Theoretical Grammar of English

Particles

Modal words

Interjections

We find another approach of those authors to the words of English. All the words are divided into two main classes:
notional words and function - words: connectives, determinatives
Function words are those which do not have full lexical meaning and cannot be used as an independent part of sentences. According to their function these words, as has been mentioned, are subdivided into connectives and determinatives:

1. 
   connectives form phrases as to believe in something or as in the hall. To connectives authors refer: prepositions, conjunctions, modal and link verbs;
   
2. 
   determinatives are words which define the lexical meaning of notional words (they either limit them, or make them more concrete). These words include articles and particles.
   

The consideration of conceptions of different grammarians shows that the problem of parts of speech is not yet solved. There's one point which is generally accepted: in M-n English there are two classes of words-notional and functional - which are rather distinct.

Lecture 6

The Noun

Problems to be discussed:

• 
  nouns as a part of speech
  
• 
  the grammatical categories of nouns
  

1. 
   number
   
2. 
   case
   

• 
  the meaning of gender in Modern English
  

- gender and sex.

In most cases in treating parts of speech in English we shall keep to the conception of scientists that we refer to post-structural tendency. It's because they combine the ideas of traditional and structural grammarians.

The noun is classified into a separate word - group because:

1. 
   they all have the same lexical - grammatical meaning :
   

substance / thing

2. 
   according to their form - they've two grammatical categories:
   

number and case

3. 
   they all have typical stem-building elements:
   

- er, - ist, - ship, - merit, -hood ...

4. 
   typical combinability with other words:
   

most often left-hand combinability

5. 
   function - the most characteristic feature of nouns is - they can be observed in all syntactic functions but predicate.
   

Some words about the distribution of nouns. Because of the fact that nouns express or denote substance / thing, their distribution is bound with the words which express the quality of substance, their number, their actions and their relation to the other words /nouns/ in English.
When the quality of nouns are described we make use of adjectives:
big, red apple energetic crisis
a long, dusty track and others.
When the quantity and order of nouns are described the numerals are to be used: the six continents
25^th anniversary 12 students....
When we denote the action of substances we make use of the verbs: An apple-tree grows in the garden
Russia assisted India in Mounting Bokaro Steal Plant
When the relation of nouns to other words are described we make wide use of prepositions a window of the school
to the park
at the construction of the bridge
In all these cases with the exception of verbs the noun is characterized with left-hand combinability / in overwhelming majority/. So far as to the verbs are concerned they may both precede and follow them.