The predicate

Theoretical grammar

The course of theoretical grammar aims to provide students with a solid foundation in the description and analysis of the grammar system of English. Compare with practical grammar aim- to describe grammar rules that are neccessary to understand sentences.

Theoretical grammar consist of 2 parts: morphology and syntax. Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words.
Syntax has 2 definitions:
1) the study of principles and rules for constructing sentences and natural linguistics.

2) set of rules and principles that govern the sentences structure.

Basic notions and methodology of Theoretical Grammar

Language and speech — synthetic and analytic.

1) Language — a system of means of expression (the system of signs).

2) Speech — a manifestation of the system of language in the process of sociological intercourse(use of these signs).

Speech is individual, personal. Language is common for all individuals.

Grammatical Meaning — the abstract meaning of a word that depends on its role in a sentence; meaning of the whole class or a subclass of words.

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms.

Grammatical form — the sate(?) of grammatical form consist of paradigmatical of one and the same word.

Characteristics and junctions of language units

Phoneme — the smallest meaningless distinctive unit.

Morpheme — the smallest meaningless full unit with morphological junction.

Word — the smallest(basic) nominative unit, basic unit of lexical level.

Phrase — an aiming unit which nominates complex phenomena.

Sentence — the smallest communicative unit, basic unit of syntax which nominates situations or events in their reference to reality(expressive predication).

The parts of speech. Classification

All the words of the English language are grouped into different types of classes. This classification is based on three main principles:

1) their grammatical meaning; (we understand the meaning common to all the words of the class, such as thingness for the noun or either process or state for the verb.)

2) their form and (we mean the morphological characteristics of the class meant, such as the number of the noun or the voice of the verb.)

3) their syntactical characteristics. (the combinability and the syntactical functions of a type of word.)

There are notional and functional parts of speech: the former denoting extralinguistic phenomena such as things, actions, qualities, emotions and the latter - relations and connections between notional words or sentences. Thus there are 9 notional parts of speech and 3 functional ones.

The notional parts of speech are:	The functional parts of speech are:
the noun the adjective the stative the pronoun the numeral the verb the adverb the modal words the interjection	the preposition the conjunction the particle

The number of parts of speech varied from author to author.

Henry Sweet divided words into declinable and indeclinable.

To declinable he attributed noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral,

infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-

numeral, participle), verb (finite verb), verbals (infinitive, gerund, participle) and

to indeclinable (particles), adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Henry

Sweet speaks of three principles of classification: form, meaning, and function.

Otto Jespersen also speaks of three principles of classification: “In my opinion everything should be kept in view, form, function and meaning...” Jesperson’s classification consisted of 5 parts of speech: 1)the noun 2)pronoun, including pronominal adverbs and numerals (who, which, where, when, why), 3)verbs (including verbids or verbals: inf, ger, part); 4)adjective; 5)particles- particles proper (just, too, enough, only, yet), prepositions, conjuctions.

The noun. Grammatical categories

The noun is a part of speech that denotes thingness in the general sentence.

Nouns divided on: proper and common(countable and uncountable)
collective – animate or inanimate

According to their morphological composition nouns can be:

-simple(consist of only root morpheme)

-derived(are composed of one root morpheme)

-compound (consists of at least 2 stems: bluebell, big pocket, seamen)

The distinction of gender may correspond to the lexical meaning of noun (man, boy, girl, woman)

The distinction may be also expressed by:
1) feminine suffixes: -ess, -ien, -ette.

2) compound of different patterns(he-cat, she-wolf, male-frog)

3) Moon and Earth are referred to as feminine, the Sun is masculine.

4) The names of the vessels(ship, loaf, steamer, yacht) are referred to be feminine.

The category of number:

1) –s(es)

2) don’t change — sheep, deer, swine.

3)exceptions — man-men, mouse-mice, ox-oxen.

4)only in singular — news, money, advice, progress.

5)only in plural — scissors, spectacles, pijamas, clothes.

There are 2 cases in English: the common case and the genitive case(possessive case).

