Grammatical categories. