VI. Be ready to do a test.

Seminar II

Main Notions of Grammar

THEORETICAL QUESTIONS

1. Main notions of grammar: grammatical meaning and grammatical form. The difference between lexical and grammatical meaning.
2. A word as a component of lexeme/grammeme. Means of word-building. Synthetic and analytical grammatical forms. Analytical forms as contradictory units.
3. Grammatical category. The paradigm. The method of binary oppositions as a method of revealing grammatical categories. Types of oppositions. Types of grammatical categories.
4. Oppositional reduction. Transposition and neutralization.

READING MATERIAL

1. Blokh M.Y. A Course in Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 2000. - P. 27 -37.

2. Ilyish B. The Structure of Modern English. - L., 1971. - P. 24 – 26.

3. Khaimovich B. S., Rogovskaya B. I. A Course in English Grammar. – M., 1967. – P. 15-16, 19-28.

4. Karapetova Y. The ABC of English Morphology. – B., 2002. – P. 45-48.

COMMENT ON THE FOLLOWING TERMS:

	grammatical category grammatical meaning grammatical form
	synthetic grammatical forms analytical grammatical forms sound interchange affixation suffixation suppletivity
	paradigm opposition privative opposition gradual opposition equipollent opposition binary opposition weak member strong member
	oppositional reduction (substitution) neutralization transposition

I. Define the type of the oppositions.

MODEL: play – played

these words make up a binary privative opposition
the strong member is “played”
its differential feature is the denotation of a past action
the marker of this categorical meaning is the grammatical suffix “-ed”

1. k – g

2. a: – ə – i:

3. write – is writing

4. I understand – I am understood

5. tooth – teeth, pincers – a pair of pincers

6. am – is – are

7. go – went

8. write – is written

9. strong – stronger – the strongest

II. Build up the oppositions of the categorical forms and define the types of oppositions:

efficient, have defined, information, more efficient, vessel, define, the most efficient, are defined, vessels, will define, bits of information, defined, less efficient

III. Define the means of form-building:

1. good – better

2. I – me

3. this – these

4. lose – lost

5. easy – easier

IV. A) Compare the word-groups “is coming”, “is asleep”. Can you prove that “is coming” is an analytical form and “is asleep” is not?

B) Choose from the list a) simple synthetic grammar forms;

B) analytical grammar forms.

Explain the difference between them.

will go, had been playing, tried, shall blame, notions, more trivial, trapped, has defined, agrees, translated, measures, the most ordinary, luckiest, changing, faster, more dangerous, plumber’s

V. Point out in the given situations the reduced grammatical forms, state the type of the oppositional reduction.

1. Did you ever see such a thing in your lives? (Coppard)

2. Her cousin is always losing his key.

3. You must remember that your son will be a what-you-call-him.

4. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. (O. Henry)

5. Man conquers nature.

VI. Be ready to do a test.

1. Grammatical meaning is the same …

a) with all grammatical forms

b) with all words having the same grammatical form

c) with all words beginning with the same prefix

2. Grammatical category is a unity of …

a) the root and some grammatical or lexico-grammatical affixes

b) words and their forms

c) grammatical meaning and grammatical form

3. The method employed to reveal a certain grammatical category is called …

a) the method of immediate constituents

b) the method of binary oppositions

c) the method of contextual analysis

4. A grammatical category … without constant formal markers.

a) can exist

b) can’t exist

c) always exists

5. The opposition within the category …

a) is obligatory though it is not always binary

b) is not obligatory

c) is not binary

2. The category of degrees of comparison in English is established by means of a/an … opposition.

a) privative

b) equipollent

c) gradual

3. Analytical grammatical forms consist of two elements:

a) the notional and the functional

b) the notional and the derivational

c) the auxiliary and full-meaning

4. A paradigm can embrace

a) simple synthetic and analytical forms

b) only simple forms

c) only analytical forms

5. Grammatical meaning is …

6. Grammatical form is …

7. The main synthetic means are …, sound alternation and ….

8. An oppositional reduction is …

9. A simple synthetic form is …

10. An analytical form is …

VII. You are a pupil of nursery/ primary/ secondary/further education school. You are very inquisitive. Ask your group mates some naive questions (their answers should be based on theoretical question your subgroup was speaking about).

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