Билет 1...........................................................................................................................................................................

1
1. 1. The term grammar and its meanings..................................................................................................................1
1. 2. Morphs and allomorphs as part of English morphology......................................................................................2
Билет 2........................................................................................................................................................................... 3
2. 1. The terms grammar, morphology, and syntax and their correlation...................................................................3
2. 2. Lexical and grammatical words in English...........................................................................................................3
Билет 3........................................................................................................................................................................... 4
3. 1. Morphonology as part of morphology and its scope...........................................................................................4
3. 2. Derivation and its representation in English.......................................................................................................5
Билет 4........................................................................................................................................................................... 5
4. 1. The processes of grammatical homonymy and synonymy in English..................................................................5
4. 2. The borderline between morphology and lexicology..........................................................................................6
Билет 5........................................................................................................................................................................... 6
5. 1. The function of phonemes in phonology and in morphonology.........................................................................6
5. 2. Free morphemes and bound morphemes...........................................................................................................7
Билет 6........................................................................................................................................................................... 7
6. 1. Analysis and synthesis as language processes.....................................................................................................7
6. 2. Open and closed classes of words in English.......................................................................................................8
Билет 7........................................................................................................................................................................... 9
7. 1. Part-of-speech classification in Russian and Anglo-American linguistics.............................................................9
7. 2. Agglutination and fusion in English morphology...............................................................................................10
Билет 8......................................................................................................................................................................... 10
8. 1. Processes influencing grammatical form...........................................................................................................10
8. 2. The grammatical categories of the English verb................................................................................................11
Билет 9......................................................................................................................................................................... 12
9. 1. Processes influencing grammatical content......................................................................................................12
9. 2. Compounding and its representation in English................................................................................................13
Билет 10.......................................................................................................................................................................14
10. 1. Word structure in relation to word classes.....................................................................................................14
10. 2. Lexical morphemes and lexical meaning.........................................................................................................15
Билет 11.......................................................................................................................................................................15
11. 1. Category as a linguistic term and word of general English..............................................................................15
11. 2. The role of the prefix allo- and the suffix –eme as part of linguistic terms.....................................................16
Билет 12.......................................................................................................................................................................16
12. 1. Grammatical and lexical categories in English.................................................................................................16
12. 2. Roots, stems, and bases in relation to inflexion, derivation and compounding..............................................17
Билет 13.......................................................................................................................................................................18
13. 1. Word-building and word-formation in English................................................................................................18
13. 2. Morphology and phonology: the notion of semiological relevance................................................................18
Билет 14.......................................................................................................................................................................18
14. 1. Inflexion and its representation in English......................................................................................................18
14. 2. The categories of English nouns and their classification.................................................................................19
Билет 15.......................................................................................................................................................................19
15. 1. Grammatical morphemes and grammatical meaning.....................................................................................19
15. 2. The processes of grammatical homonymy and polysemy in English...............................................................20
Билет 1.
1. 1. The term grammar and its meanings.
The term «grammar» is defined differently in different dictionaries. Probably, the most exact meanings are given in
the Oxford dictionary. It singles out three meanings:
· The rules in a language for changing the form of words and joining them into sentences
· A person’s knowledge and use of a language
· A book containing the description of rules of a language.
The history of the term. The word grammar is derived from Greek γραμματικὴ τέχνη (grammatikē technē), which
means "art of letters", from γράμμα (gramma), "letter", itself from γράφειν (graphein), "to draw, to write". The same
Greek root also appears in graphics, grapheme, and photograph.
In classical greek and latin - grammar - higher knowledge in general.
In the Middle Ages it meant learning in general - also a learning of magic or cult knowledge. The English word gram-
mar percolated into Scottish with small consonant change - glammer - it becomes the alteration, that came from the
same rule. They both meant the knowledge of magic and spell.
The narrowing of grammar to knowing the rules was the recent development. Glamorous - those who knew gram-
mar.
Grammar has to do with
1) Forms of words (Morphology)
2) the ways words are arranged in a sentence (Syntax).
It means that grammar consists of morphology и syntax.
Grammar is the system of morphological categories and forms, syntactic categories and constructions and ways of
word formation. This term refers to the whole non-phonetic, non-lexical organization of a language, which is repre-
sented in its grammatical categories, units, and forms. In this meaning, grammar is the organizational form or basis
of a language, without which words and their forms couldn’t be put together. Form is always opposed to content.
Content is mostly expressed by lexical units. With grammar we deal with abstractions.
A grammar - the system of knowledge as well as a book
The grammar - the grammar of a particular person or the particular book.
General grammar denotes rational science of general principles governing all languages.
Particular grammar refers to the art of applying the conventions of one language to general principles.
Grammar is:
· A branch of linguistics which studies the system of a language
· Used in a restricted sense to refer to a grammar of a particular part of speech or grammatical form (stud-
ies categories - a grammar of English verbs).
Category is most abstract meaning given in opposition. Meaning is represented in a number of grammatical forms.
1. 2. Morphs and allomorphs as part of English morphology.
Morpheme is the minimal semantic unit of morphology because it cannot be further segmented. It is regularly re-
produced in a language in accordance with its patterns and is represented in speech by either morphs or allomorphs.
It is an abstraction.
An allomorph is one of the alternate contextually determined phonological shapes of a morpheme. Suffix -en- in
“oxen” is an allofomorph of -es-
A morph is a sequence of phonemes which constitute a minimal unit of grammar and is a contextual variant of a
morpheme in a specific environment. As distinct from allomorphs, morphs cannot be regularly reproduced in accor-
dance with the particular morphological pattern. They are referred to as cranberry types. They cannot exist on their
own.
Grammatical meaning is rendered by grammatical morpheme. The grammatical meaning is general and abstract. It is
subservient to the lexical meaning. But we can identify a noun whether we know its lexical meaning or not. However,
the meaning of a grammatical morpheme can be understood only through the system of its paradigm (or realisa-
tions) in which, for example, the zero grammatical morpheme denoting the singular number is opposed to the gram-
matical –(e)s suffix. These grammatical morpheme is represented by its allomorphs in terms of expression plane (be-
cause there is also content plane where the same elements are sememes – ultimate units of content plane). So, [s],
[z], [iz] are allomorphs of the morpheme ‘s’, where [z] is the main variant. The same is about the Past Tense ending ‘-
ed’.
Thus, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme which varies in sound but not in the meaning.
We distinguish a root, a stem and a base. For example, if we turn to the word chain ‘works, worker, working…’ we
can say that ‘work- is a root. This root exists as a separate word. But if we find, for instance, a root (or a base be-
cause all roots are bases) which does not function as a fully meaningful word in a language, then, it is a morph. For
example, in the verb ‘permit’ ‘mit’ is a morph: admit, submit, commit. Or receive, perceive, conceive; complete, re-
plete etc.
There is also such notion as a bound morpheme which is a wider term than a morph. A bound morpheme is a word
element that cannot stand alone as a word, including both prefixes and suffixes. Free morphemes, on the other
hand, can stand alone as a word and cannot be segmented further into other word elements. Attaching a bound
morpheme to a free morpheme, like adding the prefix "re-" to the verb "start," creates a new word or at least a new
form of a word, like "restart."
So, for example, in the word ‘cranberry’ ‘cran’ is a bound morpheme and, as consequence, a morph but ‘berry’ is a
free morpheme while in the word ‘blackberry’ both morphemes are free because they can function at their own.
Билет 2.
2. 1. The terms grammar, morphology, and syntax and their correlation.
Grammar is a blanket term to cover morphology and syntax. The term grammar is often used to refer to morphology
(the study of word forms) and syntax (the study of sentence structure) together.
Morphology and syntax interact in the sense that the form of a word can be affected by the syntactic constructions
in which a word is used. (to read - read - reads - reading). The selection of a particular form depends on a syntactic
construction.
FINITE FORMS. The predicate agrees with a subject in person. By finite forms we mean those verbal forms, which are
syntactically related to the subject and correlates with it in number, in person. They can be used as predicates.
Morphology and accidence. Accidence denotes that part of grammar that treats the inflection of words - the declen-
sion of nouns, adjectives and conjugation of verbs (inflected forms only).
Morphology is the system of mechanisms in a language that ensure the building and understanding of the inflective
form. As a branch of grammar, it studies the laws and rules according to which this system functions and develops.
Accidence is the section of morphology. It means that morphology is a wider term.
While the first one deals with the inflections of words, the term morphology covers more subjects.
Accidence = word formation = inflection
Morphology = both word formation and word building
2. 2. Lexical and grammatical words in English.
Words are broadly grouped according to their main functions and behaviour. It has been always in practice to single
out words which are the main carriers of the meaning. (These words are the words that remain in informative-dense
language (информативно-насыщенный язык) of telegrams: arriving tomorrow; as we see, in this case function the
function word (is) is not used).
In Anglo-American tradition informative-dense words are generally referred to as lexical words as they exist in a lan-
guage to represent lexical meaning (полносложные слова). The lexical meaning is its content that is represented in
the human mind and it can be regarded as a conception of an object, of a property, of a process, of a phenomenon
etc fixed in the human mind (conception is represented by a word VS concept is represented by a term). Lexical
words are numerous members of open classes, there is indefinite and unlimited membership. Such words often have
a complex inner structure, they can be heads of phrases.
