Seminar 1 CONTRASTIVE GRAMMAR IN THE SYSTEM

OF CONTRASTIVE TYPOLOGY

1. The Principal Terms and Notions of Contrastive Typology (isomorphic / allomorphic

features, absolute / near universals, typological constants, dominant and recessive features,
etc.).

Contrastive typology is a branch of linguistics which aims at establishing the most general common and
divergent as well as dominant and recessive features of the languages compared and determining their
structural types on this basis. The number of languages subjected to typological contrasting at a time is
not limited.

Contrastive typological investigation may be focused on phonetic/phonological, morphological, lexical or

syntactic phenomena of the languages. Contrastive typology of the English and Ukrainian morphology
compares morphological systems of the English and Ukrainian languages Contrastive typology as a branch
of linguistics employs some terms and notions of its own. The principal are as follows:
1. Absolute universals (абсолютні/повні універсала) i.e. features or phenomena of a language level
pertaining to any language of the world (cf. vowels and consonants, word stress and utterance stress,
intonation sentences, parts of the sentence, parts of speech, etc.).
2. Near universals (неповні/часткові універсалії) i.e. features or phenomena common in many or some
languages under typological investigation.
3. Metalanguage (метамова), as has been mentioned already, is the language in which the actual
presentation/analysis of different features/phenomena of the contrasted languages is carried out.
4. Typologically dominant features (типологічні домінанти) are features or phenomena dominating at a
language level or in the structure of the contrasted languages. Dominant in present-day English are
known to be analytical means: rigid word order in word-groups and sentences, the prominent role of
prepositions and placement as means of connection and expression of case relations and syntactic
functions (cf. books for my friend, books to my friends, books by my friends; a nice flower-nice flowers,
Peter came - Mary came), etc. The change of placement of the part of the sentence may completely
change its sense. Cf. The hunter killed the hare - The hare killed the hunter. In Ukrainian the change of
placement of the main parts of the sentence usually does not change the meaning of the sentence, as in
this same sentence: Мисливець застрілив зайця or: Зайця застрілив мисливець.
5. Typologically recessive features/phenomena (типологічнo рецесивні, втрачаючі колишню активну
роль) are those losing their former dominant role as, for instance, case forms in English or the dual
number forms of some nouns in present-day Ukrainian.
6. Isomorphic features/phenomena (ізоморфні риси/явища) are common features/phenomena in
languages under Contrastive analysis. Isomorphic in English and Ukrainian is, for example, the existence
of consonants and vowels, assimilation, and the categories of number, person, tense, as well as parts of
speech, the existence of sentences, etc.

7. Allomorphic features/phenomena (аломорфні риси/явища) are observed in one language and missing
in the other. For example: palatalisation of practically all consonants or the dual number in Ukrainian, the
gerund or the diphthongs and analytical verb forms in English, which are missing (allomorphic) in
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 Ukrainian.
8. The etalon language is a hypothetic language created by typologists for the sake of contrasting any
languages. This "language" is supposed to contain exhaustive quantitative and qualitative data or
characteristics concerning all existing language units and phenomena. For example, the quantity and
quality of sounds (vowels, consonants) and syllables, morphemes, parts of speech and their
morphological categories, the correlation of the means of grammatical connection, etc.
2. The Subject-matter of Contrastive Grammar and its Theoretical and Practical
Aims. (в тетради)

3. Methods of Contrastive Grammar

Contrastive typological investigations are carried out with the help of some methods. The main one is the
contrastive method which is also employed in historical and comparative linguistics. The main aim of the
contrastive method is to establish isomorphic and allomorphic, dominant and recessive features of the
languages compared and drawing conclusions as to their structural types.
Comparing is done on the basis of deduction and induction. Inductive method draws on the empirical
facts: scientists observe the facts, make conclusions and verify these conclusions by more facts. Practically,
this method needs no verification since the investigated phenomena were already proved by preceding
generations of researchers.
Deductive method presupposes making conclusions on the basis of logical calculations which suggest all
theoretically admissive variants of realization of a certain feature in contrasted languages and consequently
need verification.
The (ICs) immediate constituents method is employed to contrast constituent parts of the language
units. At the morphological level the ICs method helps determine morphemic structures of the words of the
languages compared; cf. the nouns in-nova-tion-s and пере-напр-уг-а consist of 4 ICs.
Method of oppositions is used to establish grammatical categories. Opposition is made by two forms
carrying two manifestations of one categorical meaning, cf. 5 works :: is working carry two particular
manifestations (non-Continuous :: continuous) of the general categorical meaning of aspect.

