The Structure of Morphemes

1. The definition of a morpheme

2. Word-form derivation

3. The notion of oppositions

 

1. The definition of a morpheme

Morpheme is usually defined as the smallest meaningful unit into which a word form may be divided. It is one of the central notions of theoretical grammar. Morphemes can be identified by comparing the words of a language which have a similar form. Recurrent sequence of sounds, letters with the same function or meaning is recognized as morphemes. A comparison of these forms enables us to identify the following morphemes,

E.g. refuse, refusal, refusals; dismiss dismissals: 'refuse' and 'dismiss' have their usual dictionary meaning; -al- has the function of deriving a noun from a verb and -s- which signals of grammatical category of plural number.

'Writers': 'to write' is the base lexical meaning of the word; -er- expresses the idea of agent performing the action, indicated by the root of the word; -s- shows the plural number.

Two remarks:

1) Two or more morphemes may sound the same, but be basically different, so that they may be homonyms. Thus, the morpheme -er- indicating the doer of an action has a homonym the morpheme -er- denoting the comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs (bigger). Each morpheme can be determined by examining the other morphemes in the word.

2) There may be a zero morpheme when the absence of a morpheme may indicate a certain meaning,

E.g. book, books (these two words are both derived from one stem - 'book'; the example 'books' is characterized by -s- morpheme as being a plural form and 'book' is characterized by the zero morpheme as being a singular form).

Linguists belonging to descriptive school introduce such a notion as allomorphs of one and the same morpheme.

E.g. The girls come. The oxen come.

The girl comes. The ox comes.

05.10.12

The change of 'girl' to 'girls' is paralleled by the change of 'ox' to 'oxen'. The meaning and function of '-en' and '-s' may be called allomorphs of 1 and the same morpheme (the morpheme of plurality). One morpheme may have 3 allomorphs. If we add 'goose - geese', we'll have 3 allomorphs of one and the same morpheme. The plurality form of the example is represented by the change of 'oo' into 'ee'. If we add this example to our previous ones, we'll have allomorphs of 1 and the same morpheme.

A morpheme consists of several parts (components). They are roots and affixes which can be derived into suffix and prefix. These components are means of translation of grammatical meaning.

The roots express the concrete 'material' part of the meaning of the word, while the affixes express specific part of the meaning of the word. The affix morphemes include prefixes, suffixes and inflections (endings). Affixes and suffixes have word-building functions. Together with the root they form the stem of the word. Inflections express different morpheme categories.

2. Word-form derivation

There are 3 types of word-form derivation:

1) Synthetic;

2) Analytical;

3) Sound alternative;

4) Suppletive formation (addition).

1. The number of morphemes used for derived word-form in Modern English is very small (much smaller than in Russian and German). They may be enumerated:

1) There is the ending -s with 3 variants of pronunciation used to form the plural number of almost all nouns. The ending -en, -ren may be used for the same purpose.

2) There is the ending 's with 3 variants of pronunciation used to form the genitive case of nouns.

3) For adjectives there are the endings -er, -est for the degrees of comparative.

4) -s, -es for the 3rd person singular, the endings -d, -ed for the past tense of certain verbs; -d, -ed - for the Past Participle of certain verbs; -n, -en - for the certain other verbs; -ing - for the Participle I and Gerund.

The total number of morphemes used to derived forms of words is 11. It would be noted that most of these endings are monosemantic. The plural -s, -es denotes only the category of plural number and has nothing to do with any other grammatical category (the category of case). But not all English morphemes are monosemantic. This is certain not the case with -s, -es of the 3rd person singular, because it expresses at least 3 grammatical category (the category of person, number, mood). In certain verbs it also expresses the category of tense. In the verb 'puts' it shows that it is a present tense form.

2) It’s the usage of a word derivation of any lexical meaning of its own to express some grammatical category of another word. There is no doubt about analytical character of such formations as 'has invited', 'is invited', 'is inviting'. The verbs: have, be, do - have no lexical meaning of its own in these cases. The lexical meaning of the formations resides in the participle and infinitive following the verbs: have, be, do. We can add: shall, will - and say that all these verbs constitute a typical feature of the analytical structure of Modern English.

3) it's the changing of the form of the word which consists in changing a sound inside the root. This method applies in English nouns and much more used in verbs: write - wrote - written.

4) It's building a form of a verb of a different stem: go - went - gone. We can add here the personal pronoun I and its objective case me; the adjectives with its comparison degree (good - better) and in Modern English suppletives are very rare elements, but they concern a few very widely used words among adjectives, pronouns, verbs.

3. The notion of oppositions

Main morphological notions:

Grammatical category

Grammatical form

Grammatical meaning

Grammatical category is a unity of 2 or more grammatical forms which are correlated or opposed by their grammatical meaning, they form themselves (are identified within definite paradigmatic series (грамматическое значение закреплено за данным набором форм).

Paradigm is example or pattern (the declination of a verb). Professor Bloch defines the grammatical as a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms.

Grammatical category comprises not loss than 2 opposed forms or even more. There exist 3 forms of tense, 4 verbal forms, 2 member forms of nouns, 2 voices (active, passive).

12.10.12

The oppositions are obligatory but the oppositions are used binary, though the most important type is binary opposition.

The binary opposition

It is formed by a constructive pair of a certain different feature. The other member is characterized by the absence of this feature. The member in which the feature is present is called the marked (strong, positive) member of opposition. The other member is called unmarked (weak, negative). The 1st member is designated by '+', the 2nd - '-',

E.g. books '+', book '-'

Morphological opposition

It must reflect both the plan of expression (план выражения) and the plan of content (план содержания). Morphological opposition is based on a morphological different feature which is present in its strong member and is absent in its weak member. One member of the opposition is marked positively and the other member – negatively,

E.g. -s is a different feature of the opposition singular/plural (girl '+' - girls '-')

'Equipollent (равнозначный) opposition

It is confined to formal relations. The example of such an opposition is in the correlation of the person forms of the verb 'to be' (am, is, are).

