Basic units of language and speech

 

12. Noun as a pert of speech: general characteristics.

From the grammatical point of view most important division of nouns into countables and uncountables with regard to the category of number and into declinables and indeclinables with regard to the category of case.

There are differentiated the following lexico-grammatical classes of nouns in regard to their semantic and morphological characteristics:

• concrete and abstract nouns (ложка-кохання);
• names of living beings and lifeless objects;
• common and proper nouns;
• material nouns – a peculiar group of countables, for example: air, iron, sugar, silver;
• collective nouns.

The English noun as a part of speech comprises the following features:

• the lexico grammatical meaning of ‘substantivity’;
• typical stem-building morphemes as –ist, -er, -ship, -ment.
• The grammatical categories of number and case;
• Combinability: left-hand: articles, prepositions, adjectives, possessive pronouns, nouns, etc, right-hand: nouns, verbs;
• The typical syntactic function of a subject, an object, a complement or a predicative, less frequently attribute or other parts of the sentence.(the lexico-grammatical meanings are similar; the variety of lexico-grammatical morphemes os much greater for the Ukrainian noun).

 

13. Both languages have two numbers: the singular number and the plural number.

Subclasses:

• countables (злічувані іменники)( have number opposites)
• uncountables (незлічувані іменники).
• those having no plural opposites
• those having no singular opposites.

The English language has quite a simple way of the plural form building: it has only one ending of the plural form -(e)s (with its three phonetic variants [s], [z], [iz]), which is added to the noun base. The exceptions is the weak form of the plural of the type: children, oxen, the change of the root vowel (the inner flexion) in words of the type man-men, foot-feet, tooth-teeth, goose-geese.

The Ukrainian language has a more complicated way of plural form building. Each declension of nouns has another ending:the first declension -и (машина - машини), -і (межа - межі), -ї (надія - надії)\

 the second declension -и (робітник - робітники), -і (коваль - ковалі), -а (місто - міста), -я (море - моря); the the third declension: -і (відповідь - відповіді, ніч - ночі);

the fourth declension - я га (гусеня - гусенята), - ата (курча - курчата), -єна (ім’я - імена).

groups of nouns that do not have plural form:

• collective nouns (збірні) - (cavalry, humanity, кіннота, людство)-,
• nouns determining the substance or the mass (які позначають речовину або масу) (copper, glass, мідь, скло):
• abstract nouns (абстрактні) - (knowledge, health, знання, здоров ’я).

nouns like milk, geometry, self-possession having no plural opposites are usually called by a Latin name - singularia tantum(in En and Ukr: material, abstract and collective nouns, in Ukr also proper names Полтва) ;

nouns like outskirts, clothes, goods having no singular opposites are known as pluralia tantum(in En: objects consisting of two or more parts, complex phenomena or ceremonies.

The category of number in Ukr is expressed more consistently.

14. The category of case

Case is the grammatical form of a noun, which reveals its relation towards other words fulfilling the functions of parts of the given sentence

modem English has two noun cases:

• the Common(form in which the English noun can fulfill functions of almost all parts of a sentence)
• the Possessive (the noun in this case fulfills the function of only one part of the sentence - the attribute. It is expressed by only one ending -s. The separate form of the possessive case exists practically only in the singular. In the plural only a few nouns have the possessive case. These are nouns that do not have the ending -s, e.g.: children’s.)

Meanings of a  “possessive case”:possession, belonging (Peter’s bicycle);personal or social relations (Peter’s wife);authorship (Peter’s poem);origin or source (the sun’s rays);kind or species {ladies’ hats);the relation of the whole to its part (Peter’s hand);subjective relations (Peter’s arrival);objective relations (Peter’s being sent);characteristic (her mother’s care);measure (a night’s reflection; a mile's distance)

Not all the nouns in English have the possessive case. The majority of English nouns is used in the common case that is in fact it is indeclinable.

In Ukrainian the category of case is purely grammatical. Case forms are the means of connection of nouns with other words. Each case is the unity of form and meaning.

In Ukrainian the noun has a very complicated system of declension. This system consists of six cases:

• nominative performs the function of a subject,
• genitive, belonging to some person or thing (батько Миколи, властивість цементу),objective relations (не дістав паперу); the part of the whole or its incompleteness {налити води, цех заводу);circumstantial meanings: a) dates (1990 року); b) special relations (наблизились до ставу); c) time relations (протягом тижня); d) cause relations (крикнув з переляку).
• Dative denotes a person for whom or because of whom  a certain action takes place (служіння народові, привіт другові); possession (пам’ятник Іванові Франку); the subject of the action in the impersonal sentence (Кому-кому, а йому тільки цього й треба було)
• accusative,  objective meaning
• instrumental,  obj ective (копати лопатою);circumstantial (їхати дорогою);denoting the accomplice of the doer of some action (батько з дочкою);expressing the nominal part of the compound nominal predicate (стати парубком);denoting the subject in one-member sentence (гуртожиток заселено студентами).
• local or locative  circumstantial (ходити no березі, говорити no щирості), or that of an object (кохатися в мистецтві, гратися на почуттях)
• (vocative form). denotes the addressing to some person or personified object or any creature.

