N. M. Rayevska modern english

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Содержание See: W. N. Francis. The Structure of American English. New York, 1958, p. 234; see also Function Words Chapter HI THE NOUN My family are early risers, they are already here. Cf. My family is not large. The football team is playing very well. Cf. The football team are having bath and are coming back here for tea. The Old Hun was a soldier. Cf. French: les eaux, les sables Oh! Wilfrid has emotions, hates, pities, wants; at least, sometimes; when he does, his stuff is jolly good. Otherwise, he just m J'avais rencontre plusieurs fois l'ambassadeur, dont la figure fine porte l'empreinte de fatigues qui ne sont point toutes dues Cf. Russian: зуб — 1) зубы (во рту)

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It is to be noted that some modern linguists have abandoned many of the commonly held views of grammar. With regard to the methodology employed their linguistic approach differs from former treatments in language learning. Structural grammatical studies deal primarily with the "grammar of structure", and offer an approach to the problems of "sentence analysis" that differs in point of view and in emphasis from the usual treatment of syntax ^l.

Some linguists prefer to avoid the traditional terminology and establish a classification of words based only on the distributive analysis, i. e., their аbility to combine with other words of different types. Thus, for instance, the words and and but will fall under one group, while because and whether are referred to as belonging to another group.

The four major parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) set up by the process of substitution in С h. Fries' recorded material are given no names except numbers: class 1, class 2, class 3, class 4. Assumptions have been made by Ch. Fries that all words which can occupy the same "set of positions" in the patterns of English single free utterances must belong to the same part of speech ². These four classes make up the "bulk"of functioning units in structural patterns of English. Then come fifteen groups of so-called function words, which have certain characteristic in common. In the mere matter of number of items the fifteen groups differ sharply from the four classes. In the four large classes, Ch. Fries points out, the lexical meanings of the words depend on the arrangement in which these words appear. In function-words it is usually difficult if not impossible to indicate a lexical meaning apart from the structural meaning which these words signal.

Ch. Fries made an attempt to establish the form-classes of English purely syntactically. His work presents a methodical analysis of a corpus of recorded fifty hours of diverse conversation by some three hundred different speakers. This material, in his words, covers the basic matters of English structure. The book presents a major linguistic interest as an experiment rather than for its achievements.

The new approach — the application of two of the methods of structural linguistics, distributional analysis and substitution — makes it possible for Ch. Fries to dispense with the usual eight parts of speech. He classifies words, as may be seen from the extracts into four "form-classes", designated by numbers, and fifteen groups of "function words", designated by letters. The form-classes correspond roughly to what most grammarians call nouns and pronouns, verbs, adjective and adverbs, though Ch. Fries especially warns the reader against the attempt to translate the statements which the latter finds in the book into the old grammatical terms. The group of function words contains not only prepositions and conjunctions, but also certain specific words that most

просы германского языкознания». M.— Л., 1961, p. 229; Ю. А. Жлуктенко. Конверсия в современном английском языке как морфолого-синтаксический способ словообразования.— «Вопросы языкознания», 1958, № 5.

¹ See: Ch. Fries. The Structure of English. London, 1963.

- Ibid., pp. 94—100, group E and J.

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traditional grammarians would class as a particular kind of pronouns, adverbs and verbs.

Other modern grammarians retain the traditional names of parts of speech, though the methods they use to identify the various parts of speech, the number of them and the distribution of words among them are all different from what is found in traditional grammar. They also exclude function words from the classification of parts of speech and give them entirely separate treatment ¹.

Setting aside function words and observing the remaining words as they are combined into utterances with clear and unambiguous structural meaning, W. Francis finds it necessary to identify four different parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective and adverb. In his analysis nouns are identified, for instance, by five formal criteria, some more important than others. The most common noun-marking signal is a group of function words called noun-determiners. These precede the nouns they mark, either immediately or with certain types of words between; nouns have inflections; many nouns may be identified as such by various noun-marking derivational suffixes; nouns fill certain characteristic positions in relation to other identified parts of speech in phrases and utterances, etc. Verb-marking criteria as given by W.Francis are the following: inflections, function words, derivational affixes, positions and "superfixes", і. e. "morphological" stress in cases like import — to import; contract — to contract; perfect — to perfect, etc.