Classes:
1. Categorematic words (Soviet tradition) = lexical words (Anglo-American tradition): nouns, adverbs, verbs, ad-
jectives – знаменательные части речи
2. Syncategorematic words (S.tr.) = function words (A-A tr.)
Lexical words are:
· numerous, members of open classes: membership is unlimited and indefinite
· they often have a complex internal structure (heads of phrases)
While lexical words are the main building blocks of text, function words provide the mortar (цементный раствор)
that bines the text together. The main role of function words is indicating relationship between lexical words or
larger units (word-combinations). They are members of close systems, new members cannot be easily added.
Function words are auxiliaries (be), determiners (articles, pronouns), prepositions, conjunctions, particles (not, to),
interjections (exclamation).
There is a tendency to place interjections in a class of their own - inserts (вставки) (oh, ah, dear, hi, goodbye, look,
ok, all right). They are inserted in speech. They differ in their role in communication.
Thus, there are lexical words, function words and inserts which straggle (unite) lexical and function classes.
Function words have no lexical meaning, but they have grammatical meaning, their role is structural and formal.
Grammatical meaning is the generalised, abstract meaning typical of words, word-forms and syntactic constructions
and is regularly expressed in a particular language.
Criteria: lexical (lw) and grammatical words (gw) display a number of differences if they are compared in terms of the
following features:
1. Frequency (fw – high frequency, lw – low frequency)
2. Head of phrase (lw – yes, fw – no)
3. A formal criterion: length of words (lw – longer, fw – shorter)
4. Lexical meaning (lw – yes, fw – no)
5. Morphological structure (fw are invariable, lw are variable)
6. Number (fw – a small quantity, they belong to close system; lw – large)
7. Stress: strong (lw) VS weak (fw)
8. Openness: lw (открытый) VS fw (close)
The distinction between the two extremes is not completely clear.
The traditional class of numerals: you can count infinitely (неизвестно, к какому классу относить).
Билет 3.
3. 1. Morphonology as part of morphology and its scope.
Phonemes have no meaning of their own. They just serve to differentiate the meaning of different words. On a
phonological level phonemes signal otherness. On the level of morphonology the same sounds will signal identity.
(например, Distracting – distractive – разные аффиксы, состоят из разных фонем, сигнализируют otherness –
морфологический уровень. И educate – education – во втором слове появляется звук Ш, но мы все равно
знаем, что корень здесь один – МорфоНОлогический уровень).
As part of phonetics, speech sounds are discussed in terms of their physiological properties, production and auditor
perception and neuron physiological status. Phone - звук.
Phonology - the minimal units are phonemes. They are abstractions. Phoneme is group of sounds or allophones
(concrete sound). This is an abstract unit.
Alphabetic writing is, in fact, phonemic writing. Each letter correlates with each phoneme. Phonemes manifested in
language through allophones.
Phonology is a branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds as means of differentiation the sound cores of words
and morphemes.
Kid - kit (voiced - voiceless). Phonemes demonstrate differences.
Morphonology is a brunch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological pro-
cesses. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes when they combine to form words in
speech. Morphonological analysis often involves an attempt to give a series of formal rules that successfully predict
the regular sound changes, occurring in the morphemes of a language. Such a series of rules converts a theoretical
underlying representation (abstract unit) into a surface form (phone, sound) that is actually heard. The units, of
which the underlying representations of morphemes are composed, are sometimes called morphophonemes.
Morphemes are both the subject of morphology and morphonology. The notion is based on generalization of roots
and affixes.
Morphemics is a branch within morphology which deals with the study of morphemes in terms of their accurance,
order, arrangement, combinability, m
utual similarities in a systemic way.
Phoneticians and phonologists are focused on the sounds that are produced. Morphologists are interested in the
meaning which is expressed by the sound form. They relate the grammatical meaning of forms with their sounding.
When morphemes combine, they influence each other’s sound structure and result in different variant pronuncia-
tions for the same morpheme. These processes are studied by morphonology.
The morphological structure of any language is generally described as series of rules which can predict any mor-
phonological alternation (чередование) that takes place in a language.
An example: plural morpheme, third person singular.
A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language, it is the smallest meaningful unit of a language studied
within the bounds of morphology. 1881 - Baudouin de Courtenay.
Morphemics presupposes their order, arrangement, similarity, and dissimilarity in a systemic way. Morpheme is not
identical to a word, the principle - morpheme may or may not stand alone. But a word is free-standing. When a mor-
pheme stands by itself it is considered to be a root (cat, put, give), but when a morpheme depends on another mor-
pheme it is an affix, because it has a grammatical meaning. Morphemes are the ultimate units of expression that
can’t be further segmented and are represented in speech by morphs and allomorphs.
Рука - ручной - ч signal the identity of morphemes which semantically united. The morphemes рук руч are variants
of the same morph - allomorphes. (Алломорфы – варианты одной морфемы). Друг - друзья - дружить
In english: correct - corregable, neglect - neglegable, decide - decision, aducate - aducation. Deride - to criticise - de-
rision, derisive. (МОРФОНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ УРОВЕНЬ)
North - northen, discuss - discussion
Каша - чаша - difference
Рука - ручной - identity, they belong to the root, to particular morpheme
Друг-друзья-дружить
1)Educate - education, decide - decision, deride - derision, neglect - negligible - derivatives!
2)Process of word-inflection
Have - has, dog -dogs - the same suffix -(e)s-
a) z after weak consonants or vowel: reads, studies
b) s after strong consonants: looks
c) iz after sibilants - teachers, starches
Morpheme - minimal semantic unit of morphology because it cannot be further segmented. It is regularly repro-
duced in a language in accordance with its patterns and is represented in speech by either morphs or allomorphs. It
is an abstraction.
An allomorph is one of the alternate contextually determined phonological shapes of a morpheme. Suffix -en- in
“oxen” is an allofomorph of -es-
A morph is a sequence of phonemes which constitute a minimal unit of grammar and is a contextual variant of a
morpheme in a specific environment. As distinct from allomorphs, morphs cannot be regularly reproduced in accor-
dance with the particular morphological pattern. They are referred to as cranberry types.
3. 2. Derivation and its representation in English.
Processes affecting word structure:
• synthesis
• analysis
Synthesis is a process of combining elements into larger global units.
Analysis is a process of breaking down a complex whole into constituting elements.
These elements represent mental processes going on in the speaker’s mind irrespective of the language they speak,
speech community they belong. Mental processes are opposed to each other. But as linguistic processes they com-
plement each other.
Synthesis involves inflection, derivation and compounding.
Derivation is the process of forming a new word from an existing word often by adding prefix or suffix (word-build-
ing). It results in derivatives. They are subject of lexicology.
Vary-various-variable-variability-variety-variant-variation
Productivity - frequency of occurrence.
Productive affixes in NOUN are suffixes.
a) -er- (verb+er) French
b) -ion/-tion/-ation-
c) -ment
d) -ity
e) -ist (economist), ian (historian)
f) -doom, ship, hood (Anglo-Saxon)
g) -ess - there is a tendency to drop it down
In adjectives: negative prefixes il-, ir-, dis-
un - Anglo Saxon origin, in - Latin prefix.
Verbs:
a) dis-, mis-, un-
b) re-
c) co-
a) -ate, -ize, -fy, -en - суффиксы
Билет 4.
4. 1. The processes of grammatical homonymy and synonymy in English.
The relationship between linguistic form and linguistic meaning reveals itself in what is known as syncretism (gram-
matical homonymy) and suspension (grammatical synonymy). The latter is sometimes terminologically presented by
“variation of expression” or “redundance of expression plane” etc. Despite the obvious cases of syncretism and sus-
pension the general rule remains valid. Normally, identity (sameness) on the expression plane points to the identity
on the plane of content, and difference on the expression plane signals difference (otherness) on the plane of con-
tent.
By syncretism is meant falling together of two or more grammatical meanings in one and the same grammatical
(inflexional) form. This fact becomes manifest mainly as dependent on the vigour of the non-syncretised inflectional
forms, their ability to induce or to evoke in the former the particular content.
He knew that it's there somewhere. If he knew that all before. I was a teacher when I was 18. If I was/were a
teacher, I would not complain the forms of the past indefinite and the subjunctive, - knew, was are homonymous;
while was4 and were4 are synonymous, they are, although different in form, identical in the grammatical content
they render.
Another example. The morpheme [z] can function as 1) the plural of nouns in: dogs, cats, clashes; 2) the possessive
case inflexion in nouns: dog`s barking, a dog's life, cat's-eye; 3) the plural form inflexion in demonstrative pronominal
adjectives this — these, that — those, where the interchange of [s]/[z] is supported by the interchanging vowel in
the root-morpheme.
The homonymy of [-z] includes also 4) the absolute form of pronouns like hers, ours; 5) the verbal inflexion of the
3rd person singular, present tense as in: (he) speaks, declares, proposes.
We speak of homonymy when the same element of the sound, the same unit of the expression level is connected
with different units on the semantic level. Homonymy presupposes that the grammatical meaning of two forms is in-
compatible, while the form is assumed to be identical.
Примеры: In Russian nouns, for example, the forms of the nominative and the accusative in the declension type of
мышь are homonymous, they coincide in their expression, but remain different in their content.
1)He knew1 that it’s there somewhere (indicative) If he knew2 that all before. (Present subjunctive)
2)He had known (past perfect or past subjunctive 2)
3)Inflection -ed (he asked me about, or in the passive and perfective forms, and past participle)
4) ing (continuous, participle 1) и неоднозначность форм continuous (present and future)
Synonymy presupposes that two units have the same grammatical meaning being different in form, as in If I was/
were a teacher, I would not complain.
