Билет 5
1. Parts of speech
All the words of the English language are grouped into different types of classes. This classification is based on three main principles: 1) their grammatical meaning; 2) their form and 3) their syntactical characteristics. By the first we understand the meaning common to all the words of the class, such as thingness for the noun or either process or state for the verb. By the second we mean the morphological characteristics of the class meant, such as the number of the noun or the voice of the verb. By the third - the combinability and the syntactical functions of a type of word.
History: Aristotle established three parts of speech: names (the nominative case of nouns, adjectives and participles); verbs (the infinitive of verbs) and conjunctions (functional words). Dionysius Thrux grouped the words of
the language into eight parts of speech: inflected (name, verb, participle, article, pronoun) and uninflected (preposition, adverb, conjunction).
The Latin classification of the parts of speech, which included eight word-classes, differed from the system adopted by modern grammars in that the substantives and adjectives were grouped together as two kinds of nouns, while the participle was presented as a separate part of speech. In the earliest English grammars, where this system was reproduced, the parts of speech were also divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech, just as in Lily's grammar (W. Bullokar), or words with number and words without number (Ben Jonson), or words with number and case and words without number and case (Ch. Butler). The first of these groups, declinable words, with number and case, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the second — indeclinables — adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Ben Jonson increased the number of parts of speech in his classification, introducing the article as the ninth part of speech.
Later, at the beginning of the 18th century, another scheme of classification appeared in J. Brightland's grammar. This author reduced the number of parts of speech to four, rejecting the traditional terminology as well. The four parts of speech were: names (i. e. nouns), qualities (i. e. adjectives), affirmations (i. e. verbs) and particles, which included the four so-called indeclinable parts of speech. In this scheme the adjective was classed as a separate part of speech, owing to the influence of the philosophical or universal (logical) grammars of the age, which in their attempts to discover the universal laws of the structure of languages pointed out the difference between the syntactic functions of the two varieties of "nouns".
Ch. Fries’ syntactico-distributional classification of words:
He rejected the traditional principle of classification of words into parts of speech and replaced it with the method of distibutional analysis and substitution. His classification is based on the study of the combinability of words by means of substitution testing.
The testing results in developing the standard model of four main “positions” of notional words in the English sentence: noun, verb, adjective, and adverb.
The words isolated from the records of spontaneous conversation were tested on the three typical sentences (substitution test-frames).
Frame A. The (1)concert (2)was (3)good (4)(always). [The thing and its quality at a given time]
Frame B. The (1)clerk (2)remembered the (1)tax (4)(suddenly). [Actor-action-thing acted upon-characteristic of the action]
Frame C. The (1)team (2)went (4)there. [Actor-action-direction of the action]
As a result of those tests the following lists of words were established:
Class 1. concert, coffee, taste, difference, clerk, husband, team, husband, woman, etc.
Class 2. was, seemed, became, remembered, wanted, went, came, ran, lived, worked, etc.
Class 3. good, large, necessary, foreign, new empty, etc.
Class 4. there, here, always, then, sometimes, clearly, sufficiently, especially, there, back, out, etc.
All these words can fill in the positions of the frames without damage to their general structural meaning.
We distinguish between notional and functional parts of speech: the former denoting extralinguistic phenomena such as things, actions, qualities, emotions and the latter - relations and connections between notional words or sentences. Thus there are 9 notional parts of speech and 3 functional ones.
The notional parts of speech are: the noun, the adjective, the stative, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb, the modal words, the interjection.
The functional parts of speech are: the preposition, the conjunction, the particle.
Brief characteristics.
Noun. Meaning: substance. Grammar form: gender, number, case, article determination. Function: subject, object, predicative, attributive, adverbial.
Adjective. Meaning: property. Grammar form: degrees of comparison for qualitative adjectives. Function: attribute, predicative.
Numeral. Meaning: number. Grammar form: no. Function: attribute.
Pronoun. Meaning: indication. Grammar form: some categories have number, some have case. Function: predicate.
Verb. Meaning: process. Grammar form: mood, voice, person, number, aspect, tense. Function: predicate.
Adverb. Meaning: property of process or another property. Grammar form: Degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs. Function: adverbial modifier.
