I continue to introduce you, dear 9th grade students, to samples of essays on linguistic topics. INfirst issue you have become acquainted with sample essays based on quotations that reveal the concept of “speech culture”. Today we turn to quotes (I emphasize:possible, approximate), concerning the connection between vocabulary and grammar.ALLsamples of essays were borrowed by me from the teacher of secondary school No. 21 (Arkhipovskoye village, Budennovsky district, Stavropol Territory) N.G. Kharlanova or from the site "Traps of the Unified State Exam and State Examination" . I express my deep gratitude Natalia Georgievna And Lyubov Mikhailovna Bendeleeva for selfless work, excellent work, excellent materials!

Possible citations , which may be in this section:

1. Grammar can show how people use language to express all the riches of their inner world... ( From the works of N.F. Bunakova)

2. Studying the grammatical structure of a language without taking into account its lexical side... is impossible. (V.V. Vinogradov)

3. The vocabulary of a language shows what people think, and the grammar shows how they think. ( G. Stepanov)

4. Vocabulary alone without grammar does not constitute a language. Only when it comes to the disposal of grammar does it acquire the greatest meaning. ( L.V. Uspensky)

5. ... vocabulary, the vocabulary of a language in itself does not constitute a language, but is the building material for a language. (A.A. Reformed)

6. Grammar allows us to connect any words with each other to express any thought about any subject. ( L.V. Uspensky)

7. All sciences need grammar. Oratorio is dull, poetry is tongue-tied, philosophy is unfounded, history is unpleasant, jurisprudence without grammar is dubious. ( M.V. Lomonosov)

8. ...for skills in correct speech and correct writing, it is useful to know grammar... ( D.N. Ushakov)

9. The rules of syntax determine the logical relationships between words, and the composition of the lexicon corresponds to the knowledge of the people and indicates their way of life. (N.G. Chernyshevsky)

10. I realized that a person can know a great variety of words, can write them completely correctly and also correctly combine them in a sentence. Grammar teaches us all this. ( M.V. Isakovsky)

11. Language has...words. Language has... grammar. These are the ways that language uses to construct sentences. ( L.V. Uspensky)

Sample No. 1

Write an essay-reasoning, revealing the meaning of the statement of the Russian philologist Lev Vasilyevich Uspensky: “In language there are... words. Language has... grammar. These are the ways that language uses to construct sentences."

FIRST ESSAY

L.V. Ouspensky talks about the relationship between words and grammar, arguing that “these are the ways that language uses to construct sentences.” Let's try to prove the correctness of this judgment.

The word names objects, phenomena of reality, denotes signs and actions. Grammar studies the structure of language, its laws. A sentence is the minimum unit of language; it is a grammatically organized combination of words that has semantic and intonation completeness. We see that there are no words without grammar and no grammar without words; our thought is formed into a sentence with the help of words and according to the laws of grammar.

All this fully applies to the way the excerpt from the novel is constructed.M. Sholokhova. The second sentence of the text expresses a complete complex thought: this is a complex sentence with sequential subordination of subordinate clauses. From it we learn about the time of what is happening, see a skillfully dug trench, and get acquainted with the cook Lisichenko. Among the lexical phenomena, the adjective epithets “tired, passionless, cold blue” attract attention; they help us see the hero’s eyes and imagine him.

Addresses play a special role in the text: in the 20th sentence Lisichenko ironically calls Lopakhin “hero”, in the 23rd - simply by last name. In 31 sentences, Lopakhin addresses the cook with restrained rage, calling him “darling.” And in a sentenceNo. 44, he calls the cook “you are my precious man,” showing that he has awakened respect for a person who is ready not only to cook food, but also to fight to the best of his ability. Thus, the address names the one to whom we are speaking and helps to understand the feelings of the characters and their attitude towards each other.

So, we are convinced of the following: to build a sentence, they use both vocabulary and grammar. Lexical and grammatical phenomena help to understand the author’s intention, to more accurately determine the author’s attitude towards the heroes, and the heroes towards each other.

SECOND ESSAY OPTION

L.V. Uspensky states: “In language there are... words. Language has... grammar. These are the ways that language uses to construct sentences." Let's think about this statement together.

Any thought we have about the world around us is embodied in a word; words are built into sentences according to the laws of grammar. Let's consider how this is realized in an excerpt from M. A. Sholokhov’s novel “They Fought for the Motherland.”

The first sentence of the text is complex with sequential subordination of subordinate clauses, it expresses a complete complex thought, from it we learn about Lopakhin’s state of mind and that there is a retreat. And the vocabulary of the sentence, especially the epithets “heavy and bitter” on the heart, “fierce battles”, troops “exhausted... by shelling and bombing”, enhances the emotional perception of what is read.

In the syntax of the passage, attention is drawn to the use of dialogue(proposals from No. 5 to No. 9, from No. 10 to 28 and others). The dialogue enlivens the narrative and helps to see how Lopakhin’s attitude towards the cook changes as he learns why the cook is not in the field kitchen, where he should be, but on the front line. Bitterness gives way to respect, the ironic, embittered, ironic address “darling” changes to “you are my precious person.”

Thus, we are convinced of the correctness of L.V.’s words. Uspensky that words and grammar are “the ways that language uses to construct sentences.” The competent use of vocabulary and grammar of the language helps to present what the author wanted to convey to the reader and to understand his creative intent.

THIRD ESSAY OPTION

L.V. Uspensky, in my opinion, speaks of the unity of content and form of language. Words name an object, its attribute or action, and grammar allows you to create a coherent statement, a text.

So sentence 16 consists of ten separate words naming or indicating the subject (“I”, “newcomer”) and his actions. Every fifth word in the sentence refers to high vocabulary (“dared”, “invade”), allowing us to imagine the stranger as an intelligent person with correct literary speech. If we write all these words separated by commas and in initial form, it will turn out to be nonsense. But if you use all the verbs in the required form, and put the pronoun “you” in the dative case, the words will receive a single meaning, turning into a sentence.

They play a role in turning a set of words into a syntactic structure and punctuation marks. So the three dashes present in this sentence indicate the presence of a replica in a dialogue that represents a complete thought.

Thus, we can conclude that the Russian philologist L.V. was right. Uspensky, who argued that language uses vocabulary and grammar to construct a sentence.

SAMPLE No. 2

Write an essay-reasoning, revealing the meaning of the statement of the Russian philologist L.V. Uspensky: “Vocabulary alone without grammar does not constitute a language. Only when it comes to the disposal of grammar does it acquire the greatest meaning.”

L.V. Uspensky, in my opinion, speaks of the unity of the content and form of language. Words name an object, its attribute, the action of an object. But only! Only with the help of grammar can you create a coherent statement from a set of words. Let us turn to the text by Yu. Bondarev.

So sentence 25 consists of eight separate words naming an object, its action and a sign of this action. The author interestingly uses the antonyms “many and little” in this syntactic construction, which give artistic speech a special poignancy and emotionality. They give it on the condition that we transfer the specified words “to the disposal of grammar.” For example, let’s put the word “man” in the dative case, and the word “happiness” in the genitive case, and create a phrase with the subordinating connection control: “needed for happiness” (sentence 25). To express emotions, the author put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence. And then the proposal received “the greatest significance.”

Thus, I can conclude: Russian philologist L.V. was right. Uspensky, who argued that “vocabulary alone without grammar does not constitute a language. Only when it comes to the disposal of grammar does it acquire the greatest meaning.”

SAMPLE No. 3

Write an essay-reasoning, revealing the meaning of the statement of the Russian philologist L.V. Uspensky: “Grammar allows us to connect any words with each other in order to express any thought about any subject.”

The meaning of L.V.’s statement I understand Uspensky this way: grammar allows words collected in a sentence to acquire a single meaning in order to express any thought. I will give examples based on sentence 2 of V. Astafiev’s text.

It consists of thirteen separate words. If we write all these words separated by commas and in initial form, it will turn out to be nonsense. But once they are used in the right form, they acquire a single meaning and become a sentence telling about the white-breasted marten.

They play a role in turning a set of words into a syntactic structure and punctuation marks. The two commas in this sentence highlight the introductory word “perhaps,” with which the speaker expresses his attitude to what he is talking about. In this sentence, the introductory word helps the narrator express his uncertainty, his assumption about what he is saying.

Thus, the Russian philologist L.V. was right. Uspensky, who claims that “grammar allows us to connect any words with each other in order to express any thought about any subject.”

What is grammar? This is a branch of the science of language that studies word formation, morphology and syntax. If you do not create new words using various morphemes, do not inflect nouns and adjectives, do not conjugate verbs, and do not use prepositions to connect words, you will end up with a meaningless set of words. And only with the help of grammar does this “verbal set” in our speech acquire semantic meaning. I will give examples from the text by V.P. Astafiev.

So in sentences 1 and 2 I encounter the grammatical form of the same word: “slope” and “slope”. In the word “kosogor” the zero ending indicates that we have a noun used in the nominative or accusative case, and in the word “kosogor” belonging to the genitive case is expressed using the ending -a. It is the ending in these words that is a linguistic means that serves to express grammatical meaning and contributes to the connection of words in phrases and sentences.

Punctuation marks also play a role in transforming a set of words into a syntactic structure expressing any thought. In sentence 4 the author uses several commas. So the first of them indicates the presence of homogeneous predicates: “warmed”, “licked”. They help the author to more clearly express the idea of ​​​​what a caring mother Belogrudka was.

Thus, I can conclude that the Russian philologist L.V. was right. Uspensky, who stated: “... grammar allows us to connect any words with each other in order to express any thought about any subject.”

L.V. Uspensky argued: “Grammar allows us to connect any words with each other in order to express any thought about any subject.” I completely agree with this, because without knowing the rules of grammar, we will not be able to express thoughts and connect words.

The text of the Russian writer V.P. will help us prove this. Astafieva. So in sentence 5, the author replaces the stylistically neutral synonym “enough” with the colloquial word “enough,” emphasizing the idea that Belogrudka was a very caring mother and “provided plenty of food” for her children.

In sentence 2, the writer uses the introductory word “perhaps,” which expresses doubt that the white-breasted marten is a secretive, fearful animal. It is no coincidence that at the end of the story the marten, avenging its cubs, is no longer afraid to appear near people’s houses even during the day (sentence 35).