Пример: 1) Future action can be expressed with the help of the future indefinite, the present indefinite, or the
present continuous form of the verb, as in We’ll fly tomorrow; We fly tomorrow; We are flying tomorrow. (Depends
on the lexical meaning of the word).
2)Can/could/would – in questions.
3)will and shall - partial synonyms
4)he used to do / he would do (but only with verbs of action, not of state and condition)
5)who/whom
6)should / ought to
7)er, pro, ist - suffuxes
8)ian- historian
4. 2. The borderline between morphology and lexicology.
Morphology is closely connected with other linguistic disciplines among which is lexicology. A common part between
morphology and lexicology is world-building (словообразование).
Morphology divides into lexical morphology and grammatical morphology.
Lexicologists and morphologists are interested in processes of derivation and compounding, but in different aspects.
Lexicologists seek to know lexical meaning and its variation. Lexicologists are interested in meaning of roots or
bases.
Morphologists focus on the formal aspect of derivation and compounding. The investigate the processes in terms of
productivity. Morphologists are interested in the representation of meaning provided by subservient morphological
elements such as suffixes and prefixes.
To conclude, lexicology is concerned with lexical meaning, morphology - grammatical meaning.
Semantics unites these branches. It is all the content or information communicated by language or its units (word,
grammatical form of word, grammatical combination or sentence). As an aspect of linguistics, it focuses on the rela-
tionship between linguistic units and objects denoted by them. Semantics studies the structure of inner-content plan
of linguistic units (план содержания).
Morphology concerns itself with the semantics of grammatical units (word forms, structure), lexicology - the seman-
tics of lexical units (words, word combinations).
The borderline reveals itself in the form of lexical morphology (or derivational morphology). Here we are supposed
to keep apart two aspects: item and arrangement and item and process.
Item stands for a morpheme and those numerous variations in how the term morpheme is used and understood, it
rises in the main distinction between language as arrangement and language as a process.
When words are studied as parts of lexical morphology, their structure can be taken as a static phenomenon, that
has been given to us from the very beginning and in the same time they (words) can be viewed as an ongoing
process.
When words are analyzed in terms of item and arrangement the focus is the ways of segmenting the already existing
units. On the contrary, if our main concern is the potentials of morphemes or their productivity we pass on to the
level of “item and the process”.
-ness- “potential words”: dreamlessness, go-aheadness, worth-wileness, it-the-rightness
Билет 5.
5. 1. The function of phonemes in phonology and in morphonology.
Phoneme is a unit belonging to a level of phonology. The role of phoneme is to distinguish words. They are repre-
sented by sounds because phonemes do not exist on their own. One phoneme can be represented by different allo-
phones and different sounds.
In phonology phonemes mark otherness of words, they help to distinguish, to differentiate; they are opposed.
In morphonology phonemes help to identify sameness, to indicate similarity of morphemes and to show common
bases.
decide – decision: d, s – allomorphs, or variants of a morpheme. On the level of phonology they mark otherness, but
on the level of morphonology they mark sameness.
dame (дама) и same – two different phonemes.
В русском: чаша – каша: Ч и К – две разные фонемы. Разница на уровне фонологии.
Ручной – рука: часть корня, одна морфема. Одинаковость на уровне морфонологии.
5. 2. Free morphemes and bound morphemes.
The primary division depends on the ability of the morpheme to function individually. Functional and lexical mor-
phemes (base, root, stem) are free morphemes, because they can function independently: town, dog, spite, can,
would, are. And they can appear with other lexemes: town-hall, doghouse, in spite of, are going.
Bound morphemes get attached to the bases. Cranberry morphemes are a type of bound morphemes that cannot be
assigned an independent meaning or grammatical function. They serve to distinguish one word from another. For ex-
ample, cran- in cranberry, mul in mulberry (тутовое дерево). They do not function independently referring to cran-
berry and mulberry. They are morphs.
mit, ceive, plete (expletive, depletive).
Inflection is represented in English by the lexical stem plus inflectional suffix. Prefixes do not count.
Derivation reveals itself in the lexical root or base plus derivational affixes.
Compounding can be described as a combination of lexical roots or bases.
Билет 6.
6. 1. Analysis and synthesis as language processes.
Processes affecting word structure:
· synthesis
· analysis
Synthesis is a process of combining elements into larger global units.
Analysis is a process of breaking down a complex whole into constituting elements. These elements represent men-
tal processes going on in the speaker’s mind irrespective of the language they speak, speech community they belong.
Mental processes are opposed to each other. But as linguistic processes they complement each other. Synthesis in-
volves inflection, derivation and compounding.
1. Inflection - словоизменение. Accidence/word-formation (they are synonyms).
Inflection is the modification of a word to produce grammatical forms of a word (word forms). The results of this
process are inflected grammatical forms which are studied as part of inflectional/grammatical morphology.
To vary - vary - varies - varying - varied (a complex of verbal forms) - Grammatical paradigm (словоизменительная
парадигма).
Boy- boys - boy’s - boys’
dark-darker-darkest
soon-sooner-soonest
Relative and qualitative adjectives, притяжательных как отдельного класса нет в английском, потому что есть
possessive case.
2. Derivation is the process of forming a new word from an existing word often by adding prefix or suffix (word-
building). It results in derivatives. They are subject of lexicology.
Vary-various-variable-variability-variety-variant-variation
Productivity - frequency of occurrence.
Productive affixes in NOUN are suffixes.
a) -er- (verb+er) French
b) -ion/-tion/-ation-
c) -ment
d) -ity
e) -ist (economist), ian (historian)
f) -doom, ship, hood (Anglo-Saxon)
g) -ess - there is a tendency to drop it down
In adjectives: negative prefixes il-, ir-, dis-
un - Anglo Saxon origin, in - Latin prefix.
Verbs:
a) dis-, mis-, un-
b) re-
c) co-
a) -ate, -ize, -fy, -en - суффиксы
3. Compounding is the process of word-building that creates compound lexemes (it occurs when two or more lex-
emes are joined to make one longer word). The meaning of compound may be similar or different to the meaning of
it components.
Stable compounds (hyphenated, one word) vs loose compounds (more than one element)
washing-machine and stone wall
Loose compound/unstable compound - several elements.
Analysis. The idea of verbal function. By a verbal function we mean a correlation of grammatical and lexical meaning.
By a function we mean the use of a particular verb in a particular meaning. Each function is revealed through a num-
ber of grammatical patterns.
There are 4 verbal functions.
1. Lexical. They denote action or state.
2. Semi-auxiliary (link verbs). Link verbs partly retain their lexical meaning but sometimes function grammatically (re-
lating the subjects of the sentence with the nominal parts of the predicate). Compound nominal predicate.
Become + noun, adjective (to become accepted)
2. Auxiliary (grammatical). On the contrary, they are characterized by the total absence of the lexical meaning and as
a result they function grammatically. Their grammatical function reveals itself in analytical structure. Their grammati-
cal meaning is the whole grammatical structure. Grammatical meaning is abstract.
TO BE.
It is multifunctional.
1) lexical - to be or, not to be (to live or to die)
I think, so I am (exist)
Have you been to America? (Visit, go, stay, travel)
2) Auxiliary - used to indicate continuous tenses and in the continuous forms of non-finite form and in passive form
(finite and non-finite)
3) Semi-auxiliary combines both lexical and grammatical features.
She is a teacher. My aim is to improve my English. Reading is my favorite activity. He is beautiful.
The next opposition: Lexical - semi-modals (they are verbs which can be used as lexical verbs and as modals) -
modals (express the user’s attitude to actions or states denoted by lexical verbs, that is infinitives to follow, they do
require infinitive). Be expresses obligation of a pre-planned character, by mutual agreement or arrangement.
We are to meet twice a week.
2) Semi modals - dare, need
How dare he talk to me like that?
Here “dare” is modal, it hasn’t ‘s’
Takes infinitive without “to”
Doesn’t acquire auxiliary verb “do”
By analytical forms we mean combination of verbs whose first element is invariably auxiliary. Some of them corre-
late with synthetic forms.
1. THE INDICATIVE MOOD.
Auxiliaries: To be (continuous and passive forms)
Have in perfect tenses
Do - only in finite forms.
Shall (1st person) will (2-3nd person)
2. CONDITIONAL
Should (1st) would (2-3st)
3. SUPPOSITIONAL
I suggest we should (1,2,3) discuss it now.
I am sure she should pass her examination. She has been working hard. - here it is a modal verb of probability.
It is highly probable that she should pass her examination. - the case of homonymy. -here should is an auxiliary. Aux-
iliary can be diminished. Without should it will be Subjunctive 1.
4. SUBJUNCTIVE 2
Present subjunctive 2 is homonymous to the forms of past simple: if I were you.
Past subjunctive 2 is homonyms to past perfect tense: if we had discussed it before.
6. 2. Open and closed classes of words in English.
Words are broadly grouped according to their main functions and behaviour. It has been always in practice to single
out words which are the main carriers of the meaning. (These words are the words that remain in informative-dense
language (информативно-насыщенный язык) of telegrams: arriving tomorrow; as we see, in this case function the
function word (is) is not used).
In Anglo-American tradition informative-dense words are generally referred to as lexical words as they exist in a lan-
guage to represent lexical meaning (полносложные слова). The lexical meaning is its content that is represented in
the human mind and it can be regarded as a conception of an object, of a property, of a process, of a phenomenon
etc fixed in the human mind (conception is represented by a word VS concept is represented by a term). Lexical
words are numerous, members of open classes, there is indefinite and unlimited membership. Such words often
have a complex inner structure, they can be heads of phrases.
Classes:
1. Categorematic words (Soviet tradition) = lexical words (Anglo-American tradition): nouns, adverbs, verbs, adjec-
tives – знаменательные части речи
2. Syncategorematic words (S.tr.) = function words (A-A tr.)
Lexical words are:
· numerous, members of open classes: membership is unlimited and indefinite
· they often have a complex internal structure (heads of phrases)
While lexical words are the main building blocks of text, function words provide the mortar (цементный раствор)
that bines the text together. The main role of function words is indicating relationship between lexical words or
larger units (word-combinations). They are members of close systems, new members cannot be easily added.
Function words are auxiliaries (be), determiners (articles, pronouns), prepositions, conjunctions, particles (not, to),
interjections (exclamation).
There is a tendency to place interjections in a class of their own - inserts (вставки) (oh, ah, dear, hi, goodbye, look,
ok, all right). They are inserted in speech. They differ in their role in communication.
Thus, there are lexical words, function words and inserts which straggle (unite) lexical and function classes.
Function words have no lexical meaning, but they have grammatical meaning, their role is structural and formal.
Grammatical meaning is the generalised, abstract meaning typical of words, word-forms and syntactic constructions
and is regularly expressed in a particular language.
Criteria: lexical (lw) and grammatical words (gw) display a number of differences if they are compared in terms of the
following features:
1. Frequency (fw – high frequency, lw – low frequency)
2. Head of phrase (lw – yes, fw – no)
3. A formal criterion: length of words (lw – longer, fw – shorter)
4. Lexical meaning (lw – yes, fw – no)
5. Morphological structure (fw are invariable, lw are variable)
6. Number (fw – a small quantity, they belong to close system; lw – large)
7. Stress: strong (lw) VS weak (fw)
8. Openness: lw (открытый) VS fw (close)
The distinction between the two extremes is not completely clear.
The traditional class of numerals: you can count infinitely (неизвестно, к какому классу относить).
Билет 7.
7. 1. Part-of-speech classification in Russian and Anglo-American linguistics.
Words are broadly grouped according to their main functions and behaviour. It has been always in practice to single
out words which are the main carriers of the meaning. (These words are the words that remain in informative-dense
language (информативно-насыщенный язык) of telegrams: arriving tomorrow; as we see, in this case function the
function word (is) is not used).
In Anglo-American tradition informative-dense words are generally referred to as lexical words as they exist in a lan-
guage to represent lexical meaning (полносложные слова). The lexical meaning is its content that is represented in
the human mind and it can be regarded as a conception of an object, of a property, of a process, of a phenomenon
etc fixed in the human mind (conception is represented by a word VS concept is represented by a term). Lexical
words are numerous, members of open classes, there is indefinite and unlimited membership. Such words often
have a complex inner structure, they can be heads of phrases.
Classes:
1. Categorematic words (Soviet tradition) = lexical words (Anglo-American tradition): nouns, adverbs, verbs,
adjectives – знаменательные части речи
2. Syncategorematic words (S.tr.) = function words (A-A tr.)
Lexical words are:
· numerous, members of open classes: membership is unlimited and indefinite
· they often have a complex internal structure (heads of phrases)
While lexical words are the main building blocks of text, function words provide the mortar (цементный раствор)
that bines the text together. The main role of function words is indicating relationship between lexical words or
larger units (word-combinations). They are members of close systems, new members cannot be easily added.
Function words are auxiliaries (be), determiners (articles, pronouns), prepositions, conjunctions, particles (not, to),
interjections (exclamation).
There is a tendency to place interjections in a class of their own - inserts (вставки) (oh, ah, dear, hi, goodbye, look,
ok, all right). They are inserted in speech. They differ in their role in communication.
Thus, there are lexical words, function words and inserts which straggle (unite) lexical and function classes.
Function words have no lexical meaning, but they have grammatical meaning, their role is structural and formal.
Grammatical meaning is the generalised, abstract meaning typical of words, word-forms and syntactic constructions
and is regularly expressed in a particular language.
Criteria: lexical (lw) and grammatical words (gw) display a number of differences if they are compared in terms of the
following features:
1. Frequency (fw – high frequency, lw – low frequency)
2. Head of phrase (lw – yes, fw – no)
3. A formal criterion: length of words (lw – longer, fw – shorter)
4. Lexical meaning (lw – yes, fw – no)
5. Morphological structure (fw are invariable, lw are variable)
6. Number (fw – a small quantity, they belong to close system; lw – large)
7. Stress: strong (lw) VS weak (fw)
8. Openness: lw (открытый) VS fw (close)
The distinction between the two extremes is not completely clear.
The traditional class of numerals: you can count infinitely (неизвестно, к какому классу относить).
7. 2. Agglutination and fusion in English morphology.
The units of morphological level do not function in isolation in a flow of speech, since they – morphemes as well as
word-forms – are only the constituent elements (morpheme – for the words, word-forms – for the sentences), both
types forming a kind of hierarchy of subservient structural elements.
Morphological analysis: morphological processes and morphological operations/techniques. Basic morphological op-
erations - fusion and agglutination, they are the processes influencing expression-plane, affecting grammatical form.
Fusion is the basic technique of inflection. Fusion is a close morphological combination of a changeable lexical stem
and multifunctional (polysemantic) suffixes. In other words, fusion is a way of joining elements and amalgamating
them into one global whole. As a result, we deal with a word-form which is not merely a combination of different
morphemes, but a new formal unit showing the presence of base and affix alteration. Synthetic word-forms are pro-
duced with the help of fusion.
ideas - no fusion; bushes, hopes - -e sound is added (interfix) - new formal unit
cries - no fusion. talks: z->s - fusion, washes - interfix -e
Fusion takes place on morpheme boundaries.
Plural in nouns with alternation in final consonant: calf - calves
vowel change in the root: food - feed - isn't regarded as fusion because there is no new morpheme
Fusion can as well be seen on word-form boundaries in the flow of speech:
· When I was eleven, I was sent to the secondary school: was sent - unvoiced s (sent) is under the influence of
voiced sound z (was)
· He was seen climbing over the wall: was seen
King's speech: agglutination
On the contrary, in case of agglutination, no new formal unit is coined. It characterizes derivation and compounding
(lexical morphology).
Agglutination is the process of attaching monosemantic standard affixes to the unchangeable base/root. Joining ele-
ments without any change on morpheme boundaries.
· unfriendliness (affixes here are productive)
· reproducible
· dis-organ-ization
In the verbal and nominal systems: can be seen in negative verbal forms:
can - can't, will - won't, shall - shan't, do - don't, must - mustn't - agglutinatively added suffix “not” with the dropping
of the vowel and a qualitative change of the stem vowel.
I'll go, he'll say, they'll write - shortened future forms: sound [l] functions as a prefix to the lexical word. This sound
can be added to the left morpheme and right morpheme. It is equal to a grammatical/inflectional morpheme.
The process of agglutination can be supported by vowel change:
sane - sanity: attachment of the suffix is accompanied by a vowel change, phoneme change (vain – vanity, state –
static, nature – natural, divine – divinity, sublime – sublimity, lyre – lyric, episode – episodic, etc..)
Билет 8.
8. 1. Processes influencing grammatical form.
The units of morphological level do not function in isolation in a flow of speech, since they — morphemes as well as
word-forms — are only the constituent elements, the former for the words, the latter for the sentences, both types
forming a kind of hierarchy of subservient structural elements.
On morpheme boundaries not all the distinctive features of the sound are realised, some sound properties may be-
come weakened, neutralised, some other strengthened, thus leading to fusion. For example, the archiphoneme <z>
which functions as the grammatical morpheme of the 3rd person singular in verbs is a bundle of distinctive features
of groove, fricative, alveolar. Functionally speaking, the semiological function of the positional variants of the corre-
sponding morpheme is based on a single distinctive feature — the opposition of strong versus weak. Archiphoneme
is an abstract phonological unit, represented by a bundle of distinctive features common of both members of a neu-
tralizing phonological opposition. Archiphoneme consists of the distinctive feature lacking in the other. An
archiphoneme is associated with units representing two or more underlying phonemes where the distinction has
been neutralized under certain conditions.
1) Her taste in music coincides with her husband`s. If you want to go by bus, it suits me fine. He digs all his informa-
tion out of books and reports. She takes her children to school by car.
2) One of the gang blabbed to the police and they were all arrested. I really sweated over this essay.
When morphemes combine they influence each other’s sound structure and result in different variant pronuncia-
tions for the same morpheme. These processes are studied by morphonology.
The morphological structure of any language is generally described as series of rules which can predict any mor-
phonological alternation (чередование) that takes place in a language.
Fusion (фузия) is one of the processes or mechanisms in a language that helps to express or carry a particular
process and shows it in a particular word form. Fusion is merger of features from one or more elements into a single
element. A word may have a large number of morphemes, but morphemes boundaries are difficult to identify, be-
cause the morphemes are fused together. The process of inflection.
When I was 11, I was sent to the secondary school. Wassent - they get fused. [s]
I’m missing you. Mm [m]. The boundary is not quite clear.
Opposite to fusion is agglutination. Agglutination is a linguistic process which pertains mostly to derivational mor-
phology in which complex words are formed by stringing together morphemes without changing it forms.
