The Verb. The Category of Mood

Verkhovskaya denotes mood as the grammatical category of the verb which expresses modality, i.e. the relation between the contents of a sentence and reality. The form of the finite verb in a sentence shows whether the situation described in it is real, unreal, or problematic, i.e. not certain to happen.

There are three moods in English:

1) The indicative mood;

2) The imperative mood;

3) The subjunctive mood.

Various definition of the category of mood have been given. We'll give the definition of Vinogradov: mood expresses the relation of the action to reality, as stated by the speaker.

Boris Ilyish does not agree with this definition on the whole. He notices that there are other ways of indicating the reality or possibility of an action, besides the verbal category of mood,

E.g. modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.) and modal words (perhaps, probably), but two moods are universally recognized. This is the division of moods into the one which represents an action as real (the indicative) and the second which represents it as non-real, or imaginary (conditional).

The indicative mood states facts,

E.g. The house is very close to the sea.

But one peculiarity of this category should be kept in mind: not all facts expressed by the predicate verb in the indicative mood are necessarily true. There can be the possibility that the speaker is mistaken or telling a lie. We should keep in mind that theoretical grammar does not deal with the ultimate truth. What is essential from the grammatical point of view is the meaning of the category. One more peculiarity about the category of the indicative mood is the question of a peculiar model character of the future indicative as distinct from the present or past indicative,

E.g. I will speak to him if I meet him.

The imperative mood is represented by one form only,

E.g. Come!

without any suffix or ending. It differs from all other moods in several important points: it has no person, number, tense, or aspect distinctions and it is limited to one type of sentence only (imperative sentences). Most usually a verb in the imperative has no pronoun acting as subject. It is very rare in emotional sentences, speech only,

E.g. You, leave me alone!

A serious difficulty connected with the imperative is the absence of any specific morphological characteristics. With all verbs including the verb 'be' it coincides with the infinitive.

The subjunctive mood

The chief difficulty analysis has to face here is the absence of a mutual relation between meaning and form. Sometimes the same series of signs will have two (even more) different meanings depending on factors lying outside the form itself and outside the meaning of the verb. Sometimes the same modal meaning will be expressed by two different series of external signs,

E.g. The first point may be illustrated by the example 'We should come' (I think we should come here again tomorrow) - here it is an equivalent to 'We ought to come'.

'If we knew that he wants to see us we should come to see him'. 'Should come' here denotes a conditional action, i.e. an action depends on certain conditions.

Matters are still further complicated by two phenomena where we are faced with the choice with a choice between polysemy and homonymy,

E.g. the forms like 'lived', 'knew' may appear in two types of contexts:

He lived here five years ago.

If he lived here he would come at once.

If I knew his address I should write to him.

In the first type of sentences it is the past tense of the indicative mood and in two other examples the forms are the forms of some other mood, which only happen to be homonymous with forms of the past indicative, but they are basically different.

The forms 'should go' and 'would go' are also used in different contexts,

E.g. I said I should go at once (it is future in the past).

I should go if I knew the place (it is subjunctive).

Whom should I need but him? (the question which arises here is this: is the group 'should/would go' in both cases the same form with the meaning changed according to the syntactic context, so that one context favours the temporal meaning (future in the past) and the other - a modal meaning (a mood of some sort differing from the indicative).

The problem of polysemy and homonymy with reference to such forms as 'knew', 'lived', or 'should come', 'would come' and the like is very hard one to solve. All these considerations make the problem of mood in Modern English extremely difficult to solve.

Owing to the difference of approach to moods, grammarians have been vesselating between two extremes: three moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative) put forward by many grammarians and sixteen moods as proposed by Deutschbein. Between these extremes there are intermediate views, such as that of professor Smirnitsky who proposed a system of six moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive one, subjunctive two, suppositional and conditional) and who was followed by this respect by Ganshina and Vasilevskaya. The problem of English moods was also investigated by professor Vorontsova and by a number of other scholars.

According to Reznik, there are four principal forms of the subjunctive mood in English:

1) I/he should go/should be present;

2) I/he go(es)/be present;

3) I/he would go/be present;

4) I/he went/were present.

The main difference between subjunctive forms one and two, and subjunctive moods three and four is the degree of probability. Subjunctive forms one and two are used to present events as probable, though problematic. Subjunctive moods three and four present them as purely imaginary or contrary to fact.