4.English and Ukrainian Grammar аs System and Structure

The morphological systems of the English and Ukrainian languages are characterized by a considerable
number of isomorphic and bysome allomorphic features. The isomorphic features are due to the common
Indo-European origin of the two languages while theallomorphic features have been acquired by them in the
course of their historic development and functioning as independent national languages.
Grammar may be practical and theoretical, descriptive and comparative. Comparative grammar, as the
notion itself reveals it, represents a linguistic subject of grammar based on the method of comparison or
contrasting.
All Indo-European languages fall into two types: synthetic and analytical. Synthetic languages are
those of internal grammar. All changes take place within their words. Analytical languages are those of
external grammar. All grammatical relations and meanings are expressed by means of auxiliaries or function
words in them. English is considered to be an analytical language, Ukrainian, full of inflexion, is a synthetic
one. However, we cannot speak of purely synthetic or analytical languages. For example, in Ukrainian we
can observe some analytical devices (зроблю – буду робити), in English – synthetic devices (easy-easier-
the easiest).
5. Levels of Language Structure and their Language and Speech Units.

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1) Phonetics, Phonology This is the level of sounds. One must distinguish here between the set of possible
human sounds, which constitutes the area of phonetics proper, and the set of system sounds used in a given
human language, which constitutes the area of phonology. Phonology is concerned with classifying the
sounds of language and with saying how the subset used in a particular language is utilised, for instance
what distinctions in meaning can be made on the basis of what sounds.

2) Morphology This is the level of words and endings, to put it in simplified terms. It is what one normally
understands by grammar (along with syntax). The term morphology refers to the analysis of minimal forms
in language which are, however, themselves comprised of sounds and which are used to construct words
which have either a grammatical or a lexical function.

Lexicology is concerned with the study of the lexicon from a formal point of view and is thus closely linked
to (derivational) morphology.

3) Syntax This is the level of sentences. It is concerned with the meanings of words in combination with
each other to form phrases or sentences. In particular, it involves differences in meaning arrived at by
changes in word order, the addition or subtraction of words from sentences or changes in the form of
sentences. It furthermore deals with the relatedness of different sentence types and with the analysis of
ambiguous sentences.

Language typology attempts to classify languages according to high-order principles of morphology and
syntax and to make sets of generalisations across different languages irrespective of their genetic affiliations,
i.e. of what language family they belong to.

4) Semantics This is the area of meaning. It might be thought that semantics is covered by the areas of
morphology and syntax, but it is quickly seen that this level needs to be studied on its own to have a proper
perspective on meaning in language. Here one touches, however, on practically every other level of
language as well as there exists lexical, grammatical, sentence and utterance meaning.

5) Pragmatics The concern here is with the use of language in specific situations. The meaning of sentences
need not be the same in an abstract form and in practical use. In the latter case one speaks of utterance
meaning. The area of pragmatics relies strongly for its analyses on the notion of speech act which is
concerned with the actual performance of language. This involves the notion of proposition – roughly the
content of a sentence – and the intent and effect of an utterance.

6. Syntagmatic Relations in Grammar.

Comparative grammar as a branch of linguistics employs different grammatical (linguistic) terms and
notions. The principal and the most occurrent of them are the following: language and speech; functions of
language; language as system and structure; paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations; grammatical form;
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meaning and category; the notion of opposition; absolute and near universals; isomorphic and allomorphic
features.
Language is a collective body of knowledge. It is a set of basic elements and rules which can go into
great variety of combinations. Speech is closely connected with language. It is the result of using the
language, the result of a definite act of speaking.
Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence. The
combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is
reffered to as a syntactic ” syntagma”.

There are four main types of notional syntagmas: predicative (the combination of a subject and a predicate),
objective (-/- a verb and its object), attributive (a noun and attribute), adverbial (a modified notional word,
such as a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier). The other type of relations, opposed to
syntagmatic and called “paradigmatic”, are such as exist between elements of the system outside the strings
where they co-occur. Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations cannot be directly observed in
utterances, that is why they are reffered to as relations “in absentia”.

