THEORETICAL GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH. EXAMINATION QUESTIONS

1.Basic notions of morphology: the morpheme, the allomorph, the word-form, the word. Differences between form-building and word-building affixes.

2. Grammatical structure of the language. Grammatical meaning and grammatical form. Grammatical category.

3. Means of form-building. Synthetic and analytical forms.

4. Principles of the parts of speech classification. Notional and function words. Controversial issues in the parts of speech classification: pronouns, interjections, statives.

5. The status of the article in language structure. The problem of the number of articles in English. The meanings and functions of the definite and the indefinite article.

6. General characteristics of the noun as a part of speech. The problem of gender. Means of expressing gender.

7. The category of number of nouns. The meaning of the singular and the plural number in Modern English.

8. The category of case of nouns. The meanings of the common and the genitive case. Different points of view on the number of cases in Modern English.

9. General characteristics of the verb as a part of speech. The categories of person and number.

10. The category of voice. The number of voices in Modern English. Types of passive constructions in English. Reasons for the frequent occurrence of the passive voice in English,

11. The category of aspect. The meaning of the common and continuous aspect. Lexical and grammatical expression of aspect in English.

12. The category of phase. Various interpretations of the category of phase.

13.The category of tense. The number of tenses in Modern English. The meaning of the present and the past tense. The problem of the future tense and the future-in-the past tense in Modern English.

14. Objective and subjective modality. Means of expressing modality. Mood and modality.

15. The category of mood. Different points of view on the number of moods in Modern English. Forms used to express unreality in English.

16. Agreement (in number) between the subject and the predicate in Modern English.

17. Non-fmite forms of the verb: double nature. The grammatical categories of verbals. Different points of view on the number of non-finite forms in Modern English.

18. Word groups and sentences: basic differences. Classification of word-groups based on syntactical relations between the members of the word-group: coordinate, subordinate,

predicative, cumulative.

19. Predication. Means of expressing predication.

20. Syntactic relations between words in a sentence: coordination, subordination, interdependence, cumulation, apposition. Means of expressing syntactical relations: agreement, government, word order, function words, parenthesis.

21.Classification of sentences based on their structure. The simple sentence. The composite sentence.

22. Classification of sentences based on the communicative purpose of the utterance (declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, imperative sentences).

23.Compound and complex sentences. Types of subordinate clauses.

24.Elliptical sentences. Types of ellipsis.

25.Principal parts of the sentence. The subject. Types of subjects in English. The problem of the anticipatory IT.

26.Principal parts of the sentence. The predicate. Different classifications of the predicate.

27.Difficulties in analyzing secondary parts of the sentence. Means of their expression.

28.Text as a structural and semantic unit of communication. Types if texts. Grammatical means of expressing cohesion in texts.

29.Transformational-generative grammar. The notion of kernel sentences. The procedure of embedding. Analysis of sentences in transformational grammar.

30.Semantic syntax. The theory of deep cases. Controversial issues of Ch. Fillmore's theory.

31.Semantic syntax. Deep and surface structures. Semantic relations between noun and verb: agent, patient.

32.Semantic syntax. Deep and surface structures. Semantic relations between noun and verb: beneficiary, experiencer.

33.Semantic syntax. Deep and surface structures. Semantic relations between noun and verb: instrument, location.

34.Actual division of the sentence. The notions of the theme and the rheme. Thematic subjects in English.

35.Actual division of the sentence. The notions of the theme and the rheme. Means of expressing the rheme.

36.Actual division of the sentence. The role of articles in identifying the theme and the rheme.

37.Pragmatic syntax. The communicative intention of the speaker. Pragmatic types of sentences.

38. Pragmatic syntax. Performative Sentences. Performative and non-performative uses of a performative verb. 39.Pragmatic syntax. The notion of "illocutionary force". Transposition of constative sentences.

40.Pragmatic syntax. The notion of "illocutionary force". Transposition of questions. 41.The theory of reference and the theory of denotation. The subject matter of the theory of reference.

42.The referential aspect of the sentence / utterance. Language means of expressing reference in noun phrases and predicate groups.

43.Тhе definite reference of a noun. Means of expressing the definite reference: explicit and implicit.

44.The indefinite reference: typical contextual sets (their components and internal semantics).

45.Principal approaches to grammatical description: formalist and functional.

46.Functional grammar. The notion of function in different functional approaches.

47.Types of functional analysis: the oppositions "function" - "meaning", "semasiological" - "onomasiological", "language" - "user of language".

48.The theory of Functional Semantic Fields. Semantic functions and semantic Categories.

49.Functional grammatical synonymy: criteria of synonymy and types of synonyms.

50.The notion of functional semantic correspondences. Conditions for the mutual substitution of synonyms.

51.The problem of "choice" of synonyms. The linguistic mechanism of realization of the speaker's communicative intention.

52.The notions of text and discourse. Main similarities and differences.

53. Discourse connectedness. Cohesion and coherence. The notion of "referential coherence".

54.Discourse information continuity (continuities of the theme, action, participants, temporal and local continuities).

55.Discourse information structure: basic cognitive principles and restrictions in information organization; principles of information division.

56.Text analysis and discourse analysis: main information division theories.

57.The grounding theory: central notions and ideas.

58. Discourse pragmatics. The cognitive and communicative aspects of pragmatics.