INTRODUCTION

GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

§ 1.

Give a short description of types of languages

Flexional Languages

;"
synthetic (inflections) analytical (words and word order)

§ 2. Analytical forms are mostly proper to verbs. An analytical verb-form consists of one or more form words,
which have no lexical meaning and only express one or more of the grammatical categories of person,
number, tense, aspect, voice, mood, and one notional word, generally an infinitive or a participle: e. g. He has
come, I am reading.

The analytical forms are: Examples

1. Tense and Aspect verb-forms
 the Continuous form: I am writing
 the Perfect form: I have written
 the Perfect Continuous form: I have been writing
 the Future Indefinite: I shall write
 all the other forms of the Future; also the Does he sing?
interrogative and the negative forms of the He doesn’t sing
Present and Past Indefinite:
2. The Passive Voice: I was invited to the theatre.
3. The analytical form of the Subjunctive Mood: I should go there if I had time.

§ 3. However, the structure of a language is never purely synthetic or purely analytical. Accordingly in the
English language there are:

The synthetic forms in English are: Examples

1. Endings:
 -s in the third person singular in the Present Indefinite: speaks
 -s in the plural of nouns: tables
  -s in the genitive case: my brother's book
 -ed in the Past Indefinite of regular verbs: smoked
2. Inner flexions: man - men; speak - spoke
3. The synthetic forms of the Subjunctive Mood: were, be, have, etc.

§ 4. Owing to the scarcity of synthetic forms the order of words, which is fixed in English, acquires
extreme importance: The fisherman caught a fish.
A deviation from the general principle of word order is possible only in special cases.

§ 5. One of the marked features of the English language is the extensive use of substitutes. A word
substitute saves the repetition of a word in certain conditions. Here belong one, that, do.

 One replaces class nouns in the singular and in Thanks for the compliment, if it is one.
the plural: The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones
he had, and they were not all happy.
He (Martin) watched the easy walk of the other in front
 That generally substitutes nouns, especially of him, and for the first time realized that his walk was
abstract nouns and nouns of material followed different from that of other men.
by an attribute, mostly introduced by the Almost every day thereafter Mrs. Skelton would go for
preposition of: a ride in her own car or that of Castleman.
 Do substitutes verbs: You know your law better than I do.
Forgive me for speaking with brutal frankness; I only
do so because I care.

PART I: MORPHOLOGY
Give a short definition of Morphology
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH

THE PARTS OF SPEECH

Notional - perform certain functions in the sentence: Structural - either express relations between words
the functions of subject, predicate, attribute, object, or sentences, or emphasize the meaning of words or
or adverbial modifier. The notional parts of speech sentences. They never perform any independent
are: the noun; the adjective; the pronoun; the function in the sentence. Here belong: the
numeral; the verb; the adverb; the words of the preposition; the conjunction; the particle; the
category of state; the modal words; the interjection. article.

THE NOUN
The noun is a word expressing substance.

morphological syntactical
case
subject
Number
number object
gender
predicative
attribute
Predicative
adverb. modif.

Morphological composition of nouns

Nouns

simple derivative compound

Types of nouns Characteristics Examples

Simple are nouns which have neither prefixes nor suffixes. chair, table, room, map, fish,
They are indecomposable: work.
Derivative are nouns which have derivative elements (prefixes reader, blackness, childhood,
or suffixes or both) misconduct, inexperience.
Compound are nouns built from two or more stems.
The main types of compound nouns are as follows:
(a) noun-stem + noun-stem: snowball;

(b) adjective-stem + noun-stem: blackbird, bluebell;

(c) verb-stem + noun-stem: pickpocket;

the stem of a gerund or of a participle may be the dining- room, reading-hall,

first component of a compound noun: dancing-girl.

Classification of nouns

Types of nouns Explanation Example

A) Proper They are individual names given to
separate persons or things. They are used
to designate:
 personal names: Deborah, Smith

 titles: Mr. Jackson, Lord Byron, Dr.

Johnson

 calendar items: Sunday, January, Christmas

 geographical names: Britain, Europe, The Pacific

Ocean, The Black Sea, the
Caucasus
 titles of books, newspapers, Gone with the Wind, The
institutions: Guardian, The United Nations
Organization
 names of nationalities and English, Greek, Spanish
languages:
Mayflower, the Regent Hotel
 names of ships, hotels, clubs etc.