 

15. The category of gender

In Ukrainian :the masculine gender, the feminine gender or the neuter gender. In modern English the noun does not have the grammar category of gender.

Almost the only word building element that has the distinct gender characteristic is the noun suffix -ess, with the help of which we form the nouns of the feminine gender from nouns of the masculine gender: host - hostess, poet - poetess, tiger - tigress, actor – actress.

In the rest of cases the fact of belonging to this or that sex is expressed by the semantics of the word itself.

The word ending has a great importance in determining the gender of a noun - the name of the lifeless object. The characteristic ending of the feminine gender in Ukrainian is the ending -а (я) and the hard or the soft consonant (земля, повість), of the neuter gender -o, -e (вікно, поле). masculine gender usually end in a consonant (чоловік). Nouns that are used only in plural (ворота, вила, окуляри) do not have gender.

The category of gender has not died out and is perceived by the linguistic way of thinking as the necessary one, since it fulfills an important function of the organization of words in the sentence, in coordinating nouns with adjectives and other words of the adjectival type as well as gender forms of verbs. The English language does not have such a system of . coordination that is why the category of gender could not remain for a long time in the language.

 

 

 

16. The category of the names of living beings and lifeless objects

According to Yu.O. Zhluktenko, there can be differentiated the category of the names of living beings and lifeless objects (категорія назв істот та неживих предметів).

According to their semantics nouns always denote living beings, lifeless objects or abstract notions. This semantic division can be reflected as well in the grammatical structure of the noun. In English some differences in this relation exist only by the usage of the possessive case, characteristic usually of nouns which are the names of living beings. The possessive case though is also used with quite a large number of nouns denoting lifeless objects or abstract notions.

Nouns can also differ one from the other by the fact that the names of living beings correlate with personal pronouns he, she and the relative pronoun who, whereas the names of lifeless objects correlate with the personal-objective pronoun pronoun it and relative pronouns - that, which. The category of names of living beings and lifeless objects is not expressed in the grammatical structure of English nouns.

in Ukrainian exist formal and grammatical differences between nouns denoting living beings and lifeless objects. These differences are not numerous: nouns of the masculine gender (names of living beings) have the form of the accusative case of both numbers similar with the form of the genitive case (немає батька), and the names of lifeless objects have the form of the accusative case similar with the form of the nominative ease {стоїть стіл). But nouns of the feminine and neuter gender in singular are not differentiated according to this category: all the nouns of the feminine gender in -а, -я have the ending -y, -ю in the accusative case (бачу жінку, чую пісню) and nouns of the feminine gender with the final consonant and all the nouns of the neuter gender have the form of the accusative case similar with the form of the nominative case (читаю повість, відчиняю вікно).

The consistent grammatical expression of the category of names of living beings and lifeless objects is pertaining in Ukrainian only to the names of persons.

 

17. Adjective as a part of speech: general characteristics. Grammatical categories of adjective.

In both languages adjectives as a class of lexemes are subdivided into

• qualitative ( directly express some characteristic features and qualities of some objects or substances) They can render: duration in space (довгий), in time (повічьний), spiritual or physical properties of living beings (незграбний), peculiarities perceived by sense perception organs (твердий). they vary according to their grammatical peculiarities. In majority of cases they have degrees of comparison (високий - вищий - найвищий)', create pairs of antonyms (гіркий - солодкий); serve as word-building stems for abstract nouns (гіркий - гіркота)
• relative express some characteristics bound with the relation to some other object or phenomenon

In English language are quantitative adjectives (кількісні прикметники): little, few (мало), much many (багато). The Ukrainian language does not have such adjectives and the corresponding meanings are rendered with the help of adverbs or indefinite numerals (неозначені числівники: кілька, декічька, )

In Ukr: possessive - express belonging of some object to this or that person or creature(батькова робота)

According to their morphological structure adjectives are divided in Ukrainian into two groups: full adjectives - these are adjectives with flexions, e.g.: певний, повний, and short adjectives - without flexions, e.g.: винен, годен.

