Грамматика английского языка

Морфология. Синтаксис

 

Учебное пособие

 

Подписано в печать 25 июля 1999 г. Формат 70х100¹/16.

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ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

 

Настоящее пособие дает достаточно полное и систематическое описание строя современного английского языка, подробно излагая разделы грамматики, предусмотренные Программой Министерства просвещения СССР для студентов I-III курсов факультетов и отделений английского языка педагогических институтов. Задача пособия состоит в том, чтобы дать студентам практическое знание грамматического строя английского языка, необходимое для владения языком.

Основной материал учебника излагается с позиций современной английской литературной грамматической нормы, однако фиксируются и американские варианты, а также коллоквиализмы и архаические формы, используемые в поэзии.

Каждой новой теме предпосылаются краткие сведения, дающие общую характеристику описываемого явления.

Пройденный материал рекомендуется закреплять сериями упраж­нений, среди которых значительное место должны занимать упражне­ния коммуникативного типа.

Для удобства пользования весь материал учебника разделен на параграфы, имеющие сквозную нумерацию.

Основной иллюстративный материал почерпнут из англо-амери­канской литературы последних десятилетий.

Пособие было апробировано в течение нескольких лет на ан­глийском отделении факультета иностранных языков РГПУ им. А. И. Герцена.

 

Авторы

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The grammatical system of English, like that of any other language, possesses its own peculiar features.

The English language has comparatively few grammatical inflections. They are the plural and the Genitive case endings of some nouns, the com­parative degree endings of some adjectives and adverbs; personal inflections of verbs are confined to the third person singular and the opposition of the forms was - were. What is most characteristic of these inflections in com­parison with Russian is that they are more unified. Thus the plural ending -s in nouns is used with the majority of count nouns. The few exceptions (such as tooth - teeth, goose - geese, child - children, ox - oxen) are regarded as obsolete forms.

In the sphere of the verb, however, many complications arise, as there is no such regularity among the past tense and participle II forms. Some of them are formed with the inflection -ed (help - helped – helped), others by means of root vowel change (bring - brought - brought, come - came - come). The latter are considered as irregular verbs.

Alongside synthetic forms, the verb has an elaborate system of analytical forms (most of the tense, aspect and perfect forms, the passive voice forms, most of the subjunctive mood forms). The analytical forms, include an auxiliary verb, as the bearer of the grammatical meaning, and a notional part: has gone, was sent, would like, to be posted, being done, having been done, etc.

Many words are not inflected at all: most adjectives and adverbs, modal words, statives, non-count nouns, conjunctions, prepositions, particles and interjections. Moreover, most words are devoid of any word-forming (derivational) morphemes which would show that they belong to a certain class. This lack of morphological distinctions between the classes accounts for the fact that a great number of words (both notional and functional words) may easily pass from one class to another, their status being determined mainly syntactically, by their function in the sentence. The prevailing role of syntax over morphology is also revealed in the fact that words, phrases and clauses may be used in the same functions.

The order of elements in the English sentence is fixed to a greater degree than in inflected languages (as the Russian language). The order subject - predicate - object is most characteristic of statements, and any modi­fication of it is always justified by either stylistic or communicative conside­rations. Attributes may precede or follow head-word, the first pattern be­ing more usual. The most mobile element in the sentence is the adverbial, but that can be explained by its reference to different parts of the sentence.

A most peculiar feature of English is a special set of words employed as structural substitutes for a certain part of speech: noun substitutes (one, that), the verb substitute (do), the adverbs and adjective substitute (so).

Morphology

 

PARTS OF SPEECH

 

§ 1. 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.

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 functional parts of speech are:
the noun the adjective the stative the pronoun the numeral the verb the adverb the modal words the interjection	the preposition the conjunction the particle

THE VERB

 

§ 2. Most verbs denote action or state. However, there are some verbs which have other meanings. They are modal verbs, causative verbs, some impersonal verbs, relational and link-verbs. They present a system of finite and non-finite forms, except for modal verbs, which have no non-finite forms.

The verb in its finite forms possesses the morphological categories of person, number, tense, aspect, perfect, voice and mood. Its syntactical function is that of the predicate.

The non-finite forms (or verbals) are four in number, they are: the infinitive, the gerund, participle I and participle II.

Non-finite verb forms possess the verbal categories of perfect, voice and to a certain extent aspect. Owing to the richness of its morphological catego­ries, the flexibility of its syntactical functioning and wide combinability, the verb is of the greatest importance in the structure of the sentence.

The morphological categories of the verb are interrelated, that is every verb form expresses all these categories simultaneously.