Part 3. Topics for self-study and project work

1) Taking into account the semantic, morphological and syntactic criteria, classify the following groups of verbs as central or peripheral in the class:

- lexical / content verbs

- auxiliary verbs

- link / copular verbs

- modal verbs.

2) What are the non-finite verb forms in English? What are the defining characteristics of each of them in terms of (a) their semantics, (b) realization of morphological verbal categories, (c) syntactic functions? Give examples.

3) Why are English non-finite verb forms classified as syncretic elements in the overlapping zones between the class of verbs and other word classes? Give examples.

4) How fully is the Category of Degrees of Comparison realized by English adjectives?

5) The field structure of the class of Adjectives. Which groups of adjectives are central and which are peripheral? Give examples.

6) Why are substantivised adjectives classified as syncretic elements?

7) What are the defining semantic, morphological and syntactic characteristics of the English Adverb?

8) What are the defining semantic, morphological and syntactic characteristics of the English Numeral?

9) Which groups of English word are classed as Function Words? How are they different from Content words?

10) What are the specific defining characteristics of the English Article? Does the Russian language have its counterpart as a grammatical means in the Category of Definiteness/ Indefiniteness?

11) Prepositions and Conjunction: similarities and differences.

12) What are the major distinctive characteristics of the morphological system of English? Does the Russian language have any similar characteristics?