- •Morphology and syntax as parts of grammar. Grammatical units.
- •Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of words
- •Main grammatical notions.
- •Method of opposition. Types of oppositional reduction.
- •Structure of words. Types of morphemes.
- •Means of form-building in English.
- •Parts of speech. Principles of classification.
- •H.Sweet’s classification of words into parts of speech.
- •Notional and functional classes of words.
- •General characteristics of the noun as a part of speech.
- •Ch.Frie’s syntactico-distributional classification of words.
- •The number category of the noun.
- •The theory of positional cases.
- •16.The theory of the possessive postposition.
- •17. Semantic subtypes of the genetive case.
- •18.The noun. Gender
- •19.The article. General Characteristics.
- •20. Different approaches to the number and meaning of the article.
- •21. General characteristics of the verb as a part of speech.
- •22. Categories expression time in English.
- •23. The aspect cateory. Different views on the number and kinds of aspects in Enlish.
- •24. The voice category. General characteristics.
- •25. Different views on the number and kinds of voices in English.
- •26. Peculiarities of passive constructions in English.
- •28. Means of expressing modality in English.
- •29. The cateory of mood. The Imperetive mood.
- •30. The Subjunctive mood.
- •31. Verbals. The Infinitive
- •32. The Participle.
- •33. The Gerund.
- •34. General characteristics of the adjective as a part of speech.
- •35. The degree category of the adjective.
- •36. The adverb. General characteristics.
- •37. The degree category of the adverb.
- •38.The Adlink. General characteristics.
- •39. The preposition.
- •40. The conjunction.
- •41. The phrase. General characteristics.
- •42. Principles of classification of phrases and types of relations between its constituents.
- •43. Ways of expressing syntactical relations between components of a phrase.
- •44. The sentence as a main unit of syntax.
- •45. Predicativity. Predication.
- •48. Syntactic categories. Sentence paradigm.
Main grammatical notions.
The basic notions of grammar are the grammatical meaning, the grammatical form and the grammatical category.
The grammatical meaning is a general, abstract meaning which embraces classes of words (ox – oxen, bush – bushes).It depends on the lexical meaning and is connected with objective reality indirectly, through the lexical meaning.The grammatical meaning is relative, it is revealed in relations of word forms: put – puts.
The grammatical meaning is obligatory. The grammatical meaning must be expressed if the speaker wants to be understood.The grammatical meaning must have a grammatical form of expression (inflexions, analytical forms, word-order, etc.). Compare the word-forms reads, is writing. Both forms denote process, but only the second form expresses it grammatically.
Grammatical elements are unities of meaning and form, content and expression. In the language system there is no direct correspondence of meaning and form. Two or more units of the plane of content (meaning) may correspond to one unit of the plane of expression (polysemy, homonymy) – bushes, speaks, man’s; oxen, spoken. Two or more units of the plane of expression (form) may correspond to one unit of the plane of content (synonymy) – books, buses, children, feet, criteria, data, nuclei.
The unity of the general meaning and its particular manifestations, which is revealed through the opposition of forms, is a grammatical category. There may be different definitions of the category laying stress either on its notional or formal aspect. But the category exists only if there is an opposition of at least two forms.
Grammatical categories reflect phenomena of objective reality. Thus the category of number in nouns reflects the essential properties of noun-referents. Such categories may be called notional, or referential. Other categories reflect peculiarities of the grammatical structure of the language (number in verbs). Such categories may be called formal, or relational.
As grammatical categories reflect relations existing in objective reality, different languages may have the same categories. But the system and character of grammatical categories are determined by the grammatical structure of a given language.
Method of opposition. Types of oppositional reduction.
In the system of language grammatical elements are connected on the basis of similarity and contrast.
Partially similar elements, i.e. elements having common and distinctive features, constitute oppositions.
The unity of the general meaning and its particular manifestations, which is revealed through the opposition of forms, is a grammatical category. Gr. cat: gender, number, person, case, tense, mood. voice. the category exists only if there is an opposition of at least two forms. If there is one form, there is no category.
The minimal (two-member) opposition is called binary.
Main types:
1) Privative. One member has a certain distinctive feature. This member is called marked, or strong (+). The other member is weak (-):
speak – speaks +
2) Equipollent. Both members of the opposition are marked:
am+ - is+
3) Gradual. Members of the opposition differ by the degree of certain property:
good – better – best
Most grammatical oppositions are privative
In certain contexts the difference between members of the opposition is lost, the opposition is reduced to one member. Usually the weak member acquires the meaning of the strong member: The train starts at 8 p.m. tomorrow. This kind of oppositional reduction is called neutralization.
On the other hand, the strong member may be used in the context typical for the weak member. This use is stylistically marked: He is always complaining. This kind of reduction is called transposition.