Therefore, L.V. was right. Uspensky, who argued that we convey our thoughts in words that are connected using grammar.

Yesterday the group discussed a question from one of the participants:

“Hello, colleagues. I am a teacher not of RFL, but of one of the European languages. But I decided to ask the question in this group, since the company here is friendly, and I would like to consult with you.
I structure my teaching in this way: introduction to the topic - lexical and grammatical, elaboration, exit to conversation. The entire cycle may take 2-3 lessons. Of course, I like to speak the language in classblue, but I’m trying to work on a new topic first. Here comes a student who says, I’m not interested in doing all these exercises, let’s start talking right away. In principle, the request is not new, it happens. But here the teacher is just RKI. I tried, the person, in general, already speaking came to me, so it’s possible. (here I must say that I have this principle of working with objections: I don’t resist, I do as they ask. Then either it turns out to be harmful and the student sees it and we return to the way of working that I propose, or... well “or” hasn’t happened yet. Hmm...) But between us, I think so-so that this will be marking time.... What do you say? I want to move forward, but the person can’t do his homework, and I’m confused... The teacher... says, I do this in my lessons and everything works out great. How??? Here's my question. How can you have an excellent result without working on grammar... Who has the same thing? Admit it! Does this work?"

In this regard, I remembered my conversation with one novice RFL teacher, who wrote to me literally the following:

“It is impossible to master a foreign language as a means of communication without knowledge of grammar” (“Practical methods of teaching RFL” p. 168). I watched how in a British schoolHundreds of Russian-, Korean-, Japanese-, etc.-speaking children of different ages mastered English to the level of their native language, without knowing what grammar is. I speak German fluently, I read newspapers, but I am completely unfamiliar with grammar. And how did I even manage to master the Russian language, not knowing about the inflectional-branched-prepositional-case-in-ideo-temporal-complex-syntactic-specific physical word-formation system, etc.?
"Knowledge of the rules shortens the path to practical mastery of a foreign language"
Not only does reality confirm the opposite - a language is learned better without knowledge of grammar rules, which simply overload the brain with unnecessary information, and therefore foreigners flee language courses because they cannot learn anything and are bored, but also since the 70s Numerous scientific studies confirm that grammar is learned instinctively and not through rules. This knowledge is used in international (British) schools, where children of non-native speakers are purposefully not taught grammar, and even in high school they are given it to a minimum so that they quickly learn English.
Sorry, but according to this abnormal system, which has long been morally outdated, in which the language is considered as something dead, not living, and the student as a kind of computer brain, I would rather forget my native language than teach anyone.
It seems to me that it is necessary to create a system of teaching the Russian language for living, breathing people, taking into account, say, the British experience, which is successfully applied throughout the world.

Even a non-native language is learned intuitively - it’s just convenient for teachers to turn a blind eye to this so as not to start rewriting methods all over again. I know this from myself - I mastered grammar at school at 3. After 2 years of working with a native speaker, by the way, a philologist, with a minimal emphasis on grammar, I began to publish in English. That is, already in adulthood he mastered the language intuitively. I am far from the only case: I have observed hundreds of adults learning a language without grammar, and hundreds of people learning grammar and not mastering the language.

Your entire methodology is based on the false assumption that a non-native language cannot be learned intuitively by adults. This is complete nonsense and millions of people will tell you the same thing, and millions more will say that grammar only made it more difficult for them to learn the language, and often it completely killed their desire to learn it. The method that I studied (and know from myself) suggests that you first learn the language like a child, intuitively. And only after mastering it, they give you grammar, but not too much. Language is not mathematics. The approach should a priori be different.
I travel a lot and I will tell you: service workers learn excellent Russian without any techniques, simply through communication with Russians. And not knowing what declinations and conjugations are.
Let's say you and I learned cases before school. Any foreigner will learn cases faster without your method, using live speech. We had a guide in Crete, he studied in Russia, he told us how he remembers studying cases, as if in a bad dream. He married a Russian and mastered them through conversation.”

So what now? Throwing grammar off the ship of modernity?

What I would like to point out:

1. The learning of a native language by children and the learning of a foreign language by adults are different. In childhood, one can master several languages ​​as mother tongues precisely because the language is learned without rules, at the level of intuition.

2. Knowledge of grammar cannot interfere with the practical acquisition of the language. Some students are analysts: they will ask what, how, and why, others will strive more to remember blocks of information in order to quickly use these phrases at work and in everyday life. Everything is determined by the goals, duration of training, and the number of students. And believe in my experience and the experience of other teachers, developers of the methodology, students will only be grateful to you if you can clearly and sensibly explain the necessary rules. In a practical course of the Russian language, grammar is not an end in itself, but a way to teach students live communication. With errors, without grammar, they can learn individual phrases without us. They come to study with a teacher to receive a competent explanation.
However, some novice RFL teachers expect a miracle: that their adult student will learn everything intuitively and speak freely, only while having fun and without making any effort to understand linguistic phenomena. But in this way, by understanding and delving into the structures, we develop a linguistic sense in a foreign language and begin to perceive and reproduce a lot at the level of intuition. Isn’t that why learning each subsequent language is easier than the previous one? Everyone for whom Russian is a native language unmistakably uses the genitive case forms without thinking about it. And the foreign student needs to be told in what cases we use the genitive case and what meanings it conveys, and with the help of what forms it is formed, we consolidate this and then he can use the acquired knowledge in practice. Nobody says that you need to study only grammar or study it for most of the lesson. Start the lesson with the phrase “Let’s open the textbook on such and such a page” or “In the last lesson we talked about verbs of motion, so here we go...”. unacceptable. This approach leads solely to a loss of motivation on both the student’s and the teacher’s part. Grammatical rules are explained through their communicative functions.

3. The courses can offer role-playing games, communication between the student and the teacher must be natural, even friendly, an atmosphere of trust and mutual interest must reign in the lesson, it is necessary to strive for the least use of intermediary language, use visual aids, audio, video, work in pairs, triplets, etc. and so on..
And a grammatical commentary only helps, facilitates and speeds up the process of language acquisition. For example, let's say my foreign student was writing a story about how he spent the summer and wrote: “*I was in Istanbul.” If I explain to him that when we talk about the location, where we are, where we have been, we need to add - E (prepositional case), and we use the accusative case after the verbs go, go, eat, etc. (i.e. verbs of motion) to indicate the direction (where?) - will this allow him to easily apply his knowledge in the future and prevent such a mistake from happening next time?

No one disputes the fact that in a practical language course, grammar should be focused on communication. This is the functional direction in grammar.

Write your comments. What do you think about the place of grammar in language learning?

In the new issue of the blog, the site team tried on the role of myth busters. We have collected 3 beliefs that address the age-old problem of English learners - grammar.

Myth 1. You need to learn grammar from the first lessons

Native speakers do not learn grammar from childhood. They come to it later - when they are already talking and intuitively understand the structures. The same should happen with children who learn English as a foreign language. Grammar is integrated comprehensively at the Intermediate level, when the child already has an idea of ​​a living language, the courage to communicate, and to use stable expressions.

At the initial level, grammar is acquired intuitively, with the help of ready-made structures. Instead of cramming a sign with a rule, the child repeats the desired phrase several times during the lesson. So the baby will learn it by copying the finished model - the same happens with grammatical structures in his native language.

It’s unlikely that you think about the rules when you speak Russian. The same thing with native speakers. They just communicate and it's natural. The most important thing in the learning process is vocabulary, understanding of basic conversational phrases and patterns.

Later, grammar will “formulate” the language and reinforce practical skills with theory. It is important to maintain a balance here. For example, the structure with a double negative “I ain’t going nowhere” is the norm for communicating with friends, but will cost the child points during the exam.

Main thought: You shouldn’t immediately scare your child with a big book with rules. Focus on learning words, phrases, and try to make the lessons interesting.

Myth 2. Grammar should be taught separately

This myth is destroyed by the communicative technique - one of the most effective according to teachers. Communicative approach implies that the student must simultaneously improve speaking, writing, vocabulary, grammar, listening and reading skills.

On the site, teachers use their native language in extreme cases: if something is completely unclear. Thus, 90% of the lesson takes place in English, and the child stops mentally translating phrases, concentrating on more important things. At the same time, he learns to construct sentences correctly and understand speech by ear.

Main thought: To master grammar, just exercises are not enough. Read, communicate, write, listen to live speech and the rules will gradually be remembered by themselves.

Myth 3. Grammar will help you speak fluently.

Grammar reinforces a student's confidence in knowledge, but is unlikely to help him speak. Only with constant communication does the psychological barrier and fear of making a mistake disappear. Therefore, first of all, you need to overcome shyness. Imagine your child is learning a grammar rule and suddenly notices that he has heard that structure many times. Most likely, he will think: “So that’s why they always say that!” Just in this case, learning will be natural, holistic and effective.

P.S. Many parents ask when we will start teaching grammar to our children. We simply explain the rules in a playful way - with the help of cartoons or fairy tales. As a result, children “feel” the language in much the same way as we felt Russian grammar in childhood, before we even started learning it. If a child is already ready to master whole rules, we definitely include this module in the program, and if necessary, we prepare children for IELTS and TOEFL tests, admission to British schools and universities. We are confident that studying grammar is effective when it is timely, not boring for the child and complements the overall picture of his knowledge.

Is it necessary to learn English grammar or is it more important to just speak it fluently? Today, there are two opposing camps: some believe that you need to speak competently, and for this you first need to study grammar, others insist that mastering such subtleties is outdated and unnecessary, the main thing is to speak boldly in English. Which one is right? How to find the “golden mean” when learning spoken English? We will give you our arguments and support them with a useful video from a native English teacher.

To be or not to be - that is the question. Should I learn English grammar? Increasingly, people who want to learn English turn to teachers with requests in the style: “I don’t need grammar, I want to speak English, and not waste time learning boring rules. I can easily get by with three simple times. They will understand me, right? Will you undertake to teach me conversational English?” The reluctance to waste time on boring rules is quite understandable and acceptable, but is it possible to do without knowledge of grammar when talking with foreigners? We propose to consider two diametrically opposed opinions, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each principle of learning English and come to the correct opinion.

Principle No. 1: You need to learn English grammar and only then start speaking it

This principle is classic; it was the one that formed the basis for learning English in schools: first, children learned the rules and only then (if they were lucky) practiced using them in speech. Moreover, they did very, very little speaking practice. Perhaps this is why we now have a generation of silent people: a person can understand what is being said to him in English, but he himself does not dare to say anything, since no one simply taught him to SPEAK.

However, this method of teaching has its advantages: as a rule, “silent” ones competently and deftly operate with tenses and constructions in written speech. When writing a sentence, they have time to remember the corresponding rule, write the text and check for possible errors. When speaking, this lengthy procedure significantly delays speech, making it uncertain, although competent.

Why is English grammar needed? There is an important advantage in studying it: you learn to “feel” the English language, you understand what role a particular word plays in a sentence, even if it is unfamiliar to you. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya has an entertaining collection “Linguistic Fairy Tales”. All words in it, except prepositions, are made up. However, thanks to our understanding of grammatical rules and the developed “feeling” of language, we intuitively understand what is being said. You can read these fairy tales on the RuNet and see for yourself.

Principle #2: Why learn English grammar? The main thing is to speak it

The principle is modern and very fashionable. Its viral spread is not the fault of polyglots, as is commonly believed, but of those who misinterpret their words. Polyglots are talented people (and they work hard on themselves!), they often say: “I didn’t learn grammar, I just memorized whole phrases, and now I use them competently.” Great, right? After a couple of such statements, almost every site considered it necessary to write a “scandalous” article revealing the “main secret” of learning any foreign language. We will reveal this secret a little later. First, let's look at the disadvantages of this principle.

The disadvantage of studying grammar is that failure to understand grammatical structures entails a failure to understand the interlocutor as a whole. And your own speech becomes quite poor, because out of many aspects of the tenses of the English language (the groups Simple, Perfect, Continuous, Perfect Continuous, as well as the passive voice), you use only three tenses of the Simple group. Are you “cutting down” or impoverishing your English too much?

Is it necessary to learn English grammar or is it more important to speak? Looking for a middle ground

We do not support any of the above opinions for two reasons:

1. The “Grammar first, speaking second” technique is hopelessly outdated. Modern language courses and online English schools work using communicative methods. That is, you start speaking from the first lesson. Grammar in this case is studied in the context of the topic under consideration. The teacher does not focus on clear rules, but devotes more time to practicing grammar during speaking practice. This is the optimal teaching method accepted all over the world.
2. The “Speaking is important, grammar is not important” technique is also not useful for English language learners, and to put it bluntly, it is a failure. We have picked up the idea of ​​polyglots that there is no need to learn grammar, and now we ask our teachers to simplify speech to the level of a child. However, we can say absolutely unequivocally: absolutely ALL polyglots studied grammar, only their approaches were different. We suggest you consider them:

• Classical. If a polyglot wanted not only to learn how to exchange simple phrases with foreigners, but also applied for the position of translator, he did not neglect the usual grammatical aids. A striking example is the Hungarian polyglot Kato Lomb. This lady mastered 16 languages ​​and did not hesitate to study grammar exercises. Do you want to learn languages ​​like her? Then check out our article "".
• Modern. Time does not stand still, and now polyglots have somewhat changed their approach. You can read a lot of useful information about such people in the article “”. Now we recommend that you watch an interesting video. Its author reveals a small secret to learning a language, which is usually used by polyglots. You won’t find any special “secrets” in the recording, but the speaker very clearly and understandably explains how not to learn grammar and at the same time... study it.

As you can see, the “secret” comes down to one of the principles of the communication technique. When learning English, you don’t need to focus on the rule itself, on its clear formulation. Listen more, try to perceive the forms of constructing sentences by ear. The author of the video believes that grammar should be taught the same way children learn to speak - they perceive everything by ear. This technique is suitable for the native language, when the child is constantly in the environment of the language being studied. But how effective this approach to learning grammar is for a second foreign language remains a mystery. Therefore, according to the communicative method, students not only listen to the correct grammar, but also use it themselves, coming up with their own examples using the words they have learned.

Do not be surprised when those who ignore the rules of grammar also ignore the law. After all, the law is just so much grammar.

Don't be surprised when someone who ignored the rules of grammar also ignores the law. After all, law is, to some extent, also grammar.

Now let’s derive a few principles for learning English grammar “in a modern way”:

1. Learn English grammar in practice

Memorized formulations of rules without practical application will only slow down your speech. It is much more useful to read the wording once and make 10-15-20 sentences using this rule - this is a practical, not a theoretical application of grammar.

2. Listen to how native speakers speak and learn from them

3. Read books

When reading, you use your visual memory: you see how a sentence is constructed, what tense is used in this or that case, and gradually remember when and what tense or grammatical construction to use.

4. Be sure to choose materials that interest you

A captivating book, video or podcast will completely capture your attention, and you will consciously listen to the recording or read the text. When reading or listening automatically “because it’s necessary,” attention quickly dissipates, so there can be no talk of any study of grammar.

5. Take advantage of every opportunity to speak English and don't simplify your speech.

Try to pick up 1000 useful English phrases and use them in a conversation with an English-speaking friend, fellow students in an English study group, teacher, etc.

6. Do written grammar exercises

In addition to speaking, you also need to learn how to write correctly, and this skill develops only by doing grammar exercises. Also, remember that some people don't speak English because they are afraid of making a mistake. And the written exercise will become your “rehearsal”, so speaking will no longer be so scary.

Competent written speech is a must-have for a modern person. As a result, we would like to lead you to the opinion that the question “Is it necessary to learn English grammar?” the answer can only be yes. And it must be taught correctly: using modern methods, using various exciting and entertaining materials. The words “grammar” and “literate” are related, so you can become a literate person only by knowing grammar. And interesting articles will help you master it: “”, “”.

If you feel confident in all tenses and constructions, but have difficulties with speaking, we will be happy to help you “get talking” and learn how to use all your knowledge in practice. Try signing up for , after a few lessons you will see that speaking English is easy.

Where do our words lean?

You know very well what declination is. As schoolchildren like to say, “This is when...”. When that? Firstly, when the word has a stem and an ending. In other words, when there is such a part that denotes the object itself: table-, rider-. And there is another, which has nothing to do with the meaning of the word: it serves only to indicate how we use this word in a sentence.

Is not it? After all, we are accustomed to the fact that the nominative case denotes the one who acts or is spoken of in a sentence. What does it cost? Table. Who's jumping? Rider. Who caught the mouse? Cat.

Well, what if Mouse caught by cat? Who is acting here? Mouse? Certainly, cat. Who are they talking about? Think about this sentence. The one who said it clearly did not want to say about the mouse: we already know that it was caught, but before it was not clear by whom. And now it’s clear who: a cat. And not a fox terrier, not a hedgehog, not a mousetrap, finally. This means that we are not talking about a mouse here, but about a cat.

So the ending of the case in our Russian language rather indicates what role the word plays in the sentence.

…But that is not all. Declension, secondly, “this is when” we have several different cases: nominative, genitive, dative... That is, when the ending can be changed - and you get different cases. Table-a, table-a, table-oh. And if from many - table-s, table-am, table-ami. The Russian declension table resembles a classroom where tables are placed in two rows:

We say: the word is bowed. Listen to this term. What else is leaning, leaning? (By the way, the Latin word declinatio - our ancestors translated it with the word “declination” - can be translated differently: deviation, inclination, inclination.)

The word in the nominative case is not inclined anywhere. It stands straight, like a pillar driven into the ground. It is not for nothing that the nominative case in the Latin case was called: casus rectus - direct case. (There is a contradiction here. Casus “case” comes from the verb cadere - “to fall”. This means that this is a case that does not fall, but stands upright!)

Now let's tilt our pillar. He is clearly losing his stability. And if you see someone digging a pillar not straight, not vertically, but at an angle, it’s easy to guess: another pillar will definitely be dug in, so you get a whole structure. It will probably be a swing.

A word in the “direct”, nominative case can exist without other words. Table. Cat. Rider. Picture, and under it the signature: Cat. A story called "Cat".

However, you cannot write “Cat” under the picture. Or "Cat". True, on the envelope we write: Masha Petrova. But we will return to such cases later.

cat or cat can only occur together with other words. This word will be stable only when we “dig” another inclined pillar next to it and build a swing or something else.

Misha got himself a cat.

Misha poured milk for the cat.

The cat likes milk.

Misha treated the cat with milk.

You can compare such proposals with scaffolding. Or with a house of cards. Take a beam out of the scaffolding or a card out of a house of cards - the entire structure will crumble. “Misha got himself...” This doesn’t happen. “Misha poured it for the cat...” That doesn’t happen either. The building fell apart.

Let us also note that it is easy to “complete” an unfinished construction: the grammatical forms of words show what is missing in it. Misha got himself... We don't know who exactly. A puppy? A cat? But it is clear that the construction lacks a noun in the accusative case.

What about the inscription on the envelope?

This is not the only case. Remember the movie “Beware of the Car!”? The hero of this film, played by the artist Papanov, shouts: “Freedom for Yuri Detochkin!” But pay attention: the dative and accusative cases are firmly connected to a specific situation here. Nowhere except in writing will you use the “independent” dative case. And only if you demand something, and very urgently, will you need an “independent” accusative: Vatu!(surgeon during operation). However, the surgeon can also use the genitive if he does not need all the cotton, but only part: Cotton wool!

So the use of “independent” cases is the exception, not the rule.

If you read my book carefully, you probably noticed: the case is not always so necessary, and by “taking out” the declined word, we will not always destroy the sentence . I returned home through the forest. Let's remove the forest . I am back. And so you can say.

In certain cases you can say this: I returned home through the forest. And in many other cases the adverb can be used with approximately the same meaning: I returned home late in the evening. - I returned home in the evening. - I returned home late.

By the way, In the evening- is this a noun or an adverb? I returned home late in the evening- here is a noun, it even has an adjective. A I returned home in the evening? I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that this is an adverb. In general, when a noun, with or without a preposition, denotes a place, time, or method of action, it is disguised as an adverb. And they are often indistinguishable from each other.

So, in a Russian sentence there can be optional words. But the main thing is that it contains necessary words, so grammatically connected with each other that not a single one of them can be taken out, lest the entire structure crumble.

This property allows you to change and confuse the order of words in a Russian sentence in any way you like. Having grabbed hold of any “tip”, we will immediately unravel everything. Here's an example:

Petya threw a fish to the cat.

