Grammatika_sovremennogo_angliyskogo_y

e.g. He made a living as best he could.

h) at (the) best — ,

e.g. She cannot get away from her home for long. At (the) best she can stay with us for two days.

Substantivization in Adjectives

§ 6. Sometimes adjectives become substantivized. In this case they function as nouns in the sentence and are always preceded by the definite article.

Substantivized adjectives may be of two kinds:

1) They may refer to a class of persons considered in a general sense. Such adjectives are plural in meaning and take a plural verb.

e.g. The old (= old people) receive pensions. To this group belong the following adjectives;

a) some adjectives describing human condition or character, e.g. the blind, the brave, the dead, the deaf, the disabled, the elderly, the homeless, the injured, the living, the old, the poor, the rich, the sick, the unemployed, the wealthy, the wounded, the young, etc.

e.g. The young are always romantic, aren't they? The blind are taught trades in special schools,

b) some adjectives denoting nationalities and ending in -{i)sh

(e.g. British, Danish, English, Irish, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh), in -ch (e.g. Dutch, French) and in -ese (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese) and the adjective Swiss.

e.g. The English (== English people) are great lovers of tea.

The Japanese (=Japanese people) have achieved wonderful results in electronics.

If we wish to indicate a single person or a number of persons, we must add a noun.

e.g. The old man receives a pension. The young men are fishing.

The Englishman could not understand a word of French.

There were a few English people among the passengers. 2) They may refer to abstract notions. Then they are singular

and take a singular verb.

e.g. The good in him overweighs the bad. He ventured into the unknown.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

Syntactic Functions of Adjectives

§ 7. Adjectives may serve in the sentence as:

1) an attribute,

e.g. She had pleasant blue eyes and very long fair hair which she wore in neat plaits round her head.

Adjectives used attributively usually precede the noun immediately. Generally there is no pause between the adjective and the noun. Such attributes are called close attributes (see the examples

6) an adverbial modifier,

e.g. When ripe, the apples are sweet.

Whether right or wrong, the man ought to be treated fairlyIf possible, the child should be given the medicine three times a day.

As is seen from the above examples, adjectives used adverbially are all introduced by conjunctions. The phrases which the adjectives are parts of can be treated as elliptical adverbial

clauses.

e.g. When (it is) necessary, he can be taken to the doctor.

§ 8. Adjectives in the predicative function often require an object to complete their meaning. Objects to predicative adjectives can be expressed by nouns with prepositions (a), by infinitives (b), by ing-forms with or without a preposition (c) or by object clauses

e.g. a) I was not aware of his presence.

We were all very interested in the result of the experiment.

b)He was quick to understand what I meant. They were happy to hear the news.

c)She is busy packing-

Basil was little used to being heard with respect and was resentful at being reproached with his own words.

d)I was anxious that they should not miss the train. He was glad that I was going on a holiday.

2)Adjectives are often used to build up exclamatory sentences in which an adjective preceded by how is placed at the head of the

sentence.

e.g. How charming your daughter is! How warm it is today!

Place of Adjectives in Attributive Phrases

§ 9. Adjectives used as close attributes precede the noun they

e.g. Nick could beat his father so badly at tennis that only parental affection reconciled the older player to the poor show he put up.

Sometimes adjectives are found in post-position to the word they modify. It occurs in the following cases:

1) if an adjective modifies an indefinite pronoun, e.g. Anyone intelligent can do it.

I'll tell you something wonderful.

2)in some set phrases, e.g. the president elect (=soon to take office), the examination board proper (=as strictly defined), court martial, attorney general, heir apparent, and the like.

3)if an attribute is expressed by the adjectives absent, present,

concerned and involved,

e.g. The men present were all his friends.

The people involved were asked to come at ten o'clock. Post-position is possible if an attribute has a modifier following it.

them. Pronouns can be divided into the following classes:

5) demonstrative pronouns,

Perso nal Pronouns

§ 2. We find the following personal pronouns in English:

I and we are said to be the pronouns of the 1st person, i.e. a person (or persons) who speaks (speak). You is said to be the pronoun of the 2nd person, i.e. a person (persons) spoken to. He, she, it and they are said to be the pronouns of the 3d person, i.e. a person (persons) or a thing (things) spoken about.

We distinguish singular and plural personal pronouns. Singular personal pronouns refer to one person or thing and plural personal pronouns refer to more than one person or thing. The pronouns I, we, you, he and she are mainly used for persons. I, we and you are indifferent to gender, while he is masculine and she is feminine. The pronoun it is used for animals, concrete things and abstract notions, i.e. it refers to neuter nouns. The pronoun they is used for persons, animals and things and is indifferent to gender.

§ 3. In addition to the above structural meanings of the personal pronouns, they have a few other special applications.