Gradual oppositions

It can be found at the semantic level only,

E.g. the category of comparison of adjectives (strong - stronger - the strongest)

Professor Bloch admits the system of opposition in theory of grammar of Modern English. The theory of opposition is basic conception of the representatives of the structural American grammar. Among our linguists: Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov, Ilyish, who usually use this term in their scientific research. Such linguists as Admony, Jartseva, and Bondarko never use this term in their scientific works.

Grammatical meaning is general abstract meaning which unites large classes of words and is expressed by formal indicates or by absence of them,

E.g. there's the meaning of plurality. In different languages it's expressed in different ways.

 

Parts of Speech

1. Classification of word classes

2. Criteria of classification

3. Types of word classes (historical background)

4. Christopher Fries' Distributional Model

 

1. Classification of word classes

In the earliest English grammar where the Latin classification of the parts of speech is reproduced, the parts of speech are divided into: declinable and indeclinable. The 1st group included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participle I, II. The 2nd - adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections.

B. Jonson increases the number of parts of speech in his classification, introduced the article as the 9th part of speech (17th century).

In the 18th century another scheme appeared. Brightland reduced the member of parts of speech to 4, rejecting the traditional terminology. The 4 parts were: nouns (names), adjectives (qualities), verbs (affirmations), determinants.

The 2nd part of the 18th century is known as the age of prescriptional grammar. Such grammarians as South and Murray wrote the most popular work in theory of grammar. They retained the scheme of 9 parts of speech.

The grammar of the 19th century changed very little, but the conception of the parts of speech differs greatly from that of the grammars of the 2nd half of the 19th century because a new grammar (logical and historical) appeared. Henry Sweet wrote this grammar in 1991; describes 3 main features of characterizing the parts of speech, namely meaning, form and function.

By meaning we don't mean the individual meaning of each separate word, but the meaning common to all the words of the given class and constituting the essence,

E.g. The meaning of substantives 'thing-ness'. This applies to all and every noun as a type of word. The meaning of verb as a type of word is that of a process.

By form we mean the morphological characteristic of a type of a word, thus the noun is characterized by number, the verb - tense, voice, mood.

By function we mean the syntactical properties of a type of a word. These are subdivided into two:

1) Its method of combining with other words;

2) Its function in the sentence.

19.10.12

a) We can state that a verb combines with a noun as in the example 'write letters' and with an adverb 'write quickly'.

b) As to the verb 'to be' the syntactic function of this verb in a sentence is that of a predicate.

 

The Noun

1. The noun (general characteristic)

2. Grammatical category of number

3. Grammatical category of case

4. Grammatical category of gender

 

1. The noun (general characteristic)

The English noun is a part of speech which is characterized by:

1) A generalized lexico-grammatical primary meaning of thingness (table, chair, etc.);

2) A generalized grammatical secondary meaning of thingness (joy, peace, milk, etc.);

3) By the combinability with:

a) Verbs both in preposition and in postposition (he closed the door; the door closed);

b) With adjectives - usually in preposition (she was a beautiful girl);

c) Prepositive nouns, both in the genitive and in the common case (I saw it in the Chicago newspaper);

d) Prepositions (he read a letter from his wife);

e) Prepositive articles (wait a minute; the father tried his best).

4) The syntactic functions of subject and object (father decided to take a holiday from his office; you love your parents, don't you?).

As far as morphological structure is concerned, the nouns fall under:

a) Simple nouns (book, pencil, chair);

b) Derivative nouns

The productive noun forming suffixes are -er (reader), -ist (tobacconist), -ess (actress), -ness (madness), -ism (heroism). Derivative prefixes are less productive in the sphere of a noun: by- (by-election), dis- (disorder), ex- (ex-president).

c) Compound nouns (blackboard, weekend, sportsman, speedometer).

The nouns which possess a generalized lexico-grammatical primary meaning of thingness and are placed in a sentence of a noun field have the morphological categories of case and number.

2. Grammatical category of number

From a logical point of view the distinction is between one and more than one. The corresponding of grammatical distinctions are the singular and the plural (a table - tables).

Some linguists say that the essential meaning of category of number is that of quantity. The plural, according to them, denotes something consisting of distinguishable parts (spectacles, scissors, trousers, etc.). These nouns do indicate discrete things consisting of two parts, but we are hardly justified in referring them to the plural number because they have no singular counterparts, and the plural and the singular are correlative notions (when there is no singular, we can't speak about the plural form, and vise versa).

So, the generalized grammatical meaning of number is that of quantity. In Modern English it is represented by the opposition oneness (singular) and 'more than oneness' (plural).

At first sight it may seem that the difference between the singular and the plural is not grammatical, but lexical. Since 'table' singular and 'tables' plural denotes different objects of reality (Fortunatov).

However, we know that the meaning of a word can't be identified with the thing it is used to denote. Besides, we should not disregard the fact that the idea of plurality usually has constant grammatical forms of its expression. In English it is the inflection -s, -es (a lamp - lamps, a box - boxes). We can only speak of more than one, i.e. of the plural in regard to things which without being identical, belong to the same kind. Plurality, thus, presupposes difference, but if the difference is too great, it is impossible to use words like 'two' or 'three' (a musical sound is not two).

Some linguists single out two other types of the plural: lexicalized plural and the plural of approximation. The so-called lexicalized plural either introduces new shades of meaning into the singular,

E.g. Tragedy is lack of experience - Трагедии происходят из-за недостатка опыта.

He has had many odd experiences - Он обладал различными знаниями.

Or comes to render a total different meaning,

e.g. colour (цвет) - colours (флаг)

The form of lexicalized plural is identical with that of grammatical plural (-es), but the meaning of lexicalized meaning is always different from the corresponding singular hands. It should be excluded from the grammatical category of number, for the components of the grammatical category of number should be lexically identical.