The choice between forms of the subjunctive moods also depends upon the type of the sentence (clause) in which the form is used. Subjunctive one (I/he should go) is widely used in different structures: in complex sentences, in subject, object, predicative, or attributive clauses, also clauses of condition and concession; in simple, or compound sentences,

E.g. It is suggested that he should come (subject clause).

I suggest that he should come (object clause).

The suggestion was that he should come (a predicative clause).

The suggestion that he should come was quite unexpected (an attributive clause).

If he should come, I shall be very happy (a clause of condition).

Even if he should come, I shall be very happy (a clause of concession).

28.03.13

Subjunctive form two 'I/he go' is rather restricted in its use. It will be found in subordinate nominal clauses mainly subject or object in the clause of object,

E.g. It is suggested that you will come here soon (subject clause).

I suggest that you will come here soon (object clause).

Subjunctive form three 'I/he would come' is mainly used in the principal clause of a complex sentence containing a clause of condition, concession in a simple or compound sentence,

E.g. If he came here, they would be very happy (it is a complex sentence with a clause of condition).

Even if he came here, they wouldn't be very happy (it is a complex sentence with a clause of concession).

He would come with pleasure (it is a simple sentence).

He would come with pleasure, but he can't (it is a compound sentence).

Subjunctive form four 'I/he came' is used rather widely in complex sentences, mainly in subject or complex clauses, or in clause of condition, concession, comparison and sometimes in simple sentences,

E.g. It's time he came here (subject clause).

I wish he came here more often (object clause).

If he came here more often, they would be very happy (clause of condition).

He seems as if he came here rather often (predicative clause).

Even if he came here more often, they wouldn't be very happy (clause of concession).

He seems quite familiar with the place, as if he came here very often (clause of comparison).

Oh, if he came here more often! (a simple sentence)

Groups which ought not to be classed under modal categories

Among these we must mention first the groups 'let me go', 'let us go' and 'let him go', i.e. the patterns 'let + personal pronoun (in the objective case) or noun (in the common case) + infinitive which may be used to denote':

1) A decision of the first person singular (i.e. of the speaker himself) to commit an action;

2) An appeal to the first person plural to commit an action together with the speaker;

3) An appeal to the third person (singular or plural) to commit some action.

Boris Ilyish thinks that groups of this structure can't be recognized as analytical forms of the imperative. They belong to syntax. The imperative mood is represented by the second person forms only.

Mood and tense

An independence between mood and tense which has a much wider meaning may be found if we analyze the system of tenses together with that of moods. In no other mood we can find the same system of tenses as in the indicative mood. It is the indicative mood which is used to represent real actions, and it is such actions that are described by exact temporal characteristics. As to those actions which do not take place in reality, but are thought as possible, desirable, etc., they would not require a detailed time characteristics.

Time is essentially objective, while all moods, except the indicative, are subjective.

We have here forms of the indicative mood in a special use.

The Verbals

The verbals (infinitive, gerund and participle) make up a part of the English verbal system. They have some features in common with the finite forms of the verb, but they have some peculiarities of their own. They have a system of verbal categories, but they have only some of them and lack some others. None of the verbals has any category of person, or mood, or number.

With reference to aspect, we shall have to examine each of the verbals separately.

In the infinitive there is an opposition between two sets of forms,

E.g. speak - be speaking, have spoken - have been spoken

This opposition can be found in the sphere of finite forms between 'speak - am speaking', 'spoke - was speaking'. The infinitive has the category of aspect or, to be more exact, there is a distinction between the common and the continuous aspect,

E.g. He seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot.

With the gerund and participle, things are different. They exhibit no such distinction. Occasionally, however, a continuous participle may be found,

E.g. The younger miss Thorpes was being also dancing.

The category of tense and correlation

In the infinitive we find the following oppositions 'speak - have spoken', 'be speaking - have been speaking'. And in the gerund and in the participle we find oppositions 'speaking - having spoken', 'being spoken - having been spoken'. We can see that in each pair one item is unmarked both in meaning and in form, whereas the other (the perfect) is marked both in meaning (expressing precedence) and in form (consisting of the pattern 'have + participle 2).