King’s speech.
I’ll go then myself. Агглютинация, мы же видим границу.
Regular morphonological alternations - в неправильных глаголах. В словообразовании:
Sane- sanity ei-æ - Vowel change
Athlete - athletic.
Fusion can as well be seen on word-form boundaries in the flow of speech, as in When I was eleven, I was sent to the
secondary school. I'm missing you so much, you know? etc. Agglutination does not presuppose any change in the
quality and the quantity of the neighboring sounds within a word-form or on the boundaries of the morphemes like
in: come + ing, cry + ing, stick + ing, miss + ing etc or in rapid+ ly, scarce + ly, main + ly etc.
Derivative morphology is basically agglutinative. Besides, there are some other changes that can accompany form-
building in Modem English, especially in the verbal and nounal systems. Thus, in the negative verbal forms like (will)
— won't, (shall) — shan't, (can) — can't, (do) — don't we observe agglutinatively-added negative particle not with
the dropping of a vowel and a qualitative change of the vowel in the verbal stem; in cases 'll go, `ll say, `ll write, `ll an-
alyse and alike `ll [1] is agglutinatively added both to the left-hand, and to the right-hand neighboring morphemes
(preceding pronoun, noun, adverb in the function of the subject and following the stem of the main lexical verb): I`ll
go there myself, There'll be no news etc. It can be said that [1] functions as a grammatical prefix, equal to a gram-
matical inflexional morpheme in the structure of the grammatical form of the future tense.
The formation of the plural in nouns is accompanied by the alternation of a final consonant in calf — calves, elf —
elves, half — halves, sheaf— sheaves, thief — thieves, turf— turves, wife — wives, wolf—wolves. It can be as well
accompanied by vowel change as in: foot —feet, goose — geese, woman — women, louse — lice, mouse — mice,
tooth — teeth.
8. 2. The grammatical categories of the English verb.
Category and categorization. As a word of general English, category means group, type and class. In linguistics it has
two meanings:
1. Lexical-grammatical class, thus a category
2. The most abstract meaning which is represented in the opposition of no less than two elements.
The term is about abstract meaning and its representation.
Linguistic universal is the most abstract meaning which is represented in a variety of languages, but in a different
way. Thus the same meaning can be represented lexically, or grammatically, or both.
Smirnitsky analysed the grammatical categories of the English verbs in detail. He singled out 11 categories. Some of
them are on verge of morphology and syntax. A system of categories established by A. I. Smirnitsky in the 50s of the
20th century remains valid as a most exhaustible one:
1. Mood. 2. Tense. 3. Aspect. 4. Taxis. 5. Voice. 6. Person. 7. Number. 8. Representation. 9. Expressivity. 10. Nega-
tion. 11. Interrogation.
1. The category of mood shows a relation of an action or a state to reality. It is constituted by sets of forms of the in-
dicative mood opposed to the oblique moods (imperative, the conditional, the subjunctive) which show an action or
state as possible, probable and unreal. The main opposition is reality vs. irreality.
2. The category of tense links an action of state to the period of time when it takes place. Three categorical forms:
past, present, future. All those categories reveal themselves in combination with other categories.
The imperative and subjunctive 1 are not connected with category of tense.
3. The category of taxes (категория временной соотнесённости) shows an action or state in relation to another ac-
tion or state. Simultaneity vs. anteriority - the main opposition.
S-y: non perfect forms, ant. - perfect forms => the opposition of perfect and non perfect forms.
This category can be expressed separately without relation to the category of tense. It results in non-finite forms.
Present participle, gerunds and infinitives.
Or it can be connected: all the perfect tenses. Because here we always have the period of time and the relation to
some other actions.
4. The category of aspect (вид) shows an action or state as process in opposition to fact. The category is represented
by the opposition of process vs fact.
When it is connected with tenses: continuous tenses and perfect continuous vs non continuous tenses.
When it is on its own: non-finite form, only infinitive.
You will be taking your examination next week. -mood (real), tense, taxes, aspect.
5. The category of voice shows a relation of an action to its object and subject (agent, the doer). The opposition of
two forms – passive, active.
Can be connected with the category of tense: all the simple tenses, past and present perfect.
The following categories are on verge of morphology and syntax:
6. The category of person shows a relation between the action or state and its subject. The correlation between
shall and will/ should and would. Shall - 1st, will и would -3st.
7. The category of number shows a relation between the action or state and the singularity/plurality of the subject.
8. 9. The category of negation and interrogation shows a relation of an action to its presence or absence or a rela-
tion which questions an action itself. Need special word order.
Types of questions:
1) general (grammatical inversion)
2) alternative (grammatical inversion)
3) special (grammatical inversion)
4) a question to the subject (direct word order)
5) tag questions
10. The category of expressiveness/expressivity shows an action or state as emphatic in the opposition to its neutral
representation.
Do sit down please - do in its emphatic function. Present and past simple. Positive form of the imperative.
He does reread his letters. He did no subject.
11. The category of verbal representation shows an action or a state in relation to properties and objects.
It is manifested by the opposition of the so called verbal representation (by concrete finite form) vs. Adjectival and
nominal representation (non-finite forms). Property of an action.
Билет 9.
9. 1. Processes influencing grammatical content.
The relationship between linguistic form and linguistic meaning reveals itself in what is known as syncretism (gram-
matical homonymy) and suspension (grammatical synonymy). The latter is sometimes terminologically presented by
“variation of expression” or “redundance of expression plane” etc. Despite the obvious cases of syncretism and sus-
pension the general rule remains valid. Normally, identity (sameness) on the expression plane points to the identity
on the plane of content, and difference on the expression plane signals difference (otherness) on the plane of con-
tent.
By syncretism is meant falling together of two or more grammatical meanings in one and the same grammatical (in-
flexional) form. This fact becomes manifest mainly as dependent on the vigour of the non-syncretised inflectional
forms, their ability to induce or to evoke in the former the particular content.
He knew that it's there somewhere. If he knew that all before. I was a teacher when I was 18. If I was/were a
teacher, I would not complain the forms of the past indefinite and the subjunctive, - knew, was are homonymous;
while was4 and were4 are synonymous, they are, although different in form, identical in the grammatical content
they render.
Another example. The morpheme [z] can function as 1) the plural of nouns in: dogs, cats, clashes; 2) the possessive
case inflexion in nouns: dog`s barking, a dog's life, cat's-eye; 3) the plural form inflexion in demonstrative pronominal
adjectives this — these, that — those, where the interchange of [s]/[z] is supported by the interchanging vowel in
the root-morpheme.
The homonymy of [-z] includes also 4) the absolute form of pronouns like hers, ours; 5) the verbal inflexion of the
3rd person singular, present tense as in: (he) speaks, declares, proposes.
We speak of homonymy when the same element of the sound, the same unit of the expression level is connected
with different units on the semantic level. Homonymy presupposes that the grammatical meaning of two forms is in-
compatible, while the form is assumed to be identical.
Примеры: In Russian nouns, for example, the forms of the nominative and the accusative in the declension type of
мышь are homonymous, they coincide in their expression, but remain different in their content.
1)He knew1 that it’s there somewhere (indicative) If he knew2 that all before. (Present subjunctive)
2)He had known (past perfect or past subjunctive 2)
3)Inflection -ed (he asked me about, or in the passive and perfective forms, and past participle)
4) ing (continuous, participle 1) и неоднозначность форм continuous (present and future)
Synonymy presupposes that two units have the same grammatical meaning being different in form, as in If I was/
were a teacher, I would not complain.
Пример: 1) Future action can be expressed with the help of the future indefinite, the present indefinite, or the
present continuous form of the verb, as in We’ll fly tomorrow; We fly tomorrow; We are flying tomorrow. (Depends
on the lexical meaning of the word).
2)Can/could/would - в вопросах они тоже синонимы.
3)will and shall - partial synonyms
4)he used to do / he would do ( but only with verbs of action, not of state and condition)
5)who/whom
6)should / ought to
7)er, pro, ist - suffuxes
8)ian- historian
Grammatical polysemy is observed in grammatical expression of a host of intricate distinctions of a noun known as
the genitive or the possessive.
Things, objects, events, human beings can be specified as belonging to, or associated with, or connected with, as in,
for example: John's motorbike; her grandmother's house; the dog's head; John's arm; his friend's reaction; Mrs
Thatcher's greatest error, the car’ s colour and design; the country’ s biggest city; the city's population.
In some cases, the possessive form of a noun functions in a similar way to a possessive pronoun: Her hand felt differ-
ent from David’s. Her tone was more friendly than Stryke’s. It is your responsibility rather than your friends`.
Sometimes the idea of possessivity becomes rather abstract: women’s magazines (magazines for women to read);
the men’s lavatory (to be used by men); a policeman’s uniform (that makes them different from soldiers or navy offi-
cers etc).
The same grammatical inflexion may refer to a someone’s home or place of work: He's round at David's. She stopped
off at the butcher's for a piece of steak.
Sometimes ownership is specially emphasised lexically. We must depend on his own assessment. We must depend
on David's own assessment etc.
Thus, all the above cases are brought together as semantic variants of the same grammatical meaning of possessiv-
ity, they are considered not to be incompatible, but polysemous, rendering the ideas of possessivity proper, partitiv-
ity, association, connection, qualification, location. Some of these forms become semantically close to polysemantic
prepositional structures.
With: to stay with a friend, to mix flour with milk; a book with a green cover; to eat with a spoon, to fight with
courage; to buy with the money; to sail with the wind.
