Gradability and intensification of the language quantity (on the materials of English, Russian and Japanese)

The languages under consideration possess numerous lexical as well as grammatical groups of quantity representation. English, Russian and Japanese are exuberant in pure quantification markers and markers of gradability which do not have pure quantitative meaning, but correlate with it. Gradability is connected with norm aberration, marking a 'more than the norm' or 'less than the norm' situation. Intensification is not only norm deflection, but also a kind of evaluation. The role of context is by all means of paramount importance when defining positive or negative types of evaluation

The verb-noun agreement in english and arabic

© Journal of Language and Literature. This article deals with comparing two quite different languages - English and Arabic - in the field of the verb quantity. Our research involves morphology, syntax and semantics. The hypothesis that richer morphology reduces notional effects during agreement production within and across languages is the central idea of this study. In the course of time the English language has changed from grammatical into lexical one and currently has few morphological means to express different grammatical meanings but more hidden notional features involved in subject-verb agreement. The notional features are manifested in the so-called "agreement attraction", the cases of imbalance in subject-predicate and collective-verb agreement. The graphic style of thinking of the Arabs penetrates into the verb number category, displayed by the diversity of morphological markers and peculiar full person-number-gender or partial person-gender agreement depending on the sentence word order and subject's belonging to the category of Human or non-Human nouns. Verb number phenomenon is highly complex, but despite this complexity it is systematic

Quantitative background of pronouns in English, Arabic and Tatar: Structural approach

This paper deals with analyzing the contrasts in the ways of expressing quantity of the pronouns in three quite different languages, belonging to different language families: English (Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family), Arabic (southern branch of the Semitic language family) and Tatar (Turkic branch of the Altai language family). Contrastive typology is the area of this research. Pronouns as a part of the nominal group have specific grammatical characteristics and correspondingly share them with nouns, adjectives and numerals. For instance, English personal pronouns have person, number, gender and case categories. There are two elements of meaning in the semantics of Arabic personal pronouns: person-number-gender and case. Tatar personal pronouns possess person, number and case characteristics. Apart from the other nominal parts of speech, there are specific ways of expressing them. The number phenomenon, being highly complex, penetrates the pronouns as well. In this article we support the idea that the richer the morphological means of the language the more grammatical characteristics the pronouns possess

The semantic morphological category of noun number in structurally different languages

© 2016 The Author(s).The article represents structural semantic analysis of the grammatical number of nouns in the Indo-European (English, German), Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew), and Altai (Tatar, Japanese) languages. The category of number comprises numerous phenomena, including some transitive and historical aspects, which complicate and enrich the system of language. Several controversial features of the category may be pointed out, especially those concerning the phenomena of collectiveness, duality, segmentation, etc. The idea of plurality is reflected in the mind of different people in the many-sided way. In the Indo-European languages there are mass nouns that occur only in the singular. Also, there are countable nouns that occur only in the plural. The special attitude of the Semitic languages towards the category of number can be noticed in the formal interpretation of the concept “singularity - plurality”. Their graphic style of thinking penetrates the grammar of Arabic and Hebrew and is reflected in the category of number. In Tatar the singular and plural forms are distinguished. There are a lot of number affixes. Japanese does not grammatically differentiate between singular and plural forms. So, the isomorphic and allomorphic traits of the number category reflect universal and unique language verbalization of different cultures, revealing people’s world outlook, their traditions and history

Quantitative background of pronouns in English, Arabic and Tatar: Structural approach

This paper deals with analyzing the contrasts in the ways of expressing quantity of the pronouns in three quite different languages, belonging to different language families: English (Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family), Arabic (southern branch of the Semitic language family) and Tatar (Turkic branch of the Altai language family). Contrastive typology is the area of this research. Pronouns as a part of the nominal group have specific grammatical characteristics and correspondingly share them with nouns, adjectives and numerals. For instance, English personal pronouns have person, number, gender and case categories. There are two elements of meaning in the semantics of Arabic personal pronouns: person-number-gender and case. Tatar personal pronouns possess person, number and case characteristics. Apart from the other nominal parts of speech, there are specific ways of expressing them. The number phenomenon, being highly complex, penetrates the pronouns as well. In this article we support the idea that the richer the morphological means of the language the more grammatical characteristics the pronouns possess