B) Common are names that can be applied to any man, tree, curiosity
individual of a class of persons or things.

 class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a a part of the town

class. They are countable and are
generally used with an article.
 collective
denote a number or collection of similar
individuals or things regarded as a
singular unit. They denote:
 nouns used only in the singular: machinery, foliage

 nouns that are singular in form police, poultry, cattle, people

though plural in meaning:

 nouns that may be both singular family, crowd, fleet

and plural:
 nouns of
material denote material and are uncountable. iron, gold, paper, tea, water

 abstract denote some quality, state, action or, idea: kindness, sadness, fight
They are usually uncountable; though
some of them may be countable: idea, hour

 concrete Existing in a form that can be touched, girl, apple, pen

seen, etc.
 countable nouns that can be counted
nouns denoting things that cannot be computer, table
 uncountable
counted: freedom, goodness

THE CATEGORY OF NUMBER

 Number

singular plural

Rules for forming the plural of English nouns: Examples

1. By adding the ending -s (-es) to the singular; -s is
pronounced in different ways:
[iz] after the sounds [s] ; [∫], [d ], [t∫ ], [ ], [z] noses, bushes; villages; benches;
horses, bridges
[z] after vowels and the sounds [b], [d], [g], [l], [m], [n], bees, pubs, beds, mornings, cans doves,
[ ŋ], [ð], [v]

[s] after the sounds: [k], [ƒ], [p], [t], [ө] caps, books, hats, cliffs, months

2. If the noun ends in -s, -ss, -x, -sh, -ch, or -tch, the plural is bus- buses glass- glasses
formed by adding -es to the singular: box – boxes brush - brushes
bench – benches match - matches

3. If the noun ends in -y preceded by a consonant, y is changed fly – flies army- armies
into i before –es:
Note: If the final -y is preceded by a vowel, the plural is day – days toy - toys
formed by simply adding -s to the singular: monkey - monkeys

4. If the noun ends in -o preceded by a consonant, the plural is hero – heroes potato - potatoes
generally formed by adding -es. echo – echoes

Only a few nouns ending in –o preceded by a consonant piano – pianos photo - photos
form the plural in -s

All nouns ending in -o preceded by a vowel form the plural cuckoo – cuckoos
in -s and not in -es. portfolio - portfolios

There are some nouns ending in –o that may have both –s motto –motos/-es
and –es for the plural: tobacco – tobaccos/-es

5. a) Most nouns ending in –f or –ef get –s in the plural: belief – beliefs cliff –cliffs
grief – griefs roof – roofs

b) There are a few nouns that change –f or –fe into –ves half – halves knife – knives
when turned into the plural: leaf – leaves life –lives
loaf –loaves shelf – shelves
thief – thieves wife –wives

NB. There are some nouns ending in -f which have two scarf- scarfs/ scarves
forms in the plural: wharf – wharfs/ wharves

6. Nouns ending in –th get –s in the plural. The ending –th is a) bath – baths
pronounced: a) [ð] b) [ө] b) death - deaths
 a) Nouns ending in -th [ө] after long vowels change it into
[ð] in pronunciation (which does not affect their spelling). bath [ba:ө]- baths [ba:ðz]
path [pa:ө]- paths [pa:ðz]
oath [ouө] - oaths [ouðz]
b) [ ] is always retained after consonants (including r) and
short vowels: month - months [m n s]
myth - myths [mi s]
birth - births [b : s]
health - healths [hel s]
NB. There are some nouns whose plural form –ths may be
pronounced either [ө] or [ð]. cloths – clothes truth - truths
sheath – sheaths wreath – wreaths

7. The noun house has the plural houses [hauziz ]

8. There are certain irregular nouns, i.e. they do not need –s at child – children man – men
the end to form the plural form: mouse - mice foot -feet
woman – women tooth - teeth
goose – geese louse - lice
ox – oxen
9. A number of nouns get zero plural i.e. have the same form cod; sheep; deer; Chinese; Japanese
in both singular and plural:
10. In compound nouns the plural is formed in different ways: armchair-armchairs
a) adding –s to one of the parts of speech forget-me-not – forget-me-nots
brother-in-law – brothers-in-law
b) or changing the root vowel man - servant – men-servants

11. Some words borrowed from Latin or Greek keep their Latin phenomenon - phenomena
or Greek plural forms: datum – data crisis - crises
stimulus - stimuli formula - formulae
index - indices terminus - termini

Some of these nouns have acquired English plural forms: formulas, indexes, terminuses, etc.

12. A few nouns are used only in the singular being called advice, barley, bread, business, butter,
Singularia Tantum nouns. cotton, furniture, income, information,
knowledge, luggage, nylon, etc.

None of these nouns can be preceded by the indefinite a {piece/slice} of bacon/cake

article a/an and, as some of them have a collective meaning, a {piece/loaf} of bread
when we want to refer to the singular, we must use the a {piece/word} of advice
words: piece, item, bar, bag, etc.: a {piece/item} of information/news
13. A number of nouns (Pluralia Tantum) have only a plural shorts, trousers, measles, mumps,
form: hysterics, glasses, scissors, billiards,
cards, economics, informatics, politics,
doings, funds (fonduri), remains
(resturi), savings (economii), etc

THE CATEGORY OF CASE

- the grammatical category which shows the relations of the noun to the other words in the sentence.
 Case

Nominative Genitive

Case Explanations Examples

Nominative Answers the questions: who? and what? The teacher asks us a lot of
questions.
A strong wind is blowing.

