Fundamentals. Basic Units of Language and Speech.

1.1. 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 adjectives which directly express some characteristic features and qualities of some objects or substances (якісні, що безпосередньо передають ознаку предмета) (e.g., large, white, heavy; великий, білий, важкий) and relative adjectives that express some characteristics bound with the relation to some other object or phenomenon (відносні, що передають ознаку, зв’язану з відношенням до іншого предмета чи поняття) (e.g., former, wooden, silken; колишній, дерев’яний, шовковий). Both in English and in Ukrainian the division line between qualitative and relative adjectives is a conventional (умовний) one.

The peculiar feature of the English language is the existence of quantitative adjectives (кількісні прикметники): little, few (мало), much, many (багато). The Ukrainian language in its turn also possesses a peculiar group of adjectives, not present in English. By their meaning these adjectives, called possessive adjectives (присвійні прикметники), express belonging of some object to this or that person or creature, from the name of whom they are created, e.g.: батьків, братів, сестрин. Андріїв, Ганнин, учителева, шкільне.

According to their morphological structure adjectives are divided in Ukrainian into two groups: full adjectives (повні або членні) – these are adjectives with flexions, e.g.: певний, повний, and short adjectives (короткі або нечленні) – without flexions, e.g.: винен, годен, повен, певен. English adjectives do not have any endings and consist of the “pure” base, so according to their structure they are similar to Ukrainian short adjectives.

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

1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of “attributes (of substances) / quality (of substances)”. It should be understood that by attributes we mean different properties of substances, such as their size (large, small), colour (red, blue), position in space (upper, inner), material (wooden, woolen), psychic state of persons (happy, furious), etc.

2. The typical stem-building affixes -ful, -less, -ish, -ous, -ive,
-ic, un-, pre-, in-, etc.

3. 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).

4. The characteristic combinability: right-hand connections with nouns (a beautiful girl), and the pronoun one (the grey one); left-hand connections with link-verbs (… is clever), adverbs, mostly those of degree (a very clever boy).

5. Its typical syntactic functions are those of an attribute and a predicative complement.

Following is the comparison of the basic features of English and Ukrainian adjectives.

2. The Ukrainian adjective has a greater variety of stem-building affixes than its English counterpart.

The so-called “suffixes of subjective appraisal” (as in дрібн есеньк ий, багат ющ ий, син юват ий, велич езн ий etc.) are alien to the English adjective (the only exception is -ish in whitish, reddish, etc.).

3.1. The English adjective does not have the grammatical categories of gender, number and case, which were lost already in the Middle English period. The categories of gender (довгий – довга – довге), number (довгий – довгі) and case (довгий, довгого, довгому, etc.) of Ukrainian adjectives are merely forms of grammatical relation of adjectives regarding the modified words, the forms of adjective agreement with them. Therefore, adjectival grammemesin English are monosemantic (i.e. having but one grammatical meaning), while in Ukrainian an adjective grammeme is usually polysemantic, e.g. the grammeme represented by розумна carries the grammatical meanings of “feminine gender”, “singular number”, “nominative case” and “positive degree”.

3.2. In Ukrainian as well as in English the category of the degrees of comparison is represented in three-member opposemes, but there are some distinctions.

4. The combinability of adjectives is to some extent similar in the two languages. Yet there are some differences. In English one can speak only of two levels of combinability: lexical and lexico-grammatical. In Ukrainian grammatical combinability is of great importance too. Compare: білий стіл, біла стеля, білих стін, etc.

5. In both languages the typical functions of adjectives in the sentence are those of attribute (white wall – біла стіна) and predicative or the nominal part of a compound nominal predicate (This girl is beautiful. – Ця дівчина прекрасна.).

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, good, beautiful, довгий, хороший, красивий), “comparative” (longer, better, more beautiful, довший, кращий, красивіший/більш красивий) and “ superlative” (longest, best, most beautiful, найдовший, найкращий, найкрасивіший/найбільш красивий) degrees.