It must be recognised that recent studies and practical suggestions made by structural linguists in this field, though not yet quite successful at all points, still new and experimental, are becoming increasingly interesting and important for language learning and practical training in linguistic skills. The subject matter of structural grammar has already supplied much material in the field of descriptive techniques. Some new methods of linguistic analysis promise to be rather efficient and are now being tried out.

English school grammars deal extensively with the parts of speech, usually given as eight in number and explained in definitions that have become traditional. It had long been considered that these eight parts of speech — noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection — are basic classifications that can be applied to the words of any language and that the traditional definition furnishes an adequate set of criteria by which the classification can be made.

We cannot however admit without question that the eight parts of speech inherited from the past will be the most satisfactory for present-day English.

The linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study gives every reason to subdivide the whole of the English vocabulary into eleven parts of speech; in point of fact, eight of them are notional words which make up the largest part of the vocabulary and five are "function words", comparatively few in actual number of items, but used very frequently.

¹ See: W. N. Francis. The Structure of American English. New York, 1958, p. 234; see also: R. Quіrk. The Use of English. London, 1964, p. 74.

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Notional or fully-lexical parts of speech are: nouns, adjectives, verbs., adverbs, pronouns, numerals, modal words and interjections. Prepositions, conjunctions and particles are parts of speech largely devoid of lexical meaning and used to indicate various functional relationship among the notional words of an utterance.

Generally speaking we can say that all nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are capable of making direct reference and are the main units which carry the burden of referential information, and that all other words provide functional information.

Oppositional relations between different parts of speech may be thus shown as follows:

Autosemantic		Synsemantic
noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, numeral		preposition, conjunction, particle, auxiliary verb, copula
Function Words
Syntactic Functions		Morphological Functions
preposition, conjunction, particle, copula		article, auxiliary verb

Chapter HI THE NOUN

The lexico-grammatical meaning of the noun is denoting "substance"

In Modern English the marked formal characteristics of nouns are as follows: nouns have inflections for number and case, they may be associated with the definite or indefinite article.

There is no grammatical gender in Modern English ¹. The noun does not possess any special gender forms, neither does the accompanying adjective, pronoun or article indicate any gender agreement with the head noun. Unlike many languages that have gender, English has very few clear formal markers that indicate the gender of nouns; the situation in English is much less rigid and clear-cut since many words (dog, for instance) may have he, she or it as substitutes. It thus seems justified to restrict the term "gender" to those languages that have precise and mutually exclusive noun-classes marked by clear formal markers.

Not every noun possesses such grammatical categories as number and case.

NUMBER

Modern English like most other languages distinguishes two numbers: singular and plural. The meaning of singular and plural seems to be self-explanatory, that is the opposition: one — more than one. With all this, expression of number in different classes of English nouns presents certain ! difficulties for a foreigner to master.

As already mentioned, plural and singular nouns stand in contrast as diametrically opposite. Instances are not few, however, when their opposition comes to be neutralised. And this is to say that there are cases when the numeric differentiation appears to be of no importance at all. Here belong many collective abstract and material nouns. If, for instance, we look at the meaning of collective nouns, we cannot fail to see that they denote at the same time a plurality and a unit. They may be said to be doubly countables and thus from a logical point of view form the exact contrast to mass nouns: they are, in fact, at the same time singular and plural, while mass words are logically neither. The double-sidedness of collective nouns weakens the opposition and leads to the development of either Pluralia tantum, as in: weeds (in a garden), ashes, embers, etc., or Singularia tantum, as in: wildfowl, clergy, foliage, etc.

¹ In such pairs as actor — actress, lion — lioness, tiger — tigress, etc. the difference between the nouns is purely lexical.

