The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them fr om the members of other classes. The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:
1 Classical (logical-inflectional)
2 Functional
3 Distributional
4 Complex
The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. This system was reproduced in the earliest English grammars. The first of these groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. The logical-inflectional classification is quite successful for Latin or other languages with developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but it cannot be applied to the English language because the principle of declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.
A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined as functional. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles. To nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles. However, though the criterion for classification was functional, Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in other words, declinable and indeclinable.
A distributional approachto the parts to the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was not taken into account...
The linguistic evidence drawn fr om our grammatical study makes it possible to divide all the words of the language into:
1 those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding references in the objective reality – notional words;
2 those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – function words, or grammatical words.
It is commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and modal words.
The division of language units into notion and function words reveals the interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning. In notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in actual speech the border line between notional and function words is not always clear cut.
18. The noun and its categories.
1.General characteristics.
The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical catrgories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:
1 According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;
2 According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.
3 According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable.
This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles of classification..
2. The category of number
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form:: the singular form. The category of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only within subclass of countable nouns..
3. The category of case.
Case expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s coat). The category of case correlates with the objective category of possession. The case category in English is realized through the opposition: The Common Case:: The Possessive Case (sister:: sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term “genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive case” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following:
1 Possessive Genitive: Mary’s father – Mary has a father,
2 Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,
3 Objective Genitive: The man’s release – The man was released,
4 Adverbial Genitive: Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,
5 Equation Genitive: a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,
6 Genitive of destination: children’s books – books for children,
7 Mixed Group: yesterday’s paper
4. The Problem of Gender in English
Gender plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison with its role in many other languages. There is no gender concord, and the reference of the pronouns he, she, it is very largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as ‘natural’ gender for English, it depends upon the classification of persons and objects as male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of gender as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular semantic association.
According to some language analysts (B.Ilyish, F.Palmer, and E.Morokhovskaya), nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.Ilyish states that not a single word in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor and actress is a purely lexical one. In other words, the category of sex should not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an objective biological category. It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings are manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger – tigress). Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof.Blokh states that the existence of the category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he, she, it). Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter (non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.
19. The verb. The category of mood.
Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all it performs the central role in realizing predication - connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance. Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories. Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions based on different principles of classification can befound.
.The category of mood in Modern English is a very complicated category and it has given rise to lot of discussions and a lot of contradicting opinions. In the book "The structure of English" Pr.Ilysh writes that only 2 things are clear with regard to the category of mood
This category exists in the English language.
There are at least 2 moods in this category and one of these moods is the Indicative Mood.
Pr. Smirnitsky considers that there are 6 moods in the English
language:
• The Indicative Mood. They live in Moscow
• The Imperative Mood. Help them
• Subjunctive II. I wish it were summer now,
• Subjunctive I. I suggest you help them
• The Suppositional Mood. I suggest you should help them
• The Conditional Mood. But for him they wouldn’t have finished the work in time.
Pr. Bloch in his book “a cours in theoretical English grammar” (1983) writes about 4 moods. Pr. Bloch writes that the Imperative Mood may be included into Subjunctive I because they both express a command, a suggestion or recommendation,
The category of Mood is so difficult because in this category there is, no strict correlation; between the form and the meaning: /He is speaking, was asked, tables, the most beautiful./ in many cases forms that sound alike express different modal meaning – i knew he would соme. If I knew that he would come I would come too.
Due to the fact that there is no correlation between the form and the meaning linguists express their opinions about it.
20. The verb. Categories of tense and voice.
3. The category of voice
The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action (John broke the vase - the vase was broken). The objective relations between the action and the subject or object of the action find their expression in language as the grammatical category of voice. Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective relations between the action itself and the subject or object of the action:
The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:
1 Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;
2 Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;
3 Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;
4 Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;
5 Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;
6 Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.
4. The category of tense
The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being "now" or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition):
Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past. Quite a lot of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the 'future' tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.