Semantic features of verbs in present day english

Аннотация

Semantically verbs divide into notional and semi-notional. Some linguists speak also of a third group, auxiliary verbs, completely devoid of lexical meaning, as, for instance, has in has written. As shown, they are words in form only. As to their meaning and function they are grammatical morphemes, pans of analytical words. Hence the name grammatical word- morphemes. The class of verbs falls into a number of subclasses distinguished by different semantic lexico-grammatical features[1]. The majority of English verbs are notional., i. e. possessing full lexical meaning. Connected with it is their isolatability, i.e. the ability to make a sentence alone (Come! Read!).Their combinability is variable. Semi-notional verbs have vary general, 'faded' lexical meanings, as in be, have, become, seem, can, may, must, etc., where the meaning of action is almost obliterated. Semi-notional verbs are hardly isolatable. Their combinability is usually bilateral as they serve to connect words in speech. They are comparatively few in number, but of very frequent occurrence, and include two peculiar groups: link-verbs and modal verbs. Keywords: action verbs, types of verbs, lexico-grammatical sense, Construction Grammar approach. On the basis of the subject-process relation all the notional verbs be divided into actional and statal. Actional verbs express the action performed by the subject. To this class belong such verbs as do, act. make, go, read, learn, discover, etc. State verbs denote the caste of their subject. To this subclass belong such verbs as be five, survive, worry, suffer, see, know, etc. They usually occur in the simple form in all tenses. They are not generally used in progressive forms. But if there are used so there any change of meaning. E.g.: Oh, it hurts! — Oh, it's hurting! Semi-notional verbid introducer verbs are distributed among the verbal sets of discriminatory relational semantics (seem, happen, turn out, etc.)., of subject-action relational semantics (try, fail, manage, etc.), of phrasal semantics {begin, stop, continue, etc.). The predicator verbs should be strictly distinguished from their grammatical homonyms in the subclasses of notional verbs. As a matter of fact, there is fundamental grammatical difference between the verbal constituents in such sentences as, say, "They began to fight" and "They began the fight". Where the verb in the first sentence is a semi-notional predicator, the verb 40 Scientific research results in pandemic conditions (COVID-19) in the second sentence is a notional transitive verb normally related to its direct object. The phrasal predicator begin (the first sentence) is grammatically inseparable from the infinitive of the notional verb fight, the two lexemes making one verbal-part unit in the sentence. The transitive verb begin (the second sentence), on the contrary, is self-dependent in the lexico-grammatical sense, it forms the predicate of the sentence by itself and as such can be used in the passive voice, the whole construction of the sentence in this case being presented as the regular passive On the upper level of division two unequal sets are identified: the set of verbs of full nominative value (notional verbs), and the set of verbs of partial Semi- notional arid functional verbs nominative value (semi-notional and functional verbs).The first set is derivationally open, it includes the bunk of the verbal lexicon. The second set is derivationally closed it includes limited subsets of verbs characterized by individual relational properties. The Construction Grammar approach sheds a particularly clear and insightful light on this interaction; let us present here some of its aspects, relevant to the verb semantic class system[2]. The first point concerns the nature of the verb semantics, the nature of the semantics of a construction and the characterization of the interactions between these two elements. The second point concerns the meaning relations between constructions. These elements are of much importance for lexicalization and the construction of propositions[3]. Verbs usually have a central use, characterized by a specific syntactic form, but they may also be used with a large variety of other syntactic forms. In this case, the meaning of the proposition may be quite remote from the initial meaning of the verb. Let us consider a few illustrative cases. In: Edith baked Mary a cake. The initial sense of bake becomes somewhat marginal, in favor of a more global meaning: There is not here a special sense of bake which is used, but bake describes a kind of “manner” of giving Mary a cake. Consider now the case of slide, suggested by B. Levin. ^From the two following sentences: Edith slid Susan/* the door the present. Edith slid the present to Susan/to the door. One may conclude that there are two senses for slide (probably very close). The first sense would constrain the goal to be animate while the second would have no constraint. Now, if we insist, in the dis