The category of correlation (phase) is much more universal in the Modern English verb than that of tense. Correlation appears in all forms of the English verb both finite and non-finite, except the imperative, while tense is only found in the indicative mood and nowhere else. Since the verbals are hardly ever the predicate of a sentence, they do not express the category of tense in the way the finite verb forms do. Thus, it seems pointless to argue that there is a present and a past tense in the system of verbals. We can endorse the view that the opposition between 'speak - have spoken', 'speaking - having spoken' is based on the category of phase (correlation).

Voice

Like the finite forms of the verb, the verbals have a distinction between active and passive, as will be seen from the following oppositions 'read - be read', 'have read - have been read, 'reading - being read', 'having read - having been read'. If we deny the existence of reflexive, reciprocal and middle voices in the finite forms, we must also deny the existence of these voices in the verbals.

All the verbals have the categories of phase and voice, the infinitive, in addition, has the category of aspect, and none of the verbals has the categories of tense, mood, person and number.

The second participle presents many peculiar difficulties for analysis, while analyzing we are to emphasize that we are analyzing the meaning and the use of participle 2, when it does not make of an analytical verb form, because in analytical verb forms it loses some of its own characteristics. We also exclude the cases where it has been adjectivized (changed into adjectives) and no longer a participle,

E.g. written work, devoted friend ('devoted' does not designate an action, but a property).

The use of participle 2 outside the analytical formations is comparatively limited. We find it either as a predicative in such cases 'the door is shut', when it does not denote an action (compare 'the door is shut at 9 p.m. every day), but a state of things or as an objective predicative, or as an attribute following a noun,

E.g. This is a new machine invented by our engineers.

The grammatical categories of the second participle of transitive verbs are as follows: the only category which is expressed in it is that of voice (namely the passive voice), the other categories, namely aspect, tense, correlation, mood, person, number find no expression in it. As far as voice is concerned, the second participle of transitive verbs (invited) joins the other passive participles (being invited, having been invited) as against the active participles (inviting, having invited).

 

11.04.13

Pronoun

1. Semantic characteristics of pronouns

2. Morphological characteristics of pronouns

3. Syntactic characteristics of pronouns

4. The category of case

5. New approach to pronouns

 

1. Semantic characteristics of pronouns

The meaning of the pronoun as a separate part of speech is difficult to define. In fact, some pronouns share essential peculiarities of nouns (she), while others have much in common with adjectives (her). Like nouns and adjectives, pronouns denote things and properties of things, but they do not name them as nouns and adjectives do. The pronoun is a part of speech which points to things and their properties without naming them. Pronouns, according to Vinogradov and Smirnitsky, have a very general relative meaning which varies depending on the situation. For instance, the personal pronoun 'I' may indicate a woman, a man, a child and even an animal or a thing in fairy tales. Taken in isolation, the pronoun is practically devoid of any meaning whatsoever.

Noun and adjectives are quite different in this respect. Thus, the indication of an object by means of the noun 'table' does not depend on the speaker or situation. The estimation of properties is, certainly, more subjective, but still nobody will call a square table round or an ugly man - handsome.

Jespersen thinks that if we took the relative character of meaning as the basis for singling out pronouns into a separate part of speech, we should refer such words as 'today, yesterday, tomorrow, right, left, father, mother, John' to pronouns, too, because they also change their meaning in accordance with the situation.

There is a grain of truth in it, since, for example, no concrete day exists which is always called 'yesterday'. Nevertheless, according to Smirnitsky, we are not justified in including the words 'yesterday, today, tomorrow' and the like into the class of pronouns, for they indicate time in the way substantives do. Thus, using the word 'yesterday' we mean a definite period of time, a day, not a second, a minute, an hour, a week or a year. Such generalization is to be found only in pronouns proper.

2. Morphological characteristics of pronouns

Structure

Pronouns fall under simple (we) and compound (ourselves). Derivative pronouns do not occur in the English language. Many linguists recognize the existence of phrase pronouns (each other, one another).

If, however, we accept the view that it is only words that are classified into parts of speech, we shall have to exclude the combinations 'each other' and 'one another' from the class of pronouns and study them in syntax.

It is impossible to speak of a pronominal system of inflections since pronouns constitute a heterogeneous (разнородный) group.

The category of gender

The pronouns lack the grammatical category of gender. Personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns express sex distinction lexically,

E.g. he – she, his – her (hers), himself – herself,

He told me all about it.

She felt sorry for a poor woman behind the door.

She didn’t move her hand.

He put out his hand to take hers.