It is a tradition to use we instead of I in newspaper articles, scientific prose, etc. This so-called editorial we is believed to sound less assertive and, hence, more modest than I.

, e.g. We are convinced that the Government has made a grave mistake in imposing tills tax.

She is sometimes used for inanimate objects, especially ships, ; motor cars, aircraft, etc.

e.g. Come along and have a look at my new car. She is a beauty. She is also used for countries, and even cities, especially in rather formal and rhetoric speech.

e.g. France has made it plain that she will regret the proposal.

You may be used with reference to nobody in particular, to any person who might find himself in a similar position.

e.g. You don't know him. He is dishonest. You feel that he is lying to you every moment of the day.

"Have you been aboard Mrs Wilcox's yacht? What do people do aboard yachts?" "I don't know. You drink, I suppose," Gregory said, shrugging his shoulders.

In my youth during Christmas holidays I loved to visit my classmates who all lived in small provincial towns. Once

you got into them, each anonymous house held a promise of fun. You didn't know who lived in them, but maybe in

Yet the pronoun it may be used to identify an unknown person. Then, once it has been done, he or she must be used.

e.g. There was a knock at the door. I thought it was the postman. He usually came at that time.

When the waiter came up to his table he did not at once realize it was Paul. He was as handsome as ever.

It may also refer to an idea expressed in a preceding wordgroup (a), clause (b), sentence (c) or even context (d).

e.g. a) He tried to break the lock. It was not easy either.

There was some mutual hesitation about shaking hands, with both deciding against it.

b)He knew that his father was dying but he did not want to speak with anyone about it.

c)The music had stopped. He didn't notice it.

d)He studied her, then shook his head. He waited a moment and then decided not to say what he might have been going to say. He swallowed half his whiskey before going

on, and when he did, he returned to the conventional questions. She had watched him do it all without any interest.

It is very often used as a formal subject in impersonal statements about weather conditions, time, distance and all kinds of measurements.

e.g. It is raining heavily.

It was very cold in the room. It is half past three now.

It is six miles to the nearest hospital from here. It is three feet deep here.

It as the formal subject is also found in sentences in which the predicate is modified by an infinitive phrase (a), or an ing-iorm phrase (b), or a clause (c). We usually find nominal predicates in this kind of sentences:

e.g. a) It is stupid to fall asleep like that. It is a pleasure to see you again.

b)It won't be easy finding our way home.

It's no use hoping he'll ever change his mind.

c)It was clear that he was going to give in.

It was a surprise that he had come back so soon.

The formal it may be used not only as the subject of the sentence but also as an object followed by an adjective or a noun which is modified by an infinitive phrase, an ing-iorm phrase or a clause.

e.g. I found it difficult to explain to him what had happened. He thought it no use going over the subject again.

He thought it odd that they had left him no message.

The pronoun it is also used in the so-called emphatic construction, i.e. a special sentence pattern that serves to emphasize some word or phrase in the sentence,

e.g. It was my question that made him angry.

It was on the terrace that he wanted them to lay the table. Finally, the pronoun it is rather often used in various idi-

e.g. Yours sincerely (truly, faithfully). J. Smith

Sometimes we find absolute forms of possessive pronouns preceded by the preposition of. This combination is called a double genitive.

e.g. He is a friend of mine.

It happened through no fault of his.

We had a slight accident and, luckily, that neighbour of yours came along or we would still be there.

Reflexive Pronouns

§ 8. The reflexive pronouns are formed by adding -self (in the plural selves) to the possessive pronouns in the 1st and 2nd persons and to the objective case of the personal pronouns in the 3d person.

There is one more reflexive pronoun which is formed from the indefinite pronoun one — oneself.

These pronouns are used as noun pronouns in the sentence. They are called reflexive pronouns because they show that the action performed by the person which is indicated by the subject of the sentence passes back again to the same person. In other words, the subject of the sentence and its object indicate the same person. In this case the reflexive pronouns are weakly stressed.

e.g. He wrapped himself in his blanket and fell off to sleep. She cooked herself a big meal.

I'm sure you both remember the day when you talked about yourselves and the past.

As is seen from the above examples, the reflexive pronouns may serve in the sentence as different kinds of objects — direct, indirect and prepositional.

Note 1. Note the following sentences where personal pronouns are preferred to reflexive pronouns.

e.g. He went in, closing the door behind him. She put the thought from her.

He looked about him.

Note 2. Note that both personal and reflexive pronouns are found in sentences expressing comparison.

e.g. My brother is as tall as myself (me).

No one realizes it better than yourself (you).

§ 9. Reflexive pronouns may also be used in a different way: together with the verb they may form set phrases characterized by idiomatic meaning. The reflexive meaning of the self-pronoun weakened in this case. The meaning of the verb differs from the

meaning of the same verb when it is followed by an object exessed by a noun or an indefinite pronoun.