that can beestimated quantitatively, or measured. Gradable adjectives can be further dividedinto stative and dynamic. Adjectives are characteristically stative. Manyadjectives, however, can be seen as dynamic. These are generally adjectivesdenoting the person's behaviour. The stative property of an entity is a propertythat cannot be conceived as a developing process, and the dynamic property ofan entity is a property that is conceived as active, or as a developing process.Dynamic adjectives closely resemble activity verbs: like activity verbs, they can

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be used in the progressive and in the perfect form. From a syntactic point ofview, adjectives can be divided into three groups:

1) adjectives which can be used attributively and predicatively; 2) adjectiveswhich can be used attributively only; 3) adjectives which can be usedpredicatively only. Gradable adjectives denoting a permanent property, or state,belong to the first group, e.g. a big house vs. the house is big. Intensifying andrestrictive adjectives are usually used attributively only, e.g. a complete fool vs.*Thefool is complete or a particular child vs. *The child is particular. Adjectivesdenoting a temporary property, or state, are used predicatively only, e.g. She isbeing very clever today does not yield she is a very clever girl.

27. The category of comparison. It is the only grammatical category of theadjective in English. It is based on gradable or qualitative adjectives. Thecategory of comparison is constituted by the opposition of three forms of theadjective: the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. There are threeways of forming degrees of comparison: synthetic, analytic, and superlative. Thesynthetic way of forming degrees of comparison is by the inflections -er, -est; theanalytic way, by placing more and most before the adjective. The synthetic wayis generally used with monosyllabic adjectives and disyllabic adjectives ending in-y, -ow, -er, -Ie and those which have the stress on the last syllable, e.g. tall ->taller, tallest; An apparent exception to this rule are the following adjectives whichare stressed on the first syllable: pleasant ->pleasanter; cruel -> cruder, crudest;quiet -> quieter, quietest; stupid -> stupider, stupidest; common -> commoner,commonest. However, in the dissylabic group we can observe radical changes:adjectives formerly taking-er and-est are tending to go over to more and most,e.g. more common, most common; To analytic forms of comparison M. Blokhalso attributes less/least combinations. As already pointed out, the third way offorming degrees of comparison is by the use of superlative forms: good -> better,best; had -> worse, worst; far ->farther/further, farthest/furthest; little -^ less,least; much/many -> more, most.

28. The Adverb is one of the parts of speech established in antiquity. Theadverb is a word denoting a non-substantive property, a feature which sets theadverb apart from the adjective which denotes a substantive property. .As to theirstructure, adverbs may be non-derived, or simple (e.g. here, there, now, then,…)and derived (e.g. slowly, sideways, clockwise,…). We can also distinguishcomposite forms and phrasal forms of the adverb: sometimes, nowhere, anyhow.A prolific source of adverbs is the adjective: many -ly adverbs aretransformationally related to respective adjectives. The suffix -ly is a typicalmarker of the adverb. However, many adverbs related to adjectives may not benecessarily used with the suffix -ly, e.g. fast, late, hard. Adverbs can be used asprepositions and conjunctive words, e.g. before, after, round, within. Preposition-adverb like elements form a semantic blend with verbs: to give up, to give in, togive out. The verb-adverb combination goes by several names: two-part verbs,composite verbs, phrasal verbs. The most common adverbs are those denotingplace, e.g. in, out, on, off, over, up, down, through, etc. In verb-adverbcombinations the second element may: a) retain its adverbial properties ofshowing direction (e.g. to go out, to go in); b) change the aspect of the verb, i.e.mark the completeness of the process (e.g. to eat-to eat up;); c) intensify themeaning of the process(e.g. to end - to end up); d) lose its lexical meaning andform an integral whole, a set expression ( to come off 'to take place')..Semantic

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classification of adverbs. We can distinguish two large groups of adverbs: 1) non-spatial and 2) spatial. 1. To non-spatial adverbs belong:1) viewpoint adverbs(e.g. Looked at politically, it was not an easy problem);2) focusing adverbs (e.g.He is doing it purely and simply for your benefit);3) intensifying adverbs (e.g. It'ssimply a question of hard work); 4) process adverbs (e.g. They treated himbadly); 5) subjective adverbs (e.g. Bitterly, he l)inicd Ilis children); 6) adverbs ofcause and consequence (e.g. We have a growing population and therefore weneed more food). 2.To spatial adverbs belong: place adverbs (e.g. They are notthere; ); 2) time adverbs (e.g. He arrived last night;).Similar to adjectives, adverbscan be gradable and non-gradable. Gradable adverbs are adverbs which arecapable of expressing the intensivity of the process, e.g. loudly - more loudly -the most loudly. The number of non-gradables is much greater among adverbsthan among adjectives.

29. Pronouns are not notional words in the true meaning of the word; they arefunction words, their interpretation derives from the antecedent or the situation sothat they need contain little descriptive information themselves. Their number isstrictly limited and their meanings are acquired from the context. Traditionally,pronouns arc divided into: 1) personal; 2) possessive; 3) reflexive; 4)demonstrative; 5) interrogative-relative; 6) reciprocal; 7) indefinite-negative; 8)generalizing; 9) quantitative.

The textual function of the pronouns. As already said, pronouns can be usedas cohesive devices: referring back or forward to their antecedents, they connectone sentence to another. To cohesively used pronouns belong third-personpronouns and demonstrative pronouns. Consider:1) John and Mary came into the room: he was laughing and she was crying.2) I turned the comer and almost stepped on it. There was a large snake in themiddle of the path.

1. Person deictic. A communicative act (interaction) generally consists of thespeaker, the addressee, and others. The speaker is the reference, or deicticcentre, i.e. he or she organizes the conversation: the speaker talks to theaddressee, then the role of the speaker is transferred to the addressee. Thissuggests that the deictic centre shifts from one participant to another. The rolesof the speaker, the addressee and others are generally grammaticalizcd inlanguage: the speaker is actualized as / or we; the addressee as you, and othersas/ic, she, it, llicy.1 Ib the last group we can add indefinite pronouns, e.g.somebody, each. 2. Spatial deictic. By means of spatial deictic expressions welocate entities in space shared by the speaker, the addressee and the otherparticipants, if any. Entities can be located near the speaker and away from thespeaker. Hence two types of distancc:/:>ro;wna/ and distal. When the speakeruses the pronouns this, iliese, here, lie or she refers to entities near him or her;when the speaker uses the pronouns that, those, there, he or she refers toentities away from him or her. It is interesting to note that the pronoun that doesnot necessarily denote distance away from the speaker: the entity may be closeto him, e.g. / don't like that stuff. That is used when the speaker wishes todistance himself from the entity. Thus, distance can be of two types: physical andpsychological.

30.