7. Paradigmatic relations
Paradigmatic relations coexist with syntagmatic relations in such a way that some sort of syntagmatic
connection is necessery for the realization of any paradigmatic series. This is especially evident in a classical
grammatical paradigm which presents a productive series of forms each consisting of a syntagmatic
connection of two elements: one common for the whole of the series, the other specific for every individual
form in the series.

A linguistic unit can enter into relations of two different kinds. It enters into paradigmatic relations with all
the units that can also occur in the same environment. PR are relations based on the principles of similarity.
They exist between the units that can substitute one another. For instance, in the word-group A PINT OF
MILK the word PINT is in paradigmatic relations with the words bottle, cup, etc. The article A can enter
into PR with the units the, this, one, same, etc. According to different principles of similarity PR can be of
three types: semantic, formal and functional.

Semantic PR are based on the similarity of meaning: a book to read = a book for reading. He used to practice
English every day – He would practice English every day.

Formal PR are based on the similarity of forms. Such relations exist between the members of a paradigm:
man – men; play – played – will play – is playing.

Functional PR are based on the similarity of function. They are established between the elements that can
occur in the same position. For instance, noun determiners: a, the, this, his, Ann’s, some, each, etc.

PR are associated with the sphere of ‘language’.

A linguistic unit enters into syntagmatic relations with other units of the same level it occurs with. SR exist
at every language level. E.g. in the word-group A PINT OF MILK the word PINT contrasts SR with A, OF,
MILK; within the word PINT – P, I, N and T are in syntagmatic relations. SR are linear relations, that is
why they are manifested in speech. They can be of three different types: coordinate, subordinate and
predicative.
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Coordinate SR exist between the homogeneous linguistic units that are equal in rank, that is, they are the
relations of independence: you and me; They were tired but happy.

Subordinate SR are the relations of dependence when one linguistic unit depends on the other: teach + er –
morphological level; a smart student – word-group level; predicative and subordinate clauses – sentence
level.

Predicative SR are the relations of interdependence: primary and secondary predication.

As mentioned above, SR may be observed in utterances, which is impossible when we deal with PR.
Therefore, PR are identified with ‘language’ while SR are identified with ‘speech’.

Seminar 1 (Part 2)

