TOPIC 3: Morphological Features of the Verb as Part of speech

3.1.Categorial meaning, grammatical forms and classes of the verb. English verbs have the general categorial meaning that is of process presented as being developed in time and being embedded in the semantics of all verbs including those that denote state (seem, sleep, contain, matter, mean ), forms of existence (live, keep, remain, stay, wait), mental activities (think, believe, guess, suppose, recognize), emotional attitudes (love, hate, adore, respect, despise, fear). The common verb-forming derivational means are as: affixation (prefixes: re-, dis-, over-, de-, mis-, under-, un-, en-, in-: e.g. reorganize, rebuild, dislike, disconnect, overhear, overcome defrost, devalue, misunderstand, mispronounce, undercook, undergo, unload, unpack, enclose, enforce, insure, inquire; suffixes: -ize, -en, -ate, -ify, -ish: e.g. characterize, computerize, flatten, broaden, differentiate, operate, clarify, intensify, furnish, finish); conversion (as a zero-derivation when a noun acquires the verbal features): e.g. to pencil, to watch, to wallpaper, to effect, to float, to flood, to humour; compounding: e.g. blackmail, brainstorm, babysit, ice-skate, intercross, key wind, kidnap, manhunt.

The division of the verbs into stative and dynamic makes up the distinguishing feature of the grammar. The first are those denoting processes without any qualitative change, the duration of which is unlimited (e.g. know, remember, own, want, hate, like, prefer). The second denote processes that have a marked qualitative change the duration of which is limited (e.g. arrive, come, change, build).

The verbal core as a lexeme normally forms the part of a grammatical verb form together with ending morphemes and auxiliaries. A lexeme plus a grammatical affix alone or with a suppletive change is called a single grammatical form (e.g. writes/wrote, go/went, walks/walked, enter/entered); a grammatical form which consists of more than one word, with an auxiliary, makes a combined grammatical form,being more typical of analytical English (e.g. is painted, have been swimming, will have been reading).

As to the verbs functional significance (syntactical functions and their association with the subject and the object), the main classes of verbs are clearly cut: notional, structural and modal verbs. Structurals are subdividedinto auxiliary and linking verbs or copulars. Notional verbs have a full lexical meaning of their own and can be used in a sentence as a simple predicate: e.g. He lived/ They are writing/ We shall read/ She has told. Notional verbs cover the following semantic areas: activity verbs: bring, buy, carry, work, throw, run, move, jump, plant; communication verbs: admit, answer, argue, discuss, explain, announce, speak, reply, whisper, propose; mental verbs: consider, think, decide, learn, research, believe, speculate, explore, prove; physical state: rain, snow, freeze, sleet; perception verbs: see, notice, hear, smell, taste, feel; verbs of single occurrence: happen, fall, disappear, change, occur, put, show, find; causative verbs: encourage, urge, make, let, persuade, require, help, prevent, enable; emotive verbs: admire respect, suspect, threat, dislike, fear, contempt. Auxiliary verbs are those which have no lexical meaning of their own and are used as function words with a function to make up analytical grammatical forms. In English auxiliary verbs (e.g. be, do, did, will, shall, have, should, etc.) are used in corresponding grammatical forms to express tense, mood, aspect, voice, negative/interrogative. The three verbs ‘be, have, do’ can be observed as notional verbs in the meaning of ‘existence, possession, physical activity’ and auxiliaries.Close to the auxiliary by their function are modal verbs: e.g. can, may, must, have to, need, should, shall, ought to. They cannot be used independently unaccompanied by notional verbs; the meaning of process is very scarce and is dominated by the meaning of modality: ability, possibility, probability, permission, necessity, obligation, prohibition, logical assumption, etc. The combinality of an English modal verb is specified by the forms of an infinitive (simple, continuous, perfect): e.g. could have spoken, must be visiting, should have been studying.

