• Verb. Mood.

Mood (Виноградов) is grammatical category of verb expressing the relation of the action denoted by the predicate verb to reality as stated by the speaker.

Prof. Ильиш comments on this definition: the action denoted by the predicate verb may be regarded by the speaker as a real fact, command, request:

Ex: Speak to the dean, will you?

Finally, it’s contrastive reality.

Ex: If I were you I should speak to the dean.

The notion of the mood is closely connected with the notion of modality.

Modality is understood as a general linguistic category which shows reference of the statement to the real state of things (reality).

It can be expressed:

- grammatically (category of mood). These means are universal in the sense that it is found practically in every sentence.

- lexically (by modal words – probably, may be, obviously and modal verbs). These means are used occasionally and in a more or less concrete way.

- phonetically (supresegmental means).

The number of the moods varies from 2 to 16.

Блох, Бархударов – 2

Иванова – 3

Смирницкий – 6

Макс Дойчбайн – 16

Each of points has smth in its favor. Here arises the question why exist so many opinions on this problem?

Ильиш: the same form of the verb shows different modal meanings. In other cases different forms expressed one and the same modal meaning:

Ex:

I said I should go (real).

It is necessary that I should go (it will not necessarily happen).

I should go if I knew the place (it contradicts reality).

Смирницкий, Ахманова’s system of 6 moods.

6 Moods are divided into 2 groups:

• 2 direct moods (indicative, imperative)

• 4 oblique moods (subjunctive I, subjunctive II, suppositional, conditional)

Indicative and Imperative moods don’t contradict the reality.

The indicative mood finds its expression in other gram.categories, especially with the category of tense. It hasn’t got its own form although it is a basic mood in the system.

Ex: He has written it (past tense, non-cont. aspect, perfect correlation, non-passive voice, ind, mood).

The imperative mood differs from the Indicative as far as its meaning is concerned. It expresses an action as a request from the speaker’s point of view. This action doesn’t contradict reality. It still may happen,

Ex: Open the door.

Some scholars didn’t include this mood in their systems, but Смирницкий said that the Imperative mood has its own peculiarity – the absence of interrogative form.

The oblique mood is divided also into 2 groups:

• Syntactic moods (subj. I and II)

• Analytical moods (suppositional and conditional)

Subjunctive I.

Modal meaning – represents a problematic action which doesn’t necessary contradict reality; it coincides with the form of bare infinitive; it hasn’t got any gram.categories; its use is limited to the sphere of set expressions and colloquial speech.

Ex: So we be.

Subjunctive II.

Modal meaning – represents as action as contradicting reality, smth that is purely imaginary. It has 2 tenses: non-past, past.

Ex: If I were you…

Suppositional.

There is no difference in meaning between Subj.I and suppositional mood. Both represent as action as a problematic but not contradict reality. The form is by means of the auxiliary “should” with all the persons, both in Sg and Pl. The form is SHOULD + Perfect INFINITIVE = present tense (He insists that we should go)/SHOULD + Non-perfect INFINITIVE = past tense (it is strange that he should have failed his exam).

Conditional.

The meaning is very much similar to the subj.II. The forms and two tenses:

Should/would + past perfect inf. (present)

Should/would + perfect infinitive (past).

Иванова’s theory.

3 moods:

• Indicative

• Imperative

• Subjunctive

Иванова wanted to simplify Смирницкий’s theory found it too complicated. But failed, because it’s impossible to unite two subjunctive moods and apply this to the theory of oppositions.

The theory of opposition.

Блох tried to reduce the category of mood to the binary opposition. And in his opinion the opposition is:

• Indicative – the unmarked member

• Subjunctive – the marked one.

But it is not a binary opposition, it doesn’t contain 2 moods. We have multiple-opposition which contains 4 members. An 3 subjunctive moods are opposed to each other in meaning and in form.

Бархударов also tried to reduce this gr.category to a binary opposition:

• Indicative

• Imperative +

As for the Subjunctive mood, there is no place for that.

He compared:

Imperative [Go home, Don’t go home] with Indicative [you go home, you don’t go home] and imperative [go home, don’t go home] with infinitive [to go home, not to go home].

