Lecture 7. The Verb. Finite Forms.
Lecture 7.
1.1. Classifications of the Verb: Verb Complementation
The finite verb organises all the other sentence constituents (the… The syntactic valency falls into two types:
Obligatory
The obligatory valency is necessarily realised for the sake of the grammatical completion of the syntactic construction (the subject + the direct object as obligatory parts of the sentence and obligatory valency partners of the verb).Thus the subjective and the direct objective valencies of the verb are obligatory:
We saw a house in the distance.
We saw a house (in the distance).
For link-verbs the predicative valency is obligatory:
The reporters seemed pleased.
Predicative
The predicative complementive verbs are link-verbs (see Lecture 6: a) the pure link be; b) the specifying links become, grow, seem, appear, look, taste, etc.; c) the notional links).
a) monocomplementive verbs (taking one object-complement):
· possession objective verb have (normally not passivised).
· direct objective verbs (take, grasp, forget, enjoy, like).
Personal
These verbs normally refer to the real subject of the denoted process (an actual human being/a non-human being/an inanimate substance/an abstract notion). They form a large set of lexemes: work, start, pause, hesitate, act, function, materialise, laugh, cough, grow, scatter, etc.
In connection with this division, the notions of verbal transitivity and objectivity should be considered.
Verbal transitivity is the ability of the verb to take a direct object (an… Verbal objectivity is the ability of the verb to take any object (direct or oblique/prepositional, that of…
Transitive
Intransitive verbs
This division (transitive vs. intransitive) is more relevant for Russian than English
Objective
The same verb lexeme can enter more than one of the outlined classification sets (the subclass migration of verbs):
Who runs faster, John or Nick? – uncomplementive.
The man ran after the bus – adverbial complementive, non-objective.
Both categories are different in principle from the other categories of the finite verb as they do not convey any inherently verbal semantics.
The expression of the category of person is confined to the singular form of… The expression of the category of person in the present tense is divided into the following subsystems (three sets of…