Ôèëîëîãè÷åñêèå íàóêè/3.Òåîðåòè÷åñêèå è ìåòîäîëîãè÷åñêèå ïðîáëåìû
èññëåäîâàíèÿ ÿçûêà
Popovich E. S.,
Ph.D., associate professor, Larina L. A., senior teacher, Yershova
Y. A., senior teacher
ADJECTIVES AND POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS
AS “ABSOLUTE” TEXT UNITS
“Absolute” units of text have long attracted the
attention of linguistic theorists as one of the important logical phenomena
that should be reflected in theoretical grammar. We can mention the names of
many famous scientists who have already tried to define this notion in the last
century: Postma, J. Nesfield, O. Espersen, J. Kerm, L.P. Vinokurova, A. I.
Smirnitsky, V. L. Kaushanskaya, R.A. Kvirk, L.S. Barkhudarov, D.A. Shteling,
Yampolsky, Z.V. Sulimovskaya and others.
However, contradictory approaches to defining
“absolute” units, and in this regard the lack of a single terminological system
that would give uniformity to concepts and terms for researchers makes it
impossible to create even a primary basis for analysis material on the basis of
which it would be possible to make a description of this phenpmenon.
Nevertheless, despite disputes and discussions among grammar theorists, the
researchers practitioners are trying to overcome the existing contradictions,
and perhaps not quite correctly, but to give formulation that defines
“absolute” units in order to form the necessary objects for future research.
On the basis of a thorough analysis of literature
on the relevant sections of theoretical grammar the authors of this work has adopted
the following definition of the essence of the concept of “absolute unit”: the unit
that has absolute syntactic independence from the other components of the
sentence, as well as independence from the components with which it usually
combines can be considered as an absolute one.
In the submitted article, we consider the text units
that usually show opposite characteristics i.e. adjectives and possessive
pronouns. Adjectives have a significant semantic and syntactic dependence on
the words to which they join. Therefore, cases that show how such functionally
dependent units are capable of passing into the category of “absolute” units
are of undoubted interest. In contrast to them, the possessive pronouns have certain
independence. The article uses the following methods: transformation, comparison
of vocabulary definitions.
1) Absolute use of adjectives.
To absolute usage, some Anglists refer the forms
that can be found in such types of sentences as:
1. It is the most lovely of the flowers in the
garden [1, p.223)
2. “I want to go”, he said, miserable [2]
3. Happy, she went to sleep [3, “absolute”]
The most typical functions of an adjective are an
attribute before nouns and a predicative use. By transformation, the first
sentence can be expanded in the following way: It is the “most lovely flower”
of the flowers in the garden. “Most lovely” is an attribute in
preposition. Since in the original sentence “most lovely” is not
combined with the noun in the direct postposition, we can suppose that it is
used absolutely.
The answer to the question whether the unit “poor”
used in the sentence “The poor are always with us” [4, p.5] is absolute, depends on whether it is referred
to the class of adjectives or to nouns. In WBD [5], the dictionary entry “poor”
has markers a and n. In other words, the lexeme “poor”
is characterized in the dictionary as two different words: the noun “poor” and
the adjective “poor”. If we assume that “poor” in the above sentence is an
adjective, then it is used “absolutely”. If we consider it to be a noun, then it
is not used as an “absolute” unit, as in the sentence “Persons who have very
little or nothing” [5, p.168].
In the second sentence, which was once cited by I.R.
Galperin [2], "miserable" characterizes the subject “he” and is a
predicative. We can make the corresponding transformation and compare: “he
said, being miserable - I want to go” and, “he said, and he was miserable”.
Adjectives in the function of predicative are used quite often, and therefore
it is not possible to consider them to be “absolute” in such cases. As some
Anglicists note quite correctly, the adjective is used here from the point of
view of its syntactic connections with the noun [6].
The use of the adjective “happy”, given in “A
Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics” by Cristal [3] is analyzed in a
similar way: “Happy, she went to sleep”. The author of this dictionary
also refers to the absolute such use of language units which “... are
abnormally connected to the rest of the sentence”. However, such a
characteristic for the “absolute” use of language units, as shown above, is
inessential, and should not be included in determining the grammatical content
of the term “absolute’ at the language level.
2)
Absolute use of possessive pronouns.
Some dictionaries, for example, WBD [5] and WNWD
[7] note the “absolute” use of the possessive pronouns “his” and “ours”: Your
house is larger than his [5]; Ours are the brave [7].
It is widely accepted in grammar that personal
pronouns have their proper possessive pronouns in two forms – before nouns
(Conjoint form - attachment form) and absolute form (Absolute form).
Simultaneously, such pronouns are called respectively “Adjective pronouns” and
“Noun pronouns”.
Since pronouns of “ours” type never combine with
nouns, they cannot be considered as “absolute”, taking into account the
definition of absolute units mentioned in the article. As for the tokens of the
type “his, its”, then we can univocally assert that they are never used in such
models “absolutely”. It is impossible, since adding an appropriate noun to them
is a grammatical norm, for example, let us imagine such a transformation: Your
house is larger than his – than his house is.
Thus, we can
conclude that if adjectives being essentially dependent on their
character are capable of passing into the category of “absolute” units, the
possessive pronouns having greater grammatical independence cannot be used
absolutely.
References:
1.
Curme G. O. English Grammar / G. O. Curme. – N. Y.: Barnes and Noble,
Inc., 1957. – 308 p.
2. Ãàëüïåðèí È. Ð. Ñòèëèñòèêà
àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà / È. Ð. Ãàëüïåðèí. – 3-å
èçä. – Ì.: Âûñø. Øêîëà, 1981. – 334 ñ.
3.
Cristal D. A Dictionary of Linguistics and
Phonetics / D. Cristal. –
4. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. – N. Y.: Random
House, Inc., 1973. – 2059 p. – RHD.
5. The World Book
Dictionary –
6. Ãðàììàòèêà àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà / Â.
Ë. Êàóøàíñêàÿ, Ð. Ë. Êîâíåð, Î. Í. Êîæåâíèêîâà è äð.: Ðåäêîë.: Á. À. Èëüèø
(îòâ.ðåä.). – Ë.: Ïðîñâåùåíèå, 1967. – 319 ñ.
7. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Languge. –