CONSTANTS FOR CONTRASTING ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN

MORPHOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

1. Isomorphism and Allomorphism of Morphemes in English and Ukrainian

The morpheme is a minimal meaningful unit and it can be in the contrasted languages either free or
bound. Free or root morphemes are lexically and functionally not dependent on other morphemes. They
may be regular words (cf. boy, day, he, four, день, конь, вещь, он, три) or they may constitute the
lexical core of a word. Eg.: boyhood, daily, fourth, дневной, ночной, трижды, etc. In other words, root
morphemes in English, Russian and other languages are not dependent on other morphemes in a word.
Bound morphemes, on the other hand, can not function independently: they are bound to the root or to
the stem consisting of the root morpheme and of one or more affixal morphemes. Cf.: days, spoken,
fourteen, overcome, government, удивительно, умом, дни, нашим), etc.
Bound morphemes like -s, -en, - teen, over-, -ment, -о, -ом, -и, ~им in either of the two languages can
not exist independently, i.e. they are not free but always dependent on roots or stems of their words. Root
morphemes. Due to its historical development, English has also a much larger number of
morphologically unmarked words, i.e. regular root morphemes, than Russian. Consequently, the number
of inflexions expressing the morphological categories is much smaller in English than in Russian.
Moreover, a lot of notionals in English lack even the affixes which can identify their lexico-
morphological nature.
Free root-morphemed words, though fewer in Russian, are still represented in all lexicomorphological
classes as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. of both contrasted languages. Cf. arm, pen, boy, work, do, red, he,
she, it, five, this, ten, here, far, etc. Similarly in Russian: нос, лоб, чуб, ты, кто, три, тут, где, он, etc.
Free root morphemes in English and Russian can also be functionals: but, till, on, not, through, just (a
moment), мол, прочь, да, может, ох, гав, не, нет, от, на, под, etc. Root morphemes in English can
often form part of the stem, which is especially characteristic of present-day Russian, for example:
workers, friendliness, concerning, beautiful; безграничность, переодеться, переработавши, тепло,
тепленько, etc.
Affixal morphemes in the contrasted languages split into a) Derivational morphemes which are in
English and Russian mainly suffixes and sometimes also prefixes. The number of suffixes in the
contrasted languages considerably exceeds the number of prefixes. So is, naturally, the significance of the
former as word-forming means, the latter (prefixes) performing only in a few cases a word-building
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 function in Russian. The number of suffixes in English does not exceed 100, there being 60 nounforming,
26 adjective-forming, 5 verb-forming and 3 adverb-forming suffixes [13, 159–160]. Among the noun-
indicating/forming suffixes in English are -асу, -ance, -ion, -dom, -er, -ess, -hood, -ics, -ism, -ity, -ment, -
ness, -ship, -ty and others. Cf. democracy, alliance, delegation, freedom, writer, falsehood, politics,
feudalism, government, management, fitness, likeness, penmanship, friendship, loyalty, etc. The
adjective-indicating suffixes are: -able, -al, -ial, -fold, -ful, -ic, -ile, -ish, -less, -ous, -some, -ward, -y and
some others. Cf. capable, formal, presidential, manifold, grateful, laconic, futile, selfish, meaningless,
dangerous, tiresome, eastward, happy, silly, etc. The verb-indicating suffixes are -ate, -en, -esce, -ify, -
ise. Cf. negotiate, facilitate, blacken, shorten, acquiesce, beautify, purify, demobilise, organise. The
adverb-indicating suffixes are -ly, -wards, -ward, -ways: quickly, slowly, southward/southwards,
sideways, etc.
Inflexional morphemes in the contrasted languages express different morphological categories. The
number of genuine English inflexions today is only 14 to 16. They are noun inflexions, for example: -s (-
es), -en, -ren (boys, watches, oxen, children); inflexions of the comparative and the superlative degrees of
qualitative adjectives: -er, -est (bigger, biggest); inflexions of degrees of qualitative adverbs: -er/-ier, -est/
-iest (oftener, oftenest; slowlier; slowliest); the verbal inflexions: -s/-es, -d/-ed, -t, -n/- en; he puts/he
watches; she learned the rule (burnt the candle); a broken pencil. The inflexions of absolute possessive
pronouns: -s, -e: (hers, ours, yours, mine, thine). There are also some genuinely English plural form
inflexions of nouns with restricted use. These are the plural form inflexions of kine (poetic for cows),
fane (archaic of foes), and shoen (archaic of shoes).
Agglutination at the morphological level represents a mechanical adding of one or more affixal
morphemes in pre-position, post-position or in interposition to the root morpheme. Somewhat different,
however, is the quantitative representation of the parts of speech that are formed in the contrasted
languages by means of preposed agglutinating morphemes. Suppletivity is observed in words, word-
forms and morphemes of all Indo-European languages as a means of grammatical expression. At the
lexical level it helps express, both in English and Russian, sex distinctions, eg: boy — girl, bull — cow,
man — woman, cock — hen, мальчик — девочка, мужчина — женьщина, петух — курица, etc. Of
suppletive nature are most of nouns forming the LSG denoting kinship. Cf. father — mother, brother —
sister, son — daughter, aunt — uncle; отец — мать, брат — сестра, сын — дочка, дядя — тетя, зять
— невестка, дед — баба, etc
Suppletivity. As a means of grammatical expression suppletivity is observed in words, word-forms and
morphemes of all Indo-European languages. At the lexical level it helps express, both in English and
Ukrainian, sex distinctions, eg: boy -- girl, bull - cow, man - woman, cock — hen, хлопець — дівчина,
чоловік — жінка, півень — курка, etc. Of suppletive nature are most of nouns forming the LSG
denoting kinship. Cf. father - mother, brother - sister, son - daughter, aunt -uncle;
In the system of lexico-grammatical classes of words suppletivity can express in English and Ukrainian
different categorial meanings of notionals at the lexical level as in the pairs of verbs cany — bring, say —
tell, take - give; брати - взяти, ловити ~ піймати. Suppletive forms of a verb paradigm can be used in
English and Ukrainian to express some morphological categories. The most striking in this respect is the
verb "to be" which has more forms to express different categorial meanings in English than in Ukrainian.
Thus, in English "am, is, are — was, were" which are respectively the corresponding forms for tense (the
Present and Past Indefinite), for number (singular or plural) and for person am. was for the first person
singular, is/was for the third person singular and are/were for plural forms respectively.
The Ukrainian verb "бути" possesses only one suppletive form in present tense — "є", which is used for
all persons in singular and plural (cf. я є, ти є, ми є, всі є, кожен є). But: Я був, ти була, ви буди, etc.

