The compound verbal predicate

Predicate and its types in English and in Russian

The predicate is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence.

It denotes the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject.

It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence.

Ways of expressing the predicate:

1. complex predicate is expressed by the Finite form of the verb (Rus/Eng).

Eng agreement concerns only the form of the 1^st person singular.

2. predicates which are expressed by 2 components:

1. The compound nominal predicate (составное именное сказуемое) (Jack is a student. Ваня студент)

Rus - no link verb.

Eng - link verbs

e.g. She seems nice, looks nice. She remained calm.

This type of predicate is rendered in Rus. by 1 component (by simple predicate) (сf. She fell ill – Она заболела)

Comprising modal and aspect predicates (I must go –modal. It starts to rain – aspect.)

With aspect predicate we are interested in the beginning, continuation and the ending of the action.

Rus e.g. Я должен пойти

Types of predicate:

Predicates may be classified in 2 ways, one of which is based on their structure (simple or compound), and the other on their morphological characteristics (verbal or nominal).

Structural classification:

· simple predicate (verbal and nominal)

· compound predicate (verbal and nominal)

Morphological classification:

· verbal predicate (simple and compound)

· nominal predicate(simple and compound)

ü The simple nominal predicate – a predicate consisting N+ Adj, without a link verb, is rare in English, but it is nevertheless a living type and must be recognized as such.

2 spheres where it can be used:

1. In sentences where the immediate neighbourhood of the subject noun and the predicate N or Adj is used to suggest the impossibility or absurdity of the idea that they might be connected.

e.g. My ideas obsolete!!!!!!!

2. In the sentences in which the predicative comes first, the subject next, and no link verb is either used or possible (colloquial style)

e.g. “Splendid game, cricket”, remarked MR Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one in particular; “so thoroughly English”.

ü The compound nominal predicate always consists of a link verb and a predicative, which may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

ü

Link verb – expresses the tense and the mood in the predicate (to be also expresses number and person).

The finite verb can be a predicate itself, i.e. it contains some information about the subject which may be taken separately, but at the same time the verb is followed by a predicative and is in so far a link verb.

e.g. He came home tired - the finite verb in such sentences conveys a meaning of its own, but the main point of the sentence lies in the information conveyed by the predicative noun or adjective.

4. Noun categories

English and Russian nouns: the category of number

The main structural features of English as an analytical language:

1. comparatively few grammar flexions (e.g. he writes, easy-easier-easiest)

2. a wide use of prepositions which express the relations of words in a sentence

3. prominent use of word-order to denote grammatical relations (S-V-O)

Grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement.

The category of number is more universal than the category of case, because people have always distinguished between one thing and more than one thing.

Rus/Eng - the singular and plural nouns

The plural form - suffix -(e)s.

Rus- impossible to form one and only of the plural form foundation, because this category is closely connected with the category of gender (конь-кони, стена-стены, озеро-озера) the declension of noun phrases containing numeral expressions is subject to complex rules.

E.g. "У меня есть одна книга / три книги / пять книг" ("I have one book-nom.sing. / three book-gen.sing. / five book-gen.plur."). The numeral "one" has a plural form, used with pluralia tantum: одни джинсы / одни часы "one pair of jeans, one clock".

Problems connected with the category:

1. there are nouns denoting only the plural form (pluralia tantum) (trousers, scissors)

Names of sciences are close to pluralia tantum (лат. «множественное только») (linguistics, phonetics, mathematics), names of diseases (measles, mumps), sport games (billiard, drafts).

2. The family want to have a picnic.

The family wants to …

A noun of multitude: army, fleet, hundred – denotes the group as a whole,

The collective noun - a special kind of noun that refers to a collection of objects - often animals - such as a flock of birds) denotes the group of people as a whole.

nouns of multitude vs collective nouns:

Every team tries to do its best to win the game. (collective)

The team are happy as they have won the game. (noun of multitude)

Rus: Пять студентов отправилось / отправились.

English and Russian nouns: the category of case

Eng: 2 cases - The common case (общий) and the genitive case (possessive).