The plural of approximation is also close to lexical forms, for like the grammatical plural, it ends in -s and denotes several objects, and the latter do not belong to the same kind,

E.g. There are many things people remember about the 60s (where '60s' doesn't mean one 60 to another 60, but it means 60+61+62 and so on till 69). The combinability with singular verbs and the substitution by the singular pronouns testifies to the word-building, i.e. lexical and not the form-building, i.e. grammatical nature of the morpheme -s in formations of the kind ‘the 60s’, ‘the 90s’, etc.,

E.g. The 60s was the time when young people used to do whatever they wanted.

There are many things people remember about the 60s. Some remember it for many skirts and hippies.

02.11.12

In other words only those forms are qualified by us as plural which introduce the grammatical meaning of more than oneness, without changing the lexical meaning of the singular form.

The category of number in English is represented by the opposition of the singular and the plural. The singular form denotes 'oneness', it is non-marked member of the opposition, the plural form denotes 'more than oneness', it is the marked member of the opposition. The regular way of forming the plural is adding the -(e)s inflection, but there are several survivals of earlier formations (child - children, mouse - mice, tooth - teeth, ox - oxen). A different kind of irregularities is found in many learned words where scholars having introduced the plural as the singular forms from foreign languages (crisis - crises, formula - formulae). There is a strong tendency to inflex such words in an English way (formula - formulas).

There is no special form for the common number; the meaning of the common or the so-called generic number in English is rendered in the following ways:

1) The singular without any article,

E.g. Man should be lonely.

2) The singular with the indefinite article,

E.g. A barking dog doesn't bite.

3) The singular with the definite article,

E.g. The devil is not so black as he is painted.

4) The plural without any article,

E.g. But rich people do have their problems.

As regards the category of number, all English nouns can be divided into two classes: countable and uncountable. Countable nouns are those which have the opposition 'singular - plural' (book - books). Uncountable nouns do not call up the idea of any different thing with a certain shape or precise limits. They may be either material (silver, water, butter, gas, etc.) or abstract (music, success, etc.). Those uncountable nouns that always combine with singular verbs and are substituted by singular pronounce are called Singularia tantum,

E.g. Sugar is not fashionable any more.

Take the money out and count it.

I know my hair is beautiful.

Well, what's the news?

Those uncountable nouns that always combine with plural verbs and are substituted by plural pronouns are called Pluralia tantum,

E.g. My trousers are getting too small round the waist.

The nurse's wages were good.

Where are my scissors?

According to professor Smirnitsky these nouns also have the category of number, but his point of view does not seem convincing. We know that every grammatical category must be represented by an opposition of at least two forms. In the case of Singularia and Pluralia tantum we deal with one form only. That's why it seems more reasonable to accept the conception of Zhigadlo, Ivanova, and Iofik and say that both Singularia and Pluralia tantum stand outside the grammatical category of number.

3. Grammatical category of case

Definition of case

The notion of case goes back to Ancient Greece. However, they understood it differently. Aristotle defined cases as deviation from names and verbs due to the logically dependent position in the sentence, i.e. according to Aristotle, both nouns and verbs had cases. The Stoics restricted the use of the term 'case' to noun paradigm. They were the first who call them Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative and Instrumental. Nowadays case is usually regarded as morphological form of a declinable form used to express a certain meaning or to denote a certain relation to other words (C.T. Onions). Professor Ilyish gives another definition: case is the category of the noun expressing relations between the things denoting by the noun and another thing, proper or action. This definition does not stand criticism. Being a linguistic notion case can't connect objects of extra-linguistic reality.

Number of cases

Linguists are still at variance as to the number of cases in modern English. Representatives of universal grammar speak of six cases, i.e. they apply the Latin system to the English language, but English has its own peculiarities which should not be disregarded,

E.g. as opposed to inflected Latin, modern English is an analytical language.

Nesfield mentions five cases: Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative, remarking at the same time that the Genitive is the only case that is now indicated by change of form. The other cases have lost their case endings and are indicated only by grammatical relation.

When a noun is used as the subject, it is said to be in the Nominative case,

E.g. My friend is a bright student.

When a noun is used for the sake of address, it is said to be in the Vocative case,

E.g. Are you coming, my friend?

When a noun is a direct object, it is said to be in the Accusative case,

E.g. I saw my friend in the street.

When a noun is an indirect object, it is said to be in the Dative case,

E.g. I gave my friend an apple.

If we stick to the definition of case as a morphological category, we'll have to admit that neither Nominative, nor Vocative, nor Accusative, nor Dative exist in modern English because there are no formal distinctions between them.

Curme singles out four cases in Modern English: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. These cases did exist in Old English, but in the course of time the originally Nominative, Dative, Accusative coincided in one form which is opposed nowadays to the inflected Genitive. But Curme thinks that the relations which were earlier expressed with the help of special case inflections are now indicated by word-order and prepositional combinations.

However, case is a morphological category and word-order is a syntactic factor as for the theory of the so-called analytical cases that consist of a preposition and a noun, it is not convincing either.

Khaimovich and Rogovskaya deny the existence of the following grounds:

1) Prepositions are not devoid of lexical meaning; consequently they can't be regarded as the first components of analytical forms;

2) Every grammatical category should comprise a limited number of members. If we referred prepositional combinations to case forms, the number of cases would grow immensely and we would be creating the illusion of classification;

3) Analytical forms are generally singled out as opposed to synthetic forms. With prepositional construction it's different. They are often synonymous with the so-called synthetic cases,

E.g. the house of your neighbour = your neighbour's house

There is much subjectivity in the choice of prepositions.

Bryant and Whitehall find three cases in Modern English. On the analogy of case forms of personal pronounce: Nominative, Genitive and Objective.

 

	Nominative	Genitive	Objective
Pronouns	he	his	him
Noun	man	man’s	man

 

Criticizing this point of view professor Smirnitsky prescribes forth the following argument:

09.11.12

1) Nouns and personal pronouns belong to different parts of speech;

2) The crew of the personal pronouns is rather small. That's why it is doubtful that the case system of personal pronouns could influence the case system of nouns.

What is more, nouns lack special inflection for the nominative and the objective cases.