Apart from auxiliaries and modals, notional verbs are opposed to linking verbs, which have partly lost their lexical meaning and are used as part of a compound nominal predicate: current copular verbs: be, seem, keep, remain, stay, feel, look, taste, smell; resulting copular verbs: become, turn, get, prove, appear, come, turn out.

Mainly, the basic feature of the verb lies in their division into transitive and intransitive verbs, according to their association with the subject and the object of the process, i.e. according to the verbal valency of being combined with the subject (personal or impersonal) and the object (direct, indirect and prepositional). Transitive are the verbs characterized by the fact that they relate a preceding subject to the following object: e.g. He is reading sth/ He has written sth/ He will meet sbd). They are of two types: monotransative, when they occur in a verb phrase with a single direct object: e.g. put, spend, wear, find, produce, hold, carry, use); ditransative, when they occur with two objects (direct and indirect): e.g. give sth to sbd, buy sth for sbd, send sth to sbd, write sth to sbd. Intransitive verbs are characterized by the fact that they never occur with the object: e.g. disappear, rain, work, happen, arrive, sleep, exist, stand. There are the verbs of dual nature, being both transitive and intransitive: e.g. win, win a game; eat, eat dinner; try, try sth; remember, remember the event; read, read a book; study, study the subject.

As regards formal features, distinctive is the existence of the two groups of English verbs in accordance to the ways of forming the Past Simple and Past Participle (regular and irregular); above all, English is made to stand out due to the group of multi-word verbs, which consist of phrasal verbs (e.g. take in, hold on, make out, fill in, keep up, bring out, come down, fall for), prepositional verbs (e.g. ask for, insist on, say to, wait for, deal with, smile at, apply to, result in) and phrasal prepositional verbs (e.g. put up with, look forward to, turn back to, get on with, catch up with, come up with hand over to).

To sum up, the grammatical features of the verb are outlined like the following: categorical meaning of process being developed in time and embedded in semantics of a verb with or without a qualitative change; structural dimensions of a verb reflected in its subcategorisation; verb-forming derivational patterns alongside its peculiarities in grammatical forms; categorical changeable forms of tense, aspect, taxis, voice, mood, person, number; opposition of finite vs non-finite verb-forms: the finite as performing the function of a finite predicate(We have run out of bread) and the non-finite as performing non-verbal functions: subject (Eating vegetables is healthy), attributive (This is the best way to relax), adverbial (While walking, take care of yourself), object (They avoided arguing); functional significance expressed in certain syntactic functions in association with types of combinality

Key words:

general categorial meaning обобщенное категориальное значение

affixation аффиксация

conversion конверсия

compounding образование сложно-составных глаголов

stative verbs глаголы состояния

dynamic verbs глаголы динамические

single grammatical form единичная грамматическая форма

combined grammatical form комбинированная грамматическая форма

functional significance функциональная значимость

notional verbs знаменательные глаголы

structural verbs структурные\служебные глаголы

modal verbs модальные глаголы

auxiliary verbs вспомогательные глаголы

linking verbs\copulars глаголы-связки\копулятивные

activity verbs глаголы активного действия

communication verbs коммуникативные глаголы

mental verbs ментальные глаголы

physical state verbs глаголы физического состояния

perception verbs глаголы восприятия

verbs of single occurrence глаголы единичного действия

causative verbs каузативные глаголы

emotive verbs эмотивные глаголы

compound nominal predicate составное именное сказуемое

current copular verbs копулятивные глаголы состояния

resulting copular verbs копулятивные глаголы результата

transitive verbs переходные глаголы

intransitive verbs непереходные глаголы

verbal valency глагольная валентность

subject подлежащее

object дополнение

direct object прямое дополнение

indirect object косвенное дополнение

monotransative verbs монопереходные глаголы

ditransative verbs дипереходные глаголы

multi-word verbs многословные глаголы

phrasal verbs фразовые глаголы

prepositional verbs предложные глаголы

phrasal prepositional verbs фразовые предложные глаголы

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