Let's try changing the order of words. (At the same time, however, there will be slight deviations in the meaning: now Petya, now the cat, now the fish will “climb out” in a place that is not the most important, in the center of our attention. But now this is not important for us.)

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw a fish to the cat (and began to cry).

Petya threw the fish to the cat (and stomped along the path).

Petya threw the fish to the cat (and where did he go? Answer!).

Petya threw a fish to the cat (and she said “Thank you!”).

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Here (and in some other examples) I put a possible continuation in brackets: do you feel that with this word order you cannot do without a continuation?! Go ahead:

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Petya threw fish to the cat (and meat to the dog).

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat.

Petya threw the fish to the cat...

Petya threw a fish to the cat...

Petya threw a fish to the cat...

It's easy to count: there are 24 sentences - all with the same meaning. And any of them is easy to understand, because we have “keys” - the endings of the cases. In any of the 24 examples, you can immediately see who threw, what they threw, and to whom they threw.

The famous Soviet linguist Academician Lev Vladimirovich Shcherba cited in his lectures a meaningless (seemingly!) phrase he invented. Here she is:

The glok kuzdra shteko budlanula bokr and curly haired bokrenok.

Who is this curly hair, why is it gloggy, what did it do to the unfortunate bok and his bok? Neither you nor I know this, and Academician Shcherba himself hardly knew. But “deciphering” the structure of this sentence is as easy as understanding the structure of a phrase Petya threw a fish to the cat. And that's thanks to the endings.

Let's return to Petya and his cat. Peter- the subject, that's clear to you. Quit- predicate. Fish- direct object (it is expressed in the accusative case without a preposition). To the cat- indirect addition. All this - different parts of the sentence.

You also know: Petya, fish, cat- these are all nouns. A quit- verb. Both - parts of speech.

We take a noun and make it the subject or object. We take a verb and make it a predicate.

But not every subject is necessarily a noun. (Example from the textbook: Smoking is harmful.) And not every predicate is necessarily a verb. (This can be seen from the same example.)

When we inflect a noun, we can forget what role it plays in the sentence. Table, table, table, table, table, in the table... Another thing is that we can “take out” some form from this series and use it in a sentence - one way or another.

The noun is declined as a part of speech, and not the subject or the object. And the verb is conjugated, not the predicate.

You may ask: why am I saying such well-known things that are easy to read in a school textbook?! You'll see now.

Is it possible to inflect the verb?

In the north of the European part of our country, in the tundra, the Nenets live and speak the Nenets language.

In the Nenets language, as in Russian, there are verbs, for example: harvas- "want". And there are nouns, for example: Hasawa- "man".

Nouns are declined, verbs are conjugated - everything is as it should be. But…

Compare: hardva-dm“I want” (more precisely: “I want”),

hardva-n"do you want",

hardva-damz"I wanted"

hardva-nas"you wanted."

And next to it: hasawa-dm"I am a man",

Hasawa-n"you are a man",

hasawa-damzy"I was a man"

hasava-nasya"you were a man."

In other words, the noun in the Nenets language is also conjugated!

Now you can answer for yourself: if man Ninadm means “I am Nina”, how to say are you Nina("You" - bastard)?

That's right: Ninan the bastard! What if “you were Nina” (and became Nina Petrovna)? Naturally: bastard Ninanas!

Let's continue the exercise. Nude- means “small”. How to say "I'm small"? Certainly: man nude.

Tics- means “this”. How to say “it was you”? Tiki kicking(actually it was supposed to be a show off, but n after R disappears).

And so on. In essence, nothing prevents you from conjugating an adverb in the same way. And there is the Nganasan language (related to Nenets), where you can say in the same way: “I’m going somewhere”, “you’re going somewhere”... In another language - Ket, in the middle reaches of the Yenisei, in order to ask “where am I?”, “where are you? “, you need to conjugate this “where”: “Where am I acting?”, “Where are you acting?”

Is it possible, on the contrary, to inflect verbs? Why can’t it... It’s possible! Want examples? In the same Ket language the following expressions are completely normal:

sesoltebes"sitting": sesolte"he was sitting" + demon“ending of the longitudinal case” (there is one in the Ket language!);

tureovidege"when it was": round trip"it was" + ge“end of the prepositional case”;

congonendyl"since you left": kongonen"you're gone" + dil"end of the original case."

It is very difficult to imagine all this, but take my word for it (as I believed the late professor Andrei Petrovich Dulzon, who studied the Ket language for twenty years) - it is so! Any case ending can be added to a verb in the Ket language.

I didn’t bring up all this “confusion” for your amusement. It was very important for me that you understand one very simple thing, and I even asked you to print it in large font:

IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PARTS OF SPEECH (noun, verb) are inflected and conjugated. But IN OTHER LANGUAGES IT HAPPENS that the members of a sentence (object, predicate) are inflected and conjugated. Then it doesn’t matter which part of speech plays the role of, say, the predicate: whether it is a noun, or a pronoun, or an adjective, or a numeral, it will still be conjugated.

So, in Russian language the proposal looks like this:

And in Nenets So:

But still, the Nenets sentence, just like the Russian one, “rests” on the forms of the words being modified. And if only part of the sentence is known, then it is easy to “complete” it: the forms of the words suggest what is missing (they suggest, of course, to someone who knows the rules of Nenets grammar - morphology and syntax).

Can this be done in any language?

Mother sees daughter

Mother sees daughter... Daughter sees mother... Who actually sees whom? In the first case, probably the one who sees is the mother. In the second - the one who is seen.

Why do you and I think this way? It's clear why: in the first sentence mother at the first place. In the second it’s the other way around.

In Russian, a phrase in which the subject can be distinguished from the predicate only by its place in the sentence is still an exceptional case. But in the Vietnamese language, on the contrary, each time you have to look only at the word order.

Con be (daughter) - thay (sees) - nguoi me (mother).

Nguoi me - thay - con be (mother sees daughter).

Same thing? But let’s take not a mother, but a father, and not a daughter, but a son:

The son sees his father. The father sees his son.

No ambiguity! And in Vietnamese?

Dua con - thay - nguoi cha.

Nguoi cha - thay - dua con.

You already guessed that in Vietnamese nouns are not inflected at all. The nominative and accusative cases cannot be distinguished: and there is nothing to distinguish - there are no cases! Both in the role of the subject and in the role of the direct object there will be the same word, unchanged, without endings - only one base.

Verbs in Vietnamese also do not change. In essence, there is no conjugation at all, as well as no declination. So instead sees it would be necessary to put here view or see.

What is the Vietnamese proposal based on?!

…To answer this question, I will tell you about my Vietnamese friend Nguyen Duc Uy. He is a psychologist by profession and has studied the difficulties that the Vietnamese face when they begin to learn Russian.

Nguyen did the experiments.

He came to Vietnamese students who had just begun to study Russian, and gave them a Russian sentence: The father sees his son.(To be honest, he took other proposals, but for simplicity I replaced them with those already known to us.)

Everyone understood him perfectly.

Then he rearranged the words in it: Father sees his son.

Everyone decided that it was the son who saw his father! This means that it is clear: when a Vietnamese learns Russian, he does not look at endings (or rather, he must be specially taught to look at endings!). Word order is more important to him.

Nguyen took a long Russian sentence. I wrote it on a long piece of paper, and then tore this piece of paper in half, like this (I again take as an example the sentence that we discussed):

Then he gave the Russian students the first half of the piece of paper and told them: “Write what might be on the torn half.”

Of course, everyone wrote different words: “stroked his back”, “poured milk”, “gave me something to drink”, “brought a fish”, “squeezed his paw”. But no one doubted for a second that there should be a predicate on the torn half. And, probably, a direct addition.

This is what Nguyen needed. Then he asked a more difficult task: he showed the second half of the piece of paper and demanded to write what could be on the first.

The Russian students were not embarrassed and immediately began to compose a variety of initial parts of the sentence. The fact is that for every Russian it is clear that there must be a subject at the beginning of a sentence. This is the typical structure of a Russian sentence, clear to everyone who knows Russian.

Then Nguyen wrote the same (or similar) Vietnamese sentence on the same piece of paper. I tore the paper and gave the first half to the Vietnamese students.

They all easily and quickly restored what could have been on the torn half.

And then Nguyen did the most important thing in the experiment. He gave the Vietnamese only the second half leaf and began to watch how his comrades would react.

If you have not only read, but also thought about what you read, then you probably already guessed what happened. The Vietnamese were unable to reconstruct its “head” from the “tail” of the sentence.

Why? Vietnamese words do not have grammatical endings, and you cannot immediately distinguish a verb from a noun. Thay- this is both “see” and “look”. Therefore, the Vietnamese reasons something like this: “This is the first word. So this is the subject. This is the second one. So, predicate. This is the third. So it’s a direct addition.” And so on.

Clearly, in order to reason like this, you need to know which word is first, which is second... And if a Vietnamese only has the second half of the piece of paper in his hands, he has no point of reference! How does he know: the word with which the “tail” of the sentence begins is the third? fourth? fifth? eleventh?

This is what the Vietnamese proposal rests on - on ok words That is why the Vietnamese students did not look at the Russian endings and mistakenly decided that Father sees his son- this is the same as Son sees father.

We need predication, uncle!

In one story, the hero returns from the army to his hometown. It takes place in August, but he meets a schoolboy your age on the street, rushing to school. It turns out that the boy has a re-examination. For what subject? In Russian! Couldn't say what the proposal was. The hero begins to shame the boy: it’s so simple! “...Expresses a complete thought” and so on.

We need predication, uncle!

Predicativity is really needed... But what exactly is it?

The simplest answer: what makes a sentence out of a bunch of words a sentence.

It can be a predicate verb. Predicativity is built into it from the very beginning - one might say, already in the dictionary.

This may be a certain word order. In Mongolian Har Mor means "black horse". There is no offer yet. Let's rearrange the words: pestilence. From just one rearrangement predicativeness was born - we received, albeit the simplest, sentence: “ Black horse».

But in the Russian language, even if there is no verb, word order alone is not enough. We need a special intonation, which we convey in writing with a dash: Horse - black. In the Mongolian language, intonation is less important - but a stop and pause are required. Baldan bagsh- “teacher Baldan.” If we want to turn this phrase into a sentence, we need to pause: Baldan... bagsh. Then it will turn out: Baldan - teacher.