The Verb. Grammatical categories

The Verb is a part of speech with grammatical meaning of process, action. Verb performs the central role of the predicative function of the sentence.
Verb can be of a:

1) Finite-set – He lives in London. She is working in the garden. Close the door, please.
2) Non-finite set — 1)Infinitive: I’ve come to speak to you. 2) Participle: The book lying on the table is her. 3) Gerund: We discussed methods of teaching languages.

According to the semantic structure verbs can be:
Notional — have a full lexical meaning.(the majority) I wash the dishes every day.

Semi notional — have general faded lexical meanings
1) auxiliary – perform purely grammatical function: to be, to have, to do, shall, will.
2) modal – express relational meaning such as the ability, necessity etc.

3) link – introducing predicative which is expressed by a noun adjective, phrase.

Actional — (dynamic) to run, to walk, to eat, to touch, to say.

Statal — denotes something that is impossible to see.
-abstract: to be, to want, to need, to exist.

-of possession: to own, to belong, to posses

-perception: to like, to love, to fear, to hate, to mind, to dislike.

The Adjective. Degree of comparison

According to their way of nomination adjectives fall into 2 groups: qualitative and relative.

Qualitative adj-s denote properties of a substance directly (ex. grey, beautiful etc.)

Relative adj-s describe properties of a substance through relation to materials (wood), to place (northern, Indian), to time (daily, monthly), to some action (defensive), to relationship (friendly).

Some adj-s are used only as predicates (ex. he is well again) and some as attributes (a top boy) and can’t be substituted by each other (“the boy is top” instead of “a top boy”)

Morphological composition
Adj-s divided into: -simple(kind, big, small) –full, -less, -some.

-derived(picturesque, glamorous) –able, -al, -ire, -ous, -lik.

-compound(grassgreen, well-known, long-legged, blue-eyed)

The grammatical category of adj-s is the degree of comparison: Positive, comparative, superlative.

Simple way: -er / the –est (easier, the easiest)

Complex way: more / the most. Far-farther/further

Exceptions: good-better-the best old-older/elder

Bad-worse-the worst much/many-more-the most

Little-less-the least

The Numeral

The numeral denotes an abstract number or the order of things in succession. The numbers fall into 2 groups:
1) Cardinal numbers(one, two)

2) Ordinal numbers(the first, the third)

Among the cardinal numerals there are:

Simple — from 1 to 12; 100; 1000; million.

Derived — from 13 to 19; dozens.

Compound — from 21 to 29; 31-39 and over 100; 101; 124-…

Among the cardinal numerals there are also:
Simple — 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd
Derived — 4^th, 10^th, 6^th.

Compound — 21^st, 42^nd, 67^th.

Numerals don’t undergo any morphological changes, that is they don’t have morphological category.

10, 100, 100 don’t have plural form. But: you can see thousands of stars.

Numerals combine mostly with nouns and function as their attributes, usually as premodifying attribute.

If noun have several attributes, the numeral come first. Ex. Three tiny little leaves.

Pronoun

Pronouns are deictic words which point to objects, their properties and relations, their local or temporal reference, or placement without naming them.

Pronouns may be of different structure: simple, compound, and composite.

Simple pronouns comprise only one morpheme - the stem:

I, you, he, we, etc.; this, that, some, who, all, one, etc.

Compound pronouns comprise more than one stem:

myself, themselves, somebody, everybody, anything, nothing, etc.

Composite pronouns havethe form of a phrase:

each other, one another.