The category of number

The grammatical category of number is found in reflexive pronouns, in the demonstrative pronouns ‘this, that’ and in the defining pronoun ‘other’, ‘myself – ourselves’, ‘yourself – ourselves’, ‘himself, herself’, ‘itself – themselves’, ‘this – these’, ‘that – those’, ‘other – others’,

E.g. And then I dressed myself and came away to find you.

Well, I hope you’ll both enjoy yourselves.

What would he do with himself?

When she washed herself, the cat washed itself.

They blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage.

I look awful in this blue dress.

I loved that movie.

Those nights were long.

You are not fair to the others.

The category of case

The defining pronouns ‘everybody, everyone, other’, the negative pronouns ‘nobody, no one’ and the indefinite pronouns and the indefinite pronouns ‘somebody, someone, anybody, anyone, one’ have the Common and the Genitive case just like nouns.

E.g. … you know almost everybody.

Nobody was spending any money.

Everybody’s business is nobody’s business.

Anybody can see it.

It’s anybody’s right.

Only one with a constitution of iron could have hold himself down, as Martin did.

I know exactly what it feels like to be held down on one’s back.

Personal pronouns, the interrogative and relative ‘who’ draw a distinction between the Nominative and the Objective Cases.

Personal pronouns: Interrogative/Relative pronouns

I – me you – you who – whom

he – him they – their

she – her

it – it

we – us

There is a tendency in Modern English to use of the Nominative case of personal pronounce only in the function of the subject that is followed immediately by the predicate-verb,

E.g. You don’t understand.

The Objective case is used everywhere else,

E.g. We’re mad, you and me…

You are the only person who has ever seen Ran. – Me?

They’d tell me themselves. – Not them.

It wasn’t me.

Obviously no one can do it but him.

Jack was three or four years older than me.

You are as conventional as them all.

In the interrogative pronoun ‘who’ the Objective case form ‘whom’ tends to be replaced by the Nominative case form ‘who’, especially if the question ends with a preposition,

E.g. Who could she trust?

Who can he take after?

In the relative pronoun ‘who’ the expansion of the Nominative case also takes place,

E.g. You know who I mean, don’t you?

… that is my older sister who you didn’t meet.

However, the tendency to oust the Objective case form is not so strong with the relative ‘who’ as with the interrogative ‘who’ evidently because the relative ‘who’ is not followed immediately by the verb,

e.g. I asked whom Mark had married.

Then there was Kirsten Lindstrom, whom you probably met.

When the relative ‘who’ is followed immediately by the verb, it is used in the Nominative case,

E.g. His father was here, and so everything was all right. His father whom he loved and who was happy and strong, and his only promise of safety.

3. Syntactic characteristics of pronouns

Pronouns can be used both as notional and auxiliary elements. When used as notional words, they perform the function of this or that part of the sentence. When employed auxiliary elements, they help express various grammatical meanings. Personal pronouns, for instance, render the grammatical meaning of person.

Etymologically, the word ‘pronoun’ means ‘a word, used instead of a noun’. This meaning reflects, to some extent, the role of pronouns in the language. Pronouns can replace hundreds of nouns. This explains the fact that pronouns are used very frequently and form a considerable part of any text, though as a class of words they're not numerous.

But this definition is not suitable to all pronouns. For instance, in the sentence ‘It snows’, the pronoun ‘it’ does not take the place of any noun. If you try to substitute a noun for ‘it’, you will find none that will quite do. The best possible substitute is ‘The snow (snows)’, and this is a ridiculous repetition. So, the pronoun ‘it’ in sentence of the type ‘It snows’ stands independent of all noun reference or relationship.

What is more important, pronouns substitute not only nouns but also adjectives. Taking into consideration that the syntactic functions of pronouns are similar to those of nouns and adjectives, H. Sweet denies the existence of pronouns as a separate part of speech. Pronouns, in his opinion, are a special subclass of nouns and adjectives and, accordingly, he distinguishes noun-pronouns and adjective-pronouns.

Noun-pronouns perform the functions of subject and object,

E.g. She laughed – subject.

The children will hear you – object.

Adjective-pronouns function as attributes,

E.g. Your husband has come.

Personal pronouns are always used as noun-pronouns. Possessive pronouns are functionally, heterogeneous. Possessive pronouns on the conjoint for (me, his, her, its, our, your, their) are always used as adjective – pronouns; possessive pronouns in the absolute form (mine. his. hers. int. our. yours. theirs) are always used as noun – pronouns,

E.g. Did it ever cross your mind that I might have married Ann f because I fell in love with her? – No. Did it ever cross yours?

