Реферат на тему The category of definiteness / indefiniteness in the English language (Категория определённости / неопределенности в английском языке)

Содержание:

Introduction 3
I. Main part 4
1.Determination in English 4
2. The category of articles determination 5
3. Expression of definiteness/indefiniteness at the morphological level 11
Conclusion 15
Bibliography 17

Введение:

 The category of determination in modern English has repeatedly been the object of linguistic research. As the most important communicative category, the study of this category has become widespread among articular languages.
The works of M.I. Alyokhin, M.I. Bloch, V.G. Burov, V. V. Gurevich, A.L. Zelenetsky, I.P. Krylova, E.A. Sedelnikov and others are devoted to the study of this category.
The relevance of the work is determined by the need to study ways to express the category of definiteness / indefiniteness, which in English is expressed by articles, determinatives and pronouns.
In this paper, we consider all possible ways to express the definiteness / indefiniteness in the English.
The purpose of this work: to study the features of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness in English language. Achieving this goal involves solving the following tasks:
— reveal the concept of «determination»;
-consider the means of expressing the category of definiteness / indefiniteness;
— reveal ways to express of definiteness / indefiniteness in English.
The subject of this research is the ways of expressing determination, functions, and ways of expressing of definiteness / indefiniteness in English.
The object of this research is the category of determination in English.
The course work consists of an introduction, main chapters, a conclusion, and a list of references. The introduction defines the purpose, objectives, subject and object of research in this work.
The first Chapter discusses the concept and means of expressing the category of determination. The second Chapter is devoted to ways to express of definiteness / indefiniteness in English. In conclusion, the main comments and results of the study are given.
  

Заключение:

The category of definiteness/indefiniteness in the language system is a semantic category of complex configuration that includes heterogeneous semantic layers.
Definiteness/indefiniteness can be expressed in English by a special grammatical element — a definite or indefinite article.
In this case, the indefinite article shows that «the noun formed by it is used in the general sense, that is, it names of the object as such, without distinguishing it as something specifically given or unambiguously distinguished.»
Articles are not formal elements of grammatical structures. The use of this or that article as part of any structures is explained by their content correspondence.
The definite article attaches importance to individualization; it characterizes an object as already known, concrete, and distinguished from the entire class of objects that are similar to it. This can be seen in the example where the definite article is also placed before positions and nouns. Articles are means of expressing implicit content and subtext. The indefinite article is widely used when creating generalized imagery, and the definite article is widely used when creating individualized imagery.
The values of the category of definiteness/indefiniteness are updated by means of diverse units, which makes it possible to combine them into a certain functional-semantic field based on homogeneous semantic functions.
The determinants of certainty and uncertainty are: definite and indefinite articles: Не turned to the friends.
He turned to (those) friends. He turned (for help) to (those not his) friends.
-possessive pronouns my, his, her, its, our, their:
He turned to his friends. He turned to (his) friends.
He turned (for help) to (his) friends.
— pronouns some, any, every and their derivatives something, someone, somebody, any, anything, anyone, anybody, negative pronouns by, nothing, nobody, none, one,
— quantitative pronouns some, any, many:
He turned to some friends.He turned (for help) to people he knew, etc.
The means of the category of indefiniteness is also an interrogative word. In English, a special group of determinants is represented by the interrogative sentences «What’s the matter?»,»What happened?»
Summing up the above, it should be noted that the article is the main, but not the only means of expressing the category of definiteness/indefiniteness . Syntactic determinants include relative pronouns (who, who, whom, what, which), which serve to connect subordinate clauses with the main one.
  

Фрагмент текста работы:

 
I. Main part
1.Determination in English
Different languages have different ways of determination indicating the definiteness and indefiniteness of nouns. In English, as in most languages, the category of definiteness and indefiniteness is not a grammatical category of nouns. It is rather a semantic category that is mainly conveyed by means of two articles: the definite article the and the indefinite article a/an.
According to Palmer, although “articles are the simplest adjectives of all”, their omission may be essential to the meaning of the noun [15]. Dykes calls them “nothing words” as in her opinion they do not have a concrete meaning and do not present any image to the imagination, but she emphasises that their function is important [13, p.68].
The concept of «determination» is a grammatical category of a name that defines the choice of an object or set of objects from a class expressed by a noun.
The peculiarity of the category of determination is that the noun does not primarily denote a specific object or even a set of objects, but a certain set of properties that an object can have so that it can be called a particular noun.
Determination in a language can be qualitative — it reflects the level of awareness about the subject, and quantitative — it indicates the quantitative characteristics of the subject.
In modern linguistics, the decisive criterion for distinguishing the grammatical category of definiteness/ indefiniteness in the language system is the presence in the language of a linguistic form or forms whose main function is to indicate identifiability, as well as the mandatory and unambiguous use of the means of definiteness and indefiniteness in relation to nominal groups. The existence of a grammatical category of definiteness/ indefiniteness in a language can be stated unambiguously if the definiteness is underlined the presence of typical grammatical or functional morphemes in forms of affixes, or morphologically weak free forms, named by K. Lyons as simple determinants [14]. These languages include English, French, Spanish, and other Germanic and romance languages.