By: by the window — near; by the door — through; a play by Shakespeare; to play by the rules, swear by heaven.
The tiger/s - specific
The tiger - generic
The Swiss
9. 2. Compounding and its representation in English.
Processes affecting word structure:
• synthesis
• analysis
Synthesis is a process of combining elements into larger global units.
Analysis is a process of breaking down a complex whole into constituting elements.
These elements represent mental processes going on in the speaker’s mind irrespective of the language they speak,
speech community they belong. Mental processes are opposed to each other. But as linguistic processes they com-
plement each other.
Synthesis involves inflection, derivation and compounding.
Compounding is the process of word-formation when two or more words are joined to make one longer word. The
meaning of compounding may be similar to or different from its components in isolation.
The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word foot-
path, composed of the two nouns foot and path—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of
the English word blackbird, composed of the adjective black and the noun bird. A compound lacks a double stress
(hair-cut, speed bump).
We should also pay our attention to unstable compounds which tend to fall apart and turn into attributive word-
combinations (autumn rain, picture gallery).
We ought to distinguish between lexical and syntactic combinations. If the former are pronounced with a unifying
stress, the latter have two stresses and consequently we deal with change of meaning (blackboard - black board,
greenhouse - green house, English teacher, iron lady - iron fence).
By the institutionalisation of words we mean “their coming into general use in the society and so being listed in dic-
tionaries”. Institutionalized words belong to the norm of the language and are more or less familiar to the members
of a certain speech community.
New objects in a changing world require new words not only in the field of technology, such as the metaphorical
daisy wheel (лепестковый шрифтоноситель), laser printer.
Blend word is a word formed from parts of two other words (guesstimate – оценивать приблизительно, slumpla-
tion – экономическая ситуация, характеризующаяся инфляцией и экономическим спадом, babelicious –
сексапильный, screenager – компьютеризированный подросток, twigloo – (шутл) женский парик в форме иглу).
It is a moot point whether all such blends are established words in current English (even within a single country like
Britain). For instance, the term netizen ‘a citizen of the internet’ may not be part of the active vocabulary of the ma-
jority of English users. It is probably more appropriate to view blends as a changing group of words which come and
go and whose acceptance in the wider community depends on their lexical transparency.
Clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts. Clipping is also
known as "truncation" or "shortening (info, exam, ad).
noun-noun compound: note + book → notebook
adjective-noun compound: blue + berry → blueberry
verb-noun compound: work + room → workroom
noun-verb compound: breast + feed → breastfeed
verb-verb compound: stir + fry → stir-fry
adjective-verb compound: high + light → highlight
verb-preposition compound: break + up → breakup
preposition-verb compound: out + run → outrun
adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet → bittersweet
preposition-preposition compound: in + to → into
Stable compounds (hyphenated, one word) vs loose compounds (more than one element)
washing-machine and stone wall
Loose compound/unstable compound - several elements.
Билет 10.
10. 1. Word structure in relation to word classes.
Structurally both lexical or function words consist of morphemes, which vary in terms of their nature, quality and
number. Function words are simple structures and cannot be further segmented (but not all of them) while lexical
words are more complex in structure.
Depending on the process (inflection, derivation, compounding) the structure of the word can have different types of
morphemes (in Anglo-American tradition):
1) lexical
2) derivational
3) inflectional
By lexical morphemes American linguists mean roots/stems/bases. In Russian linguistics lexical morphemes (roots,
stems, bases) and derivational morphemes are called lexical, while inflectional are regarded as grammatical mor-
phemes.
Roots/stems/bases - they are lexical morphemes in both American and Russian traditions. They designate that part
of a word that remains when all affixes have been removed.
A root is a form which is not further analyzable either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. A root is
the basic part that is present in a lexeme.
walk-walking-walker- walkie-talkie - sidewalk- walks
You will never have a word related to walking where the walk-part gets changed. This part remains unchanged.
Un -touch -able s
Wheelchair- 2 корня
complete - plete is root
replete- plete is root
expletive - plete is root, can not function on their own, The are Morphs!
Stem is relevant only when dealing with inflectional morphology. Основа слова. Untouchable-s
A stem is a form of a word that inflections get added onto. Most of the time stems are roots: walk.
A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. It means that any root and any stem can be named a
base, but the set of bases is not exhausted by the union of the sets of roots and the sets of stems. That is touchable
is the base for untouchable, but touchable is not a root, it should be divided. A base then is any part of a word that
you can add inflections onto.
Free and bound morphemes. The primary division depends on the ability of the morpheme to function individually.
Functional and lexical morphemes (base, root, stem) are free morphemes, because they can function independently:
town, dog, spite, can, would, are. And they can appear with other lexemes: town-hall, doghouse, in spite of, are go-
ing.
Bound morphemes get attached to the bases. Cranberry morphemes are a type of bound morphemes that cannot be
assigned an independent meaning or grammatical function. They serve to distinguish one word from another. For ex-
ample, cran- in cranberry, mul in mulberry (тутовое дерево). They do not function independently referring to cran-
berry and mulberry. They are morphs.
mit, ceive, plete (expletive, depletive).
Inflection is represented in English by the lexical stem plus inflectional suffix. Prefixes do not count.
Derivation reveals itself in the lexical root or base plus derivational affixes.
Compounding can be described as a combination of lexical roots or bases.
10. 2. Lexical morphemes and lexical meaning.
Grammatical morphemes express abstract grammatical meaning and are studied by grammatical morphology.
On the contrary, lexical morphemes convey concrete lexical meaning which is discussed as part of lexical morphol-
ogy. Being the result of thinking processes, lexical meaning is the content of a morpheme or a word that represents
in human mind conceptions of objects, processes and properties. Conception as an idea of something.
Follow, type, look - morphologically simple words.
As distinct from grammatical or inflectional morpheme, lexical morphemes are semic and morphiс.
A seme (derivational morpheme) is the smallest unit of meaning recognized in semantics and it refers to a single
characteristic of a sememe. These characteristics are defined according to the differences between sememes.
This means that these units have their own individual meaning and admit no morphological variation: they are repro-
duced in a number of characteristic patterns.
Rewrite, redecorate
Ly in adverbs
“Unbreak my heart” exists because we have a broken heart. To cancel the previous action “break”, because it is
done. It’s a matter of Regret. To wish that one’s heart were unbroken.
«Uncry these tears». To wish one hadn’t cry and were happy.
⇨ un is a seme and a morph, it’s meaning should be used in speech.
A sememe is a semantic language unit of meaning, analogous to a morpheme. A sememe can be the meaning ex-
pressed by a morpheme, such as the English pluralizing morpheme -s, which carries the sememic feature.
Билет 11.
11. 1. Category as a linguistic term and word of general English.
Category and categorization. As a word of general English, category means group, type and class. In linguistics it has
two meanings:
1. Lexical-grammatical class, thus a category
2. The most abstract meaning which is represented in the opposition of no less than two elements.
The term is about abstract meaning and its representation.
Linguistic universal is the most abstract meaning which is represented in a variety of languages, but in a different
way. Thus the same meaning can be represented lexically, or grammatically, or both.
Category is a class or group of people or things that share some certain features in common, according to their quali-
ties etc. Also, usually, categories tend to have subcategories.
To categorise means to place smth/smb in category. Categorisation is the process of discovering and explaining the
fundamental concepts. Categories present the result of a very specific kind or reverbation of the particular aspects of
objective reality.
In linguistics, lexical-grammatical categories mean classes of words, or divisions of words. This notion is used in ab-
stract sense. Category of linguistic meaning forms structure of linguistic units.
Categories are based on opposition, for instance, singular vs. plural in the category of number, or common vs. pos-
sessive in the category of case. Opposition should include no less than two forms.
Nouns have different categories, apart from case and number. There is also an animate vs. inanimate opposition. An-
imate nouns have a subcategory: personal vs. non-personal pronouns etc.
Grammatical category – we mean permanent semantic feature of a linguistic unit which has acquired its regular
grammatical expression.
11. 2. The role of the prefix allo- and the suffix –eme as part of linguistic terms.
Prefix allo- indicates difference, variation, opposition. (from Greek. Means different, other, another)
Ex. allomorph (variant of a morpheme), allopathy, allophone, alloptrope
It’s a combining form denoting a condition differing from the normal, or referring to “another”.
Suffix –eme means that something belongs to a system. It is a suffix that forms nouns that are in systematic contrast
with each other.
Ex. Grapheme, phoneme – they belong to systems.
Билет 12.
12. 1. Grammatical and lexical categories in English.
Category and categorization. As a word of general English, category means group, type and class. In linguistics it has
two meanings:
1. Lexical-grammatical class, thus a category
2. The most abstract meaning which is represented in the opposition of no less than two elements.
The term is about abstract meaning and its representation.
Linguistic universal is the most abstract meaning which is represented in a variety of languages, but in a different
way. Thus the same meaning can be represented lexically, or grammatically, or both.
A grammatical category is connected with a certain expression of a certain meaning which is systemically, recur-
rently rendered. To understand the process of establishing a grammatical category it is very important to introduce
the concept of opposition. Grammatical categories are the reverberations of the most general properties possessed
by word-forms and lexical-grammatical classes of words as a whole.
A grammatical category is constituted by the opposition of no less than two mutually incompatible grammatical
forms (for example, the noun is either used in the singular or the plural form, the two making the category of num-
ber).
