9. Determinatives. Types. Semantics and Pragmatics.

Determinative is a category of words (like Noun or Preposition), distinct (but not disjoint) from Adjective, containing about 35 basic items plus all the numerals.

English has only a small number of standard modern English determinatives. The items marked with an asterisk also exist as members of other categories. For example, little is usually an adjective, and the numerals are also nouns.

Combinations every/some/any/no + body/one/thing/where (e.g., everybody) are compound determinatives, not pronouns.

Determinatives often (but not always) serve as Determiner.

A Grammar of Spoken English (Harold Palmer and F. G. Blandford, 1939) cites some criteria for distinguishing adjectives from a class of determinatives from the class of adjectives:

(a) Determinatives cannot be used predicatively.

All residents objected=*The residents were all.

(b) Determinatives only rarely express grade (comparison).

Those who succeeded were more motivated than the others. *Those who succeeded were more most than the others.

(c) Determinatives only rarely take modifiers, and in particular do not take intensifying modifiers.

[Very alert] residents objected. *[Very all] residents objected.

10. The verb. Derivational and semantic characteristics. Categories of the verb.

Verb is a part of speech expressing a process.

There are different types of process: 1. Active (Mary is running) 2. Happening (He is dying) 3. Verbal process (He told me the truth) 4. Mental state (The student didn’t know the answer). 5. Existence state (There is a cat in the house).

The verb has finite and non-finite forms, the latter being also called verbals. The verbals, unlike the finite forms of the verb, do not express person, number or mood. Therefore they cannot be used as the predicate of a sentence.

Like the finite forms of the verb the verbals have tense and voice distinctions, but their tense distinctions differ greatly from those of the finite verb. There are three verbals in English: the participle, the gerund and the infinitive.

Classification of the verbs:

1) Terminative (based on their aspect meaning). Terminative verbs imply a limit beyond which the action can’t continue. They have a final aim (to break, to reject, to close, to realize, to bring)

Terminative: punctual (arrive), non-punctual (push, pull, boil)

2) Non-terminative – an action can go on indefinitely. They don’t imply a limit. (sleep, live, sit, speak).

Non-terminative: stative and dynamic.

Stative: mental verbs (believe, know, understand); affective verb (hate, love); perceptive verbs (feel, smell, taste); relational (lack, have, be). Semantically, they present the result of a terminative process.

Dynamic express activity (walk, jump, read, play)

1. notional, functional. ( based on function and meaning)

Notional (have full lexical meaning)

Functional (perform grammatical function – auxiliary verbs; or express relational meaning – modal verbs (obligation, ability, possibility) or introduce a predicative – link-verbs expressed by a noun or adj.

2. Transitive/intransitive ( based on the ability to combine)

Transitive verbs require a direct object. Some verbs are always transitive (deny, distract), some are always intransitive (come, arrive); But many can be both (express dual membership).

I met him at the station – we met. / I live in Pyatigorsk. – I lived a good life.