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 As to the suppletive forms of other notionals, they are of form-building, i. e. of categorial nature
expressing in the contrasted languages degrees of comparison in some qualitative adjectives and adverbs.
Cf. good — better — best, bad — worse — worst and little — less — least. In Ukrainian: добрий —
кращий — найкращий, добрий - ліпший -найліпший, поганий — гірший — найгірший. In Ukrainian two
more adjectives have suppletive forms in the comparative and suppletive degrees: гарний — кращий —
найкращий; великий — більший — найбільший.

2. Quantitative and Qualitative Correlation of Affixal Morphemes in English and

Ukrainian.
Some purely typological methods of Contrastive investigation have recently been suggested as well.
Among the best known is the indexes method by the American linguist Joseph Greenberg. The method helps
identify the quantitative co-occurrence or frequency of some feature or phenomenon in the contrasted
languages. J. Greenberg selected some passages, among them one English and one Russian, each containing
one hundred notional words and subjected them to various typologically relevant analyses. The parameters
of his computations were as follows:
1.The degree of synthesis in the words. Thus, when the morphemes are lettered as M and the number of
words in the passage as W, the M/W- ratio will express the synthetic structure index, which is in English
between 1.62 to 1.68.
2.The second parameter constitute the ways in which various mor phemes are joined in English notional
words. Since one of the main ways in English is agglutination (lettered as A), it gives in relation to this kind
of juncture (lettered J) an A/J ratio reflecting the degree of cohesion between the morphemes in these
notional words. It goes without saying that the higher the index, the greater the role of agglutination and the
lower their fusion (i.e. synthetism) in any language.
3.The productivity degree of the form-building morphemes constitutes the third parameter. When the
number of root morphemes is letterd as R, the number of words in the text as W, the R/W ratio will express
the index of derivation. This index proves that the higher the number of root morphemes making the
notionals, the lower is the degree of form-building in the system of words in the contrasted language.
4.The quantity of derivational morphemes (D) in direct relation to the number of words (W) in the text
gives the D/W ratio indicating the word- forming capacity of a language.
5. The fifth parameter characterises the correlation of affixal morphemes in their relation to the
number of words. So, the P/W ratio constitutes the index of prefixation and indicates the correlation
between the number of prefixes and the number of words in the text.
6. Similarly, the S/W ratio with the letter S standing for suffixal morphemes will be the index of
suffixation in the words of the text.

7. Finally when accidence, i. e. genuine form-building is lettered as Pi, then the Pi/N- ratio will
designate the index characterising the form-building capacity of words in the language.
8. Consequently, when the synthetic agreement is lettered as Co (concord), the Co/N ratio will
represent the index of concord i.e. grammatical agreement in the selected by the researcher
passage/text. It should be added in conclusion that J. Greenberg's indexes have been analysed and
proved to be true by different linguists in some European countries. Some linguistics as V. Kroopa in
Slovakia have even further elaborated and improved the method by substituting the lettered indexes
for the digital gradation from zero (0.3, 0.5 etc.) up to 1 (one).

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 3. Types of the Inflexional Morphemes in the Contrasted Languages.

In English morphology, an inflectional morpheme is a suffix that's added to a word to assign a

particular grammatical property to that word.

Inflectional morphemes serve as grammatical markers that indicate tense, number, possession,
or comparison. Inflectional morphemes in English include the bound morphemes -s (or -es); 's (or s'); -ed; -
en; -er; -est; and -ing.

Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes do not change the essential meaning or
the grammatical category of a word.

Only English nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (all open classes of words) take inflectional
affixes. Closed classes of words take no inflectional affixes in English. Inflectional affixes always follow
derivational ones if both occur in a word, which makes sense if we think of inflections as affixes on fully
formed words. For example, the words antidisestablishmentarianism and uncompartmentalize each contain
a number of derivational affixes, and any inflectional affixes must occur at the
end: antidisestablishmentarianisms and uncompartmentalized.
Whereas a derivational morpheme relates more to the identity of a word itself (in that it more directly affects
the meaning of the stem), an inflectional morpheme relates the word to the rest of the construction,
motivating a position on the very periphery of the word.