Rus: 6 cases.

Vocative case (obsolete) e.g. Отче, Боже

RUS ENG

A class of animated objects by means of formal Acc. Case (Винит. падеж)	A class of animated objects by means of possessive suffix
6 cases	2 cases
Agreement by case in adj., ordinal numeral, pronoun (except personal pronouns)	No agreement with other parts of speech
No category of possessiveness	category of possessiveness

Russian nouns in the genitive case can be used predicatively and in postposition

e.g. Peter's house; It was Peter's house. - Дом Петра. Книга была мамина.

e.g. the house of Peter vs Peter’s house

The clock’s hand – forbidden form

• The postpositional element -s can be used not only with single nouns but with whole word-groups.

e.g. somebody else's daughter, the man who had asked him to dinner's head.

colloquial speech e.g. Я говорю про тетя-Машину дочку.

• Eng plural nouns - the possessive element an apostrophe (not pronounced)

e.g. the boy's father - the boys' father

• The set of meanings expressed by the postpositional element -s differs from the meanings of the Russian genitive

- ' s has the broad meaning of possessiveness (John's house, wife, friend, work) and can also express the doer of an action (John's arrival, attention). 's can't express the object of an action, which is possible for a Russian noun in the genitive case.

e.g. приглашение писателя — писатель пригасил + писателя пригласили. The writer's invitation - the writer invited somebody The invitation of the writer by somebody = somebody has invited the writer

- ' s also has a descriptive meaning. This meaning can be rendered by a

Russian adjective e.g. children's books - books for children = детские книги

an officer's cap — a cap for an officer = офицерская фуражка

Rus Genitive case can express the object of an action (чтение книг); the contents of a container (чашка чаю); a great amount of something with some types of verbs (Народу набежало!). It is also required in various constructions without expressing any specific meaning.

e.g. negative constructions: Нет кого-либо; constructions with certain verbs: желать чего-либо;
adjectives: полон чего-либо; prepositions: без чего-либо, из-за чего-либо.

The case system in Rus.:

1. Marks the grammatical functions of nouns which are indicated by word order in English, that is, the subject, object and indirect object of the sentence.

2. Marks certain adverbial functions such as the time, manner, and means of carrying out an action, which are marked by prepositions in English

e.g. by hand, on Friday, with enthusiasm

Rus - all prepositions are associated with a case which is attached to their objects.

The category of gender

In Russian, the category of gender is grammatical. It is immanent for the noun and reflexive for the parts of speech that agree with the noun in gender (the adjective, the pronoun, the ordinal numeral, the verb in the past tense).

Gender reflects the real sex differences only in animate nouns.

Eng category of gender is semantic. It is expressed by the correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person.

Eng nouns are first divided into person (human) and non-person (non-human) nouns and only then the person nouns are correlated with either the feminine or the masculine pronoun. The non-person nouns are correlated with the pronoun it.

Rus nouns are first divided into genders and only then into animate and inanimate.

The sex of objects can be shown lexically, be means of certain words or suffixes, e.g. girl-friend, landlord, hen-sparrow, actress, lioness

Gender classification becomes relevant in the case of personification.

Folklore /poetical contexts - non-person, inanimate objects and even abstract notions become an active force - he or she.

e.g. Sun, Wind, River, Fear, Love - he

Moon, Nature, Hope, Mercy - she

e.g. ветер, страх – он река, любовь, природа, надежда - она
The category of definiteness/indefiniteness

Eng - grammatical category NOT morphological

Rus- lexical category

Eng - a feature characteristic of agglutinating languages.

Rus -a wide range of various means:

• Syntactically - by the word order

• Phonetically - by logical stress

• Lexically - by an indefinite or demonstrative pronoun

e.g. какой-то, какой-нибудь, один, этот, тот)

• Morphologically - by adding the postpositive particle –mo

e.g. А дом-то сохранился?

• Morphologically - by the choice of the case

e.g. съесть рыбу - В.п. (definiteness, Eng. The fish)

поесть рыбы – Р.п. (indefiniteness, Eng. Some fish)

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