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Compare the Ukrainian: кучері, гроші, дріжджі, сходи, зелень, листя, дичина. Similarly in Russian: дрожжи, деньги, кудри, всходы, листва, дичь, зелень. German: Eltern, Geschwister, Zwillinge — Pluralia tantum; das Geflügel, das Wild, das Obst — Singularia tantum. Similar developments may be traced in French: les pois, les épinards, les asperges.

In some cases usage fluctuates, and the two forms are interchangeable, e. g. brain or brains: he has no brains or little brains; victuals is more common than victual; oats than oat; similarly: His wages were high. How much wages does he get? That is a fair wage. They could not take too much pains.

The dual nature of collective nouns is shown linguistically in various ways: by the number of the verb or by the pronoun referring to it, as for instance, My family are early risers, they are already here. Cf. My family is not large.

It is important to observe that the choice between singular and plural depends on the meaning attached to the noun. Compare also: We have much fruit this year and The rich fruits of the heroic labour of Soviet people are visible from all the corners of the earth.

Similarly: The football team is playing very well. Cf. The football team are having bath and are coming back here for tea.

A word should be said about stylistic transpositions of singular nouns in cases like the following: trees in leaf, to have a keen eye, blue of eye, strong of muscle. Patterns of this kind will exemplify synecdoche — the simplest case of metonymy in grammar ("pars pro toto").

The Germans won the victories. By God they were soldiers. The Old Hun was a soldier. But they were cooked too. They were all cooked... The Hun would come down through the Trentino, and cut the railway at the Vicenza and then where would the Italians be? (Hemingway)

The chap was so big now that he was there nearly all his time, like some immovable, sardonic, humorous eye nothing to decline of men and things. (Galsworthy)

Cf. Держи вухо востро. Держи ухо остро. У него наметанный глаз. И слышно было до рассвета, как ликовал француз. (Лермонтов)

Other "universals" in expressing plurality will be found in what may be called "augmentative" plurals, i. e. when the plural forms of material nouns are used to denote large amounts of substance, or a high degree of something. This is often the case when we see the matter as it exists in nature. Such plural forms are often used for stylistic purposes in literary prose and poetry, e. g.: the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the sands of the Sahara Desert, the snows of Kilimanjaro.

Similarly in Russian: синие воды Средиземного моря, пески Сахары, снега Арктики.

Еще в полях белеет снег,

А воды уж весной шумят. (Тютчев)

Люблю ее степей алмазные снега. (Фет)

Ukrainian: Сині води Середземного моря, піски Сахари, сніги Арктики.

Cf. French: les eaux, les sables;

German: die Sände, die Wässer.

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Attention must also be drawn to the emotive use of plural forms of abstract verbal nouns in pictorial language:

...it was a thousand pities he had run off with that foreign girl — a governess too! (Galsworthy)

The look on her face, such as he had never seen there before, such as she had always hidden from him was full of secret resentments, and longings, and fears. (Mitchell)

The peculiar look came into Bosinney's face which marked all his enthusiasms. (Galsworthy)

Her face was white and strained but her eyes were steady and sweet and full of pity and unbelief. There was a luminous serenity in them and the innocence in the soft brown depths struck him like a blow in the face, clearing some of the alcohol out of his brain, halting his mad, careering words in mod-flight. (Mitchell)

He stood for a moment looking down at the plain, heart-shaped face with its long window's peak and serious dark eyes. Such an unwordly face, a face with no defenses against life. (Mitchell)

Oh! Wilfrid has emotions, hates, pities, wants; at least, sometimes; when he does, his stuff is jolly good. Otherwise, he just makes a song about nothing — like the rest. (Galsworthy)

Plural forms of abstract nouns used for stylistic purposes may be traced in language after language:

Ukrainian: Іду я тихою ходою,

Дивлюсь — аж он передо мною,

Неначе дива виринають,

Із хмари тихо виступають

Обрив високий, гай, байрак. (Шевченко)

Russian: Повсюду страсти роковые

И от судеб защиты нет. (Пушкин)

Отрады. Знаю я сладких четыре отрады. (Брюсов)

French: J'avais rencontre plusieurs fois l'ambassadeur, dont la figure fine porte l'empreinte de fatigues qui ne sont point toutes dues aux travaux de la diplomatie. (France)