Thus, the system of moods should be treated as a triple opposition:

• Indicative

• Imperative

• Subjunctive “were”

• The non-finite forms of the verb.

The verb is the most complex part of speech. It exists in 2 large systems and forms:

• The finite form (predicative)

• The non-finite form (non-predicative)

(verbal or verbids – Jespersen).

The finite forms present the main system of this part of speech.

The non-finite forms share some essential peculiarities with the finite forms, which makes it possible to unite them in 1 part of speech – the verb.

Most scholars single out 4 non-finite forms of the verb:

• Infinitive

• Gerund

• Participle I

• Participle II

Others 3 forms:

• Infinitive

• Gerund

• Participle which exists in 2 variants.

Abroad think there are 3:

• Infinitive

• The ing-form (gerund and participle I)

• The past participle.

Роговская, Хаймович think that the LG meaning of the non-finite forms is denoting the process or action as well as the finite forms. But their LG meaning is somewhat of dual character:

• The gerund and the infinitive denote processes which are represented by the speaker very much like substances (Your going there won’t help much)

• The participle also denotes process, but it is presented as a certain property of a substance (he looked at his son with twinkling eyes). And sometimes it can denote a kind of circumstance (Let me do it, he said kneeling beside the baby).

Morphemic characteristics:

Infinitive – word-morpheme “to”. This is not used in some other environment. It is not a particle.

The Gerund and participle I – ing-morpheme

The Participle II - -en/-ed.

Syntactical characteristics:

The finite forms have the gram.categories of person, number, tense, aspect, correlation, voice and mood.

The non-finite forms lack the gram.categories of person, number and tense, mood.

The infinitive has the category of aspect and correlation.

Aspect correlation	Active voice	Passive voice
Non-cont. Non-perfect	To write	To be written
Cont. Non-perfect	To be writing	-
Perfect Non-cont.	To have written	To have been written
Cont. Perfect	To have been writing	-

The gerund has the category of correlation and voice.

correlation	Active voice	Passive voice
Non-perfect	Writing	being written
perfect	Having written	Having been written

Participle I has correlation and voice. From the formal point of view there is no difference between the system of gerund and Participle I => 2 opposed forms. Only LG meanings exhibit different shades of meanings.

Participle II hasn’t got any gram.categories. V-en only.

Syntactical functions of the NF forms are absolutely different from those of the finite forms. In this case, it is easier to characterize the NF forms in the negative in comparison with the finite forms.

Finite forms – the function of the predicate.

Non-finite:

• G. and I. - functions typical of the noun

• P. I and II – functions typical of the adjective and adverb.

Syntax

• The sentence

The basic linguistic unit of syntax is the sentence. There is a lot of definitions of this unit.

Ch. Fries in his book “The structure of English” mentioned more than 200 definitions. But even now we can hardly say there is one universal. But he dwelled 3 of them:

• The ancient. Sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought. But the thing is there are 2 kinds of word-group:

- the fire was burning

- the burning fire

It is difficult to understand which of them is the sentence and which expresses a complete thought. This definition is not linguistic. It’s logical. It’s not strict and precise enough.

• Sentence – is a group of words having a subject and a predicate. This definition is linguistic but it’s not precise again (Happy Birthday! Have a look!).

• Леонард Блумфилд: each sentence is an independent linguistic form, not included by value of any gram.construction in any larger linguistic form. On the whole it is correct and gives the opportunity to draw a line between 2 kinds of word groups.

In many cases it DOES help to distinguish a sentence from a non-sentential group of words.

BUT there are some drawbacks:

• It is negative

• According to it the level of the sentence is thought to be the highest level and the sentence is the highest linguistic form. Nowadays we have supra-prozemic level as a basic unit or the levels of the text and discourse.

THUS, a sentence is a smallest unit of speech expressing a more or less complete thought having a defined grammatical form and intonation of how the statement is connected with reality.

This one points out 4 features:

• The semantic completeness

• The definiteness of its gram.form

• Of its intonation

• Its ability to express the connection between the statement and reality.

Блох: Sentence is immediate integral unit of speech built up according to 1 of the syntactical levels of the language and distinguished for a contextually relevant purpose.