Types of pronouns	The list of pronouns
Personal pronouns are noun-pronouns, indicating persons (I, you, he, we, they) or non-persons (it, they) from the point of view of their relations to the speaker.	The common case: I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The objective case: me, you, him, her, it, us, them.
The impersonal pronoun it functions as a purely structural element.	It was raining;It was cold that day;It’s spring already.
Possessive pronounsindicate possession by persons (my, mine, your, yours, their, theirs) or non-persons (its, their, theirs).	Conjoint forms: my, your, his, her, its, our, their. Absolute forms: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.
Reflexive pronouns indicate identity between the person or non-person they denote and that denoted by the subject of the sentence.	myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
Demonstrative pronouns point to persons or non-persons or their properties	this, that, these, those, such, same.
Indefinite pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or else their properties in a general way without defining the class of objects they belong to, class or properties they possess	some, something, somebody, someone; any, anything, anybody, anyone.
Negative pronouns as the term implies render the general meaning of the sentence negative.	no, nothing, nobody, no one, none, neither.
Universal pronouns indicate all objects (persons and non-persons) as one whole or any representative of the group separately.	all, each, both, either, every, everything, everybody, everyone.
Detaching pronounsindicate the detachment of some object from other objects of the same class.	other, another.
Reciprocal pronouns indicate a mutual relationship between two or more than two persons, or occasionally non-persons who are at the same time the doer and the object of the same action.	each other, one another.
Interrogative pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or tlieir properties as unknown to the speaker and requiring to be named in the answer.	who, what, which, whose, whoever, whatever, whichever.
Conjunctive pronouns are identical with the interrogative pronouns as to their morphological, referential and syntactical characteristics.	who, what, which, whose, whoever, whatever, whichever.
Relative pronouns refer to persons and non-persons and open attributive clauses which modify words denoting these persons or non-persons.	who, whose, which, that.

The Stative

The stative denotes a temporary state of a person or non-person. Unlike such classes of words as nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs the number of statives functioning in English is limited. There are about 30 stable statives used in both colloquial and formal style(ashamed, alike, alive, ahead, asleep, awake, aware, afraid, alone, etc.)

Morphological characteristics

From the point of view of their morphological composition thhe class of statives is homogeneous that is all of them have a special marker, The prefix –a: a lone, a sleep, a shamed, etc.

Syntactic function

Statives may have 3 functions in a sentence, that of predicative, objective predicative or occasionally that of attribute. Ex. “He was terribly afraid of his father”. “Soon she fell fast asleep.”

When used as detached attributes statives may be either past- or pre-modifying.

Modal

Modal words express the speaker’'s attitude to what his utterance denotes. The speaker’s judgement may be of different kinds, that is, the speaker may express various modal meanings. Modal words are an invariable part of speech.

They may refer to a word, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence. Their syntactical function is that of a parenthesis, they may also be a sentence in themselves, in which case they are used to answer a general question: Will you help me? Certainly. Precisely this.Except this man, of course.

Semantically modal words fall into three groups, denoting:

1. Certainty/doubt (certainly, of course, indeed, surely, decidedly, really, definitely, naturally, no doubt) Of course, it would have been different if they had married.

2. Estimate proper (good/bad) – (luckily, fortunately, happily, unfortunately, unluckily, etc.). Fortunately there were few people at the morning surgery.

3. Supposition (perhaps, maybe, probably, obviously, possibly, evidently, apparently, etc.). Manson’s nature was extraordinarily intense. Probably he derived this from his mother.

The Conjunction

A conjunction is a function word indicating the connection between two notional words, phrases, clauses or sentences.

According to their morphological structure conjunctions fall into:
-simple (and, or, but, till, after, that, so, where, when)

-derived (until, unless, seeing, supposing, provided)

-compound (whereas, wherever)

Several conjunctions form correlative parts: both … and, either…or, neither…nor, not only…but, whether…or.

According to their meaning all conjunctions fall into two types: coordinating and subordinating.

Coordinating conjunctions connect homogeneous parts of simple sentence(words,phrases). Coordinating conjunctions always stand between the elements they join.

Subordinating conjunctions join subordinate clauses to main clauses, although some of them may join a word or phrase within a simple sentence.

Conjunctions, introducing adverbial clauses:

-conjunctions of place: where, wherever, whence, wherein.

-time: as, as soon as, when, whenever, while.

-reason of clause: as, because, since, so… what.

-condition: if, unless, in case, provided.

-purpose: that, in order that, so that.

-consequence: that, so that.

-manner and comparison: as, the way, as … as, not so… as.

-concession: though, although as, that, even if.