It should be noted, in passing, that the plural form is sometimes used not only for emphasis in pictorial language but to intensify the aspective meaning of the verb, the iterative character of the action, in particular, e. g.:

Oh, this was just the kind of trouble she had feared would come upon them. All the work of this last year would go for nothing. All her struggles and fears and labours in rain and cold had been wasted. (Mitchell)

Relentless and stealthy, the butler pursued his labours taking things from the various compartments of the sideboard. (Galsworthy)

The small moon had soon dropped down, and May night had failed soft and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its scents the billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and regrets of men and women. (Galsworthy)

The emotive use of proper nouns in plural is also an effective means of expressive connotation, e. g.:

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Fleur, leaning out of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled chime of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the sudden shaking of an aspen's leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the river, the distant rumble of a night train, and time and again the sounds which none can put a name to in the darkness, soft obscure expressions of uncatalogued emotions from man and beast, bird and machine, or, may be, from departed Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, taking night strolls back into a world which had once suited their embodied spirits. (Galsworthy)

і Expressive connotation is particularly strong in the metaphoric use of the plural of nouns denoting things to be considered unique, e. g.: Ahead of them was a tunnel of fire where buildings were blazing on either side of the short, narrow street that led down to the railroad tracks. They plunged into it. A glare brighter than a dozen suns dazzled their eyes, scroching heat seared their skins and the roaring, crackling and crashing beat upon ears in painful waves. (Mitchell)

Compare the following example in French:

Leon: ...— Quelquefois... j'y reste... a regarder le soleil couchant.

Emma: — Je ne trouve rien d'admirable commeles soleils couchants... mais аи bord de la mer, surtout. ¹

Very often the plural form, besides its specific meaning may also retain the exact meaning of the singular, which results in homonymy.

1) custom = habit, customs = 1) plural of habit

2) duties

2) colour = tint, colours = 1) plural of tint

2) flag

3) effect = result, effects = 1) results

2) goods and chattels

4) manner = mode or way, manners = 1) modes, ways

2) behaviour

5) number = a total amount of units, numbers = 1) in counting

2) poetry

6) pain = suffering, pains = 1) plural of suffering

2) effort

7) premise = a statement or proposition, premises =

1. propositions
   
2. surrounding to a house
   

8) quarter = a fourth part, quarters = 1) fourth parts

2) lodgings There are also double plurals used with some difference of meanings:

1) brother 1) brothers (sons of one mother)

2) brethren (members of one community)

2) genius 1) geniuses (men of genius)

2) genii (spirits)

3) cloth 1) cloths (kinds of cloth)

2) clothes (articles of dress)

4) index 1) indexes (tables of contents)

2) indices (in mathematics)

¹ See: P. Г. Пиотровский. Очерки по грамматической стилистике французского языка. М., 1956, р. 52.

Mention should be made in this connection of nouns which have two parallel variants in the plural exactly alike in function but different in their stylistic sphere of application, e. g.:

cow — cows and kine (arch., now chiefly poetic)

foe — foes and fone (arch.)

shoe — shoes and shoen (arch.)

Unproductive archaic elements are sometimes used to create the atmosphere of elevated speech. This may also be traced in other languages. Compare the Russian:

сын — 1) сыновья, сыновей;

2) сыны, сынов (e. g.: сыны отечества).

Morphological variation will be found in nouns foreign in origin. Through the natural process of assimilation some borrowed nouns have developed parallel native forms, as in:

formula — formulae, formulas terminus — termini, terminuses focus — foci, focuses stratum — strata, stratums

Foreign plurals are decidedly more bookish than the native ones.

For all the details concerning the grammatical organisation of nouns and their patterning in different kind of structures students are referred to the text-books on English grammar. Two things should be noted here.

It is important to observe that in certain contexts nouns can weaken their meaning of "substance" and approach adjectives thus making the idea of qualities of the given substance predominant in the speaker's mind. Nouns functioning in this position are generally modified by adverbials of degree, e. g.:

"You were always