Study questions
1. What peculiar features of nouns do you know?
2. How many grammatical categories of nouns do you know?
3. What do you understand by regular and irregular formation of plural of nouns?
4. What means of irregular formation of plural meaning do you know?
5. Does English have the grammatical category of case?
6. What conceptions on the category of case do you know?
7. Is the category of case in English nouns is as stable as it is in your native language?
8. Is there a grammatical category of gender in English nouns?
9. What is the difference between the terms “gender” and “sex”?
10. Compare the gender meanings in English and your native language?
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Lecture 7
The Adjectives
Problems to be discussed:
- the characteristic features of the adjectives as a part of speech
- the types of adjectives
- the grammatical category of degrees of comparison
- the means of formation of the degrees of comparison of adjectives
- substantivization of adjective Pronouns
- general characteristics of this class of words
- the difference between pronouns and other parts of speech
- the personal pronouns
- the possessive pronouns
- the reflexive pronouns
The characteristic features of the adjective as a part of speech are as follows:
1. their lexical-grammatical meaning of attributes or we may say that they express property of things
/persons/;
2. from the morphological view point they have the category of degrees of comparison;
3. from the point of view of their combinality they combine with nouns, as it has already
been stated above, they express the properties of things. The words that express things we call
nouns. It seems to be important to differentiate the combinability of a word with other words and
reference of a word of a part of speech to another part of speech. We put this because adjectives
modify nouns but they can combine with adverbs, link verbs and the word “one”:
a white horse. The horse is white.
The sun rose red. The sun rose extremely red.
4. the stem-building affixes are: -ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, -ir, un-, -pre-, in-...;
5. their syntactic functions are: attribute and predicative
It is important to point out that in the function of an attribute the adjectives are in most
cases used in pre-position; in post- position they are very seldom: time immemorial; chance to
come.
The category of comparison of adjectives shows the absolute or relative quality of a
substance.
The Grammatical Category of Degrees of Comparison
Not all the adjectives of the English language have the degrees of comparison. From this point of view they
fall under two types:
1) comparable adjectives
2) non- comparable adjectives
The non-comparable adjectives are relative ones like golden, wooden, silk, cotton, raw and
so on.
The comparable ones are qualitative adjectives. The grammatical category of degrees of comparison is the
opposition of three individual meanings:
1) positive degree
2) comparative degree
3) superlative degree
The common or basic degree is called positive which is expressed by the absence of a
marker. Therefore we say that it is expressed by a zero morpheme. So far as to the comparative and
superlative degrees they have special material means. At the same time we’ll have to admit that not
all the qualitative adjectives form their degrees in the similar way. From the point of view of
forming of the comparative and superlative degrees of comparison the qualitative adjectives must
be divided into four groups. They are:
1) One and some two syllabic adjectives that form their degrees by the help of inflections -
er and -est respectively,
short - shorter - the shortest
strong - stronger - the strongest
pretty - prettier - the prettiest
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2) The adjectives which form their degrees by means of root-vowel and final consonant
change:
many - more - the most
much - more - the most
little - less - the least
far - further - the furthest
(farther - the farthest)
3) The adjectives that form their degrees by means of suppletion
good - better - the best
bad - worse - the worst
Note: The two adjectives form their degrees by means of suppletion. It concerns only of the comparative
degree (good - better; bad - worse). The suppletive degrees of these adjectives are formed by root - vowel and final
consonant change (better - the best) and by adding “t” to the form of the comparative degree (in worse - the worst).
4) Many - syllabic adjectives which form their degrees by means of the words "more" and
"most":
interesting - more interesting - the most interesting
beautiful - more beautiful - the most beautiful
So far we have not been referring to the works of grammarians on the problem since the
opinions of almost all the grammarians coincide on the questions treated. But so far as to the
lexical way of expressing the degrees is concerned we find considerable divergence in its
treatment. Some authors treat more beautiful, the most beautiful not as a lexical way of formation
of the degrees of comparison but as analytical forms. Their arguments are as follows:
1. More and -er identical as to their meaning of “higher degree”;
2. Their distribution is complementary. Together they cover all the adjectives having the degree of
comparison.
