Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

Ways of grammatical word-forming in Modern English 
The means, employed for building up member-forms of categorical oppositions, are tradi-
tionally divided into 
synthetical
and 
analytical
. Accordingly, the grammatical forms themselves 
are classed into synthetical and analytical, too.

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof. 
Nino Kirvalidze
20
Synthetical grammatical forms are based on the morphemic composition of the word, 
while analytical grammatical forms are built up by a combination of at least two words, one of 
which is a grammatical auxiliary and the other – a content word with concrete lexical meaning. 
Synthetical grammatical forms are based on 
inner inflection
, 
outer inflection
and 
suppleti-
vity
. Hence, the forms are referred to as inner-inflectional, outer-inflectional and suppletive. 
Inner inflection
or 
grammatical infixation
is based on
vowel interchange
, 
which is not 
productive in modern English, but it is peculiarly employed in some of its basic, most ancient 
lexemes. Inner inflection is used in English irregular verbs to form the past indefinite and past 
participle (the bulk of them Germanic strong verbs), and in a few nouns to form their plural
. 
For instance: 
Irregular verbs Nouns 
begin – began – begun man – men
do – did – done goose – geese
drive – drove – driven foot – feet
give – gave – given mouse – mice
keep – kept – kept tooth – teeth
sell – sold – sold woman – women
Outer inflection implies grammatical suffixation as grammatical prefixation could only be 
observed in the Old English
. Outer inflections are used to build up the number and case forms 
of the noun, the person-number, tense, participial and gerundial forms of the verb; the 
comparison forms of the adjective and adverb.
Suppletivity 
is based on the correlation of different roots as a means of paradigmatic dif-
ferentiation of grammatical category.
Suppletivity implies the grammatical interchange of word 
roots, and this unites it with the inner inflection
. Suppletivity is used:
1.
in the forms of the verbs be (be – am – is – are – was – were) and go (go – went);
2.
in the irregular forms of the degrees of comparison: good – better; bad – worse;
much – more; little – less.
3.
in some forms of the personal pronouns: I – me; we – us; she – her.

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof.