Платная доработка на тему The peculiarities of the usage of infinitive and infinitive constructions in English on the example of English-language media

Содержание:

INTRODUCTION.. 3

CHAPTER 1. INFINITIVE AND INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN
ENGLISH   6

1.1 Role and functions of infinitive in
English. 6

1.2 English infinitive constructions: key
characteristics. 15

1.3 Categorial and Morphological
peculiarities of English infinitive constructions  22

Summary. 30

CHAPTER 2. FUNCTIONING OF INFINITIVE AND INFINITIVE
CONSTRUCTIONS IN ENGLISH MEDIA.. 31

2.1 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of subject 31

2.2 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of predicate. 33

2.3 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of object 42

2.4 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of attributes. 47

2.5 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of adverbal modifiers  54

2.6 English infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
function of Complex Object and Complex Subject 60

Summary. 67

CHAPTER 3. PRACTICAL RELEVANCE OF RESEARCH RESULTS. 69

3.1 Practical relevance of research results in linguistics. 69

3.2 Practical relevance of research results in media
linguistics. 72

3.3 Practical relevance of the research results in
teaching. 73

Summary. 74

CONCLUSION.. 76

REFERENCES. 79

APPENDIX.. 87

Введение:

The infinitive forms of verb go beyond the usual verb
categories, possessing a number of functions: they express actions without the
indication of the person and, and in terms of the syntactic functions
performed, they describe actions. The use of the infinitive and infinitive
constructions is widespread in English, therefore, the study of their
functioning in the text allows drawing conclusions about the structure and
style of the English language.

Within the framework of media texts, various features
are also distinguished. These differences are most pronounced in various genres
of text having various target audience. Comparison of the features of the functioning
of the infinitive and infinitive constructions in such publications, varying in
their target audience, is an important research problem.

The relevance of the research of the features of the use of infinitive
and infinitive constructions in the English language is determined by the
importance of studying the features of the syntax of the English language
through the prism of a media style. Revealing the characteristic features of
the use of the infinitive, its semantic role in various media texts allows to
get a holistic idea of its functioning in modern English.

The object of this research is the infinitive and infinitive
constructions in modern English.

The subject of this research is the structural, syntactic and semantic
features of the use of the infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
modern English-language media.

The purpose of this research is to identify the characteristic
syntactic, semantic and structural features of the English infinitive and
infinitive constructions based on the material of the English-language media.

The set purpose implies the solution of the following tasks:

1. Determine
the role and functions of infinitive in English;

2. Figure
out the key characteristics of English infinitive constructions;

3. Figure
out the categorial and morphological peculiarities of English infinitive
constructions;

4. Analyze
the peculiarities of infinitive and infinitive constructions in the texts
published in “The Economist” and “The Vogue”;

5. Compare
the distinctive features of infinitive and infinitive constructions in the
texts published in “The Economist” and “The Vogue”.

The research source is publications in magazines “The Economist” and
“The Vogue”.

The research is based on the work of such scientists as I.V. Arnold, O.
N. Baklashkina, L.S. Barkhudarov, R.A. Budagov, V.P. Danilenko, O. N.
Zhuravleva, V.L. Kaushanskaya, V.Yu. Koprov, N.I. Korobkina, A.V. Kuklina,
Yu.A. Levitsky, I.N. Mikhailovskaya, S.E. Molchanova, S.S. Petina, A. Yu.
Sokolova, E.F. Yaroslavtseva, S. Greenbaum, L. Murray, G. Sweet and others.

The methodological base of the research includes the following methods:

1. Analysis
and synthesis when working with relevant scientific literature;

2. The
method of semantic and syntactic analysis, the method of sampling, the method
of structural and functional analysis when working with source texts.

3. Descriptive
and comparative method when working with the corpus of examples of infinitive
and infinitive constructions.

The theoretical significance of the research is based on the fact that
the study allows to deepen the understanding of the structure of the infinitive
and infinitive constructions, helps to determine the syntactic and semantic
functions of the infinitive and infinitive constructions.

The practical significance of the research is the fact that the results
obtained can be used in seminars on the Theoretical Grammar of the English
language, as well as in writing coursework and final qualification works, in
the preparation of educational materials by teachers of the English language as
well.

The structure of the research is determined by the set purpose and
objectives. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a
list of references.

The introduction to this research figures out the relevance of the
study, its object and subject, goal and objectives. In addition, the research
methodology, materials and research sources are determined. The introduction
also indicates the theoretical and practical significance of the study,
identifies the names of key researchers who worked on the scientific problems
of the infinitive and infinitive constructions.

The first chapter of this research examines the theoretical aspects of
the work. In particular, we are talking about the role and functions of the
infinitive in the grammar of the English language, about the key
characteristics of infinitive constructions in the English language. In
addition, the first chapter is devoted to the consideration of the problem of
categorical and morphological features of the English infinitive and infinitive
constructions.

The second chapter of this research is practical. It analyzes examples
of sentences with infinitives and infinitive constructions taken from The
Economist and The Vogue magazines. This chapter is divided into two parts that
sequentially examine the features of the functioning of infinitives and
infinitive constructions in English. In addition, in the second chapter, a
quantitative analysis is carried out to assess the prevalence of various types
of infinitives and infinitive constructions in English.

Both chapters end with short conclusions.

In the conclusion, the main results of the research are presented and
summarized.

The list of references contains 60 titles of research by Russian and
foreign scientists on the problem of infinitive and infinitive constructions in
English.

Заключение:

To sum up the
research made, it’s crucial to mention that the organizing center of the
infinite construction is the infinite verb and other non-personal verbs forms.
The entire infinite construction is part of a simple sentence and performs in
relation to a simple sentence the role of a subject, object, adverb of place,
tense, reason, purpose, mode of action. Furthermore, according to the existing
research in the field of infinitive and infinitive constructions in English,
the infinitive constructs are classified according to six categories. The
category of aspect expresses the nature of the course of action in relation to
a certain period of time and conveys the features of the course of action. The
category of voice has a meaning designated by the form of the verb as
multidirectional action, is a means of expressing the relationship between the
subject, action and object. The category of person and number is considered
together. Finiteness category reflects a set of homogeneous grammatical phenomena. It’s also important to figure out that
the infinitive constructs are the key example of language economy and
compression. The phenomenon of language compression in English is an essential
factor in the effective functioning of the language. Language compression in
the context of the implementation of the principle of language economy is
designed to reduce the amount of text without losing its meaning. Furthermore,
infinitive constructions are a fairly widely used grammatical structure in the
system of English syntax. In part, their popularity is due to the effectiveness
of language compression, in part — to the peculiarities of the very structure
of constructing sentences in English. One way or another, these constructions
are typical of the English language. The
practical research of the peculiarities of English infinitives and infinitive
constructions was aimed at analyzing the characteristic features of their functioning
in English printed media. The magazines “The Economist” and “The Vogue” were
taken as the basis for making the corpus of examples of infinitives. “The
Economist” is characterized by the analytical principle of presenting the
material, which affects the grammatical features of published articles. At the
same time, “The Vogue” is characterized by a more informal grammar and
principles of presentation, which also affects the principles of using the
infinitive and infinitive constructions. The
analysis demonstrated the characteristic features of the use of infinitive and
infinitive constructions in the journal “The Economist”. It allowed to find out
the significant predominance of the simple infinitive in the identified
examples, as well as a significant number of infinitive constructions that
imply the use of the "Verb + Infinitive" model. In addition, the
analysis shows the functional diversity of the infinitive and infinitive
constructions, which reflects the grammatical features of this structure in
modern English. The
similar trend has been found out while analyzing the infinitives and infinitive
constructions from “The Vogue”. The key difference is that among the infinitive
constructions found in the corpus the second most widespread infinitive construction
is that of Model 3. At the same time, for “The Economist” the second most
productive model was Model 4. Such a difference may be the result of the
mismatching in the style and grammar applied to write the articles. In
general, the analysis of infinitives and infinitive constructions in “The
Economist” and “The Vogue” allowed for figuring out some general trends. So,
the significant potential of the infinitive was revealed in the formation of
goal-setting, as well as in the implementation of the principle of linguistic
economy, typical for the English-language syntax. Quantitative analysis shows
that the overwhelming number of examples of the infinitive refer to simple
infinitives. The analysis also
demonstrated the presence of all five models of the formation of infinitive
constructions in the English-language journals. Quantitative analysis shows
that the most productive model for the formation of infinitive constructions is
the first one, which involves a combination of a verb and an infinitive. One of
the most striking examples of such constructions are fixed verb phrases, as
well as a combination of an infinitive and a phase verb. Considering the specific features of the functions
that infinitives perform in English sentences, the most widespread one in the both
magazines analyzed is the function of predicate. This fact can be explained by
the point that these structures are typical for English grammar. The point is
that many grammar structures require infinitives as their unalienable parts. The other functions that have many
illustrative examples are the ones of object, attribute and adverbal modifier. These allow for the demonstration of linguistic
economy characteristic for English as well. Comparing the articles from “The
Economist” and “The Vogue” magazines in terms of infinitive functions, it’s
worth noting that in the first magazine the function of attribute is as
widespread as the function of predicate. At the same time, the second popular
function in the texts from “The Vogue” is the one of object. Such a difference
may be explained by the stylistic differences between these magazines. All in all, the research of English
infinitives based on modern sources allows for getting the results that are
relevant to the current situation in the system of the English grammar.

Фрагмент текста работы:

CHAPTER 1. INFINITIVE AND INFINITIVE
CONSTRUCTIONS IN ENGLISH 1.1 Role
and functions of infinitive in English The minimum communicative unit of
language is a sentence, which serves to convey information about reality,
expresses judgments, assessments, and serves the purpose of posing questions. A
sentence is built under certain grammatical laws, has its own characteristics,
categories, intonation and semantic completeness, as well as predicativity, are
characteristic of it. Expressing relevance to reality, predicativity
distinguishes a sentence from such units of language as a word or a phrase.
Currently, there are many different interpretations of the concept of
predicativity, since the views of scientists on this syntactic category vary
[Lobeck 2013]. In V.V. Vinogradov’s interpretation,
predicativity is the relevance of the information contained in the statement to
reality [Vinogradov 2011], while Yu. A. Levitsky explains predicativity as the
presence of a predicate in a sentence or its grammatical analogue in the
sentence [Levitsky 2013]. V. Yu. Koprov gives the following
definition of the concept: “predicativity is a common global logical property
of any statement expressed by any sentence. Predictivity is not a grammatical
fact, it manifests itself in the meaning of truth or falsity" [Koprov
2016, p. 87]. Yu. A. Levitsky believes that
predicativity is inherent not only in a sentence, but also in a phrase:
“predictivity is a category that expresses an event or fact of objective
reality, and therefore is inherent not only in an utterance as an actualized
linguistic unit, but also in a phrase and a separate member of a sentence with
propositive content, that is denoting an event or fact” [Levitsky 2014]. A separate type of predicativity, which
is currently of particular interest to linguists in connection with the active
development of semantic syntax, is additional predicativity. This term
describes a range of phenomena that reflect the relationship between the
syntactic structure of a sentence and its semantic complexity [Heine 2015]. The
presence of implicit predicativity distinguishes a sentence from both semantically
complex, but syntactically simple structures, and from a complex sentence as a
special grammatical structure [Pribytok 2015]. At the syntagmatic level, a sentence
that contains a secondary predication is a simple sentence, since it contains
only one main predicate. However, the paradigmatic structure of such
constructions is more similar to the structure of a complex sentence, since in
addition to the explicitly expressed predicative connection, the units under
consideration are characterized by implicit predicative connections. Secondary
predicativity is not self-reliant, since it always assumes the presence of
basic predicativity in a sentence and only takes place against its background,
therefore this type of predicativity is also called, “additional” [Petina
2016].