Теоретическая грамматика английского языка

of time. Pr-r Smimitsky, Blokh, Khaimovich and Rogovskaya think that the aspect of the verb deals with the development of the action. The term aspect reflects the contents of this category. It shows what aspect of the action is considered whether the action is shown in the progress or without that specification. Thus the sentence "He was writing a letter" presents the action in its progress or development. "He wrote a letter" presents the same action without indication of development or continuity on the one hand, and with accomplishment on the other, e.g. 1) I wrote a letter for 2 hours. Я писала письмо 2 часа (действие завершилось). 2) I was writing а letter, when the bell rang. Я писала письмо, когда раздался звонок в дверь (действие было в развитии в определенный момент в прошлом). The essence of Continuous forms is the action in progress at a definite point of time. In English the aspective verbal subclasses are grammatically relevant. In Russian the aspective division of verbs into perfective or imperfective is, on the contrary, very strict. Aspective grammatical change is wholly alien to the Russian langu^e but it forms one of the basic features of the categorical structure of the English verb. The category of Correlation (Категория Соотнесенности) The category of Correlation (or Order) is manifested by the system of two number opposition, writes - has written wrote - had written will write - will have written The interpretation of the relation between perfect and non-perfect forms refers to one of the most disputable problems of modem English grammar. The essence of this category is precedence (or priority) where the perfect forms serve to express priority. The non-perfect member of the opposition leaves the action unspecified as being prior or not to another action / situation/ point of time. It appears that the perfect is marked both in form and meaning while the non- perfect represents the unmarked weak member of the opposition. Pr-r Smimitsky was the first to speak of the perfect forms as presenting a special grammatical category. The Category of Voice (Категория Залога) Is the system of two number opposition: builds - is built building -being built to build - to be built This opposition expresses the relations between the subject and the object of an action. When the action is represented as issuing from the subject we deal with the Active Voice; when it is experienced by the object we speak about the Passive Voice. As to the form the Passive Voice is the marked member of the opposition, whereas the Active Voice is unmarked. Some verbs and forms of the Active Voice find no parallel in the Passive, for instance, future continuous, present perfect continuous, past perfect continuous, future perfect continuous. Being a morphological category voice often 16