The difference between Ukrainian and English adjectives, first of all, lies in the form of expression of degrees of comparison.

Ukrainian comparative degree adjectives have two forms of expression – the simple (synthetic) and the composite (analytical) ones (проста і складена).

The simple form of the comparative degree is formed in the following way: the base of the positive degree is combined with suffixes -іш, -ш and the case or gender ending (біл-ий, біл-іш-ий, біл-іш-і). Some adjectives have the suppletive foms of formation (гарний – кращий).

The composite form of the comparative degree is formed with the help of words більш/менш and the positive degree adjective.

Ukrainian superlative degree adjectives have three forms of expression – simple, complex and composite (проста, складна і складена).

The simple form is created from the comparative degree form with the help of the prefix най-: вищий – найвищий.

The complex form is combining of the superlative degree form with particles як, що: якнайдовший, щонайсильніший.

The composite form is formed with the help of using words-antonyms найбільш/найменш with the positive degree form: найбільш вибагливий, найменш примхливий.

The synthetic form of the superlative degree adjectives can acquire the elative meanings, that is render the largest degree of some quality without comparing it with qualities of other objects, e.g.: найширші кола читачів, без найменших зусиль.

Ukrainian relative and possessive adjectives do not have features characteristic of Ukrainian qualitative adjectives, that is they do not form degrees of comparison, they cannot combine with adverbs, and they do not have antonymous counterparts.

In both languages there is a certain group of adjectives, the degrees of comparison of which are formed in a suppletive way (that is from another base), compare: in Ukrainian великий–більший–найбільший, малий–менший–найменший, поганий–гірший–найгірший, хороший–кращий (or ліпший) –найкращий (найліпший) and in English many/much–more–the most, little–less–the least, bad–worse–the worst, good–better–the best.

In Ukrainian the forms of comparative and superlative degrees are changed, the same as forms of the positive degree, according to genders, numbers and cases in correspondence with the forms of the noun with which they are connected. In English forms of all degrees of comparison of adjectives are similarly indeclinable.

In both languages numerals are divided into cardinal (кількісні числівники – one, two, один, два) and ordinal (порядкові числівники – the first, the second, перший, другий). Ordinal numerals are formed from the cardinal ones by adding the suffix -th in English, and in Ukrainian – the adjectival endings -ий, -а, -е.

Ukrainian cardinal numerals have the peculiar group of indefinite numerals (неозначені числівники): кілька, декілька, багато, чимало, стільки, кільканадцять, кількадесят. Besides Ukrainian numerals possess such a peculiar subgroup as collective numerals (збірні числівники – двоє, обоє, троє, четверо), denoting a certain quantity of objects as a 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, трійко, четвірко, обойко and others. The English language does not have collective numerals and diminutive forms are met only by nouns (sonny, Johny). Some meanings of indefinite quantity are expressed here with the help of quantitative adjectives and adverbs (кількісні прикметники та прислівники): many, much, few, little, a little.

The basis of counting in both languages is the decimal system (в основі лічби обох мов лежить десяткова система). That is why the structure of numerals’ system formation does not have a big difference. 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 (похідні числівники) formed with the help of the suffixes -teen (from thirteen to nineteen – these numerals have the double stress: 'four'teen), -ty (from twenty to ninety) in English. In Ukrainian the numerals from 11 to 19 are formed by the way of adding the suffix –надцять (which is created from the word group “ на десяте ” – одинадцять) to the numerals of the first ten. Ukrainian numerals denoting tens are formed with - дцять (тридцять). The exceptions in Ukrainian are only two numerals сорок and дев’яносто.

3) Compound numerals (складні числівники) in English (from twenty-one to ninety-nine);

4) Composite numerals (складені числівники), such as nine hundred and three in English and in Ukrainian двадцять один, вісімсот вісімдесят are formed in both languages according to the general principle.