The majority of linguists recognize the existence of two cases in Modern English: the common and the genitive case. The common case is unmarked both in meaning and in form. It has a very general meaning which is specified by means of word-order and prepositions and which may be characterized only negatively as non-genitive form. It is represented by a zero exponent. Nouns in the common case can perform any function in the sentence,

E.g. Suddenly the weather changed (a subject).

He touched my hand (a direct object).

The man gave the baby a stick of candy (an indirect object).

Mrs. Hall didn't ask about her affairs (an indirect prepositional object).

He was a shy man (a part of the nominal verbal predicative).

She is in the souvenir shop (an attributive).

He hadn't seen Mable for seven years (an adverbial modifier of time).

Form of the Genitive case

The genitive case is marked both in meaning and in form. The regular way of forming the genitive case of singular nouns is by adding an apostrophe and 's' (my sister's little girl fell downstairs). There are two ways of forming the genitive case of plural nouns: by adding 's' and an apostrophe (Even grandmothers' dreams don't come true) or just an apostrophe (when a noun ends in -s or e.g. the children' room).

Meaning of the Genitive case

The most common meaning of the genitive case is that of possessing (She would inherit her mother's money), that's why professor Smirnitsky said that the genitive case should be called the possessive case. Reznik thinks that the meaning of possessing is not the only meaning of the genitive case. In Old English the genitive case had a very wide range of meanings and was freely used with all nouns, not only attributively, but also as an object and as an adverbial modifier. In Modern English the use of the genitive case is restricted mainly to nouns denoting human beings and time,

E.g. I saw the man's face.

...that was still a lot of money for a day's work.

e.g. peace treaty, car track, arms race, wildlife movement, teenage smoking rate, frontline soldiers, Labour ministers, sports editor, bank raid, defense cuts, oil painting, opinion poll.

Use of the Genitive case

As to the use of the genitive case, we can mention that it falls under dependent genitive case and absolute genitive case. The dependent genitive is used with the noun it modifies and comes before it (He stared at his aunt's face). The absolute genitive occurs independently, when the leading noun has been mentioned before (to avoid repetition) or without a leading noun to denote places (Jones' car is the same as Bill’s, isn't it? I'm going to the dentist's). The absolute genitive may be introduced by the preposition 'of' (He is a good friend of my husband's).

Linguistic status of ‘s

Vorontsova denies the existence of the genitive case in Modern English. She gives the following proofs:

1) The use of the genitive case inflection 'apostrophe and -s' is optional. It is usually used with reference, with human beings, with nouns denoting animals, inanimate things and abstract notions. The genitive case relation is rendered by the of-combination (The head of our white horse. I sat at the foot of the bed).

What is more, even those nouns which do admit of the genitive case often resort to the prepositional combination to render the meaning of the genitive case,

E.g. From the corner of my eyes I thought I had seen something small and white fly from Julian's body.

I couldn't see the body of Julian.

2) One and the same inflection is used both in the singular (a man's hat) and in the plural (men's hats) which is usually not to be found in other languages,

E.g. мальчика (genitive sing.) - мальчиков (genitive pl.)

23.11.12

Smirnitsky does not share Vorontsova's conception. He look upon the 's as a grammatical morpheme of case.

1) Its general meaning 'the relation of a noun to another word' is a typical case meaning;

2) Although the use of the Genitive case is comparatively restricted, and the propositional group with 'of' is very often used in the same sense, the inflected Genitive can be formed from any noun;

3) One and the same inflection occurs in the singular and in the plural only in nouns that form the plural in the irregular way, and such nouns constitute an insignificant minority;

4) Historically, 's goes back to the Old English Genitive case inflection -es. The latter may be proved by comparing English with the Scandinavian languages which had very much in common. In the Scandinavian languages the Genitive case had be developing in the same way.

Barkhudarov thinks that neither of the two interpretations is convincing. We can't follow Vorontsova and say that 's is a word because:

1) In the English language there are no words which consisted only of one consonant;

2) If 's were a word, then it would be impossible to account for the morphological structure of such constructions as 'the boys' friends', where one and the same morpheme would have to be regarded as a morpheme when rendering the grammatical meaning of the plural number, and as a word when rendering the grammatical meaning of the Genitive case. The latter is absurd.

So, Barkhudarov draws the conclusion that 's is neither a word, nor an ordinary morpheme. It is a specific morpheme which may be and is attached not only to separate words, but occasionally also to combinations of words.

4. Grammatical category of gender

Traditionally, gender is defined as a morphological category which finds its expression in special noun inflections of gender. There is no unity of opinion concerning the category of gender in Modern English. Old English nouns distinguish three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Henry Sweet finds the same three genders in Modern English.

Criticizing the conception of H. Sweet, Smirnitsky emphasizes that in Modern English it's not nouns, but the things they denote that are classified into the so-called gender. For instance, there is no formal difference between the nouns 'boy' and 'girl', but the noun 'boy' is considered to belong to the masculine gender, the noun 'girl' - to the feminine gender because they denote male and female beings respectively. In other words, gender in Modern English nouns is expressed lexically - by means of different words. We sometimes find three separate words, one common to both sexes, one - for the male, and one - for the female,

E.g. child, son, daughter

In other cases we have two separate words, one - for the male and one - for the female,

E.g. uncle, aunt

Finally, we have a great many words for living beings which do not indicate sex,

E.g. cousin, friend, enemy

When a special indication of sex is wanted, this can always be done by adding a word denoting sex,

E.g. boyfriend, girlfriend; tomcat, pussycat

Sometimes a female word is derived from the male word with the help of the suffix -ess,

E.g. actor - actress, waiter - waitress

Ganshina, Vasilevskaya, Kaushanskaya and Kovner and some other linguists refer this suffix to a gender forming suffix. According to Smirnitsky, suffix -ess should be treated not as a form building, but as a word-building suffix. Otto Jespersen defines gender not as a morphological, but as a syntactic category because it finds its expression in grammatical agreement. In the opinion of Otto Jespersen when there is no agreement (согласование), gender disappears. The loss of inflections which began in the Middle English period resulted in an almost complete disappearance of argument. Gender in Modern English is expressed neither morphologically, i.e. by special inflections of gender, nor syntactically, i.e. by forms of agreement. Gender in Modern English is a purely lexical category.

