Lexico-grammatical classes of words

THEORY OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR

TOPIC 1

MAIN NOTIONS AND UNITS OF GRAMMAR

I. Comment on the means of grammatical expression (morphological –

syntactical, synthetic – analytical):

Streets, followed, brought, most unusual, are discussing, the desk,

To work hard – hard work, It is a book – Is it a book?

II. Think of the grounds for the following phenomena to be grouped and

comment on them:

a) Speaks, trousers, pencils, linguistics, airs, Italians;

b) Spoke, wanted, was, cut, built;

c) Play, played, is playing, will play, has played, …;

d) Will come, was written, has done, is playing, is being asked, should have done;

e) Their, the students', of the students;

f) Majority, windows, many a deer, polysemantic, cattle.

III. Define the following oppositions:

a) state the category expressed;

b) state the particular grammatical meanings of the members of the opposition;

c) indicate markers of the marked member:

Man's – men's, men – men's, go – went, show – will show, we – us, good – better, that – those, will take – will be taking, had dictated – had been dictated, has passed -- had passed, underline – have underlined.

IV. Analyze the morphological structure of the words below:

Reproductiveness, irregularities, unexpectedly, dispensability,

pretendership, exclusive, temporarily.

V. Define the types of morpheme (grammatical – lexico-grammatical):

Workers, returned, unspoken, immovable, disagrees, goods, usefully, greater,

chatter, dinner, meeting, evening, carrying, sandy, disappear, wanted, naked.

VI. Identify the nature of – s morpheme. Group the words accordingly:

Takes, books, vitals, humans, spectacles, pants, speaks, fists, ashes, phonetics,

ethics, pens, odds, stops, Brussels, Alps, tidings, tanks, news, linguistics,

proceeds, blocks.

VII. State the meaning of the zero morphemes in the examples below:

A table – tables, (I) speak – speaks, young – younger – youngest, men – men's, play – played.

VIII. Define the means of form building:

Good – better, I – me, this – these, lose – lost, easy – easier, brings – has brought, play – played, pay – paid.

IX. Compare the word groups is coming, is afraid, will come, more beautiful, to my friend. Can they be treated as analytical forms?

TOPIC 2

LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS

I. Decide to what parts of speech the following words can be assigned. Pose arguments:

1. After the conversation he went back to the memory of the previous afternoon.

2. Ten years after, his famous experiment was performed.

3. His work began at eight and he went on working till midnight.

4. One of the things that surely darkened Clyde's mood was the fact that his sister ran away with an actor.

5. Come, now, that's just a get-out.

6. Well! You have never been here since.

II. Point out function and form words and identify them:

The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty but goodness. Too often, as we know, it gives rise to self-complacency. … There is no more merit in having read a thousand books than in having ploughed a thousand fields. … In each case it is special knowledge. The stockbroker has his knowledge too and so has the artisan. It is a silly prejudice of the intellectual that his is the only one that counts.

III. Identify the semantic relations expressed in the N's + N group:

Children's demand, children's education, children's toys, children's language, children's nursery, children's service, children's diet.

IV. Decide in which independent Genitives 's is a grammatical suffix and in which it is lexical-grammatical:

1. His pronunciation of the word was like a mixture of a small boy's and a Kensington hostess's.

2. At Lady Crayston's you are in the very hub of society.

3. I've been in Yorkshire for the last week at my brother-in-law's.

4. He stood for a moment in front of a butcher's.

5. Any narrative as histrionic as Frank's met a ready response in Larry.

V. Account for the use of the inanimate nouns in the Genitive Case:

1. Coconuts grew to the water's edge.

2. He was clearly always on youth's side against the absurdities of the

middle age.

3. We can no longer separate the body's functions from the mind's

quite so easily as we supposed.

4. There's a ghastly article of his in this evening's paper.

5. Jenny gained a rather false impression of the book's failure.

VI. Comment on the formation of the Plural forms:

Geese, children, oxen, sheep, series, data, crises, chrysanthemums,

antennae, brothers-in-law, merry-go-rounds.

VII. Comment upon the difference in the meanings of the underlined nouns:

1. This dog has a short tail. – I only dance with men in tails.

2. I always lose my way in big cities. – Peter has such strange ways.

3. His kindly bearing made him popular. – It is easy to lose one's bearings in London.

4. The tournament was an exciting spectacle. – I can't read without my spectacles.

5. I opened the door by force. – He spent two years in the forces.

6. He did not cry out, although he was in severe pain. – She took great pains over the translation.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14