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

3) the category of numerical qualification represented in opposemes like seven – seventh;

5) its syntactic function as an attribute, less frequently as some other part of the sentence.

The lexico-grammatical meaning of “number” is not to be confused with the grammatical meaning of “number”. Numerals are usually divided into two groups, as it has been mentioned above, – cardinal numerals (one, five, twenty) and ordinal numerals (first, fifth, twentieth). The former denote some numerical quantity, the latter – some numerical order.

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.

1) Unlike their English counterparts, Ukrainian numerals possess the categories of gender (третій – третя – третє), case (три – трьох – трьом), and number (перший – перші).

2) There is a great difference between ordinal and cardinal numerals in Ukrainian as far as their categories are concerned. Ordinal numerals resemble adjectives not only in having the categories of number, gender and case, but in the forms of the grammatical morphemes as well. Compare: третій – мужній, третього – мужнього, etc. Cardinal numerals do not possess the categories of number and gender (with the exception of один, два). Therefore, the numeral in English is an indeclinable part of speech, whereas in Ukrainian it is declined according to the same six cases as nouns.

The combinability of English and Ukrainian numerals is rather limited. As a rule, they form combinations with nouns. Numerals usually precede the nouns they modify, e.g.: three boys – три хлопці, first day – перший день. Numerals, as a rule, are not modified by other words. This negative combinability is also a characteristic feature of the part of speech.

The verb is a system of systems. The main division within the English verb system is that between the finite verbs (finites) and non-finite verbs (non-finites or verbids). The finites can further be subdivided into three systems called moods (indicative, conditional (subjunctive), imperative). The infinitive, the gerund and the participle are also three systems within the verbids.

In Ukrainian this system is arranged in a slightly different way. The Ukrainian verb includes the conjugated verb forms (відмінювані форми) – the verbs and participles (дієслова та дієприкметники) and non-conjugated verb forms (невідмінювані форми) – infinitives, diyepryslivnyks, and forms ending with -но, -то (інфінітиви, дієприслівники та форми на -но, -то (окрема група пасивних дієприкметників: завдання виконано, лист написано). The subdivision can also be named in another way, that is: personal and non-personal verb forms.

The verb as a part of speech is characterized by the following properties in English and Ukrainian:

2) typical stem building elements, such as the suffixes -ize, -en, -ify, the prefixes re-, under-, over-, out-, de-, sub-, mis, un- in the English language;

– typical Ukrainian verb building elements are: suffixes -ти (платити), -ати (запитати), or the combination of suffixes -ува and -ти in derivative verbs (перечитувати, пересилювати); prefixes: -о (оминати), у- (уможливити), об- (обробити), пере- (перебільшувати), ви- (видужати), з- (звузити, знеболити) and the peculiar Ukrainian postfix -ся (недорозвинутися, митися).

3) grammatical categories: out of the six categories of the English verb (the categories of person, number, aspect, tense, mood and voice) three are found not only in the finites, but in English verbids as well. The category of voice (asks – is asked, to ask – to be asked, asking – being asked) is found in all the English verbids, and the that of aspect (asks – is asking, to ask – to be asking) – in the infinitive.

In Ukrainian, grammatical categories of the verb are closely connected with its meaning and its syntactic function. The category of aspect and voice (категорії виду і стану) are characteristic of all verb forms. The category of mood (категорія способу) is characteristic of verbs that can be conjugated (читає, читай, читав би), the category of tense (категорія часу) – of the indicative mood verbs (читає – читав – читатиме), the category of person (категорія особи) – of the imperative and indicative mood verbs (читаєш, читаєте, читай, читайте), the category of number (категорія числа) – of all verb forms that can be conjugated. The Ukrainian language also possesses the seventh grammatical category, that is the grammatical category of gender. Nevertheles this category is used only with the conjugated verb forms of the past tense.

4) its typicalcombinability: a verb can be associated with nouns (noun-equivalents) denoting the doer (agent) and the recipient of the action expressed by the verb; it is regularly modified by adverbs.

