Lecture monday

Grammatical classes of words. Principles of Grammatical Classification of Words

The problem of part of a speech is the problem, which causes a lot of controversies.

The term part of speech is a type of word differing from other types in some grammatical point or points. This term is universally accepted.

In modern linguistics parts of speech can be differentiated by:

1) a number of criteria

2) a single criterion

The polydifferential (“traditional”) classification of words is based on three criteria:

1) semantic

2) formal

3) functional

semantic criterion – generalized (categorical) meaning

formal criterion – all formal features

functional criterion – typical syntactic functions

It is very important to check if the word can be characterized by all three criteria when we want to understand what part of speech we deal with. Traditionally we distinguish between notional and functional words.

Notional: noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb.

Functional: article, preposition, conjunction, particle, modal word, interjection

Also, traditionally words are divided into these two categories on the following principle: some words denote things, actions, etc, while others denote connections and relations between words. However, these point of view is not absolutely correct, because formal words also express something extralinguistic. E.g., relations between things.

Examples:

1) The letter is on the table

2) The letter is in the table

The system of part of speech

PART OF SPEECH	SEMANTICAL	FORMAL	FUNCTIONAL
Adverb	Secondary property	The forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs	Adverbial modifier (обстоятельство)
Adjective	Categorical meaning of property	Invariable, some have form degrees of comparison (long, longer. longest).	Adjectives combine with nouns both preceding and (occasionally) following them (large room, times immemorial).
Pronoun	Some of them have categorical meaning of nouns, others of adjectives.	Different types. Some of them have the category of number (singular and plural), e.g. this, while others have no such category, e.g. somebody. Again, some pronouns have the category of case (he-him, somebody, - somebody’s), while other have none (something)	(a) combine with verbs (he speaks, find him), with a following noun (this room) (b) In the sentence, some pronouns may be the subject (he, what) or the object, while others are the attribute (my). Pronouns can be predicative.
Numerals	Numerals denote either number or place in a series.	Numerals are invariable	(a) As far as phrases go, both cardinal and ordinal numerals combine with a following noun (three rooms, third room); occasionally a numeral follows a noun (soldiers three, George the Third). (b) In a sentence, a numeral most usually is an attribute (three rooms, the third room), but in can also be subject, predicative, and object: Three of them came in time; “We Are Seven” (the title of a poem by Wordsworth); I found only four.

Adverb has the categorical meaning of the secondary property (i.e. the property of process or another property); the forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs, the specific derivative suffixes; the syntactic functions of various adverbial modifiers.

Adjective

1) Meaning – property.

2) Form. Invariable, some have form degrees of comparison (long, longer. longest).

3) Function. Adjectives combine with nouns both preceding and (occasionally) following them (large room, times immemorial).

a preceding adverb (very large)

a preceding verb (married young can be followed by the phrase “preposition + noun” (free from danger). an attribute (large room) or a predicative (is large), objective predicative (painted the door green).

Pronoun

Pronoun is a part of speech which attract some more attention, because some of them have categorical meaning of nouns, others of adjectives.

1) some pronouns share essential peculiarities of nouns (e.g. he), other of adjectives (e.g. Which). Pronouns point to the things and properties without naming them.

2) Form. Different types. Some of them have the category of number (singular and plural), e.g. this, while others have no such category, e.g. somebody. Again, some pronouns have the category of case (he-him, somebody, - somebody’s), while other have none (something)

3) Function. (a) combine with verbs (he speaks, find him), with a following noun (this room) (b) In the sentence, some pronouns may be the subject (he, what) or the object, while others are the attribute (my). Pronouns can be predicative.

Numerals

1) Numerals denote either number or place in a series.

2) Numerals are invariable

3) (a) As far as phrases go, both cardinal and ordinal numerals combine with a following noun (three rooms, third room); occasionally a numeral follows a noun (soldiers three, George the Third). (b) In a sentence, a numeral most usually is an attribute (three rooms, the third room), but in can also be subject, predicative, and object: Three of them came in time; “We Are Seven” (the title of a poem by Wordsworth); I found only four.