 

Determiners

1. The definition of the article

2. Functions of articles

3. The category of determinedness and indeterminedness

 

1. The definition of the article

The articles belong to a syntactic class of words called determiners, which modify a noun. According to Owen Thomas in 1967, there are three subclasses of determiners: regular, post-determiners, and pre-determiners. The subclass of regular determiner includes articles demonstratives and genitives.

There are two features that distinguish determiners from other words in a noun phrase (a word group consisting of a noun and its modifier):

1) Only one determiner can be used in a noun phrase, which means that determiners are reciprocal exclusive;

2) A determiner with very few exceptions comes first in a noun phrase,

E.g. a beautiful red rose, some new books, his new black suit

With respect to the articles, we must state, in the first place, that there are languages which have no article. Besides Russian and most other Slavonic languages, the Latin language belongs here. Ancient Greek has only one article - the definite one. Many languages (Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, etc.) have two articles - the definite and indefinite. As far as its forms it concerned the article is usually a separate unit, which may be divided from its noun by other words, chiefly adjectives. However, in certain languages the article may also be a morpheme, attached to the noun as a kind of suffix. This is in case, for instance, Romanian, Bulgarian and Swedish.

There are two material articles in English: the definite article and the indefinite article. The absence of the article before a noun is also meaningful. The meaningful absence of the article is called the zero article. The indefinite article (a, an) is derived from the numeral 'one' (oe (an)) and retains some of its earlier meaning. It occurs only before singular nouns,

E.g. Peter started life as a schoolmaster.

The definite has developed from the Old English demonstrative pronoun (se). The demonstrative noun meaning is clearly felt in Modern English,

E.g. The screenplay (this screenplay) is based on the novel.

2. Functions of articles

The articles have morphological, syntactical and communicating functions.

The morphological function of the article consists in serving as a formal indicator of the noun (the presence of the article signals that what follows is noun).

The articles have two syntactic functions:

1) The article separates the noun phrase from other part of the sentence,

E.g. John has brought:

- a magazine

- an interesting magazine

- an English interesting magazine

2) The articles may connect sentences within a text by correlating a noun it modifies with some word or a group of words in the previous context,

E.g. John has bought a book.

The book is interesting.

Thus, the article in such a case has a connecting function.

The articles also have the communicating function. To understand this function, it is necessary to determine the relation between the definite and indefinite articles.

The opposition of general and individual plays an important part here, but not only this opposition is in concern. It's necessary to determine what's marked and what's unmarked. The indefinite article indicates an unidentified particular term, whereas the definite article indicates a particular or general term,

E.g. dog (as a class) means generalness

The dog (as a definite individual) means particularness.

3. The category of determinedness and indeterminedness

Speaking about the article we can't omit such a notion as the categories of determinedness and indeterminedness.

By the term 'determinedness' we understand the fact nouns are classified according to whether the content expressed by the noun is clear and identifiable in a concrete way or not.

Usually this category is realized in the positive case by determinedness and in the negative case by 'indeterminedness'. And the principal of the functional sentence articulation to through light on the problem of the nature of the category 'determinedness vs. indeterminedness'. By functional sentence articulation V. Mathesius meant the division of the sentence into theme and rheme.

The theme is that about which we affirm something, the rheme is that which we affirm about the same.

It was Ilyish who pointed out the possibility of explaining the category of determination on dependence on the functional sentence perspective. Ilyish gives two classes:

e.g. The door opened and the young girl came in.

The door opened and a young girl came in.

In the first clause the rheme is the fact that the young girl came in, whereas in the other clause with the indefinite article the theme is presented as new, the fact that it was a young girl who came in.

13.12.12

Ilyish attributes the difference to the work of articles. He sees in the definite and indefinite articles the means of functional sentence. According to Reznik, the articles may indicate the followings:

1) The place of the given word within the system of the part of speech;

The material articles definite and indefinite show that the word with which they co-occur belongs to the part of speech called 'noun'. The absence of the article does not indicate whether the word is a noun or not. Not every noun is always preceded by an article, but generally the form of the word (genitive ending or plural ending), the presence of other modifiers or the semantics of the noun clearly marks a word as a noun.

2) The place of the noun within the part of speech called noun, i.e. its countability or non-countability and its number singular or plural.

The indefinite article generally shows that the word belongs to the group of countable nouns and is used here in the singular. The absence of the article before a noun indicates that a noun is either non-countable and is used here in plural,

E.g. This is a boy (countable, singular).

This is butter (uncountable).

The definite article does not indicate either the group of the noun (countable and uncountable) or its number (singular and plural),

E.g. This is the boy (countable, singular).

These are the boys (countable, plural)

This is matter (uncountable, singular).

3) Relationship between the specific object and all other objects that may be denoted by the same word (the boy, the butter).

The definite article shows that the same denoted by the word with which the article co-occurs is presented here as in some way unique (under the circumstances, in general or specifically known to the speaker or to the listener),

E.g. The butter on the table has melted (but the butter in the fridge was OK).

The sky is blue (the same is unique in general).

This is the boy we spoke about yesterday (the object is specifically known to the listener or the speaker).

The indefinite or the absence of the article do not indicate whether the thing or person is presented here as unique or not, or as specifically known or unknown to the listener,

E.g. This is a boy I spoke about yesterday (possibly I spoke about more than one boy).

Peter and John are young boys (there may be other young boys).

4) Relationship between the idea or concept (boy, butter) denoted by the noun to the other concepts expressed in the same sentence.

The indefinite article or the absence of the article shows that the noun denotes 'this centre of communication', something which is brought forward for future discussion and comment, something new,

E.g. Yesterday I met a boy.

The boy was very young.

The definite article does not indicate whether the object is the centre of communication or not,

E.g. The boy I spoke about was there at my absence.

Thus, each article has its own set of features.