Genitive It answers the questions: whose? (al cui, a cui, ai cui, ale
cui?) which? what? (care ?)
It is formed by adding ‘, ‘s, or of:
‘ is used with plural forms ending in –s The girls’ coats
NB.1. Nouns forming their plural by changing the root Men’s hats
vowel take ‘s in the plural:

‘s is usually used with:

 Proper names: Deborah’s town

 Names of persons: My friend’s bag

 When the possessor is represented by several words, The boy and the girl’s toys. (they
the possessive ending is added after the last one only: have the same toys)

 If each possessor is followed by ‘s, this means that The boy’s and the girl’s toys (the
the possessed objects differ: boy has some toys and the girl
has others)

 When we have groups of words and composed titles, My mother-in law’s words,
the sign of the ‘s is added to the last word. In Henry VIII’s reign

 Collective nouns: The government’s decisions –

deciziile guvernului.
 Abstract nouns:
Liberty’s defense
 Names of countries, towns:
Romanian’s towns, London’s
parks.
 Names of celestial bodies: The sun’s rays
 Names of vessels, boats, ships: Our ship’s crew.
 Names of chronological divisions or nouns denoting (today, week, month, etc. ):
measurements, distance, weight, etc. You must come to tomorrow’s
meeting.
 With some of the indefinite pronouns: another, another’s claim,
either, neither, one, etc. and the composed forms of: somebody’s advice, either’s
some, any, no, every, etc. offer, anyone’s opinion
  With some expressions: for God’s sake

NB. 2. Nouns ending in -s form the genitive case in two Dickens' novels, Dickens's
ways: The pronunciation of the genitive case -ending novels. [dikinsiz]
follows the same rules as the pronunciation of the plural
ending.
of is used:
 when the possessor is a small animal, insect, etc.: The wings of the fly.

 when the possessed object is preceded by a Those toys of the children

demonstrative adjective or by the indefinite article: Tom is a cousin of my friend.

 in some idiomatic expressions: Of a size, in order of, in sight of

 sometimes we avoid of and form compound words: A writer of prose – a prose-

writer = un scriitor de proza
The cover of the book – the book
cover = coperta cartii

 with common nouns The leg of the table

THE CATEGORY OF GENDER

It is doubtful whether the grammatical category of gender exists in Modern English for it is hardly ever
expressed by means of grammatical forms. There is practically only one gender-forming suffix in Modern
English, the suffix -ess, expressing gender. It is not widely used.
heir - heir-ess poet - poet-ess

Gender

masculine feminine neuter common

using different words using a word that indicates sex

adding suffixes

Feminine gender

a) adding suffixes to actor – actress; waiter – waitress; master – mistress;

the masculine form author – authoress; duke – duchess; hero – heroine;
fiancé - fiancée; widow-widower; bride-bridegroom
comedian-comedienne; director-directrix (directress);

b) using different boy – girl; father – mother; sister- brother; husband - wife;
words uncle – aunt; nephew – niece; wizard - witch;
bachelor - maid/spinster; drake – duck; gander- goose
c) using a word that a) nouns denoting persons
 indicates the sex. boy fried-girl friend male patient - female patient
brother-in-law - sister-in-law man friend – woman friend

b) nouns denoting animals

he-bird – she-bird male camel – female camel
male/tom cat – female/tabby cat cock-pheasant – hen-pheasant
he/billy-goat – she /nanny- goat buck-rabbit – doe-rabbit
The use of compounds
in which the second grandfather - grandmother landlord - landlady
element specifies chairman – chairwoman half brother – half sister
gender:
The nouns that an Englishman – an Englishwoman a Dutchman – a Dutchwoman
indicate nationality or
origin. (man - the a Frenchman – a Frenchwoman a Scotsman – a Scotswoman
masculine gender;
woman – the feminine).

All the other nouns that

indicate a person’s British American Chinese German
nationality or origin Greek Italian etc.
have one form for the
both genders:

Sometimes for clarity a Romanian woman (girl) a Japanese woman

the word woman or girl a Spanish woman etc.
is used:
Common gender

denotes either sex and adult animal cook doctor

the same word maybe neighbour professor relative servant etc.
used both of male and
female:
Neuter gender

denotes things, ideas or book house thought, etc.

beings whose sex are
not interested in:

Tasks:
A. Knowledge
1. Give the definition of noun.
2. Give the definition of proper and common nouns.
B. Application
1. Give examples of proper, common, abstract, concrete, countable, and uncountable nouns.

C. Integration
1. Compare the category of gender in English and Romanian.