Verbal group in Functional grammar

Verbal group in Functional grammar

The workshop of the Verbal group in the discipline “Functional Grammar of the English Language” was conducted by the instructor of the discipline, PhD Marina Zhambylkyzy from the Department of Turkology and Theory of Language, Faculty of Philology of al-Farabi KazNU.

Along with noun groups we got acquainted with the theme of verbal group which is a group with a main verb as its head and several auxiliaries preceding it. It is the grammatical unit by means of which we most typically talk about events, actions, states and so on.

The most effective and preferred by students the discussion activities in groups are took place at the last class as well. Our group seminar discussions are making a great influence on our understanding the themes. Thus, the preparation method, or sources and materials of every student differ from each other which helps to accomplish the missing points: someone can conclude the lecture material, someone can offer additional information and articles, someone can give a lot of examples, someone can ask relevant question to make everything clear, and the like.

We knew that according to Hallidayian theory, the verbal group is a class of unit at group/phrase rank generally co-extensive with the Process in the experiential structure of the English clause, with the Finite plus the Predicator in the interpersonal structure, and with part of the Rheme in the textual structure. We’ve shared our experiences of this topic. Some shared additional articles of Ismail Ben Rkya from Université Mohammed-V de Rabat and Geoffrey Leech’s “A Glossary of English Grammar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press” with extra information followed by specific examples on the processes of transitivity, and other contributors, linguists from the lecture material. We went deeply through the definitions of ergative, transitive and intransitive verbs, as well as, had a number of questions to each other to make the things concrete and assessed each other according to our acquisition of verbal groups.

In conclusion, I am definitely sure that every person in our group got perfect understanding of the theme with the help of excellent teamwork. I would liken our work to pieces of a puzzle, the purpose of which is to complete the whole picture. Now we have a high level of comprehension of verbal group and its constituents.

1-year master’s degree student: Alzhanova Aisulu

Instuctor of the discipline FEG: Zhambylkyzy Marina