GENERAL CHARACTERISTIC

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 416.

I. THE VERB

UNIT VII

1. General characteristic.

2. The category of tense.

3. The category of aspect.

4. The category of order.

5. The category of voice.

6. The category of mood.

The verb is a notional part of speech which denotes actions and states.

As a part of speech the verb is characterized by the following features:

1) the lexico-grammatical meaning of action, process, or state;

2) the typical suffixes -ize, -en, -ify; prefixes re-, under-, over-, out-, super-, sub-, mis-, un-; postpositional morphemes up, in, off, down, out, etc.;

3) the grammatical categories of voice, order, aspect, person, number, tense, mood.;

4) the regular combinability with nouns and their equivalents which denote either the doer or the recipient (the subject or the object) of the action expressed by the verb; and with adverbs modifying it;

5) the function of the predicate.

According to their structure verbs can be divided into the following groups:

a) simple verbs (e. g. to ask, to love, to read);

b) derived verbs (e. g. to rebuild, to organize, to oversleep);

c) compound verbs (e. g. to whitewash, to broadcast);

d) composite verbs (e. g. to give up, to give in, to try on).

The most productive ways of forming verbs are: conversion, adding prefixes and the suffix -ize, combining verbs with postpositional word-morphemes.

The traditional classification of verbs is morphological, based on the formal criterion – the way verbs are created. The majority of English verbs enter the group of standard, or regular verbs. About 200 verbs are called non-standard, or irregular.

Semantically verbs fall into:

a) notional verbs;

b) semi-notional verbs;

c) formal verbs.

Notional verbs are those which possess concrete full lexical meaning and perform the function of a simple verbal predicate. Besides, they can function independently making full-meaning sentences of the type: Come in! Write! The majority of English verbs are notional.

Semi-notional verbs are presented by modal and aspective verbs. Compound predicates with these verbs are divided into modal and aspect accordingly. Modal verbs have their peculiar modal meaning no way resembling the meaning of 'action' or 'process' common to all verbs. Modal verbs are used to show the speaker's attitude to the action: whether he considers it possible / impossible, obligatory, necessary, advisable, etc. Their combinability is specific: they attach only infinitives.

Formal verbs are traditionally divided into link-verbs, intensive verbs, prop-verbs and auxiliary verbs.

Opinions differ on the point whether link-verbs are devoid of lexical meaning. But if it were so there would be no difference between the sentences: He is young. Heseems young. Hebecomesyoung, etc. So, link-verbs seem to have both: grammatical and lexical meaning.

The only verb which can perform the intensifying function is the verb do.

e. g. I do hate you.

Prop-verbs are actually substitutes as they substitute notional verbs. Here belong the verbs: do, have, shall, will, should, would.

e. g. You write quicker than I do.

Verbal forms are divided into finite and non-finite. Non-finite forms are: the infinitive, the gerund and the participle. The main difference between finite and non-finite forms is that the latter cannot perform the syntactic function of a simple verbal predicate.