The Interjection

The interjection is a part of speech which expresses emotions without naming them. They are invariable, whereas the emotions expressed by interjection vary.

Joy — hurrah!

Grief, sorrow — allas, dear me.

Approval — bravo; hear, hear.

Triumph — aha

Anger — damn

Some interjections are used merely to attract attention:

Hallo, what’s happening now?

Hey! Is anybody here?

Oh dear!

Bother! I’ve missed my train!

The meaning of other interjections are vague, they express emotions in general; the specific meaning depends either on the context, or the situation, or tone with which they are pronounced. Ex. Oh! Can express surprise, joy, appointment, anger.

As a rule, interjection do not make part of a phrase, but there some cases, when interjections may be connected with a preposition plus a noun: “Alas for my hopes!” “We’ve done it. Hurrah for us!”

The Sentence

Anything that said in the act of communication is called an utterance. Most utterances are sentences, although there are some which are not sentences are called non-sentences utterances.

All utterances:

- sentences(regarded from the point of view of: their structure and communicative value.

- non-sentence utterances.
Structural classification of sentences:

From the point of view of their structure, sentences can be:

1. Simple or composite (compound and complex).

2. Complete or incomplete (elliptical).

3. Two-member (double-nucleus) or one-member (single-nucleus).

Complete and incomplete (or elliptical) sentences are distinguished by the presence or absence of word-forms in the principal positions of two-member sentences.

In a complete sentence both the principal positions are filled with word-forms.

When did you arrive?

I came straight here.

In an incomplete (elliptical) sentence one or both of the main positions are not filled, but can be easily supplied as it is clear from the context what is missing.

Cheerful, aren’t you?

Ready?

Wrong again.

The simple one- and two-member sentences

Two-member sentences

The basic pattern of a simple sentence in English is one subject-predicate unit, that is, it has two main (principal) positions: those of the subject and of the predicate. It is the pattern of a two-member sentence. There are several variations of this basic pattern, depending mainly on the kind of verb occupying the predicate position. The verb in the predicate position may be intransitive, transitive, ditransitive or a link verb.

Here are the main variants of the fundamental (basic) pattern:

John ran.

John is a student.

John is clever.

One-member sentences

One-member sentences in English are of two types: nominal sentences and verbal sentences.

Nominal sentences are those in which the principal part is expressed by a noun. They state the existence of the things expressed by them. They are typical of descriptions.

Nominal sentences may be:

a) unextended.

Silence. Summer. Midnight.

b) e x t e n d e d.

Dusk - of a summer night.

The grass, this good, soft, lush grass.

English spring flowers!

Verbal sentences are those in which the principal part is expressed by a non-finite form of the verb, either an infinitive or a gerund. Infinitive and gerundial one-member sentences are mostly used to describe different emotional perceptions of reality.

To think of that!

To think that he should have met her again in this way!

Living at the mercy of a woman!

Comunicative types of sentences

The sentence is a minimal unit of communication. From the viewpoint of their role in the process of communication sentences are divided into four types, grammatically marked: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory sentences. These types differ in the aim of communication and express statements, questions, commands and exclamations respectively.

- A declarative sentence contains a statement which gives the reader or the listener some information about various events, activities or attitudes, thoughts and feelings. Statements form the bulk of monological speech, and the greater part of conversation. A statement may be positive (affirmative) or negative, as in: I have just come back from a business trip. I haven’t seen my sister yet.

- Interrogative sentences contain questions. Their communicative function consists in asking for information.

- Imperative sentences express commands which convey the desire of the speaker to make someone, generally the listener, perform an action. Stand up! Sit down. Open your textbooks. Be quick!

- Exclamatory sentences. The main distinctive feature of this communicative type of sentence is a specific intonation; structurally it is variable. You do look a picture of health! (statement) Hurry up! (command)

Parts of the sentences

Almost every sentence can be divided into certain components which are called parts of the sentence. Parts of the sentence are usually classified into main and secondary. The main parts of the sentence are the subject and the prediсate. The secondary parts of the sentence are the object, the attribute, the apposition and the adverbial modifier. The secondary parts of the sentence modify the main parts or each other.

