Course paper Theme: Verbs as a part of speech, grammatical categories of verbs

· Notional verbs- the 1-st categorization on the basis of the subject process relation. The verbs are divided into actional and statal.

· Actional - express the action, performed by the subject (do, act, make)

· Statal verbs- they denote the state of their subject (be, stand, know)

This criteria apply to more specific subsets of words: ex: The verbs of mental process, here we observe the verbs of mental perception and activity, sensual process (see-look)

The 2-nd categorization is based on the aspective characteristic. Too aspective subclasses of verbs should be recognized in English limitive (close,arrive) and unlimitive (behave,move). The basis of this division is the idea of a processual limit. That is some border point beyond which the process doesn’t exist.

The 3-rd categorization is based on the combining power of the verbs. The combing power of words in relation to other words in syntactically subordinate positions is called their syntactic valency. Syntactic valency may be obligatory and optional. The obligatory adjuncts are called complements and optional adjuncts are called supplements. According as verbs have or don’t have the power to take complements, the notional words should be classed as complimentive (transitive and intransitive) or uncomplimentive (personal and impersonal)

Terminative – denote actions which can’t develop beyond a certain limit (to stand up, to sit down, to come, to take).

Non-terminative – have no limit (to love, to sit, to work, to walk)
The aspective meaning shouldn’t be confused with the temporal. Aspect shows the character of the action from the point of view of its progress and completion. In Russian – 2 aspects: the perfective and the imperfective. They differ both in meaning and in form. In English there are no such clear-cut distinctions. For that reason not all linguists recognize the category of the aspect. In Russian most do recognize, say that it can be expressed by lexical and grammatical means. Lexical means: verbs fall into 2 groups: terminative and durative. Term. verbs denote an action implying a certain limit. Durative don’t imply any such limit. Usually – pairs of such verbs (to find – term., to search – dur.). Grammatical means: in the course of history both Continuous and Perfect Forms have been analyzed as aspective. In modern linguistics the category of aspect is analyzed in terms of the oppositional theory => the category of aspect is built on opposition of aspect Continuous and the Non- Continuous aspect (common aspect à unmarked (weak) member). Continuous – marked (strong) member. Бархударов pointed out the peculiar marker – kind of morpheme - discontinuous morpheme be + -ing. These morphemes don’t include the root of the notional verb => the difference in meaning: Continuous aspect – its meaning is defined as an action in progress, developing at a given moment; the common aspect doesn’t express duration.