Some nouns refuse to be used in the plural (coffee, money), or in the singular form (news, means, trousers, scissors),
they may take other grammatical inflections for the plural: ox — oxen, goose —geese, child — children, analysis —
analyses etc.
By a grammatical category we mean permanent semantic feature of a linguistic unit, which has acquired its regular
grammatical expression. Any grammatical category is based on the opposition of no less than 2 forms. Any category
is based on the number of opposition.
System of categories of English nouns. The category of number and case. It is an abstraction. Singularity and plural-
ity.
The category of number is a manifest of the lexical category of quantitivness. But number in nouns and verbs is
grammatical category.
Gender in Russian is lexical-grammatical category. In English either lexical, either lexical-grammatical. The first lexical
opposition: animate, inanimate. The second opposition: animate nouns are divided into human/non-human. Human
is further divided in feminine and masculine. The category of gender is constituted. Then its lexical, but some gram-
marians do not agree. Suffix -ess, which is used in the feminine gender. But it is about to disappear. It is not relevant.
On the whole, there are 3 oppositions: animate, inanimate, neuter.
The category of number is a manifest of the lexical category of quantitivness. But number in nouns and verbs is
grammatical category.
The category of definiteness on indefiniteness.
The vs a - articles
And pronouns: demonstrative, possessive and on the other hand “some”, ”any”.
In English this opposition is related with deixis.
Articles are syncategorematic words, that is function words, or determinants. Words with weakened lexical meaning.
The opposite view is that those elements are viewed as auxiliary elements in element form.
But actually their status doesn’t matter. They always express an abstract particular meaning.
Abstraction and specification - abstract and concrete nouns. Each object can be viewed as most abstract, more or
less abstract, or concrete.
The class of nouns is constituted by the following grammatical categories: Number (singular, plural); Case (common
and possessive); Gender (masculine, feminine, neutral)
Gender of nouns may be defined by 3 ways:
1) system of personal pronouns (he, she, it);
2) special suffixes -er(-or) , -ess (waitress);
3) lexical units which express the idea of gender (niece – nephew; bull – cow)
Common gender. Some nouns which can may both a female or a male person they belong to so call common gender
(doctor, president).
The grammatical category of number in the English noun presents a specific linguistic reflection of quantitative rela-
tions between homogeneous objects of reality conceptualized by the human mind. It is constituted by the binary pri-
vative opposition of singular and plural forms.
From the point of view of their number characteristics the English nouns fall into two classes: countable (исчисл)
and uncountable.
The grammatical category of case in English nouns. Case is a grammatical category which marks the semantic role of
the noun in the sentence and finds a grammatical expression in the language.
The category of case of the English noun is constituted by the binary privative opposition of the Common and Pos-
sessive cases. The formal marker of the Possessive case is the morpheme ‘s.
The most common syntagmatic meanings of the Possessive case are the following: pure possessivity (my sister’s
money); agent, or subject of the action (my brother’s arrival); object of the action (the criminal’s arrival); authorship
(Shakespeare’s sonnets); destination (a sailor’s uniform); measure (a day’s wait); location (at the dean’s); descrip-
tion, or comparison (a lion’s courage).
12. 2. Roots, stems, and bases in relation to inflexion, derivation and com-
pounding.
Structurally both lexical or function words consist of morphemes, which vary in terms of their nature, quality and
number. Function words are simple structures and cannot be further segmented (but not all of them) while lexical
words are more complex in structure.
Depending on the process (inflection, derivation, compounding) the structure of the word can have different types of
morphemes (in Anglo-American tradition):
1) lexical
2) derivational
3) inflectional
By lexical morphemes American linguists mean roots/stems/bases. In Russian linguistics lexical morphemes (roots,
stems, bases) and derivational morphemes are called lexical, while inflectional are regarded as grammatical mor-
phemes.
Roots/stems/bases - they are lexical morphemes in both American and Russian traditions. They designate that part
of a word that remains when all affixes have been removed.
A root is a form which is not further analyzable either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. A root is
the basic part that is present in a lexeme.
walk-walking-walker- walkie-talkie - sidewalk- walks
You will never have a word related to walking where the walk-part gets changed. This part remains unchanged.
Un -touch -able s
Wheelchair- 2 корня
complete - plete is root
replete- plete is root
expletive - plete is root, can not function on their own, The are Morphs!
Stem is relevant only when dealing with inflectional morphology. Основа слова. Untouchable-s
A stem is a form of a word that inflections get added onto. Most of the time stems are roots: walk.
A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. => any root and any stem can be named a base, but the
set of bases is not exhausted by the union of the sets of roots and the sets of stems. That is touchable is the base for
untouchable, but touchable is not a root, it should be divided. A base then is any part of a word that you can add in-
flections onto.
Free and bound morphemes. The primary division depends on the ability of the morpheme to function individually.
Functional and lexical morphemes (base, root, stem) are free morphemes, because they can function independently:
town, dog, spite, can, would, are. And they can appear with other lexemes: town-hall, doghouse, in spite of, are go-
ing.
Bound morphemes get attached to the bases. Cranberry morphemes are a type of bound morphemes that cannot be
assigned an independent meaning or grammatical function. They serve to distinguish one word from another. For ex-
ample, cran- in cranberry, mul in mulberry (тутовое дерево). They do not function independently referring to cran-
berry and mulberry. They are morphs.
mit, ceive, plete (expletive, depletive).
Inflection is represented in English by the lexical stem plus inflectional suffix. Prefixes do not count.
Derivation reveals itself in the lexical root or base plus derivational affixes.
Compounding can be described as a combination of lexical roots or bases.
Билет 13.
13. 1. Word-building and word-formation in English.
We differentiate between word-building (словоизменение) and accidence/inflection/word-formation
(словообразование). Morphology combines word-building and word-formation. Thus it can be divided into lexical
and syntactic morphology.
Word building has to do with creating new words and correlates with derivation and compounding. For example:
Belief – disbelief, happy – happiness, dark – darkness – these are the samples of derivation in which derivative suf-
fixes are added to a base.
Another example: cupcake, footprint, grasshopper – these are compounds, that are created by means of putting two
roots or bases together.
Word formation is connected with changing the grammatical information of a word and correlates with inflection.
Inflectional suffixes carry grammatical meanings such as the genitive 's; the plural -s; the third-person singular -s; the
past tense -d, -ed, or -t; the negative particle 'nt; -ing forms of verbs; the comparative -er; and the superlative -est.
For example: boys, boy’s, older, putting, walks.
13. 2. Morphology and phonology: the notion of semiological relevance.
The units of morphological level do not function in isolation in a flow of speech, since they — morphemes as well as
word-forms — are only the constituent elements, the former for the words, the latter for the sentences, both types
forming a kind of hierarchy of subservient structural elements.
On morpheme boundaries not all the distinctive features of the sound are realised, some sound properties may be-
come weakened, neutralised, some other strengthened, thus leading to fusion.
For example, the archiphoneme <z> which functions as the grammatical morpheme of the 3rd person singular in
verbs is a bundle of distinctive features of groove, fricative, alveolar. Functionally speaking, the semiological function
of the positional variants of the corresponding morpheme is based on a single distinctive feature — the opposition of
strong versus weak.
Archiphoneme is an abstract phonological unit, represented by a bundle of distinctive features common of both
members of a neutralizing phonological opposition. Archiphoneme consists of the distinctive feature lacking in the
other. An archiphoneme is associated with units representing two or more underlying phonemes where the distinc-
tion has been neutralized under certain conditions.
Relevant - capable of differentiating distinctive units and therefore indispensable for language as means of commu-
nication.
Semiology is restricted to language study. Yet semiotics studies also non-linguistic systems. The goal of semiology is
to determine the relations between the signifier (the name of a sign) and the signified (the referred idea in the
mind).
Semiological relevance (смыслоразличение) is a distinctive feature of semantics units (morphemes, words) as a
part of language system. It is also the basic notion of segmental phonology which is based on non-identity, other-
ness.
Phonemes have no meaning of their own. They just serve to differentiate the meaning of different words. On a mor-
phological level phonemes signal otherness. On the level of morphonology the same sounds will signal identity.
(например, Distracting – distractive – разные аффиксы, состоят из разных фонем, сигнализируют otherness –
морфологический уровень. И educate – education – во втором слове появляется звук Ш, но мы все равно
знаем, что корень здесь один – МорфоНОлогический уровень)
рука VS лука - оппозиция р-л говорят о том, что слова разные, но рука-руки-руками - соединение трех фонем –
рук- говорит о том, что это одна морфем
Билет 14.
14. 1. Inflexion and its representation in English.
Processes affecting word structure:
• synthesis
• analysis
Synthesis is a process of combining elements into larger global units.
Analysis is a process of breaking down a complex whole into constituting elements.
These elements represent mental processes going on in the speaker’s mind irrespective of the language they speak,
speech community they belong. Mental processes are opposed to each other. But as linguistic processes they com-
plement each other.
Synthesis involves inflection, derivation and compounding.
1. Inflection - словоизменение. Accidence/word-formation (they are synonyms).
Inflection is the modification of a word to produce grammatical forms of a word (word forms). The results of this
process are inflected grammatical forms which are studied as part of inflectional/grammatical morphology.
To vary - vary - varies - varying - varied (a complex of verbal forms) - Grammatical paradigm (словоизменительная
парадигма).
Boy- boys - boy’s - boys’
dark-darker-darkest
soon-sooner-soonest
Relative and qualitative adjectives, притяжательных как отдельного класса нет в английском, потому что есть
possessive case.