An inflectional morpheme does not have the capacity to change the meaning or the syntactic class of the
words it is bound to and will have a predictable meaning for all such words. Thus, the present tense will
mean the same thing regardless of the verb that is inflected, and the dative case will have the same value for
all nouns. Semantic abstraction and relativity do not mean that there is little or simple meaning involved;
inflectional categories are never merely automatic or semantically empty. The meanings of inflectional
categories are difficult to describe, but they exhibit all the normal behavior we expect from cognitive
categories, such as grounding in embodied experience and radial structured polysemy.

4. Grammatical Meaning and Grammatical Category.

The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning is
the individual meaning of the word (e.g. table). Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole class or
a subclass. For example, the class of nouns has the grammatical meaning of thingness. If we take a noun
(table) we may say that it possesses its individual lexical meaning (it corresponds to a definite piece of
furniture) and the grammatical meaning of thingness (this is the meaning of the whole class). Besides, the
noun ‘table’has the grammatical meaning of a subclass – countableness. Any verb combines its individual
lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote actions or states. An
adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of the whole class of
adjectives – qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities. Adverbs possess the grammatical meaning of
adverbiality – the ability to denote quality of qualities.

There are some classes of words that are devoid of any lexical meaning and possess the grammatical
meaning only. This can be explained by the fact that they have no referents in the objective reality. All
function words belong to this group – articles, particles, prepositions, etc.

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The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and dependent. The general grammatical
meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part of speech (e.g. nouns – the general grammatical
meaning of thingness). The dependent grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same
part of speech. For instance, any verb possesses the dependent grammatical meaning of
transitivity/intransitivity, terminativeness/non-terminativeness, stativeness/non-stativeness; nouns have the
dependent grammatical meaning of contableness/uncountableness and animateness/inanimateness. The most
important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it influences the realization of grammatical
categories restricting them to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness influences the realization of the grammatical category of number as the
number category is realized only within the subclass of countable nouns, the grammatical meaning of
animateness/inanimateness influences the realization of the grammatical category of case,
teminativeness/non-terminativeness - the category of tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the category of voice.

Grammatical categories.

Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the same
form (e.g. singular::plural). Due to dialectal unity of language and thought, grammatical categories correlate,
on the one hand, with the conceptual categories and, on the other hand, with the objective reality.

we may define grammatical categories as references of the corresponding objective categories. For example,
the objective category of time finds its representation in the grammatical category of tense, the objective
category of quantity finds its representation in the grammatical category of number. Those grammatical
categories that have references in the objective reality are called referential grammatical categories.
However, not all of the grammatical categories have references in the objective reality, just a few of them do
not correspond to anything in the objective reality.
They are called significational categories. To this type belong the categories of mood and degree. Speaking
about the grammatical category of mood we can say that it has modality as its conceptual correlate. It can be
explained by the fact that it does not refer to anything in the objective reality – it expresses the speaker’s
attitude to what he says.
5. Isomorphism and Allomorphism in the Quantitative Representation of the Morphological
Categories and Means of their Expression in the Nominals of the Contrasted Languages.
allomorphic features find their expression in the ways of realisation of some morphological categories in
English and Ukrainian. These allomorphic ways are observed in the following:
1.In the use of analytical paradigms in English to express tense, aspect and voice forms, as well as in
negative/interrogative forms like: He is read ing now. Is he reading now? Does/did he speak English? The
passage is being translated The article will have been translated by then, etc.
2.In the absence in Ukrainian of the continuous aspect, whose durative meaning can be expressed by the
transitive verb stems with the suffixes - сь, -ся and a corresponding adverb/adverbial phrase identifying the
mo ment/period of action. Cf. Петренко зараз/ще, вже, давно/будується. Школа ще (тоді)
будувалась/будуватиметься.
3.Allomorphism exists in the expression of the category of person in Ukrainian imperative mood forms
which is alien to English. For example: Пиши! (Ти пиши!) Пишіть! (Ви пишіть!) Іди! Будьмо/ будьте
здорові! Встань! Встаньте! Не вір! Не вірте!
Analytical imperative mood forms may have corresponding personal pronouns in English with the verb
let (Let me say. Let him/us say. Let them come/say it). The corresponding Ukrainian forms have the
particles нум or нумо (for singular or plural forms respectively) and also person and number inflexions of
the notional verb. Cf. Нум я запитаю. Нумо заспівайте! Нумо до праці, брати! (Б. Грінченко)
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4. Isomorphism and allomorphism is observed in the expression of the passive voice in English and
Ukrainian.
1) Isomorphic is the analytical way of expression of this morphological category, i.e. with the help of the
aux iliary verb to be + past participle: Лист був написаний. Лист буде написаний. Alongside of this
participial predicative forms in -но, -то are used: Лист буде написано. Все, зрештою, було забуто.
2) Allomorphic are forms of expressing the passive voice synthetically that are observed in Ukrainian.
These forms are realised
a) by means of inflex ions of the past participle: Стаття написана. Текст перекладений. Жито скошене.
Фрески відновлені. b) With the help of the postfixes -сь, -ся added to the non-perfective verbs in the
indicative mood: Хата будується/ будувалась. Місток зводиться. Проект тільки готувавсь,
с) With the help of the mentioned predicative participles in -но, -то: Музей зачинено. Питання
розв'язано. Ворога розбито. Нічого не забуто.
A peculiar feature of passive constructions in English is their much more frequent use than in Ukrainian.
This is accounted for
a) the use of some English irregular verbs as regular: The office is run by Mr. Brown. The dog was walked
by Ann;
b) the use of any of the two direct objects as subjects of the sentence in the passive voice: Mother forgave
Dora her drawbacks; Dora was forgiven her drawbacks... Dora's drawbacks were forgiven by her mother;
c) the use of prepositional objects as subjects in the passive voice: He was taken care of,
d) the use of the past participle as a nominal part of the predicate: He was seated, pen in hand, at the
table... (Cronin). "Is he generally liked?" (Bronte).

