Taxis actualizer in English

Abstract

Aim of this work is to consider English prepositional deverbatives in –ing, –ment, –ion, –ance (– ence), –age, –al, –ure, etc. in the role of taxis actualizers.

Methodology. The article analyzes various deverbatives used with monotaxis and polytaxis prepositions of temporal and adverbial semantics upon, on, at, by, with, after, before, since, during, following, with, in, on, upon, because of, despite / in spite of, for, etc. During the research, the following methods were used: hypothetical-deductive, inductive, descriptive, classification method, contextual method, generalization and interpretation of linguistic material, as well as corpus and component analysis.

Results. Based on the analysis of empirical material, the study revealed that when used with prepositions of temporal semantics, deverbatives actualize primary-taxis categorial situations of simultaneity, precedence and posteriority. When combined with prepositions of adverbial semantics, they act as actualizers of various secondary-taxis categorial situations of simultaneity (modal-taxis, medialtaxis, causal-taxis, conditional-taxis, concessive-taxis, final-taxis, etc.).

Research implications. The article examines extensive linguistic material in the aspect of actualizing taxis categorial situations of simultaneity and non-simultaneity in statements with prepositional deverbatives and introduces the term “taxis actualizer” into scientific use. The research results make a certain contribution to the taxis theory. The materials and the main provisions of the research can be used in the practice of teaching language theory and functional grammar in higher education.