14. 2. The categories of English nouns and their classification.
Category and categorization. As a word of general English, category means group, type and class. In linguistics it has
two meanings:
1. Lexical-grammatical class, thus a category
2. The most abstract meaning which is represented in the opposition of no less than two elements.
The term is about abstract meaning and its representation.
Linguistic universal is the most abstract meaning which is represented in a variety of languages, but in a different
way. Thus the same meaning can be represented lexically, or grammatically, or both.
By a grammatical category we mean permanent semantic feature of a linguistic unit (that is part of speech), which
has acquired its regular grammatical expression. Any grammatical category is based on the opposition of no less than
2 forms. Any category is based on the number of opposition.
The class of nouns is constituted by the following grammatical categories: Number (singular, plural); Case (common
and possessive); Gender (masculine, feminine, neutral)
Gender of nouns may be defined by 3 ways:
1) system of personal pronouns (he, she, it);
2) special suffixes -er(-or) , -ess (waitress);
3) lexical units which express the idea of gender (niece – nephew; bull – cow)
Common gender. Some nouns which can may both a female or a male person they belong to so call common gender
(doctor, president).
The grammatical category of number in the English noun presents a specific linguistic reflection of quantitative rela-
tions between homogeneous objects of reality conceptualized by the human mind. It is constituted by the binary pri-
vative opposition of singular and plural forms.
From the point of view of their number characteristics the English nouns fall into two classes: countable (исчисл)
and uncountable.
The grammatical category of case in English nouns. Case is a grammatical category which marks the semantic role of
the noun in the sentence and finds a grammatical expression in the language.
The category of case of the English noun is constituted by the binary privative opposition of the Common and Pos-
sessive cases. The formal marker of the Possessive case is the morpheme ‘s.
The most common syntagmatic meanings of the Possessive case are the following: pure possessivity (my sister’s
money); agent, or subject of the action (my brother’s arrival); object of the action (the criminal’s arrival); authorship
(Shakespeare’s sonnets); destination (a sailor’s uniform); measure (a day’s wait); location (at the dean’s); descrip-
tion, or comparison (a lion’s courage).
Number and case have abstract meaning, purely grammatical. Endings are inflectional morphemes. You may not
know the meaning of the word, but can understand its form in the text.
The category of number (noun) shows a relation between the number of objects and its name. This idea is repre-
sented in the opposition on plurality and singularity.
The category of case shows a relation of one word (noun) in a particular form to another word (noun, verb). Nouns
denote object, case form shows a relation of one object to another object or action.
Common case vs possessive case. Other forms were contracted. The meaning of the case has become very specific.
In English possessiveness is about animate nouns. The idea of belonging. Feminine inanimate can only have posses-
sive case: car, ship. And city, week, time and periods of time. Idea of possibility is represented by special forms,
grammatically.
Билет 15.
15. 1. Grammatical morphemes and grammatical meaning.
Grammatical morphemes express abstract grammatical meaning and are studied by grammatical morphology. On
the contrary, lexical morphemes convey concrete lexical meaning which is discussed as part of lexical morphology.
Grammatical/formal meaning is defined as highly generalized abstract linguistic meaning, typical of the set of words
(word forms), that has found in a language regular expressions. This meaning cannot be represented by a separate
word but by a grammatical formal elements dependent on the main, these elements are suffixes.
Lexical words may take inflectional suffixes to signal meaningful relationships. The nominal inflectional morphemes
such as -es, ‘s are used to show the relationship between stem and plural and genitive.
The verbal inflection s, ed, ing are used to show the relationship between stem, first personal singular present in-
dicative (s), ed - past tense and past participle, ing - the present participle or gerund.
Adjectives - er the relation between stem and comparative and superlative.
It is most associated with category - abstract grammatical meaning.
It follows from the definition of grammatical meaning that grammatical morphemes can be understood only as part
of the system of grammatical morphological oppositions. These are the significant semiologically relevant differences
between the members of a morphological set of word-forms.
Car - cars (z)
Miracle - miracles (z)
Bag - bags (z)
They are morphonologically homogenous.
Book- books, date - dates
Match - matches, bush - bushes, glass - glasses
In all those cases two members of the opposition are semiologically relevant, the system doesn’t allow the third con-
stituent.
On the one hand, in terms of expression plane, [s, z,] and [ez] are allomorphs of the morpheme -es.
On the other hand, they can be referred to as sememes (семемы) - the ultimate units of content plane. Thus the
morpheme in question and its manifestations s, z, es are bilateral units related to both content and expression
planes.
The facts that proves the grammatical status of morphemes is that we may not know the lexical meaning, yet we can
easily identify its number or case if we are familiar with the system of grammatical oppositions.
Dry (zero morpheme) - dries, stop (zero morpheme) - stops, push (zero morpheme) - pushes
Grammatical morphology is allomorphic (in terms of its grammatical form) and sememic (in terms of content).
15. 2. The processes of grammatical homonymy and polysemy in English.
The relationship between linguistic form and linguistic meaning reveals itself in what is known as syncretism (gram-
matical homonymy) and suspension (grammatical synonymy). The latter is sometimes terminologically presented by
“variation of expression” or “redundance of expression plane” etc. Despite the obvious cases of syncretism and sus-
pension the general rule remains valid. Normally, identity (sameness) on the expression plane points to the identity
on the plane of content, and difference on the expression plane signals difference (otherness) on the plane of con-
tent.
By syncretism is meant falling together of two or more grammatical meanings in one and the same grammatical (in-
flexional) form. This fact becomes manifest mainly as dependent on the vigour of the non-syncretised inflectional
forms, their ability to induce or to evoke in the former the particular content.
He knew that it's there somewhere. If he knew that all before. I was a teacher when I was 18. If I was/were a
teacher, I would not complain the forms of the past indefinite and the subjunctive, - knew, was are homonymous;
while was4 and were4 are synonymous, they are, although different in form, identical in the grammatical content
they render.
Another example. The morpheme [z] can function as 1) the plural of nouns in: dogs, cats, clashes; 2) the possessive
case inflexion in nouns: dog`s barking, a dog's life, cat's-eye; 3) the plural form inflexion in demonstrative pronominal
adjectives this — these, that — those, where the interchange of [s]/[z] is supported by the interchanging vowel in
the root-morpheme.
The homonymy of [-z] includes also 4) the absolute form of pronouns like hers, ours; 5) the verbal inflexion of the
3rd person singular, present tense as in: (he) speaks, declares, proposes.
We speak of homonymy when the same element of the sound, the same unit of the expression level is connected
with different units on the semantic level. Homonymy presupposes that the grammatical meaning of two forms is in-
compatible, while the form is assumed to be identical.
Примеры: In Russian nouns, for example, the forms of the nominative and the accusative in the declension type of
мышь are homonymous, they coincide in their expression, but remain different in their content.
1)He knew1 that it’s there somewhere (indicative) If he knew2 that all before. (Present subjunctive)
2)He had known (past perfect or past subjunctive 2)
3)Inflection -ed (he asked me about, or in the passive and perfective forms, and past participle)
4) ing (continuous, participle 1) и неоднозначность форм continuous (present and future)
Synonymy presupposes that two units have the same grammatical meaning being different in form, as in If I was/
were a teacher, I would not complain.
Пример: 1) Future action can be expressed with the help of the future indefinite, the present indefinite, or the
present continuous form of the verb, as in We’ll fly tomorrow; We fly tomorrow; We are flying tomorrow. (Depends
on the lexical meaning of the word).
2)Can/could/would - в вопросах они тоже синонимы.
3)will and shall - partial synonyms
4)he used to do / he would do ( but only with verbs of action, not of state and condition)
5)who/whom
6)should / ought to
7)er, pro, ist - suffuxes
8)ian- historian
Grammatical polysemy is observed in grammatical expression of a host of intricate distinctions of a noun known as
the genitive or the possessive.
Things, objects, events, human beings can be specified as belonging to, or associated with, or connected with, as in,
for example: John's motorbike; her grandmother's house; the dog's head; John's arm; his friend's reaction; Mrs
Thatcher's greatest error, the car’ s colour and design; the country’ s biggest city; the city's population.
In some cases, the possessive form of a noun functions in a similar way to a possessive pronoun: Her hand felt differ-
ent from David’s. Her tone was more friendly than Stryke’s. It is your responsibility rather than your friends`.
Sometimes the idea of possessivity becomes rather abstract: women’s magazines (magazines for women to read);
the men’s lavatory (to be used by men); a policeman’s uniform (that makes them different from soldiers or navy offi-
cers etc).
The same grammatical inflexion may refer to a someone’s home or place of work: He's round at David's. She stopped
off at the butcher's for a piece of steak.
Sometimes ownership is specially emphasised lexically. We must depend on his own assessment. We must depend
on David's own assessment etc.
Thus, all the above cases are brought together as semantic variants of the same grammatical meaning of possessiv-
ity, they are considered not to be incompatible, but polysemous, rendering the ideas of possessivity proper, partitiv-
ity, association, connection, qualification, location. Some of these forms become semantically close to polysemantic
prepositional structures.
With: to stay with a friend, to mix flour with milk; a book with a green cover; to eat with a spoon, to fight with
courage; to buy with the money; to sail with the wind.
By: by the window — near; by the door — through; a play by Shakespeare; to play by the rules, swear by heaven.
The tiger/s - specific
The tiger - generic
The Swiss