Until now, we have tried to understand how to get a sentence from individual words using a magic wand - predicativity.

Actually, you don't need separate words for this. Strange as it may seem. It’s just that in the Russian language they are used to the fact that in order to make a sentence, you need to put words together.

But you can add roots, suffixes, endings! How?

Let's take the Papuan language Gadsup. (By the way, you’ve probably already noticed that I very often give examples from the languages ​​of New Guinea; the fact is that I specifically studied them.)

So, the language is gadsup. Here are the suggestions it contains. While understanding them, we will make a stop after each step:

pood-inda-u-i-ni.

Pood- this is "pig". We add inda is a suffix showing that something belongs to a pig, like Russian -in: mom - mom's. There is no offer yet.

We add at is a plural ending. Now we know that the pig owns several items. But no hint that this is a complete sentence!

We add And. This ending distinguishes nouns or personal pronouns. It turns out something like “They, belonging to the pig” (or more precisely: “The pig - belonging to - they ...").

We add neither. This ending makes the whole set a proposal! It is not needed for anything else - it is predicative. If we add it, the translation will be: “They, belonging to the pig, exist.” Or more simply: “They belong to a pig.”

Do you want more? Here's a more complicated case:

Yunaam-pa-tepi-ni.

Yunaam- “food”. Pa- the suffix denoting place will be “where the food is.”

Those- a suffix that is translated by the Russian preposition from. This means, “from where the food is...”.

Pi means the question (as in Russian): “Is that where the food is from...?”

Neither... We already know this ending. It just makes a sentence a sentence: “Isn’t this from where the food is?” (simpler: “Isn’t this from the garden?”).

In Russia we also have languages ​​where the entire sentence essentially consists of one word. But, unlike the Gadsup language, among those roots that are “inserted” into this word-sentence, there is usually a verb root. For example, in the Chukchi language: myn-nyki-ure-kaple-uvichven-myk. This means: “let’s play the ball for a long night.” That is: “Let’s play ball for a long time at night.” Still, there is an obvious verbal root here: uvichven- "play".

Let's stop here and think together.

Earlier, as you remember, we came to an unexpected conclusion. The way the sounds of the Russian language are different from the sounds of other languages ​​is not some special “Russian” way of pronouncing them, but the way they differ from other sounds of the same Russian language! Russian sounds have hardness and softness, while English or German sounds have strength and weakness.

Then we became convinced: Russian stress is not the only way to “pack” sounds into a word! Firstly, it may not be forceful, but musical. Secondly, there are other ways of “packaging”...-

And in this chapter (at least in the part that you have already read!) we discovered that the Russian language does not just have a “different grammar” than Vietnamese, Chukchi and many other languages. The principles on which the proposal is constructed are different.

This can be compared to a drawing. Take a look at these two pictures:

The same thing is drawn on them - it is easy to see that it is a cat. (By the way, for some reason linguists really like to cite a cat as an example. I don’t know why, but in any linguistics textbook - be it written in Russian, English, French - you will definitely come across cat, a cat, le chat. And if we are talking about a person, for some reason he is most often called Peter (or Pierre, or Peter). I, too, as you can see, could not avoid this “fashion”. This is the second time a cat appears on the pages of a book!)

...So, a cat is drawn. Exactly Also meaning, content of the sentence Father sees son will be the same in Russian and Vietnamese.

But on the left the cat is made up of black and white spots, and on the right - from dashes, black strokes on white paper. The artist worked in different manners. He used different principles of depiction, although he depicted the same cat.

In Russian, in order to construct a sentence, you need grammar. More precisely - morphology and syntax.

In Vietnamese, this requires word order. That is, only one syntax, without morphology.

And in the Gadsup language you need only morphology, without syntax!

This means that the question of whether there are languages ​​without grammar can be answered in different ways. It depends on how you understand the word “grammar”.

Are there languages ​​without grammar like Russian? As many as you like!

And no grammar at all? Of course not. The sounds in a word must be “packed”, although this can be done in different ways. The same with the proposal: it is necessary to build it. The only question is what and how to build it from. You can build from words. Or you can directly from roots, suffixes, endings, bypassing the word! You can build by connecting words to each other using grammatical endings. And you can connect them in the simplest way - by placing them side by side in a certain order.

And even if a language has a grammar similar to Russian, it can be very different. This could be a grammar of parts of speech, as in Russian. Or maybe there is a grammar of the members of a sentence, as in Nenets or Ket.

And, therefore, it is very important for us to understand what this is - a part of speech. To do this, we, as before, compare the two languages. One of them, of course, is Russian. And you probably haven’t heard about the second one. It's called Tok Pisin.

But in general, it’s quite strange that no one knows about him! After all, half a million people speak this language, and more and more every year. Books, newspapers and magazines are published on it, radio broadcasts are conducted, and plays are staged. And in the parliament of the state of Papua New Guinea it is as accepted as the English language.

This is a language in which Papuans of different tribes speaking different languages ​​can communicate with each other. It arose quite recently, about a hundred years ago, and it bizarrely mixed words and forms of English, and one of the Papuan, and many other languages. But this is a real language, without any allowance for youth!

But we will return to it. In the meantime, let's remember our native Russian language again.

Why do we say so confidently: this is a noun, this is a verb, this is an adverb?

Noun - because it declines? So? Yes. And at the same time, not really. Adjective, pronoun, numeral are also declined! A kangaroo, for example, does not decline, although it is undoubtedly a noun.

Noun - because it answers the questions: who? What? But again, the pronoun also answers them. Who? He. Nobody. Somebody.

Noun - because the object is designated? Let's say. But what about, for example, the word running? It means action!

This means that all these signs alone cannot help us. But together... Indeed, kangaroo because it is a noun that means an object (more precisely, a being) and answers the question Who? Run- because he bows down and answers the question What?

What does “leaning” mean? This means that the word run has grammatical categories: case, number, gender.

And the word run other categories: time, type, person, number. That's why we call it a verb.

In Tok Pisin everything is different. There is no category of case, no number, no gender. There is also no tense (as a grammatical category expressed by a suffix or ending). And the view. And faces...

Here are the Russian words: old, old man, growing old.

They are very close in meaning. But the first denotes a sign, the second - a person, the third - an action (or rather, a state). It's hard to make a mistake here...

And in Tok Pisin the word lapun denotes both “old” and “old man” and “to be old”. Please note that it is not capable of bending or conjugating!

And we will translate it one way or another only depending on what question it answers. That is, what role does it play in the proposal. What member of the sentence is it?

So, until we “inserted” lapun in a sentence, it is impossible to say what part of speech it is. And that, and the other, and the third! In general, the same is true in Vietnamese, Chinese and many other languages.

In Russian, a member of a sentence depends on the part of speech. Do we have a verb in our hands? This means we need to make it predicable. Adjective? Let's make it a definition. Adverb? Let it be a circumstance then.

In Tok Pisin, the part of speech depends on the part of the sentence. Is this word a predicate? Let's call it a verb. Is this the subject? Let's consider it a noun. Is this a circumstance? We have no choice but to recognize it as an adverb.

You are most likely already accustomed to the fact that in languages ​​everything, or very much, can be completely different. And it will not be a surprise to you if I say: even if there are “real” parts of speech in a language, even if you and I call them the same (this is a noun, this is a verb), the same part of speech will be completely different in different languages.

Verb to verb is different. And the noun is different from the noun. It all depends on what grammatical categories it “carries with it.”

Three doing something with two, or the language-accountant

I had a friend in Australia. His name was Arthur Capell. Professor Capell was known to everyone who studied the languages ​​of the peoples of the Pacific Ocean. What languages ​​did he not know? From Hawaiian and Tahitian to the Australian Aboriginal languages.

In one of his articles, he tried to sort all the languages ​​known to him “into order.” Three such shelves were required: three main types of languages.

Two of them are easy to “identify”. In languages ​​of the same type, a “rich” noun is a “poor” verb. In other types of languages, a “poor” noun is a “rich” verb.

(Where is the Russian language in this classification? Of course, on the first shelf. But it is not typical for it: one might say, it is on two shelves at once.)

The third type is more difficult. Capell called it this: “enumerative” languages. What are they listing? Whatever.

The Russian language outlines everything, one might say, with decisive and large strokes. Past - present - future tense. The singular is plural. Indicative - conditional - imperative mood. First - second - third person. Masculine - feminine - neuter. Perfect - imperfect form.

There are nine verb tenses in the Nasioi language. In Russian it is simple: what is now is the present, what was before is the past. And it doesn’t matter whether it was a minute ago or a millennium, it’s still passed. Does - did. Even a Neanderthal did.

Nasioi scrupulously distinguishes, as already said, nine forms. Here they are:

10. Long past tense (more than three days ago).

11. Not so long ago past tense (a day or two ago).

12. Recently past tense (from yesterday evening to this moment).

13. “Ordinary” past tense (like Russian used to say).

14. “Ordinary” present tense ( I usually say).

15. Simply present: I say (now).

16. Continuous present: I say, I say...

17. Near future : I'm about to start talking.

18. Just the future: I'll speak.

With numbers (nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns), the Russian language can be said to be lucky. There are only two forms of number - singular and plural. Dog - dogs. Briefly and clearly: if one - - A, if more And.

But let's take the Awa language (the same New Guinea!). This is what the system is like (see picture).

As many as four forms of numbers instead of two! But there is no need to explain how many dogs there are.

It also happens quite the opposite - there is no category of number... Simply no! Of course, people who speak such languages ​​understand the difference between one dog and several. But they do not express this difference with any special endings.

This is the Yoruba language in Nigeria. "Dog" in this language is called aja (j is not pronounced like in German - th, and as in English - j). This is if there is one dog. To say "dogs", Yoruba Africans simply put in front dog pronoun "they": "they are a dog" - awon aja. And if you need to say exactly how many dogs, it looks like this: aja meta“dog three”, that is, three dogs.

There is no number in the Burmese language either, but the Burmese deal with the situation differently. There is a word in their language lu"Human". To say “several” or “many” people, you must use one of two endings. If these people can be counted (“people entered the door”, “all the people of the village gathered in the square”), then an ending is needed - mya: lumya. And if they cannot be counted and we mean people in general, humanity, then the end - do: ludo(for example, “people descended from monkeys”, “people went into space”). This ending does not denote the plural, but the collective. What is the difference between these categories? Let us explain with an example: the plural is easy to find in the word peasants, and the collective form is easy to find in the word peasantry.