5) its typical syntactic function of the predicate (possessed by the finites only, in Ukrainian by the conjugated form of verbs).

In accordance with their stem structure verbs, like other parts of speech, fall under the following groups:

b) Derived verbs (organize, rewrite, purify, underestimate; викорінити, пересилити).

c) Compound verbs consisting of two stems, as in (to) broadcast, (to) whitewash, (to) blindfold. Composition is of low productivity in the class of verbs. In Ukrainian this type of verb formation is also rare, e.g.: благодіяти, боготворити, зубоскалити, хліборобствувати.

d) Composite verbs – made up of a verb with a lexico-grammatical word-morpheme attached to it, as in give up, give in, take off, put on. This way of forming verbs is productive in English but missing in Ukrainian.

Taking into account their formal, semantic and functional properties English verbs are subdivided into standard and non-standard (regular or irregular), notional and semi-notional, subjective and objective, terminative and non-terminative.

The majority of English as well as Ukrainian verbs are notional, that is they possess full lexical meaning. Semi-notional verbs have very general, “faded” lexical meanings, as in be, have, become, seem, can, may, must, etc., where the meaning of 'action' is almost obliterated. Terminative verbs denote actions which cannot develop beyond a certain inherent limit. The actions denoted by non-terminative verbs have no inherent meanings. Compare the two sentences: He was carrying a box on his shoulders.Take this empty box away and bring me a full one.

Objective verbs are mostly associated with two nouns (or noun-equivalents) denoting the subject and the object of the action named by the verb. Subjective verbs are associated only with nouns (noun-equivalents) denoting the subject of the action. Objective verbs that are connected with their object words directly are called transitive verbs. All the other verbs, both subjective and objective, are called intransitive.

As usual, variants of a verb lexeme may belong to different subclasses. Compare:

In Ukrainian there are usually differentiated two groups of verbs: transitive and intransitive (перехідні і неперехідні дієслова: написати листа, розповідатиказку, зеленіти, дякувати).

The peculiar groups of Ukrainian verbs are the so called reflexive verbs (зворотні дієслова) formed with the help of postfix –ся as well as impersonal verbs (безособові дієслова).

In the Indo-European languages the category of person serves to present an action as associated by the speaking person with himself/herself (or group of persons including the speaker), the person or persons addressed, and the person or thing (persons or things) not participating in the process of speech. Thus, in Ukrainian it is represented in sets of three-member opposemes such as: читаю – читаєш – читає читаємо – читаєте – читають. Almost all personal forms of Ukrainian verbs (except forms of the past tense and conditional mood) have personal endings of the first, second and third persons of singular and plural. These endings create the system of verb forms: пиш-у, -еш, -е, -емо, -ете, -уть; чита-ю, -єш, -є, -ємо, -єте, -ють; крич-у, -иш, -ить, -имо, -ите, -ать; сто-ю, -їш, -їть, -їмо, -їте, -ять.

In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities: 1) the category of person is practically represented by two-member opposemes: speak – speaks, am / is – are; 2) person opposemes are neutralized when associated with the “plural” meaning. in English the category of person has only one formal expression, that is only in the third person singular of the Present Indefinite tense, where the ending - s is added to the verb stem, e.g.: he writes. This verb form is opposed to all other forms which do not have personal endings and so do not express the category of person. Besides, there are several verbs (can, may, must, ought, sometimes also need and dare) which do not have even this ending, and are not conjugated according to the person altogether.

Impersonal verbs (безособові дієслова). In English and in Ukrainian there is a group of the so-called impersonal verbs, which, though can be used in the sentence in the personal form, “denote the action or the state not connected with any doer”, the action which is as though happening by itself. Ukrainian impersonal verbs are never used with the subject, whereas English verbs of such a type are necessarily used with the formal subject, expressed by the pronoun it.

