- •1.Subject of theoretical grammar.
- •3. The basic features of grammatical structure of modern English as an analytic language.
- •2. Analytic and synthetic word forms.
- •4. Морфемная структура слова morphemic structure of the word
- •5. Categorial structure of the word
- •6. Grammatical classes of words (parts of speech).
- •7. Non-traditional parts of speech (modal verbs, articles, particles).
- •2. The Preposition
- •3. The Conjunction
- •4. The Particle
- •5. The Interjection
- •6. The Modal Word
- •8. Notional and functional words.
- •9. The characteristic features of the noun
- •10. The gender subcategorization of English nouns
- •11. The number subcategorization of English nouns
- •12. The case subcategorization of English nouns.
- •13. The article-determination of the noun.
- •14. The characteristic features of the verb.
- •16. The properties of the finites in general.
- •15. Non-finite verbs (verbids)
- •17. The person and number subcategories.
- •18. The tense.
- •19. The aspect.
- •20. The voice.
- •21. The mood.
- •22. The adjective.
- •23. The adverb.
- •24. The utterance and syntactic connections in it
- •25. The sentence.
- •26. Actual division of the sentence.
- •27. Classification of sentences.
- •28. Parts of the sentence.
- •29. The constituent structure of the simple s(ic)._________
- •30. The paradigmatic structure of the s.S.
- •31. Composite sentence as a poly-predicative _______
- •32. Complex sentence.
- •33. Compound sentence.
- •34. Semi-complex
- •35. Semi-compound
- •36. Phrasing and super-phrasal unity.
3. The Conjunction
Semantic features
Every conjunction has its own meaning, expressing some connection or
other existing between phenomena in extralinguistic reality.
When discussing prepositions, we noted that in a certain number of cases the
use of a given preposition is predicted by the preceding word: thus the verb depend
can only be followed by the preposition on (or upon), the adjective characteristic
only by the preposition of, etc. In such cases the preposition has no meaning of its
own. Conjunctions in this respect are entirely different. Their meaning is
independent of preceding words.
Syntactic features
Two levels are distinguished — that of phrases and that of sentences.
On the phrase level it must be said that conjunctions connect words and
phrases. It is the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions that are found here, and only
very rarely subordinating ones.
On the sentence level it must be said that conjunctions connect clauses (of
different kinds). Here we find both so-called co-ordinating and so-called
subordinating conjunctions.
In comparing prepositions with co-ordinating and subordinating
conjunctions we cannot fail to notice that while prepositions have nothing in
common with co-ordinating conjunctions, some prepositions are very close in
meaning to subordinating conjunctions, and in some cases a preposition and a
subordinating conjunction sound exactly the same.
It should also be noted that the difference between prepositions and
conjunctions is much less pronounced in Modern English than in Russian, where
prepositions are closely connected with cases, while conjunctions have nothing
71
whatever to do with them. In English, with its almost complete absence of cases,
this difference between prepositions and conjunctions is very much obliterated.
4. The Particle
Particles usually refer to the word (or, sometimes, phrase) immediately
following and give special prominence to the notion expressed by this word (or
phrase), or single it out in some other way, depending on the meaning of the
particle.
The question of the place of a particle in sentence structure remains
unsolved. The following three solutions are possible:
(1) a particle is a separate secondary member of the sentence, which should
be given a special name;
(2) a particle is an element in the part of the sentence which is formed by the
word (or phrase) to which the particle refers (thus the particle may be an element
of the subject, predicate, object, etc.);
(3) a particle neither makes up a special part of the sentence, nor is it an
element in any part of the sentence; it stands outside the structure of the sentence
and must be neglected when analysis of a sentence is given.
Each of these three views entails some difficulties and none of them can be
proved to be the correct one, so that the decision remains arbitrary.
5. The Interjection
Interjections have for a long time been an object of controversy. There has
been some doubt whether they are words of a definite language in the same sense
that nouns, verbs, etc. are, and whether they are not rather involuntary outcries, not
restricted to any given language but common to all human beings as biological
phenomena are.
Modern scholars consider interjections part of the word stock of a language
as much as other types of words. Interjections belonging to a certain language may
contain sounds foreign to other languages. Thus, for instance, the Russian
72
interjection ax contains the consonant phoneme [x], which is not found in English,
etc.
Semantic features
The characteristic features which distinguish interjections from practically
all other words lie in a different sphere. The interjections, as distinct from nouns,
verbs, prepositions, etc., are not names of anything, but expressions of emotions.
Another characteristic feature of the meaning of interjections is, that while
some of them express quite definite meanings (for instance, alas can never express
the feeling of joy), other interjections seem to express merely feeling in general,
without being attached to some particular feeling. The interjection oh, for example,
may be used both when the speaker feels surprised and when he feels joyous, or
disappointed, or frightened, etc. The meaning of the interjection itself is thus very
vague.
Syntactic features
On the sentence level the function of interjections is a controversial matter.
The usual interpretation is that the interjection stands outside the structure of the
sentence. Another view is that it is syntactically a kind of parenthesis at least in
some cases. The controversy cannot be decided by objective investigation and the
answer only depends on what we mean by sentence structure on the one hand, and
by some element or other being outside the sentence structure, on the other.