The Burmese have another feature of their language that is interesting to us. When they use a numeral, they always add so-called counting words.

We Russians sometimes do this too: five children, six briefcases, thirty heads of cattle, ten book titles... In the Burmese language there are many more such counting words and, unlike Russian ones, they are necessarily used. Here are examples. If the object is round or close in shape to round, a counting word is used lawn: "jug-one-lawn." If it is long, elongated - chhaun: “fountain pen-four-chown.” If the length of this object can be measured - syn: "river-one-sin". (I don’t understand why you can’t measure a fountain pen? Apparently, the fact is that the length of a river is important, but a fountain pen is not.) People are counted using yay, animals - kaun. There are separate counting words for especially respected people (for example, old people), for princes, kings, monks, priests; for flat objects (say, mats); for vehicles (for example, cars); for buildings; for something written or printed (letters, newspapers, books); for items of clothing (shirts, in particular).

Numerals are generally a surprisingly interesting thing. More than one popular book could be written about them! For example, did you know that in Russian, and almost all other European languages, there are words that denote a certain number of specific objects? And not all objects, but only these can be “counted” using such a word? When buying eggs, you do not say “twenty eggs,” but only: two dozen. And in German there are, for example, the following words: Mandel- “15 sheaves”; Stiege- “20 sheaves”, the same word for 20 pieces of linen; Shock- “60 items”; if we have 600 eggs, they say (and only in this and similar cases): zehnSchockEier- “10 “shocks” of eggs”; Wall- “80 fish”; Zimmer- “40 or 50 skins.”

Or - did you know that many peoples count in this way (and the numerals in their languages ​​give it away!): fingers - hand - forearm - arm - neck - head? Then we move to the other side of the head and again move to the fingers of the (second) hand. To make it clearer to you how this is done, here is the numeral system in the Papuan language telefol. I asked the artist to draw a Papuan and write the necessary numbers in the right places:

The last word for 27 is kakkat, that is, the “little finger of the right hand.” 27 plays the role of our ten in the telefol language; it is then multiplied by two, three, and so on - up to 27x14. The word for this number also means “very many” in the telefol language. (Come on, calculate where for a Papuan telefol “a lot” begins!)

But let's return to our topic. An exemplary “listing” language is Kiwai, also Papuan. With accounting precision, he manages to designate in the verb with special endings not only the number of actors (that is, the number in our Russian understanding), but also the number of those persons to whom the action is directed. To illustrate how this is done, you will have to draw how “we” do something with “them”... What? Well, at least we’re catching up (it’s easier to draw). To avoid confusion, I will give only the necessary endings in Kiwai. So, in Russian there will be one option common to everyone: We are catching up with them.

And in Kiwai it would look like this:

Add another set - for the past tense!

Everything seems clear with the number?

Let's move on to the inclination! You are again waiting for some kind of catch - and you are doing the right thing. And they even guessed that this trick should be expected from New Guinea. The ghoul language is especially indicative in this regard.

Let's take, for example, the sentence He eat. For you and me, it makes absolutely no difference how we learned about this - the verb form will be the same (unless we add some word: They say he ate.). But for the Papuan Guli this is not at all indifferent.

If a Papuan saw with his own eyes how someone ate, he will use a verb in one mood - like our indicative.

If he didn’t see it, but was present at the meal and somehow perceived what was happening differently (well, let’s say, he sat with his back turned and heard someone chewing) - a different inclination is needed.

If our hero from the Ghouli tribe came to someone and saw leftovers or some other direct evidence that they were eating here, the third mood is assumed.

If there were scraps and our Papuan Guli saw them himself, but then they were removed, as expected in a decent house, and now they are gone, he should use the fourth mood.

If he did not see the remains of food and there is generally no direct evidence that someone ate, but there is indirect evidence (for example, the fire is still hot, or the dishes have not been put away, or the smell has not dissipated), inclination number five is required.

If no evidence exists, but logic dictates that someone could not help but eat (I know that he returned from a trip, did not eat all the way, and his house is full of food), for such a case there is one more thing - sixth mood.

We can also turn to a language closer to us - Abkhazian. There is a “ghostly” inclination in it (that’s what it’s called!): it is required when someone seems to be imagining something...

What's next for us now? Face?

Are “we” too many “I”s?

The Russian verb knows three persons in two numbers: I'm going, you're going, he (she, it) is going, we're going, you're going, they're going.

Strictly speaking, this is not entirely true. They- it really is “he is in the plural”. (By the way, earlier in the Russian language there was a distinction between “he-many” and “she-many”: for the first there was the pronoun they, and for the second - one. Pushkin also used one). Having twisted my soul a little, one can even agree that You- This " You in the plural,” although this is not entirely true. But We- this is no longer a “set” I"! It is clear: I am one, and there cannot be “several me.” We are something else. Maybe “me plus someone else”? Let's visualize this:

And in Russian it turns out like this:

For example: We (me and someone else) Let's go to the zoo, and you will go to the House of Pioneers.

It could be different:

You will come for us and we will (me, someone else and you) let's go to the zoo.

In Russian, it means there is no difference between "We- Not You) And "we + you".

Let’s draw this again, adding “them”, and also draw “him” and “you” separately:

The Kabardian language has the following persons (and special verb forms!). Let’s write them down, as they say in school, “in a column”:

« I with him" " We with him"

« I with them" " We with you"

« I with you" " We with you"

« I with you" " We with them"

« You with him" " You with him"

« You with them" " You with them"

« You with me" " You with me"

« You with us" " You with us"

« He with him" " she with me"

« He with them" " They with us"

« He with you" " They with you"

« He with you" " They with you"

« He with me" " They with him"

« He with us" " They with them"

I feel sorry for the artist and I feel sorry for the space in the book. You can easily, by taking a sheet of paper and a pencil, visually depict all these possibilities.

Even if there is no such confusing picture, there are all sorts of oddities in the faces. Strange things, of course, only from our Russian point of view. " We- Not You" And " We + You" - this is a typical example; in most languages ​​they are so different that they have special pronouns, like “ we-1" And " we-2"(and the Kabardian verb does not use special pronouns, but simply summarizes them: " we + you», « they + us" In other words, " We without you (you)" and " We together with you (you) are completely different things, and in Russian (or in English, French, German) they simply coincide. For example, in Malay, “we without you” is kami, and “we are with you” - kita.

He can be different. The Kwakiutl Indian language has three different He: “he is next to me”, “he is next to you” and “he is next to him”. In addition, there is “he-visible”, “he-invisible” and “he-absent”.

You in Russian it is the same whether we are addressing a woman or a man. (And in the third person, as you know, this distinction is important: he - she.) But in many languages ​​there is “you are a woman” and “you are a man” - for example, in the African language Hausa. And there are, by the way, those where you need to say “I am a man” or “I am a woman”: this is, say, the Saibalgal language in Australia: nai And nazo. (By the way, in Russian we also distinguish - I did And I did. True, the pronoun is the same.)

I have already spoken about dual and triple numbers. There is also a “quadruple”, at least in a verb. This means that we will have different forms: “we-two-go”, “we-three-go”, “we-four-go”, “we-many-go”.

But the most important thing is that personal pronouns express, and very clearly, the social relations of people. When we call someone “you” or “you”, these relationships are already reflected here. “You” is a close relative, peer, junior, close friend. “You” is the elder, the outsider. And in the Sundanese language, different “you” look like this:

Let's take a closer look. Dampal- this is something like “your lordship”, “your highness”.

Gambaran- “you”, but not just any “you”, but only “you are more senior”. Hider- “you are high-ranking” if the speaker is older. Anjeun- appeal to an equal in position, but more senior or generally respected. Mahen- a simple “you” addressed to a peer or person of equal status. Silaing - the same thing, but more rudely: “you, brother.” A dia It sounds completely humiliating: “hey you there!”

In order to finish with the person and personal pronouns, I note that in Russian I can be used in different senses: “just me”, “exactly me” and so on. The Russian language in such cases adds to I different particles: I, I am, I am. And the Veri language - again Papuan - has special pronouns. He has:

1 just me,

2 only me, just me,

3 I who do this; I am active

4 me too (I will sleep too),

5 and I (you will go - and I),

Plus also “me”, “for me” (a special form), “I myself” (like Russian - s V I wash),“together with me” and, of course, “mine”.

"Kindergarten" and "floating class"

How is it not? The textbook says there is!

Okay, yes. If we assume that we designate women using the feminine gender, and men using the masculine gender: He(Ivan Ivanovich), she(Marya Petrovna). Girl(she). Boy(He). Cat ( He). Cat ( she). I(girl) read. I(boy) read.

There is still it. The average is neither man nor woman, neither boy nor girl. Something inanimate.

But the trouble is that for some reason in Russian a knife is masculine, a fork is feminine, and a saucer, as it should be, is neuter. Why is a knife more “masculine” than a fork? Why is there a fork - and even a spoon?

It's the English language! You can't say anything about a knife (knife) he“he”, but about the spoon (spoon) - she“she”: you only need to say it"it"! Not- this is only “he is a man”, a she- "she is woman". And to say cat, an Englishman will add to the word cat"she": she-cat. Here is a language in which there is a gender - just a gender.

And in the Russian language, most likely, it is not a gender. And what?

The same is true with the gender of Russian nouns. This category in most cases is as formal and conventional as declension. There is nothing masculine or feminine in the knife itself or the fork itself: we just agreed that the knife is He, and the fork is she. That is why in the Russian language words so often change from masculine to feminine and vice versa, especially when it is difficult to distinguish their gender by their external form. Piano Once there was a “she”, but now it has become a “he”. Mouse, of course, “she”, but how often they mistakenly say: “The cat caught the mouse”! In the 19th century there was a word coffee male. And now most Russians talk quite calmly about coffee"it". (And, in my opinion, they are doing absolutely the right thing. Russian language specialists resisted this for a long time, and now they are gradually losing ground. In the newest dictionaries it is allowed to use coffee not only in the masculine, but also in the neuter gender.)

If, after all, we call this Russian category a genus, and then look at other languages, we will see this. Gender is not necessarily associated with gender - male or female! Nouns can be “distributed” into completely different “cells”.

