General characteristics of English numerals.
Lecture 6.
Theme. Notional parts of speech. Adverbs. Numerals.
1. General characteristics of English adverbs.
2. General characteristics of English numerals.
General characteristics of English adverbs.
The adverb express either the degree of a property, or the property of an action, or the circumstances under which an action takes place.
Semantic features of the adverbs. Adverbs may be subdivided into the following groups:
1. adverbs of time or frequency – now, then, after, before, yesterday, tomorrow, often, always, seldom, ever, never, already, still, etc.;
2. adverbs of place or direction - outside, inside, up, down, here, there, forward, backward, north, south, ect.;
3. adverbs of manner – well, badly, quickly, slowly, kindly, beautifully, etc.;
4. adverbs of measure or degree – half, much, little, nearly, almost, quite, hardly, exceedingly, enough, too, rather, etc.;
5. interrogative adverbs – where, when, why, how.
Morphological features of adverbs. Among the adverbs there are some which admit the degrees of comparison, and others which do not. In mentioning this, we need not go into details since we can apply here everything that has been said about degrees of comparison of adjectives.
Syntactic features. Adverbs in the majority of cases refer to verbs (in their finite or non-finite form). He smiled kindly. She went there yesterday. Adverbs of degree of measure, however, will generally modify an adjective (qualitative, not relative) or another adverb. He went there rather slowly. The position of the adverb in the sentence is relatively free, especially that of adverbs denoting time, place or manner of the action. Adverbs denoting frequency are generally placed before the verb to which they refer or, if the form of the verb is analytical, after the first auxiliary. Adverbs of degree are placed directly before the word they modify. Adverbs denoting direction are placed immediately after the word they modify. Interrogative adverbs are placed at the head of the sentence. The main syntactical function of the adverb is that of an adverbial modifier of time, place, degree or manner.
She always does everything very well there.
time degree manner place
Adverbs may sometimes be preceded by prepositions, which mean that they become partly substantivized. This is seen in such phrases as from here, from there, since when, up to now, etc.
|
|
|
Special attention has been paid by many scholars to groups of the type come in, go out, set up, i.e. groups consisting of a verb and an adverb so closely united in meaning that the adverb does not indicate a properly of the action or circumstance under which the action takes place. The peculiarity meaning, seen in the fact that the second element in bring up or put down does not indicate the circumstances in which the action takes place (the whole has a meaning entirely different from the meanings of the components), may be put down as phraseology unit consisting of the verb bring and the adverb up, and the analysis of the meaning would completely fall under the domain of lexicology, of which phraseology is a part.
General characteristics of English numerals.
Numerals denote either number or place in a series.
Semantic features of the numerals. Numerals include two classes of words: cardinal numerals and ordinal numerals. Cardinal numerals indicate number: one, seven, ten etc. Ordinal numerals indicate order: first, second, thirty-ninth etc.
Morphological features of numerals. There are no grammatical categories to be discussed in numerals. There is no category of number, no of case, nor any other morphological category. The numerals are invariable. Ordinal numerals are formed, as a rule, form the corresponding cardinal numerals, by adding the suffix ‘-th’ to the stem of the cardinal numeral. The exceptions will be the numerals ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’.
Syntactic features of numerals. Numerals, as a rule, are used as a part of a noun phrase. eg. He had two cups of coffee. The second cup tasted bitter. When the ordinal numeral is used as a part of a noun phrase, the noun is generally preceded by the definite article.
Sometimes numerals may be used absolutely and not as part of a phrase. In this case the object to which the numeral refers is clear from the context. eg. I didn’t have two cups of coffee. I had one. (= I had one cup of coffee.)
The most characteristic function of numerals is of an attribute preceding its noun. Both cardinal and numerals can have certain functions of nouns and of adjectives in the sentence. However a numeral can also perform other functions in the sentence: it can be subject, predicative an object. An ordinal numeral can also be modified by an infinitive denoting the action in which the object mentioned occupies a definite place.
|
|
|
The numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, share certain peculiarities of syntactic construction with pronouns: e.g. five children, five of the children, five of them.
List of books:
1. B. Ylyish “The Structure of Modern English Language”, 1991.
2. B.I. Khaimovich, B.L. Rogovskaya “A Course in English Grammar”, M. 1997, p-p. 5-11.
3. F.M. Berezin “Lecture on Linguistics”, M. 1999.
4. Л.С. Бархударов, Д.А. Штеллинг “Грамматика английского языка”, М. 2003.
5. Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik “A Communicative Grammar of English”, M. 1983
Questions
1. Substantivized adverbs.
2. Peculiarities of syntactic construction of adverbs with pronouns.
3. Grammatical categories of numerals.
Дата добавления: 2022-11-11; просмотров: 131; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!