Statives. Meaning: different states, mostly temporary. Grammar form: no. Function: predicative, rarely – post-positional attributes.
2. Secondary parts of the sentence
The secondary parts of the sentence are the object, the attribute, the apposition and the adverbial modifier. The secondary parts of the sentence modify the main parts or each other.
The syntactic theory of O.Jespersen can be applied to phrases and sentences. The theory of three ranks is based on the principle of determination. In the word-group a furiously3 barking2 dog1 1 is independent and is called a primary, 2 modifies 1 and is called a secondary, 3 modifies 2 and is called a tertiary. A secondary may be joined to a primary in two ways: junction and nexus. These terms are used to differentiate between attributive and predicative relations (relations between the subject and the predicate), or the relations of subordination and interdependence. The term Nexus is applied to sentences, structures similar to sentences and sentences in formation in which two concepts are expressed in one unit; e.g. it rained, he ran indoors. This term is qualified by a further concept called a junction which represents one idea, expressed by means of two or more elements whereas a nexus combines two ideas. Junction and nexus proved valuable in bringing the concept of context to the forefront of the attention of the world of linguistics.
The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which characterizes person or non-person expressed by the headword either qualitatively, quantitatively, or from the point of view of situation. Attributes may refer to nouns and other words of nominal nature, such as pronouns gerunds and substitute words, as in:
It was a letter from his devoted friend.
I mentioned it to him when he was his usual self.
One day I put the picture up again, the lifesize one.
An attribute may be expressed by different parts of speech:
1. By (a) adjectives or (b) adjectival phrases, which characterize the person or non-person qualitatively or express the speaker’s attitude.
a) The sand glittered like fine white sugar in the sun.
b) In any case it gave no clue to the thought then uppermost in Hercule Poirot’s mind.
2. By pronouns or pronominal phrases, which help to identify or define persons or non-persons.
The woman by no change of face showed that his words meant anything to her.
3. By numerals, ordinal or cardinal, which state the number or order, or serve to identify persons or non-persons, as in:
He arrived just three weeks ago.
4. By (a) nouns in the common case singular or (b) prepositional nominal phrases, which characterize the person or non-person either qualitatively or from the point of view of its locative, temporal, or other features.
The nouns are always premodifying attributes, the prepositional nominal phrases are post modifying:
a) It happened on a December evening (декабрьский вечер).
b) The new secretary, on promotion from the general office, was a widow of fifty.
5. By nouns or pronouns in the genitive case.
He caught the sound of the children’s voices.
6. By statives, although these are rarely used as attributes. They usually postmodify the headword, though may occur as premodifying.
No man alive would ever think of such cruelty.
7. By (a) participles I and II and (b) participial phrases, characterizing the person or non-person through an action, process, or reaction.
a) He made his way down the creaking stairs.
b) Captain Nichols dragged Strickland, bleeding from a wound in his arm, into the street.
8. By (a) gerunds, (b) gerundial phrases, or (c) gerundial complexes. Gerunds generally characterize non-persons from the point of view of their function or purpose.
a) Back at the hotel he slipped on a white rowing blazer (the blazer which the members of the boat-
b) He would not run the risk of being too late.
c) The silence was interrupted by the sound of a door being banged.
There is no chance of our seeing him again.
9. By (a) infinitives, (b) infinitivel phrases, or (c) complexes, which characterize a person or non-person through some real or hypothetical action in which this person or non-person is or may be involved. Owing to the hypothetical nature of the action, an infinitive as attribute often imparts a modal shade of meaning to the action.
a) You are the one to blame (who is to blame).
b) He looked around for a weapon to strike his insulter with.
c) This is a problem for you to solve. (which you could/must solve).
10. By (a) adverbs or (b) adverbial phrases, which characterize a person or non-person through spatial or temporal characteristics, or through circumstances or facts concerning this person or non-person.
a) No sounds came from the quarters above.
b) Most people living in out of the way places expect the latest news from home with impatience.
11. By sentences used as a whole (the so-called “quotation nouns”). These are used mainly as hyphenated chains before the headword.
She looked at me with a kind of don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-slap-you air.
12. By a clause (then called an attributive clause) which makes the whole sentence a complex one.
Some called me by the name which no one here knew.