 

Adjectives

1. The definition of the adjective

2. Classes of adjectives

3. The degrees of comparison

4. Substantivization of adjectives

5. Adjectivization of nouns

6. The problem of statives

 

1. The definition of the adjective

The English adjective is a part of speech which is characterized by:

1) A generalized lexico-grammatical primary meaning of 'non-temporal property',

E.g. black, white, clever

2) A generalized grammatical secondary meaning of 'non-temporal property',

E.g. comfortable, national, graceful

3) The combinability with:

a) Nouns, mostly in postposition,

E.g. He was a pleasant fellow.

b) Verbs in preposition,

E.g. I married young.

c) Adverbs in preposition,

E.g. ...he was a deeply emotional man.

d) Prepositional combinations in postposition,

E.g. It is full of clean paper.

4) The syntactical functions of attribute and predicative,

E.g. She had a small child in her arms (attribute).

She was very soft and small (predicative).

As far as their morphological structure is concerned, adjectives fall under:

a) Simple,

E.g. green, high, low, fat, etc.

b) Derivative

The productive adjective-forming suffixes are:

-less (hopeless);

-like (childlike);

-ish (foolish);

-(e)d (talented).

The productive adjective-forming prefixes are:

un- (unkind);

pre- (prewar).

c) Compound,

E.g. red-hot, water-proof, knee-high, age-long, etc.

In Old English adjectives were inflected for case, gender, number and degrees of comparison. Modern English adjectives have retained only one grammatical category: degree of comparison.

2. Classes of adjectives

According to their meaning and grammatical characteristics, adjectives can be classified into qualitative and relative.

Qualitative adjectives denote qualities of a substance directly,

E.g. small, brave, quick

Most qualitative adjectives have degrees of comparison,

E.g. nice - nicer - the nicest

From most of them adverbs can be formed with the help of the suffix -ly,

E.g. careful - carefully

Qualitative adjectives are used both attributively and predicatively,

E.g. What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! (attribute)

They are quite, quite blue (predicative).

Relative adjectives express qualities of a substance through their relation to materials (wooden), to place (Italian), to time (weekly), to some action (preparatory), i.e. indirectly. Relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison. They do not form adverbs by means of the suffix -ly. Relative adjectives are chiefly used as attributes,

E.g. ...he found at the bottom of the box a pair of wooden skates which had been Kate's when she was a child.

There are no hard-and-fast lines between qualitative and relative adjectives. A relative adjective can acquire the meaning of a qualitative one,

E.g. Wooden walls - walls made of wood

A wooden smile - an inexpressive smile

Zhigadlo, Ivanova and Iofik mention also quantitative adjectives. This class comprises such words as 'many, much, little, few'. Like qualitative adjectives they have degrees of comparison: 'many, much - more - most', 'little - less - least', 'few - fewer - fewest',

E.g. We have much work to do.

George did more work than anyone else.

The most work is often done by the quietest worker.

I have very little time for reading.

Please make less noise.

George gives me the least trouble.

Fortunately, there were very few people down there at the time...

There were fewer people today than yesterday.

Harry made the fewest mistakes.

But as opposed to qualitative adjectives, which express qualities of an object directly, and as opposed to relative adjectives, which denote qualities of an object indirectly, the so-called quantitative adjectives characterize the given object numerically, just as numerals do. Thus, it is open to discussion whether 'many, much, little, few' can be considered adjectives. If one gives precedence to form, one should refer them to adjectives, because they have degrees of comparison. If one considers meaning to be the most important factor, one should exclude them from the class of adjectives and refer them to numerals or rather to pronouns, because their numerical characteristics are extremely general,

E.g. five tables (numeral)

some tables (pronoun)

many tables (the so-called quantitative adjective)

3. The degrees of comparison

Linguistic status of the category of degree of comparison

The problem of degrees of comparison has given rise to much controversy. First of all, there is no unity of opinions concerning the character of this category in Modern English. Some linguists think that degree of comparison should be treated as a lexical category. In their opinion, 'long - longer - the longest' represent three different words, not forms of one and the same word.

Criticizing this point of view, Smirnitsky says that the degree of comparison is a grammatical category. In the first place, the forms 'long - longer - the longest' are characterized by identical lexical meaning. In the second place, all the three forms have the same stem 'long'.

Adjectives that lack degrees of comparison

As a rule, only qualitative adjectives admit of degrees of comparison, because they denote properties capable of appearing in different degrees,

E.g. fine - finer - the finest

But some qualitative adjectives stand outside the category of comparison. They are:

1) Adjectives that express the highest of a quality,

E.g. supreme, extreme

2) Adjectives having the suffix -ish,

E.g. reddish, whitish

3) Adjectives with a negative meaning,

E.g. illiterate

4) Adjectives expressing incomparable qualities,

E.g. deaf, dead, lame

Relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison.

Number of degrees of comparison

The next question is how many degrees of comparison the English adjectives have. The majority of linguists single out three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative.

The positive degree is looked upon as the basis for comparison. It expresses a simple quality without comparison,

E.g. They are all strong men.

The comparative degree indicates that the quality is found in the person or thing described in a higher degree than in some other person or thing,

E.g. The man in the middle is stronger than the man on the left.

The superlative degree denotes the highest degree of a quality,

E.g. He is the strongest of the three men.

As a matter of fact, the positive degree does not imply comparison. That is why H. Sweet, M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya mention only two degrees of comparison, namely the comparative and the superlative degrees. However, there is little justification for excluding the positive degree from the classification, because although it does not imply any comparison, it makes comparison possible.

O. Jespersen suggests a classification based on semantic criteria. He distinguishes:

1) Superiority (more dangerous than);

2) Equality (as dangerous as);

3) Inferiority (less dangerous than).