Within the system of the English Grammar we do not find a category which can be formed
at the same time by synthetic and analytical means. And if it is a grammatical category it cannot be
formed by several means, therefore we consider it to be a free syntactic unit which consists of an
adverb and a noun.
Different treatment is found with regard to the definite and indefinite articles before most: the most
interesting book and a most interesting book.
5) Khaimovich and Rogovskaya (22): One must not forget that more and most are not only word-
morphemes of comparison. They can also be notional words. Moreover they are poly- semantic and poly-functional
words. One of the meanings of most is “very, exceedingly”. It is in this meaning that the word most is used in the
expression a most interesting book".
As has been stated we do not think that there are two homonymous words: most -
functional word; most - notional word.
There is only one word - notional /adverb/ which can serve to express the superlative degree by lexical
means and since it's a free combination of three notional words any article can be used according to the meaning that
is going to be expressed. The difference in the meaning of the examples above is due to the difference in the means
of the definite and indefinite articles.
Substantivization of Adjectives
As is known adjectives under certain circumstances can be substantivized, i.e. become nouns.
B. Khaimovich (22) states that "when adjectives are converted into nouns they no longer
indicate attributes of substances but substances possessing these attributes.
B. Khaimovich (22) speaks of two types of substantivization full and partial. By full substantivization he
means when an adjective gets all the morphological features of nouns, like: native, a native, the native, natives. But
all the partial substantivization he means when adjectives get only some of the morphological features of nouns, as
far instance, the adjective “rich” having substantivized can be used only with the definite article: the rich.
B. Ilyish (15) is almost of the same opinion: we shall confine ourselves to the statement
that these words are partly substantivized and occupy an intermediate position.
More detailed consideration of the problem shows that the rich and others are not partial
substantivization. All the substantivized adjectives can be explained within the terms of nouns.
(37)
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Study questions
1. What are the most important characteristic features of adjectives?
2. Why do we have to differentiate the qualitative and relative adjectives?
3. How are the comparative and superlative of adjectives formed?
4. What adjectives form their degrees by both inflections and words more and most?
5. Are their adjectives that form their degrees of comparison by means of suppletion?
6. What do you understand by substantivization?
7. Are the words "more" and "most" lexical or grammatical means when, they form the degrees of comparison of
adjectives?
8. What adjectives form their comparative and superlative by root-vowel and final-consonant change?
26
Lecture 8
The Verb
Problems to be discussed:
- the characteristic features of verbs as a part of speech
- verbs are morphologically most developed part of speech
- the types of verbs
- the grammatical categories of verbs: voice, mood, tense, number and others.
Verb as a Part of Speech
Words like to read, to live, to go, to jump are called verbs because of their following features.
1. they express the meanings of action and state;
2. they have the grammatical categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood, order and posteriority
most of which have their own grammatical means;
3. the function of verbs entirely depends on their forms: if they in finite form they fulfill only one function –
predicate. But if they are in non-finite form then they can fulfill any function in the sentence but predicate;
they may be part of the predicate;
4. verbs can combine actually with all the parts of speech, though they do not combine with articles, with
some pronouns. It is important to note that the combinability of verbs mostly depends on the syntactical
function of verbs in speech;
5. verbs have their own stem-building elements. They are:
postfixes:
-fy (simplify, magnify, identify…)
-ize (realize, fertilize, standardize…)
-ate (activate, captivate…)
prefixes:
re- (rewrite, restart, replant…)
mis- (misuse, misunderstand, misstate…)
un- (uncover, uncouple, uncrown…)
de- (depose, depress, derange…) and so on.
The Types of Verbs
The classification of verbs can be undertaken from the following points of view:
1) meaning
2) form - formation;
3) function.
I. There are three basic forms of the verb in English: infinitive, past indefinite and PII.
These forms are kept in mind in classifying verbs.
II. There are four types of form-formation:
1. affixation: reads, asked, going ...
2. variation of sounds: run – ran, may – might, bring – brought ...
3. suppletive ways: be – is – am – are – was; go – went ...
4. analytical means: shall come, have asked, is helped ...
There are productive and non-productive ways of word-formation in present-day English
verbs.
Affixation is productive, while variation of sounds and suppletion are non-productive.
Notional and Functional Verbs
From the point of view of their meaning verbs fall under two groups: notional and
functional.