The English adjective as a part of speech is characterized by the following typical features:

• The lexico-grammatical meaning of “attributes (of substances) / quality (of substances)”.
• The typical stem-building affixes -fid, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive, *ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc. Ukr: dom.-еньк ogmantative  ;езн, -у(ю)ват
• The morphological category of the degrees of comparison (The absence of the category of number distinguishes English adjectives from adjectives in all other Germanic languages).Ukr: case gender, numb. Both: degrees of comparison.  adjectival grammemes in English are monosemantic.
• The characteristic combinability: right-hand connections with nouns {a beautiful girl), and the so-called “prop word” one {the grey one)', left-hand connections with link-verbs (... is clever), adverbs, mostly those of degree (a very clever boy).In Ukr no article
• Its typical syntactic functions are those of an attribute and a predicative complement – predicative ( he is clever). Ukr: functions of an attribute and a nominal part of a compound nominal predicate.

 

 

 

 

18.  Degrees of comparison of adjectives

common for English and Ukrainian adjectives.

The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes (like long-longer-longest, довгий-довший- найдовший) showing quantitative distinctions of qualities. Accordingly we speak in both languages of the “positive” (long, красивий), “comparative” {longer, красивіший/більш красивий) and “superlative” (longestнайкрасивіший/найбільш красивий) degrees.

the comparative and the superlative degrees are usually built up

• synthetically by adding the suffixes -er and -est respectively, e.g.: bright-brighter-brightest.
• analytically with the help of the word-morphemes more and most, e.g.: cheerful — more cheerful — most cheerful.
• Suppletive (that is from another base) (good - better - best, bad - worse - worst.)

English qualitative adjectives, that do not build up opposemes of comparison:

• adjectives that in themselves express the highest degree of a quality, e.g.: supreme, extreme
• those having the suffix -ish which indicates the degree of a quality, e.g. reddish, whitish;
• those denoting qualities which are not compatible with the idea of comparison, e.g.: deaf, dead, lame.

In Ukrainian both synthetic and analytical forms can be used as parallel ones (зручніший - більш зручний).

In both languages the form of the superlative degree can be used with the so-called elative meaning (elative - is the absolute superlative degree). It renders the maximum measure of quality without the. comparison with other objects, e.g.: найглибша повага, найсуворіша заборона

19. Numeral as a part of speech: general characteristics

In both languages numerals are divided into cardinal (кількіснії числівники - one, two, один, два) and ordinal (порядком числівники — the first, the second, перший, другий). Ukrainian cardinal numerals have the peculiar group of indefinite numerals. Besides Ukrainian numerals possess such a peculiar subgroup as collective numerals (двоє, обоє, троє, четверо), denoting a certain quantity of objects as one whole. One more peculiarity of the system of Ukrainian numerals is the caressing forms or diminutive forms of collective numerals (пестливі форми збірних числівників); двійко, двойко, двоєчко, трійкo)

The basis of counting in both languages is the decimal system.

As to their stem structure English and Ukrainian numerals fall into:

1. Simple or root numerals (прості числівники), such as one, two, three (in English from one to twelve), один, два, три (in Ukrainian from one to ten and the numeral "сорок').
2. Derivative numerals suff –teen –ty  надцять – дцять
3. Compound 21-99 in eng
4. Composite and 102

Fractional numerals (дробові числівники) have as well similar way of formation. In Ukr denominatorhas the case and number

Ordinal numerals are formed from the cardinal ones by adding the suffix -th in English, and in Ukrainian - the adjectival endings -ий, -a, -e.

20. grammatical categories of numeral

1. lexico-grammatical meaning of “number” quantatity;
2. typical stem-building suffixes as -teen, -ty;
3. the category of numerical qualification represented in opposemes like seven - seventh;
4. combinability with nouns (three children)
5. syntactic function as an attribute.

English and Ukrainian numerals are similar as to their lexico- grammatical meanings, ways of stem-building, combinability and syntactic functions, but they differ greatly regarding their grammatical categories.

• Unlike their English counterparts, Ukrainian numerals possess the categories of gender (третій - третя - третє), case (три — трьох — трьом), and number (перший - перші).
• The numeral in English is the indeclinable part of speech, whereas in Ukrainian it is declined according to the same six cases as nouns.

In both languages numerals expressing the number as the characteristic feature of some object do not have the category of number themselves.

The category of gender is altogether absent in English numerals. In Ukrainian the majority of numerals do not have it either (from 3 to У99). The gender characteristics are differentiated only in numerals один (одна, одно), два (дві), обидва (обидві), півтора (півтори). Besides the numeral один the rest of these numerals have the common form for the masculine and the neuter gender. The gender forms in all the numerals are expressed only in the nominative and accusative cases. For the rest of cases all three genders coincide in one form (e.g.: двох чоловіків, жінок, вікон).

21. Pronoun as a part of speech: general characteristics. Grammatical categories of pronoun

Pronouns are words serving to denote substances, qualities, quantities, circumstances, etc. not by naming or describing them, but by indicating them.

pronouns - words whose meanings are very general and stable, but whose references in speech are particular, variable and relative with regard to the speaker and the situation of speech.