The African Maasai language has two genders (it is better to call them, as they do in science, not “genus”, but “classes”). One of the genera, or classes, includes everything large and strong. The other is everything small and weak. 0I tungani- this is a big and strong man, a en dungani- a small and weak man. In the Maasai language there are not masculine and feminine, but “strong” and “weak” genders!

Now let's take a look at the map of languages. The Monumbo language in New Guinea is “closest” to Russian: there are also three classes, plus two more: “mixed” and ... “children’s”! And its neighbor, the Asmat language, is perhaps the farthest from Russian. It, too, like Monumbo, has five classes, but completely different ones: objects standing, sitting, lying, floating and flying.

Like this? Very simple.

Words denoting such objects belong to the “standing” class (left side of the picture). Words denoting objects shown on the right - the “sitting” class:

The most interesting thing is that the “sitting” class includes a word meaning “woman” and other words denoting women. This means that for the Asmat Papuan, a man appears to be standing, and a woman - sitting.

These are the items that give you a “lying” class:

The words denoting these items are of the “floating” class:

This also includes the rivers themselves.

And “flying” objects (or, more precisely, the words of the “flying” class) are not only birds, butterflies, but also the sun, moon, stars. And everything else that hangs under the roof (and the roof itself!) or lies in the attic. In a word, the point is not that they are able to fly, but that they are located above the direction of view:

...Let's move to Africa. Luganda language. There are classes in it... I started counting and got confused, because it was not clear: should I count the plural separately? In any case, this language has the following classes. (I hope you remember that this is the same as what the school textbook calls “genus”)?

Names of people: omw-ana“child” (the gender here is indicated by a prefix!).

Names of plants and trees.

The names of especially large objects: not just “mango fruit”, but “large mango fruit”.

What is created by man: things, houses.

Animal names.

Names for long, thin or flat objects: “bridge”, “palm tree”, “paper”.

Words denoting a very small amount of something. If "water" ama-zzi(“collective” class), then with a different prefix - outu-zzi- the same word will mean “drop of water.” "Oil" - "a speck of oil." "Salt" - "a pinch of salt."

Words denoting small size: aka-ana"baby". (Take a look at the very first class listed!)

Names of products and dishes: “flour”, “porridge”.

Names of actions: “walking”, “counting”.

…Caucasus. A small (no more than a thousand speakers!) Dagestan language is Archinsky. It has four classes.

The first includes the names of men and all kinds of mythical creatures: god, devil, angel. For the second - only the names of women. So far everything is easy.

The difficulty begins with the third class: it includes, firstly, the names of adult animals, secondly, cereals and also peas. And to the fourth - the names of young (and generally small) animals (for example, “calf”, “hare”) and the names of metals.

All other words, without any obvious logic (as in the Russian language!) are distributed into the third and fourth classes. It is not clear why “apricot” is of the same class as “bull” or “cow”, and “pear” is of the same class as “hare” or “lead”...

And in Tabasaran, a language neighboring Archin, there are three genders, just like in Russian.

Just a little about the form of the verb

The perfect and imperfect forms of the verb are the most difficult for foreign students studying the Russian language. They have a hard time understanding the difference between jumped And jumped and why the same meaning in another verb is expressed in a completely different way - ran And ran.

In essence, there is no particular difficulty here. Although the types can be expressed in different ways, there are only two of them.

Does it happen more? Not only does it happen - the types can be completely different than in the Russian language.

There are three types in the Komi language, spoken by residents of the Komi Republic in the northeast of the European part of our country. But among them there is neither perfect nor imperfect! Here they are.

Temporary means an action that happens once and then ends. Seth means "lady". A setla means “I’ll give it to you for a while” (and then I’ll take it back).

The diminutive means an action that happens, so to speak, a little. Setyshta means “I’ll give you a little.” Shonta- “I’m warming”, and shontyshta- “I’ll warm it up a little.”

Repeated form, as the name suggests, means an action that is performed repeatedly at intervals like knock(compared to knock).

There are other grammatical categories in different languages ​​that can, if desired, be brought closer to the category of aspect. There is a category in the Georgian language called “version”. And in Georgian, different verb forms are used, if I write at all, or I write for myself, or I write for someone else. There is also a “contact” category. Witkwi means “I will say,” and the form whatmawind- “I’ll make him say it.”

The Bongu language, which was first described by the outstanding Russian traveler and scientist N. N. Miklouho-Maclay (1846–1888), has special forms: gine-ur-ar- “all come together” gine-mar-ar- “to come too early or too late.”

Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay was a great dreamer... He not only studied the languages ​​and customs of different peoples of Oceania, not only lived for a long time among the Papuans and left behind a grateful memory - he fought against colonialism, for the Papuans of New Guinea to have their own, independent state. Back then it only caused ridicule. But the day came when a flag with the image of a bird of paradise fluttered over a small building in the town of Port Moresby. It was the day of the proclamation of a new state - the Republic of Papua New Guinea. And the name of the Russian scientist Miklouho-Maclay, a great humanist, fighter for the equality of all people on earth, is remembered and honored in this state. To this day, in those places where Miklouho-Maclay visited, holidays are held in his honor, and stories about this man of rare charm and hard work are passed on from mouth to mouth. His life, full of wonderful deeds and dramatic events, remains interesting for us even now, a century later. Descriptions of travel, articles and letters of N. N. Miklouho-Maclay, telling about the peoples inhabiting the islands of Oceania, about their way of life, languages, morals, customs, are still read with great interest, are one of the authoritative sources for all scientists involved in studying these peoples and their languages. I advise you to learn more about N. N. Miklouho-Maclay. Read popular books: Chumachenko L. Man from the Moon. - M., 1963; Tynyanova L. N. Friend from afar: The Tale of the traveler N. N. Miklouho-Maclay. - M., 1962. Read excerpts from the scientist’s diaries, articles and letters, collected in the book “The Man from the Moon” (M., 1982). For older readers I recommend this book: Putilov B. N. N. N. Miklouho-Maclay: Traveler. Scientist. Humanist. - M., 1985.

About the adjective and its relatives

Perhaps no less diverse are the forms of adjectives in different languages.

What is an adjective? The part of speech that denotes a characteristic has the categories of gender, number, case and degree of comparison and answers questions Which? whose?

We will make an amendment immediately. The first three categories of the adjective are not their own: it borrows them from the noun. Red because only masculine gender, singular number and dative case, because the word has all these categories flag.

But we are not interested in this now, but in the word “sign”.

Let's strip the adjective of all its grammatical categories - leave one bare root. White-, red-, young-. We still feel: this is an adjective! How eye- or horseman are definitely nouns, and chit-, hear- explicit verbs.

From roots that we perceive as denoting a particular characteristic, we can easily form words of other parts of speech. White or blush(Verbs). Whiteness, youth(nouns). But they are as clearly derived from the adjective as run- from the verb, and big-eyed- from a noun!

Actually, the adjective was not so independent from the very beginning. Famous Russian linguist of the 19th century Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya(1835–1891) believed that green grass It used to sound something like this: green grass. In other words, the “pedigree” of the adjective goes back to the noun.

There is a lot of evidence for this. Here's one example. There was a noun in Latin uber, meaning "udder". And the same word was used in the meaning of “fertile,” that is, as an adjective: ageruber- “fertile field” (in Latin the adjective was always placed after the noun).

In many languages ​​there is no adjective at all - instead they calmly put a noun! For example, in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia, there are no special features that would distinguish an adjective from a noun. Baret means both “iron” and “iron” in this language. Coshama- and “garbage, dirt” and “dirty”. Votat- both “young” and “young man”. Very often, where you and I use an adjective in Russian, Amharas simply put a noun: instead of “pet” they say “at home (gen. pad., singular) animal.”

The same is true in Mongolian. Muu- it means “bad” or “something bad.” Here's what various Russian phrases look like in Mongolian:

The horse is bad - Mor muu.

Bad Horse - Moo Sea.

Something bad belongs to Damdin - Muu n Damdinykh (no- particle denoting the subject; word Damdin is in the genitive case).

(Something) belongs to the bad Damdin -... muu Damdinykh.

And in the Papuan language we know, Bongu borle means “evil, harm”, a borle tamo- “bad person” (that is, “evil person”).

All this would be very clear and transparent if...

The fact is that the adjective has another “relative”, and this relative is the verb. All languages ​​of the world can be divided in this sense into two groups. In some, the adjective was born from a noun - we have already met them. And in others...

As you know, in a Russian sentence an adjective can be not only a attribute, but also a predicate. Young man, but also The man is young. True, becoming a predicate, it acquires the category of time - The man was young, The man will be young.(And, therefore, this category - unlike other categories of the verb - is “carried with it” not by the verb as a part of speech, but by the predicate as a member of a sentence!) But the adjective does not turn into a verb, does it?

And in Japanese, the main form of the adjective is the one that “works” in the predicate: “young”, not “young”. And it is conjugated like a verb. But the “real” adjective in Japanese is derivative, and the Japanese language tries to do without it altogether. Like the Ethiopians, the Japanese try to say not “gold watch”, but “gold watch” (kino tokei) not “green leaves”, but “green leaves” (midorino ha).

And in all the languages ​​of East and Southeast Asia - Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Thai, Laotian and many others - an adjective is indistinguishable from a verb. In fact, it is much easier to say “the leaf is turning green” than “the leaf is green.” And even more precisely, it is generally impossible to say “green leaf”.

Concluding this short discussion about the adjective, I want to draw your attention: of the three parts of speech that we consider, so to speak, “main” - noun, adjective, verb - only the noun and the verb required, without them there is no language in the world! This was first noticed (and written in the book “Language”, translated in our country more than 70 years ago) by the famous French scientist Georges Vandries. But there are such obligatory parts of speech among the “non-main ones”. There is no language without numerals, without pronouns, without conjunctions, there is no language without adverbs! But without pretexts - there is.

In the next chapter I want to talk about prepositions and adverbs. And in general about different ways to say where, when, how the action takes place.

“...From the speaker to the bottom or to the doors...”

But first let's get back to the question: on the table- how many words are there? One or two?

The textbook believes that there are two words here, and in its own way it is right. Now I will prove that these are two words. Firstly, they are written separately, and in Russian, as you know, all words are written separately. Secondly , table- this is a case form, it is included in the general series: table, table, table... Thirdly, between on And table You can insert other words: on the big table, on this table, and even on this big new table.

