The Grammatical Structure of the English Language
Introductory Grammar Course.
Morphology.
(Part I)
Государственное образовательное учреждение
Приднестровский Государственный Университет им. Т. Г. Шевченко
Рыбницкий филиал
Кафедра иностранных языков
Introductory Grammar Course. Morphology.
(Part I)
(For the first-year students of the Foreign Languages Department)
Educational supply
Рыбница 2009 г.
УДК 811. 111 36
ББК 81. 2. Англ.-922
Вводно-коррективный грамматический курс. Часть первая. (Для студентов I курса специальности иностранный язык). Учебное пособие. / Сост. Волкова. Ю.Ю. – Рыбница, 2009. – 98 с.
Настоящее учебное пособие (часть I) дает достаточно полное описание строя современного английского языка. Задача данного пособия заключается в том, чтобы помочь студентам освоить необходимый грамматический минимум для владения иностранным языком. Основной материал пособия излагается с позиций современной английской грамматической нормы. Пройденный материал рекомендуется закреплять сериями упражнений.
Данное пособие рассчитано на студентов первого курса специальности иностранный язык и является необходимым для усвоения грамматики английского языка. Также, настоящее пособие может быть использовано для подготовки студентов к сдаче зачета, экзамена.
Рецензенты:
Скодорова Л. К. доцент, канд. социологических наук.
Подолян А. С. ст. преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков РФ ПГУ им. Т. Г. Шевченко.
Утверждено Научно – методическим советом ПГУ
Им. Т.Г. Шевченко.
© Волкова Ю. Ю., составление 2009 г.
Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………….8
Preface. The Grammatical Structure of the English Language…...8
Morphology. General Classification of the Parts of Speech……..10
Chapter I. The Noun
§ 1. Definition…………………………………………………....12
§ 2. Formation of Nouns………………………………………...12
§ 3. Morphological composition of Nouns……………………...13
§ 4. Classification of Nouns………………………………….....13
§ 5. The category of Number…………………………………....15
§ 6. The category of Case……………………………………….19
Chapter II. The Article
§ 1. General Notion……………………………………………...21
§ 2. Article and Pronoun…………………………………………22
§ 3. The use of the Indefinite Article………………………...…..23
§ 4. The use of the Definite Article……………………………...26
§ 5. The use of the Zero Article………………………………....30
§ 6. Article determination of certain noun groups……………….32
Chapter III. The Adjective
§ 1. Semantic characteristics…………………………………….35
§ 2. Morphological composition………………………………...36
§ 3. Morphological characteristics………………………………38
§ 4. Adjectives of participial origin……………………………...40
§ 5. Adjectives and Adverbs……………………………………..41
§ 6. Syntactic functions………………………………………….44
§ 7. Substantivized Adjectives……………………………….....45
Chapter IV. The Pronoun
§ 1. General Notion……………………………………………...47
§ 2. Morphological composition and categorical characteristics..47
§ 3. Subclasses of Pronouns and their functions…………….....48
§ 4. The Personal Pronoun……………………………………….50
§ 5. The Demonstrative Pronoun………………………………...51
§ 6. The Impersonal Pronoun…………………………………….51
§ 7. The Possessive Pronouns……………………………………52
§ 8. Reflexive Pronouns………………………………………….52
§ 9. Reciprocal Pronouns………………………………………...53
§ 10. Demonstrative Pronouns………………………..................54
§ 11. Indefinite and Negative Pronouns………………………...56
§ 12. Detaching Pronouns………………………………………..59
§ 13. Universal Pronouns………………………………………...60
§ 14. Interrogative Pronouns………………………………...…..61
§ 15. Conjunctive Pronouns……………………………………...63
§ 16. Relative Pronouns………………………………………….64
Chapter V. The Numeral
§ 1. The Definition……………………………………………....67
§ 2. The Cardinals…………………………………………….…68
§ 3. The ordinals…………………………………………………70
§ 4. Morphological characteristics……………………………….70
§ 5. Patterns of combinability……………………………………71
§ 6. Syntactic function…………………………………………...73
§ 7. Substantivized Numerals………………………………...….74
Chapter VI. The Adverb
§ 1.General Notion ……………………………………………...75
§ 2. Morphological composition………………………………...76
§ 3. Morphological characteristics………………………............77
§ 4. Semantic characteristics…………………………………….79
§ 5. Syntactic functions and patterns of combinability………….81
§ 6. Positional characteristics……………………………………82
Chapter VII. ( Some Notional Parts of Speech)
§ 1. The Words of the Category of State……………………..….84
§ 2. The Modal Words………………………………………..…84
§ 3. The Interjection……………………………………………...85
Chapter VIII Some Structural Parts of Speech
§ 1. The Preposition……………………………………………..85
§ 2. Prepositions of place………………………………..............86
§ 3. Prepositions of place ……………………………………….86
§ 4. Prepositions of directions…………………………………...87
§ 5. Some prepositions confused………………………………...87
§ 6. Prepositions with the forms of transport……………………87
§ 7. The Prepositions of time…………………………………….88
§ 8. Prepositions since, from, in time/on time…………...............89
§ 9. Prepositions expressing abstract relations…………..............90
§ 10. Composite Prepositions…………………………………....91
§ 11. Use of Prepositions in set expressions……………………..91
§ 12. The Conjunction………………………………………...…94
§ 13. The Particle………………………………………………...95
Sources ………………………………………………………..96
Introduction
“Grammar of Modern English” is an educational supply intended for advanced students of English. The students are supposed to have mastered the grammatical material of the secondary school and by the given time, they have had sufficient knowledge of morphology.