The category of number shows whether the action is associated with one doer or with more than one. Accordingly it denotes something fundamentally different from what is indicated by the number of nouns. We see here not the “oneness” or “more-than-oneness” of actions, but the connection with the singular or plural doer. For example, He eats three times a day does not indicate a single eating but a single eater.

The category is represented in its purity in the opposeme was – were in the English language and accordingly in all analytical forms containing was – were (was – writing – were writing, was written – were written). In am – are, is – are or am, is – are it is blended with person. Likewise in speaks – speak we actually have the “third person singular” opposed to the “non-third-person singular”.

In Ukrainian the category of number is expressed in the forms of three pairs of opposition: 1 person singular – 1 person plural, 2 person singular – 2 person plural, 3 person singular – 3 person plural (я читаю – ми читаємо, etc.). The forms of singular and plural are characteristic of the majority of Ukrainian verbs in all three moods – indicative, imperative and conditional. Thus, it can be stated, that in both languages the category of number is tightly connected with the category of person.

The English verb does not have any forms which would express some gender characteristics. In Ukrainian the category of gender is expressed only by verb forms of the past tense (брав, брала, брало) and by the conditional mood (взяв би, взяла б, взяло б). In plural in all these cases we have the common form for all three genders (брали б, взяли б). Gender forms are created in both cases with the help of the special suffix - в- (-л-) and gender flexions - а (feminine gender), -o- (neuter gender), zero flexion (masculine gender).

The category of aspect is a system of two member opposemes in the English language such as works – is working, has worked – has been working, to work – to be working showing the character of the action, that is whether the action is taken in its progress, in its development (continuous aspect) or it is simply stated, its nature being unspecified (non-continuous aspect).

In Ukrainian it is also a system of two member opposemes represented by the verbs of perfective and imperfective aspects. Verbs having similar lexical meanings often create aspect pairs (видові пари: писати – надписати, читати – прочитати).

Here is a brief enumeration of some groups of verbs usually having no aspect opposites in English:

a) Verbs presenting diverse relations as actions – belong, contain, consist, date, possess, resemble, result, etc.

b) Certain link-verbs (mostly those of “seeming”) such as appear, look, prove, seem, turn out, etc.

c) Verbs of “physical perception” (see, hear, feel, smell), denoting constant properties viewed as actions.

d) Verbs of “mental perceptions” (believe, dislike, distrust, hate, hope, know, like, trust, understand, etc.) which are likewise, verbs of weak dynamic force.

e) “Point-action” verbs, denoting instantaneous acts of very short duration, unless such acts are repeated (burst, jump, drop, pick up, etc.).

Ukrainian verbs of the imperfective aspect have three tense forms: present, past and future, verbs of the perfective aspect – only the past tense form and the simple form of the future tense.

Ukrainian verbs of the perfective aspect (доконаний вид) point out towards certain limits in revealing of the denoted by them action or state, or certain limit in time of their revealing; we as if feel here the beginning and the end of certain action, the certain result either in the form of the past or the future tense (compare: взяти, написати, підрахувати).

Verbs of imperfective aspect (недоконаного виду) express the unfinished character of some action, its durability; they do not show the limits of certain action; also they do not point towards the limits of some action from its beginning to the end even in the form of past tense, but the process of action is stressed here, e.g.: брати, писати, рахувати.

Therefore, the grammatical category of aspect of the English verb is usually revealed by the so called aspect-tense forms (видо-часові форми). Usually there are two basic kinds differentiated: 1) the common aspect (загальний вид, by the terminology used above – non-continuous aspect (нетривалий вид)) expressed by Indefinite verb forms, and 2) continuous aspect (тривалий вид) expressed by Continuous verb forms. Forms of the common aspect render the mere fact of action whereas the forms of continuous aspect point out towards the process of some action, its development. Unlike the Ukrainian aspect, by expression of which a great role is played also by lexical means (word building affixes, usage of different stems), in English the mentioned above aspect forms are formed by morphological means.