6. Words. Grammatical Forms of English and Ukrainian Words.

7. Parts of Speech in English and Ukrainian.

There are two main trends in distinguishing parts of speech: traditional and structuralist.
Structuralists proceed from the function and distribution (position of the word in relation to other
words in speech) of the language unit. For example, in C. Fries’ classification which distinguishes
between four classes of notionals and fifteen of functionals,
Class 1 includes words performing the function of the subject;
Class 2 – predicates;
Class 3 – attributes;
Class 4 – adverbials.
Thus, for example, Class 3 embraces words of the type this (pronoun), beautiful (adjective), the
(article), first (numeral), home (noun as in home task) since all of them can be used as attributes.
Naturally, such approach is strongly criticized by traditional linguists who insist on considering
not only structural, but also semantic criteria in classifying words into parts of speech. The list of
criteria includes: (1) lexico-grammatical meaning;
(2) typical stem-building elements;
(3) combinability with other words in speech;
(4) typical function in the sentence;
(5) grammatical categories or paradigm.
Both structuralists and traditionalists distinguish between notional and functional parts of speech.
Notional parts of speech include words which have full lexical meaning, specific stem-building
elements, various functions in the sentence, specific for the particular morphological class. Semi-
notional parts of speech include words which have weak lexico-grammatical meaning, no
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 specific stem-building elements, functions of linking or specifying elements.
The number of notional parts of speech in English and Ukrainian is the same. They are seven:
noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral, verb, adverb, stative – іменник, прикметник,
займенник, числівник, дієслово, прислівник, слова категорії стану. As for the semi-
notional or functional parts of speech, their number in 11 contrasted languages is not identical
because of the English article missing in Ukrainian. The rest of semi-notional words are all
common: conjunctions, prepositions, modal words, particles – сполучник, прийменник,
модальні слова, частки.

8. The Problem of “Word Classes” as the Parts of Speech in English and Ukrainian.

All words belong to categories called word classes (or parts of speech) according to the part they play
in a sentence. The main word classes in English are listed below.
Noun, Verb Adjective, Adverb, Pronoun, Preposition, Conjunction, Determiner, Exclamation

The verb
A group of words cannot be described as a sentence or a clause unless at least one of the words is a verb. In
some ways, we can describe it as the most important part of speech because it is the ‘action’ word that tells
the listener or reader what is happening in the sentence. Verbs can be ‘action’ words
like run, initiate, judge, throw, but they can also denote less active notions and have more to do with mental
processes and perceptions, like see, know, think and so on.

The noun
A noun is a word which is used to denote a person (traffic warden, woman, Prime Minister, pianistetc.), a
concrete or abstract entity (binoculars, fork, field, truth, incoherence etc.) or a place (office, garden, railway
station). These are all common nouns; there are also proper nounswhich are the names of a specific
person, place, event etc., usually starting with a capital letter, for example, York , John, Christmas, Saturday.
A noun can be extended to a noun phrase. In the example phrases given below, the noun (in the first
example) and the noun phrase (in the remaining examples) is in bold. Note how much the noun phrase can
be extended by adding extra information each time.