The classification of degrees of comparison, put forward A.I. Smirnitsky, on the whole does not differ from the traditional one. He also speaks about the positive, the comparative and the superlative degrees. But he finds it possible to combine the comparative degree and the superlative degree into one group which he calls 'relative'. Following O. Jespersen, he makes use of the semantic criterion. The meaning of the positive degree, in his opinion, is absolute. It is the norm of some quality, so to speak. As to the comparative and the superlative degrees, they are both relative in meaning. Thus, if one says 'Mrs. Black is three years younger than her husband', one does not mean that Mrs. Black is young. She may be 75 years old whereas her husband is 78. The sentences only indicates that Mrs. Black has more of this quality (being young) than her husband. So, the meaning of the comparative degree is relative.

If one says 'Mary is the youngest in the family...', one does not mean that Mary is a little girl. One simply emphasizes that Mary has the highest degree of this quality (being young) as compared with the rest of the family. Thus, the meaning of the superlative degree is also relative.

Taking into consideration the relative character of meaning of the comparative and the superlative degrees, as opposed to the positive degree, A.I. Smirnitsky thinks there is good ground to speak of 2 forms of comparison only the positive degree and the relative degree which exists in two varieties - the comparative degree and the superlative degree.

Positive Relative

 

 

Comparative Superlative

 

Synthetic and analytical forms of degrees of comparison

The problem of forms of degrees of comparison is also controversial. Monosyllabic adjectives, i.e. adjectives consisting of one syllable, and some disyllabic adjectives, which have two syllables, form the comparative degree with the help of the suffix -er and the superlative degree with the help of the suffix -est,

E.g. The days get longer...

...there were the longest days of the year.

This is a synthetic way of forming degrees of comparison. The existence of synthetic forms of degrees of comparison is recognized by the majority of linguists. As to the combinations with 'more' and 'most', 'less' and 'least', the question is debatable.

First, we shall discuss the problem of the combinations with 'less' and 'least': 'important - less important - least important'. To qualify these constructions as analytical degree of comparison, we must prove that they represent analytical forms of the adjective 'important'. Analytical forms are generally singled out when opposed to synthetic forms. As to the combinations with 'less' and 'least', they have no parallel synthetic forms to express a lower degree of this or that quality.

Thus, according to O. Curme and G.N. Vorontsova, the existence of correlation with corresponding synthetic forms was absolutely necessary only in the Middle English period, when the first analytical forms came to be used. Now, when there are a lot of analytical forms in the system of the English language, they may appear independently, on the analogy of other analytical forms. Thus, the combinations with 'less' and 'least', in their opinion, were coined on the analogy of the analytical forms built on the pattern 'more/most + adjective'. This, however, is a debatable point, since the other analytical forms in the English language have parallel synthetic forms.

What is more, the words 'less' and 'least' do not either lose or weaken their lexical meaning as auxiliary elements in analytical forms should,

E.g. I found the memory much less vivid...

So, the adjectival combinations with 'less' and 'least' are free word combinations, not analytical forms of degrees of comparison.

Now we shall take up the problem of the combinations with 'more' and 'most': 'beautiful - more beautiful - most beautiful',

E.g. This is the most wonderful and most exciting picture ever made; more laughable than 'Charley's Aunt', more moving than 'Limelight'; more expensive than 'Chin Chin Chow', more beautiful than 'Romeo and Juliet'.

According to V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova and L.L. Iofik, they are also outside the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. First, 'more' and 'most' form combinations with adjectives similar to those with 'less' and 'least'.

E.g. more beautiful - less beautiful, most beautiful - least beautiful

Oh, I'm the most sensible person here - and Lucille is the least sensible.

Since the forms 'less beautiful' and 'least beautiful' are not degrees of comparison, the combinations with 'more' and 'most' cannot be considered degrees of comparison either.

Second, combinations with 'most' may be used with the indefinite article to express a very high degree of quality,

E.g. 'A most tragic thing happened to her early in the war', which is equivalent to 'A very sad thing happened to her early in the war'.

This meaning is not to be found in the synthetic superlative degree. Constructions of the type 'a prettiest girl' do not occur in the English language. Therefore it is doubtful whether the combinations 'more + adjective' and 'most + adjective' are forms of degrees of comparison.

This argument of theirs is not convincing, since in the sentence 'A most tragic thing happened to her early in the war' 'most' is not the superlative degree of 'much', but an independent word, an adverb synonymous with 'very'.

Finally, V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova and L.L. Iofik consider it wrong to refer the forms with 'more' and 'most' to degrees of comparison because 'more' and 'most' fully retain their lexical meaning. They really do,

E.g. You'll be more comfortable if you turn the sent down.

They were the most beautiful children she had ever seen.

However, this conception is not universally accepted. The majority of linguists think that such combinations as 'more beautiful', 'most beautiful' are analytical degrees of comparison, or at least analytical degrees of comparison in the making. They adduce the following proofs.

First, polysyllabic qualitative adjectives like 'beautiful' express properties which can be present in different degrees and therefore they can have degrees of comparison.

Second, the analytical forms of degrees of comparison with 'more' and 'most' have corresponding synthetic forms in -er and -est,

E.g. more beautiful - prettier, most beautiful - prettiest

Third, analytical forms in Modern English are constantly on the increase. All the above mentioned arguments sound rather convincing.

Irregular forms of comparison

Besides the already mentioned synthetic and analytical forms of degrees of comparison, there are irregular forms. A few adjectives have suppletive forms of comparison which are derived from different roots,

E.g. good - better - best, bad - worse - worst

Is Lucille a good dancer?

You're such a better cook than your mother was, Elizabeth.

The best women are divorced... And the best men are married.

It's a bad time now, and a worse time coming.

...it's the worst year we've had for a long time.

A few adjectives have 2 sets of forms of comparison,

E.g. old - 1) older - oldest (age in general); 2) elder - eldest (age within the family)

She is an old woman...

His friends were older than Vivian.

...white's was one of the oldest clubs in England...

My elder brother was in a car accident last week.

The eldest daughter does all the housework.

Since the second set of forms (elder - eldest) has a meaning slightly different from the meaning of the positive degree (old), they can hardly be regarded as grammatical forms of degrees of comparison, but should be qualified as separate lexical units which originally were, perhaps, grammatical degrees of comparison of the adjective 'old'.