Thus, the category of mood reveals the relation of the denoted action (позначувана дія) to reality. In both languages there are verb forms of the Indicative mood (дійсний), the Imperative mood (наказовий) and the Conditional mood (умовний).

The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system including all the categories of the verb. Semantically it is a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It is the “most objective” or the “least subjective” of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact.

All the forms of the Indicative mood in English and Ukrainian have already been considered by us previously, when we dwelled upon the categories of person, number, tense and state. The characteristic feature of the Indicative mood is its connection with the category of tense: it is expressed by the forms of the present, past and future tenses.

The imperative mood represents an action as a command, urging, or request to one’s interlocutor. It is a direct expression of one’s will. Therefore it is much more “subjective” than the indicative mood. Its modal meaning is very strong and distinct.

The imperative mood is morphologically the least developed of all moods. In fact, the grammeme write, know, search, do, etc. is the only one regularly met in speech. The “continuous” and “passive” opposites of this grammeme (be writing, be searhing, etc.; be known, be warned, etc.) are very rare.

Ukrainian verb forms of the imperative mood similar to English ones also render the order, wish, appeal, demand, request or some other types of inducement (спонукання) to perform some action.

In Ukrainian forms of the imperative mood are built from the base of the present tense: a) for the second person singular with the ending - и (пиши, іди) or without endings (сядь, встань, читай); b) for the first person plural with the ending - імо (несімо, ходімо) or - мо (читаймо, станьмо); c) for the second person plural by means of adding the endings - іть (несіть, ідіть) or - те (читайте, станьте).

Thus in the modern English language the system of forms of the imperative mood is much simpler than in Ukrainian. But in both languages there are present analytical forms of the imperative mood, compare: Let him come, Let us go, Нехай вони прийдуть (приходять). Хай живе Україна!

Probably the only thing linguists are unanimous about with regard to the conditional mood is that it represents action as a “non-fact”, as something imaginary, desirable, problematic, contrary to reality.

In modern Ukrainian the conditional mood is formed analytically by the way of adding the particle би (after the vocal б) to the form of the past tense or the infinitive of the conjugated verb читав би, прочитала б, погуляти б.

The characteristic feature of the whole analytical form of the conditional mood in Ukrainian is its atemporal (позачасовий) meaning. The form писав би can be easily referred to any time (the present, past or future), being joined with any adverb of time: сьогодні, завтра, зараз, учора.

In English meanings of the conditional and unreal action are rendered by the following verb forms:

1) the outdated synthetic forms: be, have (take and other forms of the third person without the ending - s as the forms of the so called Present Subjunctive); were (for all the persons as the Past Subjunctive form);

2) forms of the indicative mood – the past tense of the common aspect (Past Indefinite) and Past Perfect that in certain syntactical conditions acquire the meaning of the unreal action;

3) analytical forms of the conditional mood, built by using the auxiliary verbs should and would and different forms of the infinitive of notional verbs;

4) combinations of modal verbs may (might), can (could) with infinitives of notional verbs, which acquire the meaning of the unreal action depending on the type of the sentence. But in these combinations modal verbs do not lose completely their lexical meaning as it happened with should and would that have acquired a totally grammatical meaning.

Synthetic forms of the conditional mood in English are outdated ones, and are used mainly in writing, whereas analytical forms are spread in all spheres of language use.

Unlike Ukrainian, the English conditional mood can express the category of tense: analytical forms should/would + Indefinite Infinitive and the form of the past time (Past Indefinite), used with the meaning of the unreal action, point towards the action that could happen in the present or future. Analytical forms should/would + Perfect infinitive and Past Perfect, used with the meaning of the unreal action, serve to denote the action that could have happened in the past. In both languages forms of the conditional mood have the category of state, compare: були б запрошені, be done/ were done, should be done, as well as the category of aspect, e.g.: читав би, прочитав би, should be going.

The conditional mood is the category which is closely connected with the structure of the complex sentence.

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