A Noun

Categorical meaning of “substance”

Categorical syntactic properties: usually subject

Grammatical categories of a noun: gender, number, case

Category of gender. The category of gender in English is expressed with the help of the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person. This category is widely disputed.

· Any grammatical category can be distinguished only on the basis on two oppositions:

1) form

2) meaning

e.g. boy – girl – only different meaning; cat-cats – meaning form or live-lived-living

Alongside of the grammatical (or lexico-grammatical) gender dinctinctions, English nouns can show the sex of their referents also lexically with the help of special lexical markers, e.g.: bull-calf I cow-calf, cock-sparrow, lion-lioness.

The category of number

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to its dingular form. The semantic difference of the oppositional members of the category of number in many linguistic works is treated traditionally: the meaning of the singular in interpreted as “one” and the meaning of the plural – as “many” (“more than one”).

BUT:

- three houses = three separate objects existing side by side

- three hours = continuous period of time measured by a certain agreed unit of duration

different meaning:

- waters (e.g. the waters of the Atlantic)

- snows (e.g. “A Daughter of the Snows”)

We can come to the conclusion that the category of number has different meanings, not only one (more that one)

Pluralia Tantum and Singularia Tantum

(Только множественное и только единственное)

- The nouns which have only a plural and no singular are usually termed “pluralia tantum” (which is the Latin for “PLURAL ONLY”)

- and those which have only a singular and no plural are termed “singularia tantum” (the Latin for “singular only”).

· Exceptions: -names of sciences (mathematics, physics, phonetics); names of diseases. Both of them are used in singular form in speech.

06/10/15 The third lecture

Verb

English verb performs a very important function – predication. Predication is the feature, which allows to refer the sentence to some point of time and reality. It is manifested with the help of verb grammatical categories.

The grammatical category of tense is a universally accepted category, as far as distinction between wrote, writes and will write only tense distinction

Tense is the verbal category which reflects the objective category of time and expresses on this background the relations between the time of the action and the time of the utterance.

The main divisions of objective time: past, present, and future. Some linguists express doubts about the existence of the future tense in the English language. They claim that “will” and “shall” are the characteristics of modality and there are no ways to express pure futurity. However, this reason is not convincing. The verb “will” can have this shade of meaning. There’s no any modality in sentences like that. For example, there is another factor, which proves that there is future: we can use other tenses to express it.

So the three main divisions of time are represented in the English verbal system by the three tenses. Each of them may appear in the common and in the continuous aspect. Thus we get six tense-aspect forms.

The verb: the perfect. Basic qualities of the perfect forms

Modern English perfect forms have been the subject of lengthy discussion. The difficulties:

1) this form contains the present of the verb have and is called present perfect

2) yet it denotes an action which no longer takes place, and it is (almost always) translated into Russian by the past tense, e.g. has written – написал, has arrived – приехал.

Three main trends should be mentioned:

· The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category

· The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category

· The category of perfect is neither one of tense, nor one of aspect but a specific category different from both

1) If we agree that perfect is a tense category then we will also agree that the present perfect is a union of two different tenses – this is clearly impossible

2) In English there are two aspects (continuous and non-continuous) Perfect forms clearly don’t have any opposition typical for aspect

Since the perfect is neither a tense nor an aspect, it is bound to be some special grammatical category, different both from tense and from aspect. It is natural to conclude that perfect tense is a special grammatical category.

àAspect refers to the manner, in which a verb’s action is distributed through time and space. On the other hand, tense points out the location of an event in the continuum of events. Not all languages have special inflections or special words to mark aspect.

We can divide between continuous and non-continuous aspects. The non-continuous aspect refers to a situation, which is prolonged over a low period of time or a situation that occurs frequently during an extended period of time. An example of non-continuous aspect in the past tense is the neighbor’s dog used to wake me up by barking every morning.

Continuous aspect which is a progressive aspect emphasizes that an action is in progress. It can also refer to the situation, when the action started in the past and still continues.

So, aspects forms in the English language are contrasted with each other on two oppositions:

1) meaning – progressive and non-progressive

2) form – verb <-> be+Ving

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