Notional verbs have full lexical meaning of their own. The majority of verbs fall under this
group.
Function verbs differ from notional ones of lacking lexical meaning of their own. They
cannot be used independently in the sentence; they are used to furnish certain parts of sentence
(very often they are used with predicates).
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Function verbs are divided into three: link verbs, modal verbs, auxiliary verbs.
Link verbs are verbs which having combined with nouns, adjectives, prepositional phrases and so on add to
the whole combination the meaning of process.
In such cases they are used as finite forms of the verb they are part of compound nominal
predicates and express voice, tense and other categories.
Modal verbs are small group of verbs which usually express the modal meaning, the
speaker’s attitude to the action, expressed by the notional verb in the sentence. They lack some
grammatical forms like infinitive form, grammatical categories and so on. Thus, they do not have
all the categories of verbs. They may express mood and tense since they function as parts of
predicates. They lack the non-finite forms.
Besides in present-day English there is another group of verbs which are called auxiliaries.
They are used to form analytical forms of verbs. Verbs: to be, to do, to have and so on may be
included to this group.
Regular and Irregular Verbs
From the point of view of the formation of the Past Tense verbs are classified into two
groups:
1) Regular verbs which form their basic forms by means of productive suffixes-(e)d. The
majority of verbs refer to this class.
2) Irregular verbs form their basic forms by such non-productive means as:
a) variation of sounds in the root:
should - would - initial consonant change
begin - began - begun - vowel change of the root
catch - caught - caught - root - vowel and final consonant change
spend - spent - spent - final consonant change;
b) suppletion:
be – was / were
go – went
c) unchanged forms:
cast - cast - cast
put - put – put
By suppletion we understand the forms of words derived from different roots.
A. Smirnitsky (20) gives the following conditions to recognize suppletive forms of words;
1. when the meaning of words are identical in their lexical meaning.
2. when they mutually complement one another, having no parallel opposemes.
3. when other words of the same class build up a given opposemes without suppletivity, i.e.
from one root. Thus, we recognize the words be - am, bad - worse as suppletive because they
express the same grammatical meanings as the forms of words: light – lighter, big – bigger, work
– worked.
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs can also be classified from the point of view of their ability of taking objects. In
accord with this we distinguish two types of verbs: transitive and intransitive. The former type of
verbs are divided into two:
a) verbs which are combined with direct object: to have a book to find the address
b) verbs which take prepositional objects: to wait for, to look at, talk about, depend on…
To the latter type the following verbs are referred:
a) verbs expressing state: be, exist, live, sleep, die …
b) verbs of motion: go, come, run, arrive, travel …
c) verbs expressing the position in space: lie, sit, stand ...
As has been told above in actual research work or in describing linguistic phenomena we do not always
find hard-and-fast lines separating one phenomenon from the other. In many cases we come across an intermediate
stratum. We find such stratum between transitive and intransitive verbs which is called causative verbs, verbs
intransitive in their origin, but some times used as transitive: to fly a kite, to sail a ship, to nod approval ...
The same is found in the construction "cognate object": to live a long life, to die the death of a hero ...
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The Grammatical Categories of Verbs
Grammatical categories of verbs
In this question we do not find a generally accepted view-point. B.A. Ilyish (15) identifies six grammatical
categories in present-day English verb: tense, aspect, mood, voice, person and number.
L. Barkhudarov, D. Steling distinguish only the following grammatical categories: voice, order, aspect, and
mood. Further they note, that the finite forms of the verb have special means expressing person, number and tense.
(4)
B. Khaimovich and Rogovskaya (4): out of the eight grammatical categories of the verb,
some are found not only in the finites, but in the verbids as well.
Two of them-voice (ask - be asked), order (ask - have asked) are found in all the verbids,
and the third aspect (ask - to be asking) – only in the infinitive.
They distinguish the following grammatical categories: voice, order, aspect, mood, posteriority,
person, number.
The Category of Voice
By the category of voice we mean different grammatical ways of expressing the relation
between a transitive verb and its subject and object.
The majority of authors of English theoretical grammars seem to recognize only two voices
in English: the active and the passive.
H. Sweet (42), O. Curme (26) recognize two voices. There are such terms, as inverted object, inverted
subject and retained object in Sweet's grammar.