Absolute use of the superlative degree

Adjectives in the superlative degree imply limitation, that is why the noun modified by an adjective in the superlative degree always combines with the definite article,

E.g. It was one of the worst days for him.

Since adjectives preceded by the definite article are easily substantivized, the superlative degree is often used absolutely, either with the head noun mentioned before or without any noun whatsoever,

E.g. Their pool was perhaps the oldest in the country...

...the villa in Sardinia was her favourite. It was by no means the largest, but it was the most colourful, the friendliest.

...let's hope for the best.

But if the worst comes to the worst, don't blame me.

4. Substantivization of adjectives

Adjectives can be substantivized, i.e. become nouns. When adjectives are converted into nouns, they no longer indicate properties of substances, but come to express substances possessing these properties. In English, the process of substantivization is easier than in Russian due to the scantiness (недостаточность) of inflections. Substantivization can be whole and partial.

Adjectives wholly converted into nouns acquire not only the grammatical meaning of nouns, but their typical morphological and syntactic characteristics. These features are:

1) Ability to form the plural,

E.g. All natives have good hands and feet.

2) Ability to be used in the Genitive case,

E.g. He is investigating the ancients' conception of the universe.

3) Ability to be used with the indefinite article,

E.g. I spoke the language like a native...

4) Ability to be modified by an adjective,

E.g. My uncle is my nearest living relative.

5) The functions of subject or object in the sentence,

E.g. A native was silently rowing up-stream... (subject)

The government of the island treated the natives badly (object).

More often substantivization is but partial. In the case of partial substantivization adjectives acquire the grammatical meaning of nouns (thingness), the noun combinability with the definite article and the noun functions of subject and object,

E.g. The poor must stand together everywhere (subject).

...it seems to me I saw everybody but the dead (object).

But they lack the grammatical categories of case and number and never combine with the indefinite article.

A.I. Smirnitsky thinks that in order to become a noun, an adjective must acquire number distinctions. That is why he does not recognize partial substantivization and treats cases like 'the rich, the poor' as the use of adjectives without nouns.

But the category of number is common only to countable nouns. Uncountable nouns stand outside the category of number. Nevertheless nobody denies them the status of nouns. So, the argument of A.I. Smirnitsky is not convincing: partial substantivization does exist.

5. Adjectivization of nouns

The question of adjectivization of nouns presents a number of difficulties. Here we shall deal with such constructions as 'stone wall', 'peace talks', etc.

In the opinion of B.A. Ilyish, it is practically impossible to prove whether 'stone' in 'stone wall' is a noun or an adjective.

H. Sweet thinks that the first component in these constructions is a noun because it lacks the category of degrees of comparison. However, many adjectives have no degrees of comparison either.

E.P. Shubin also refers the first component in constructions of the type 'stone wall' to nouns. But taking into construction that it always performs the function of an attribute, he finds it necessary to slightly modify the conception of H. Sweet by calling the first component 'an attributive noun'. The term 'attributive noun' stresses the transitional nature of such nouns, their tendency to turn into adjectives.

According to O. Jespersen, they have already turned into adjectives. He puts forward the following arguments to prove his point of view. In the first place, they can combine with adjectives,

E.g. Her Christian and family name.

In the second place, they can be followed by the prop-word 'one',

E.g. Two gold watches and a silver one.

In the third place, they can be modified by prepositive adverbs,

E.g. On merely business grounds.

In the fourth place, some of them can have degree of comparison,

E.g. In a more everyday tone.

In the most matter-of-fact way.

The divergency of views, in our opinion, is due to the gradual process of adjectivization. The latter is reflected in dictionaries. Thus, the Longman Dictionary presents 'family' and 'business' as nouns. For 'silver' it has two entries:

silver (n) - a soft whitish precious metal,

silver (adj) - made of silver.

Solid and hyphenated compounds of the type 'everyday', 'matter-of-fact' are qualified there as adjectives.

Only time will show whether all the attributive nouns will turn into adjectives proper, but their adjectivization is an indisputable fact.

6. The problem of statives

A. Vostokov was the first to draw attention to the specific nature of statives in the system of the Russian language. But he did not study the problem closely. It was L.V. Scerby and V.V. Vinogradov who singled out such words as 'холодно, сыро, весело, жаль' into a separate part of speech.

The first grammarian to mention statives in English was B.A. Ilyish. He thinks that words of the category of state, for instance, 'asleep, alive' constitute a separate part of speech because they possess semantic, morphological and syntactic characteristics of their own.

Semantically, he says, statives are marked by the presence of a seme of state, as opposed to adjectives that express non-temporal property,

E.g. ...he had been asleep for some time...,

which means that he had been in a state of sleep for some time.

In the opinion of L.S. Barkhudarov, the meaning of state is merely a variety of the meaning of non-temporal property typical of adjectives. So, in his opinion, statives do not differ from adjectives as far as their meaning is concerned.

Morphologically, statives seem to stand apart from adjectives for they have a specific prefix a- and lack the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On closer inspection, the absence of degrees of comparison does not prove anything. On the one hand, there are a lot of anything which stand outside the grammatical category of degrees of comparison. On the other hand, some of the so-called statives form degrees of comparison just like most qualitative adjectives,

E.g. The two main meals of the day, lunch and dinner, are both more or less alike.

As for the prefix a-, the Longman Dictionary regards it as an adjective forming prefix.

B.A. Ilyish thinks that statives possess the category of tense. 'He is asleep', in his opinion, refers to the present tense as opposed to 'He was asleep' which is past and to 'He will be asleep' which is future.

However, this point of view does not seem convincing. If one analyses the above mentioned sentences, he will see that the category of tense finds its expression in the link verb 'be' (is, was, will be), not in the stative 'asleep', which in itself cannot express any tense distinctions. In other words, if the so-called statives do have morphological categories, it is the morphological category of degrees of comparison that they possess, common to adjectives.

The combinability of statives and adjectives, according to L.S. Barkhudarov, is also alike. Thus, both adjectives and statives can be modified by adverbs,

E.g. She was very happy.

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