Improvement of the English language communicative competencies by means of authentic texts

The article deals with the description of the experimental work aimed at the use of the effective ways of teaching language competencies to the full-time and part-time first-year students learning foreign languages at the language department by means of the novel "The Moon and Sixpence", written by the prominent English writer William Somerset Maugham. The article contains guidelines for the teachers and students, developed by the authors on the interpretation of authentic texts, which are different in the degree of complexity of the tasks, as well as commentary, dictionary and tests. The results were derived from the methods used in the process of the experiment, such as: conversation, testing, verification of empirical skills, analysis and synthesis. On the whole, the difference in the results of the experimental groups significantly allows us to state the effectiveness of techniques used at the lessons of a foreign language. Thus, reading authentic books being one of the most important types of communicative and cognitive activity, which has a high educational and socio-cultural significance, undoubtedly, contributes to the motivation of learning English and improving language competencies

Gradability and intensification of the language quantity (on the materials of English, Russian and Japanese)

The languages under consideration possess numerous lexical as well as grammatical groups of quantity representation. English, Russian and Japanese are exuberant in pure quantification markers and markers of gradability which do not have pure quantitative meaning, but correlate with it. Gradability is connected with norm aberration, marking a 'more than the norm' or 'less than the norm' situation. Intensification is not only norm deflection, but also a kind of evaluation. The role of context is by all means of paramount importance when defining positive or negative types of evaluation

Improvement of the English language communicative competencies by means of authentic texts

The article deals with the description of the experimental work aimed at the use of the effective ways of teaching language competencies to the full-time and part-time first-year students learning foreign languages at the language department by means of the novel "The Moon and Sixpence", written by the prominent English writer William Somerset Maugham. The article contains guidelines for the teachers and students, developed by the authors on the interpretation of authentic texts, which are different in the degree of complexity of the tasks, as well as commentary, dictionary and tests. The results were derived from the methods used in the process of the experiment, such as: conversation, testing, verification of empirical skills, analysis and synthesis. On the whole, the difference in the results of the experimental groups significantly allows us to state the effectiveness of techniques used at the lessons of a foreign language. Thus, reading authentic books being one of the most important types of communicative and cognitive activity, which has a high educational and socio-cultural significance, undoubtedly, contributes to the motivation of learning English and improving language competencies

The semantic morphological category of noun number in structurally different languages

© 2016 The Author(s).The article represents structural semantic analysis of the grammatical number of nouns in the Indo-European (English, German), Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew), and Altai (Tatar, Japanese) languages. The category of number comprises numerous phenomena, including some transitive and historical aspects, which complicate and enrich the system of language. Several controversial features of the category may be pointed out, especially those concerning the phenomena of collectiveness, duality, segmentation, etc. The idea of plurality is reflected in the mind of different people in the many-sided way. In the Indo-European languages there are mass nouns that occur only in the singular. Also, there are countable nouns that occur only in the plural. The special attitude of the Semitic languages towards the category of number can be noticed in the formal interpretation of the concept “singularity - plurality”. Their graphic style of thinking penetrates the grammar of Arabic and Hebrew and is reflected in the category of number. In Tatar the singular and plural forms are distinguished. There are a lot of number affixes. Japanese does not grammatically differentiate between singular and plural forms. So, the isomorphic and allomorphic traits of the number category reflect universal and unique language verbalization of different cultures, revealing people’s world outlook, their traditions and history

Improvement of the English language communicative competencies by means of authentic texts

The article deals with the description of the experimental work aimed at the use of the effective ways of teaching language competencies to the full-time and part-time first-year students learning foreign languages at the language department by means of the novel "The Moon and Sixpence", written by the prominent English writer William Somerset Maugham. The article contains guidelines for the teachers and students, developed by the authors on the interpretation of authentic texts, which are different in the degree of complexity of the tasks, as well as commentary, dictionary and tests. The results were derived from the methods used in the process of the experiment, such as: conversation, testing, verification of empirical skills, analysis and synthesis. On the whole, the difference in the results of the experimental groups significantly allows us to state the effectiveness of techniques used at the lessons of a foreign language. Thus, reading authentic books being one of the most important types of communicative and cognitive activity, which has a high educational and socio-cultural significance, undoubtedly, contributes to the motivation of learning English and improving language competencies