In the given educational supply, we tried to describe the grammatical norms of the English language that should be mastered by the students. All the grammatical phenomena are illustrated by examples taken from the works of outstanding English writers.
The educational supply presents a detailed description of semantic, lexical and functional peculiarities of notional and functional parts of speech .such as The Noun, The Adjective, The Pronoun, The Adverb, The Numeral, The Conjunction, and The Interjection. Special attention is given to the use of such a functional part of speech as the Article, which seems to be very important from the practical point of view. We tried to give the most accessible explanations to different intricate cases and make it easier for the students to percept the complicated grammatical material. On the whole, the given educational supply is intended to help the students acquire the definite grammatical material, which is necessary for their correct communication in the English language.
Special thanks to all the colleagues who helped us in the elaboration of the given material.
Preface
The Grammatical Structure of the English Language
Grammar is the most interesting subject matter of any language. In order to master any foreign language one should learn not only the word stock of the language, but also the rules by which different words are combined with one another, forming various types of sentences. The rules according to which miscellaneous words turn into speech is the subject matter of grammar. The peculiar feature of the English Grammar in comparison with Russian is different systems of both languages.
The English language belongs to the same family of languages that the Russian language does that is to the Indo-European family. Both languages have a lot in common: the same parts of speech such as the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb, and the numeral; nouns can be countable (E.g. a book, a flat) and uncountable (E.g. milk, foliage) that is expressed in their possibility of being used in plural (E.g. ink, money, news); verbs are divided into transitive (such verbs can take a direct object, i.e. they express an action which passes on to a person or thing directly (E.g. to give, to take) and intransitive (such verbs cannot take a direct object (E.g. to sleep, to go, to fall, to live, to work, to sit, to consist); qualitative adjectives have the degrees of comparison- positive, comparativeandsuperlative (E.g. nice-nicer-the nicest, good-better- the best) and relative adjectives do not have the degrees of comparison, they denote qualities of a substance through their relation to materials (E.g. silken, woolen), to place (E.g. Italian, Asian), to time (E.g. monthly, weekly), to some action (E.g. preparatory, rotatory). There exist the same types of sentences in both languages (simple, compoundandcomplex).
At the same time, there are a lot of differences between the two languages. As a matter of fact, the Russian language is very rich in flexions which express different grammatical meanings. The English language on the contrary is very poor in flexions (endings: -s in the third person singular in the Present Indefinite: speaks; -s in the plural of nouns: tables; -s in the genitive case: my brother’s book; -ed in the Past Indefinite of regular verbs: smoked; inner flexions: man- men; speak- spoke).
The word order in Russian is relatively free; an English sentence has a very strict and fixed word order (E.g. The teacher punished the pupil) if we change the places of subject with the object the meaning of the sentence will be changed. The relations between the words in the sentence, which in Russian are expressed by flexions in English, are expressed by word order and prepositions.
The majority of the verb forms are formed with a help of auxiliary verbs and are called complicated or analytical (have been done, is doing). The English language is mostly characterized as analytical possessing at the same time some synthetic forms while the Russian language is practically purely synthetic possessing a scarce system of analytical forms. The following difference between the languages is the existence in the English language such functional part of speech as the article which clarifies the meaning of the noun. The adjectives in English do not confirm with the nouns and English verbs have a very complicated system of tenses.
There are a lot of homonyms of special type in English which do not differ in pronunciation and writing but which refer to different parts of speech (E.g. iron- the noun, iron- the adjective, to iron- the verb). To determine the part of speech to which the word can be referred is possible through the determining the place of the word in the sentence (E.g. Iron is a metal. (The Noun); There was an iron stove. (The Adjective); You must iron your dress. (The Verb).
The number of grammatical forms is very extensive in English (E.g. the word speak out of the context can display the form of the infinitive- to speak of the Imperative Mood(E.g.Speak!) or of the Present Indefinite Indicative (E.g. I speak).
One of the marked features of the English language is the extensive use of substitutes. A word substitute saves the repetition of a word in certain conditions. Here belong such substitutes as one, that, do. Onereplaces class nouns in the singular and in the plural (E.g. Thanks for the compliment, if it is one).Thatgenerally substitutes nouns, mostly introduced by the preposition of(E.g. Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for a ride in her own car or that of Castleman). Dosubstitutes verbs (E.g. You know it better than I do).