Dogs can be vicious

Some dogs can be vicious
Some of the dogs can be vicious
Some of the bigger dogs can be vicious
Some of the bigger dogs in the dog pound can be vicious

The adverb
The traditional approach to adverbs has been to assign mainly those words which are made from adjectives
by the addition of the ending –ly (quickly, hopelessly), plus certain other words which are difficult to
classify, like not, just and soon. Their main function is to qualify the action of the verb in the clause in some
way, but they can also be used to add more information to an adjective or other adverb
e.g. awfully good, incredibly slowly. The class of adverbs is very wide-ranging in form and is used to add
comments to many of the other word classes.

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 The preposition
Prepositions allow us to talk about the way in which two parts of a sentence are related to each other. They
include words like in, on, under, beside, through, inside, before, opposite. More often than not, these
relationships are to do with either time or space, but other types of relationship, such as possession, cause
and effect and method can be expressed by using prepositions. The words themselves are generally short and
simple but some prepositions are multi-word units; for example, out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of,
up to etc. Unless they are part of a verb (getin, pick up, switch off), prepositions are always followed by a
phrase containing a noun – at school, in the summer, over the moon and so on.

The adjective
An adjective gives the reader or speaker extra information about a noun or delimits it in some way. It can
occur in two positions in a phrase:

 before the noun as in clear water, beautiful beaches, a terrible decision. The adjectives in these
examples are said to be attributive,
 following any form of the verb be (e.g. am, is, was, been) and similar verbs (seem, appear,become)
as in the water became clear, the beaches are beautiful. These adjectives are inpredicative position.

The pronoun
Pronouns are usually treated as a special sub-class of nouns. This is because they stand in for a noun or
group of nouns. They are limited in number and belong to what is called a closed set, that is, a group of
words to which new members are, for practical purposes, not allowed. Some examples of pronouns
are: I, you, he, she, our, its, something, anyone and so on. Thus, instead of saying, Bill’s arrived. Bill’s in
the lounge, we prefer Bill’s arrived. He’s in the lounge. Or a person called for you; better would
be someone called for you. There are several other words which fall into this class; for example (the) one(s),
when used to replace dishes in the example: pass me the dishes – the ones on the top shelf.

The conjunction
It would be very unusual for anyone to either speak or write completely in simple sentences; instead we tend
to use a mixture of simple, compound and complex sentences. One way to create longer, more complicated
sentences is to use conjunctions. As we have already noted in the section on types of clause, conjunctions
serve to connect two or more clauses, phrases or words together to make longer constructions. In the
following examples, the conjunction is in bold:

 The coffee was strong, but sweet.

 We can go to the match or watch it on TV.
 She has a dog and two cats.
 When I arrived home, they had already eaten.
 I had to stop driving because the rain was so bad.
 Can I have a word with you, if you’ve got the time?
 Although he can’t swim, he goes sailing.
There are two types of conjunction. The first is the coordinating conjunction; examples of this can be seen
in sentences a to c above. This type is always used to connect elements that share the same grammatical
status, that is, main clause to main clause, verb to verb, noun to noun, adjective to adjective and so on. In
sentence a two adjectives, strong and sweet, are conjoined, in b two verbs, go and watch and c two
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nouns, dog and cats.
The second type is the subordinating conjunction, which most often joins two or more unequal clauses to
one another. Typically a main clause will be connected to a subordinate clause as we saw in the section on
clause types. So in sentences d to g above, the subordinate clause (which you will remember cannot stand on
its own, but needs another more important clause to complete the meaning) begins with a conjunction,
here when, because, if and although.

Word class membership

Although the description above may give the impression that any one word within a single meaning belongs
exclusively to one word class, you should note that this is not the case. Study the words in bold in the
following examples:

 I couldn’t give her an immediate answer .

 I was surprised when he answered my letter.
 Do not write on the front of the answer sheet.

 In the first sentence, answer is being used as a noun – note the attributive adjectiveimmediate and the
word an, both indicative of a following noun.
 In the second, answer is a verb – the subject he and the ending –ed show this.
 While in the third, answer tells you what kind of sheet is being talked about and is, therefore, an
adjective.
This flexibility in word class membership is a peculiar feature of English among the European languages,
many of which would require different endings to show the class of the word.

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