But the majority of pronouns have both noun and adjective functions,

E.g. Oh, look at this bracelet, Carlos – here the pronoun ‘this’ is an adjective – pronoun modifying the noun ‘bracelet’.

How much is this? – here the pronoun ‘this’ is a noun-pronoun used absolutely, without a noun.

The similarity of functions, however, is no excuse for uniting pronouns with nouns and adjectives. They differ not only semantically and to some extent morphologically, as is evident from the above given material, but also syntactically which become evident if we analyze their combinability.

Noun-pronouns, just like nouns, combine with postpositive and prepositive verbs,

E.g. Claude produced a pocket-knife.

He saw me the next night…

But as opposed to nouns, noun-pronouns generally do not combine with articles and are not modified by prepositive adjectives. Compare the regular occurrence of combinations of the type ‘Poor Murdoch’, on the one hand, and the rare use of combinations of the type ‘Poor me’.

Adjective-pronouns, just like adjectives, combine with nouns in postposition,

E.g. The tall youth beside him was his son Bert.

Her face lit up suddenly.

But as opposed to adjectives, adjective-pronouns cannot form combinations with preceding adverbs.

Summing it all up, we can say that there is no uniformity of morphological and syntactic characteristics in the groups of pronouns. Pronouns form a class chiefly on the basis of their semantic peculiarities. In the respect, pronouns constitute a specific part of speech, for in all other notional parts of speech formal characteristics are of paramount importance because they are systemic.

5. New approach to pronouns

According to Shredova and Belousova, pronouns form the basis of the main notional categories in the language. The authors describe in detail 7 notional categories:

1) Who – animate being

2) What kind – property

3) Whose – possession

4) How many – number

5) Where – place where to, where from – direction

6) Which – choice

7) When – time

All the notional categories draw a distinction between three degrees of definiteness, indefiniteness, non-existence.

Lexicon, morphology, syntax, text structures and phraseology take part in the formation of notion categories. But each notional category has the pronoun as head word.

Who – animate being

Definiteness – I, you, he, she.

Indefiniteness – somebody, someone.

Non-existence – nobody, no one.

Whose – possession

Definiteness – my, your, his, her

Indefiniteness – somebody’s, someone’s

Non-existence – nobody’s, no one’s

In other words, pronouns are indispensable in building up the notional categories of all languages.

 

18.04.13

Preposition

The preposition is a word which has a very general meaning. It denotes the relations between the given object and other objects, phenomena or events. According to their meaning, prepositions are often divided into those of place and direction (on, in, below, under, at, to, from), and time (after, before, in, at), and cause (because of, owing to), and purpose (for, in order to), etc.

It will be necessary to mention that such classifications are hardly addictive, at least for two reasons:

1) The same preposition may be listed under two or more headings,

E.g. He went there for life (of time).

She shivered for coldness (of cause).

He did it for pleasure (of purpose).

2) Many prepositions (by, with, of, etc.) have such a general meaning which it will be impossible to define with any precision.

Morphological characteristics

Prepositions have one unchangeable form, they have no grammatical categories. In accordance with their structure, prepositions may be subdivided into simple and compound. Simple prepositions consist of one element (stem) (in, on, at, after, before). Compound prepositions consist of two or more elements, or stems (instead of, out of, owing to, etc.).

Syntactical characteristics

Prepositions generally form phrases with nouns or pronouns as the head of the phrase,

E.g. He went there for life.

He bought that for them.

Prepositions can also form part of an infinitive or gerundive phrase,

E.g. After living there for several years, he began to like the place very much.

Prepositions have no independent function in the sentence. They are found there as part of a phrase, the phrase functioning as a prepositional object, an adverbial modifier or sometimes as an attribute,

E.g. He went to Peter (object).

He went to Peter's place (adverbial modifier).

He was a man of great talent and ability (attribute).

Prepositions can't have an independent communicative function. They are generally used in the utterance to indicate the following relations:

1) Relations between two objects,

E.g. The cover of the book was very beautiful.

2) Between objects and an action,

E.g. He was invited by Peter.

He wrote with a pen.

3) Relations between the action and its circumstances,

E.g. He went to London in the morning.

4) Relations between an object and its quality,

E.g. He was a man of talent.