And now I will try to prove that this is one word. Follow my discussion carefully.

In the Russian language, as we have seen, each word has an accent - a way of “packaging” it. And the word on(if this word) cannot be stressed, it (the stress) is common to the entire combination: “on the table”.

At the word table has its own meaning, which does not depend on how we use this word. Does it have such a meaning? on? You will say: of course, it means “on the surface.” But they also say went to the market, And replaced the cuckoo with a hawk, And relied on his honesty, And I'm lying in the sun(on the surface of the sun, or what?), and scored a goal in the sixth minute, And borrowed the book for three days, And bell to class, And one piece of candy per brother, And multiply two by three... In a word, the meaning does not depend on the words with which it is used, just like the prefix By-, which means completely different things in words put it down, jump, swing, pour...

By the way, there are no prepositions in the Lak language. There are postpositions that mean exactly the same thing, but are always written together with the noun and do not have their own stress. All linguists do not distinguish them from ordinary case endings, which is why there are 40 cases in the Lak language. Here they are (translated): 1) house; 2) at home; 3) home; 4) from home; 5) together with the house; 6)…than a house; 7) for the sake of the house; 8) because of the house; 9) in the house; 10) to the house; 11) inside the house; 12) through the house; 13) from home; 14) on the house (compare our on the table! In Lak it is one word); 15) at home; 16) in the direction of home; 17) on top of the house; 18) from home; 19) for the house; 20) in the direction behind the house; 21) passing behind the house; 22) because of the house; 23) under the house; 24) for a house; 25) in the direction under the house; 26) moving under the house and beyond; 27) from under the house; 28) near the house; 29) to the house; 30) towards the house; 31) past the house; 32) from home (almost the same as case No. 4, but a different form!); 33) near the house; 37) past the house itself; 38) from the house itself; 39) close to home; 40) to the house.

And now I will argue with myself and refute my own evidence. I said that on- a word because it is written separately? But no way(not visible) is also written separately. And the words zga certainly does not exist in the Russian language (although it once existed)! Table included in the general series, did I say? But even in the textbook, when they come to the prepositional case, they write it along with the preposition: table, But about the table! Can be inserted between on And table other words? Try inserting something other than an adjective (or pronoun) that agrees with the word table! And if so, why not imagine that in the Russian language, like in Chukchi or Ket, which we have already talked about, there are complex words consisting of “glued together” stems of different words? Like Chukchi ga-tan-tor-maneg-ma- “with good new matter”: here ha corresponds to the Russian preposition With,tan- "good", torus -"new", maneg- “matter”, ma- case ending of the so-called accompanying or joint case.

So even if you and I think like linguists, it’s not so easy to answer the question: on the table one word or two? Personally, it seems to me that it’s still the same. (Nevertheless, it should be written separately, as is customary!)

And it’s probably even more correct to say this: in one sense it’s one word, in another sense it’s two words. You can find many such words, which at the same time are not words, in any language. I'm working - I'll work. Will- word? Yes and no. In fact, this is a grammatical sign of the future tense - and nothing more!

But they convince me even more that on the table- one word, various psychological experiments with people who do not think about grammar at all, but simply speak Russian.

One psychologist, V.V. Opel, asked first-graders who had not yet studied grammar to divide sentences written in a row, without spaces, into words (and they were not explained what a word was). They always connected a preposition with a noun: “on the table.”

Another psychologist, A. R. Luria, studied people who, due to a head injury, had difficulty speaking or understanding it (a disease called aphasia). When they were asked to count how many words there were in a phrase, they counted like this: I am going to the forest. Three words! I am going to the forest. Man sitting at the table. Also three words! A man is sitting at a table.

By the way, there are also proposals that at the same time are not proposals. Here's the conversation:

I bought a book today. Very interesting.

In the "House of Books"?

How many offers are there? From the point of view of grammatical analysis - one thing: I - bought - today - a - very - interesting - book at the “House of Books”. What if you think about it? Of course, three! Two of them are spoken by the first interlocutor, and the third is added by his friend.

But let's return to our main topic. This is why I talked about prepositions to show you: there is, in essence, no difference between an adverb and the combination “preposition + noun”! Most adverbs therefore arose from such combinations: the next morning, at home(only this adverb is written separately in the old fashioned way!) and even back or forward.

There are not many different variants here in Russian. He doesn’t really like to accurately indicate the direction of movement or the place where something is located; it’s not for nothing that it was so difficult for me to translate the meanings of the Lak cases. Even such a seemingly obvious difference, as in this figure, does not seem to exist for the Russian language:

There are two different prepositions in German: an in the first case and auf- in the second. And in Lak...

In russian language go You can go home or from home. And in German from home - Gehen, and home - commen. In general, when they go “there”, it is used Gehen, and when “here” - commen. The Germans mark every direction with scrupulous precision. For example, where we simply say peek out(for example, from a window), a German might say:

and so on.

In the Papuan language Abelam there are eight adverbs denoting a place or direction: “here”, “here”, “there”, “beyond a certain place”, “very close here”, “there in the distance”, “there in the distance”. And finally, the interrogative adverb-pronoun - “where, where?” And in the Gadsup language, also Papuan, there are nine postpositional adverbs, but completely different: “there in”, “there on”, “nearby”, “at the top”, “at the base”, “along along”, “along along the top” ", "from" and "to".

Place (or direction), by the way, can be denoted not only by prepositions, postpositions or adverbs, but also by demonstrative pronouns. This- means being close to the speaker, That- far from the speaker. The Papuan language has Keva th- “this one is nearby”; mo- “this one in the distance”, that is, “that one”; with- “this one is upstairs”; But- “this one is below.”

But in a very small (in terms of the number of speakers) Aleut language... In the first half of the 19th century in Russia there lived a scientist who studied the life and culture of the Aleuts, Tlingits - peoples living in the northeast of the country and in the northwest of America. To do this, he lived for some time among the Aleuts and other peoples, whose life he studied. The scientist's name was Innocent Veniaminov(1797–1879). As a result, he published a fundamental study, “Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka Department” (parts 1–3, 1840), as well as a book in which the first sufficiently detailed description of the Aleutian language was given. Let us give a short excerpt from this scientist’s work. When reading the statement of Innokenty Veniaminov, remember that it was written in the first half of the 19th century and preserves the style and language of scientific works of that time: “There are enough such relative pronouns (we now call them demonstrative - A.L.) in this language that, without calling by name, you can mean several people who are in one place, like this: those sitting are meant: from the speaker to the bottom or to the door, the first one, second ingan, third wukong, distant Akan, penultimate kagan, last kakan; ahead kikun, right in front kakun; upstairs ikan, at the very top Akan; on the bottom uknan, lower unan, the lowest sakan. Standing: closest Ikun, Further Akun. Walking: nearest auan, distant Akun. Lying near udan. Away from home sadan, inside the house ukan. On the other side agan; anan And Uman means those whom we do not see.”

It’s hard to even imagine this. Try to draw this whole company of sitting, standing, walking, lying and generally absent people yourself!

"Difficult" Russian language

That's what people often say about him. Not those who study it: those who do not want to be studied!

People study Russian to learn more about our country. About the country of Pushkin, Chekhov, Tolstoy. About the country of Pavlov, Mendeleev, Korolev. And no one can now simply ban learning Russian.

But you can persuade: do not study this language, it is so difficult that you will not overcome it...

So is it really difficult or not? How do you think?

You already know a lot about various other languages. And you can probably answer correctly yourself.

Of course, it is difficult to master the Russian declension for a person whose language has no cases at all.

But it is much easier to cope with six Russian cases for someone who has forty of them in their language.

Obviously: it is difficult for a German to get used to the fact that softness and hardness in the Russian language distinguish different sounds, if the sounds of the German language do not know softness and hardness.

But for a Pole this is a piece of cake. Polish also has soft and hard sounds.

It is not so easy for an Englishman or an American to get used to the idea that inanimate objects in Russian can be “men” and “women”. But for the Papuan Monumbo this goes without saying, and for the African Luganda it is not at all so difficult.

The point, then, is not at all whether the Russian language is difficult or not (this also applies to any other language). For any person, no matter what language he speaks, there is something difficult and something easy in another language. There is no language that is equally easy or equally difficult for everyone.

You may know that at the very end of the 19th century, an artificial language for international communication was invented - Esperanto. Its creator, doctor Ludwik Zamenhof from Warsaw, tried to make it equally easy for everyone. I studied this language and I can confirm: it is very easy for me, a Russian (and a Pole, a German, a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Spaniard) to learn it. If you want, here are some examples. All nouns in it end in -O, all adjectives in -A. The stress is always on the penultimate syllable. There is no softness and hardness. There are prefixes and suffixes, but each of them has a very clear meaning: for example, -uj- means an object in which something is stored, or generally a place where something is: moМЃno-"money", monujo- "wallet". No exceptions! If I want to say: “he will read a new book,” there can be no surprises: Ii leМЃgos noМЃvan libron, and nothing else.

But for a Japanese, Chinese, Burmese, Indian, Arab, not to mention a Polynesian or Papuan, whose languages ​​are not at all similar to European ones, Esperanto is an exceptionally difficult language.

And it doesn’t happen that everything in a language is equally difficult and confusing. After all, in every language the difficulties, one might say, are balanced - in one the declension is more difficult, but the conjugation is not so complex, in the other it’s the other way around. One has many consonants, the other has many vowels.

To learn any language, you need to make an effort. And even if something in it seems easy, be sure that something will turn out to be difficult.

It happens, of course, that for some people the language is especially easy. For example, Russian for a Pole or Bulgarian. Lots of common words, few difficult sounds. The grammar is similar (especially for Pole). Or Chinese for the Vietnamese: the syllable is structured in the same way, there are the same (or rather, similar) musical tones, and there is a lot in common in the grammar. And vice versa, Chinese is difficult for a Russian or a German - there are few similarities in sounds, the grammar is very different (the very principle of grammar!), there are no common words at all... Or Esperanto - easy for us and difficult for those whose languages ​​are not similar to European ones.

But there are no “generally difficult” and “generally easy” languages. Just as there are no “interesting” or “uninteresting” languages.

Are there “poor” and “rich” languages? In the next chapter I will answer this question for you.