Besides these two kinds of sentence components there are so-called independent elements, that is, elements standing outside the structure of the sentence, and therefore of lesser importance. The independent elements are parenthesis and direct address.

Any part of the sentence may be expressed in four ways, that is, by a single word-form or a word-form preceded by a formal word, by a phrase, by a predicative complex, or by a clause.

The subject

The subject is one of the two main parts of the, sentence. The most important feature of the subject in English is that in declarative sentences it normally comes immediately before the predicate, whereas in questions its position is immediately after an operator.

The subject is expressed by:

1. A noun in the common case or a nominal phrase with a noun. (Four and three is seven.)

2. A personal pronoun in the nominative case. (She is very beautiful.)

3. Any other noun-pronoun. (Who told you this?)

4. A numeral or a nominal phrase with a numeral. (Seven cannot be divided by two.)

5. An infinitive or an infinitive phrase. (To understand is to forgive.)

6. A gerund or a gerundial phrase. (Working for someone keeps a woman calm and contented.)

7. An infinitive or a gerundial predicative complex. (His walking out of the room in the very middle of the argument was quite unexpected.)

8. Any word or words used as quotations. (“And” is a conjunction.)

9. A clause, which makes the whole sentence a complex one. (What girls of her sort want is just a wedding ring.)

From the point of view of its grammatical value the subject may be either notional or formal. The notional subject denotes or points out a person or a non-person. The formal subject neither denotes nor points out any person or non-person and is only a structural element of the sentence filling the position of the subject. In English there are two such position-fillers: it and there.

The predicate

The predicate is the second main part of the sentence and its organizing centre. The predicate may denote an action, a state, a quality, or an attitude to some action or state ascribed to the subject.

From the structural point of view there are two main types of predicate: the simple predicate and the compound predicate. Both these types may be either nominal or verbal, which gives four sub-groups: - simple verbal,

-simple nominal ( The simple nominal predicate is expressed by a noun, or an adjective, or a verbal, ft does not contain a link verb)

-compound verbal ( The compound predicate consists of two parts: the notional and the structural. The structural part comes first and is followed by the notional part.)

- compound nominal. Compound verbal predicates may be further classified into phasal, modal and of double orientation. Compound nominal predicates may be classified into nominal proper and double nominal.

The Object

The object is a secondary part of the sentence referring to some other part of the sentence and expressed by a verb, an adjective, a stative or, very seldom, an adverb completing, specifying, or restricting its meaning.

She has bought a car. I’m glad to see you. She was afraid of the dog. He did it unexpectedly to himself.

The object can be expressed by:

1. A noun in the common case or a nominal phrase, a substantivized adjective or participle.

I saw the boys two hours ago. The nurses were clad in grey.

2. A noun-pronoun. Personal pronouns are in the objective case, other pronouns are in the common case, or in the only form they have.

I don’t know anybody here. I could not find my own car, but I saw hers round the corner.

3. A numeral or a phrase with a numeral.

At last he found three of them high up in the hills.

4. A gerund or a gerundial phrase.

He insists on coming. A man hates being run after.

5. An infinitive or an infinitive phrase.

She was glad to be walking with him. Every day I had to learn how to spell pages of words.

6. Various predicative complexes.

She felt the child trembling all over. I want it done at once.

7. A clause (then called an object clause) which makes the whole sentence a complex one.

I don’t know what it was. He thought of what he was to say to all of them.

From the point of view of their value and grammatical peculiarities, four types of objects can be distinguished in English:

- the direct object (is a non-prepositional one that follows transitive verbs, adjectives, or statives and completes their meaning.) I wrote a poem. You like arguing, don’t you?Who saw him leave?

- the indirect object (also follows verbs, adjectives and statives.) He gave the kid two dollars. One must always hope for the best.

- and the cognate object. (is a non-prepositional object which is attached to otherwise intransitive verbs and is always expressed by nouns derived from, or semantically related to, the root of the governing verb.) The child smiled the smile and laughed the laugh of contentment. They struck him a heavy blow.

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