The Inverted object is the subject of the passive construction. The Inverted subject is the
object of the passive constructions.
The rat was killed by the dog. O. Jespersen (34) calls it "converted subject".
But in the active construction like: “The examiner asked me three questions” either of the object words may
be the subject of the passive sentence.
I was asked 3 questions by the examiner.
Three questions were asked by the examiner.
Words me and three questions are called retained objects.
H. Poutsma (39) besides the two voices mentioned above finds one more voice – reflexive. He writes: "It
has been observed that the meaning of the Greek medium is normally expressed in English by means of reflexive or,
less frequently, by reciprocal pronouns". It is because of this H. Poutsma distinguishes in Modern English the third
voice. He transfers the system of the Greek grammar into the system of English. He gives the following examples:
He got to bed, covered himself up warm and fell asleep.
H. Whitehall (43)
This grammarian the traditional terms indirect and direct objects replaced by inner and outer complements
(words of position 3 and 4) consequently. The passive voice from his point of view is the motion of the words of
position 3 and 4 to position one. The verb is transformed into a word-group introduced by parts of be, become, get
and the original subject is hooked into the end of the sentence by means of the preposition by.
Different treatment of the problem is found in theoretical courses written by Russian grammarians
The most of them recognize the existence of the category of voice in present-day English.
To this group of scientists we refer A.I. Smirnitsky (20), L. Barkhudarov, L. Steling (14),
Khaimovich and Rogovskaya's (22) according to their opinion there are two active and passive
voices. But some others maintain that there are three voices in English. Besides the two mentioned
they consider the reflexive voice which is expressed by the help of semantically weakened self-
pronouns as in the sentence:
He cut himself while shaving.
B.A. Ilyish (15) besides the three voices mentioned distinguishes two more: the reciprocal voice expressed
with the help of each-other, one another and the neuter (“middle”) voice in such sentences as: The door opened. The
college was filling up.
The conception reminds us Poutsma's view. (39) He writes: "A passive meaning may also not seldom be
observed in verbs that have thrown off the reflexive pronoun and have, consequently, become intransitive. Thus, we
find it more or less distinctly in the verbs used in: Her eyes filled with tears ..."
We cannot but agree with arguments against these theories expressed by Khaimovich and
Rogovskaya: "These theories do not carry much conviction, because:
1) in cases like he washed himself it is not the verb that is reflexive but that pronoun
himself used as a direct object;
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2) washed and himself are words belonging to different lexemes. They have different
lexical and grammatical meanings;
3) if we regard washed himself as an analytical word, it is necessary to admit that the verb
has the categories of gender, person, non-person (washed himself-washed itself), that the
categories of number and person are expressed twice in the word-group washed himself;
4) similar objection can be raised against regarding washed each-other, washed one another
as analytical forms of the reciprocal voice. The difference between "each other" and "one another"
would become a grammatical category of the verb;
5) A number of verbs express the reflexive meanings without the corresponding pronouns: He always
washes in cold water. Kiss and be friends.
The grammatical categories of voice is formed by the opposition of covert and overt
morphemes. The active voice is formed by a zero marker: while the passive voice is formed by
(be-ed). So the active voice is the unmarked one and the passive-marked.
To ask- to be asked
The morpheme of the marked form we may call a discontinuous morpheme.
From the point of view of some grammarians O. Jespersen (33), O. Curme (26), G.
Vorontsova (11) verbs get / become + Participle II are passive constructions. Khaimovich and
Rogovskaya (22) seem to be right when they say that in such constructions get / become always
retain lexical meanings.
Different opinions are observed as to the P II.
G. V. Vorontsova (11), L. Barkhudarov and D. Steling (4) the combination be + PII in all cases treat as a
passive voice if PII is not adjectivized (if particles very, too and adverbs of degree more (most) do not precede PII
on the ground that PII first and foremost, a verb, the idea of state not being an evident to this structure but resulting
from the lexical meaning of the verb and the context it occurs in).
Khaimovich and Rogovskaya (22) arguing against this conception write that in such cases
as: His duty is fulfilled we deal with a link verb +PII since:
1) it does not convey the idea of action, but that of state, the result of an action:
2) The sentence correspond rather He has fulfilled his duty, as the perfective meaning of Participle II is
particularly prominent.
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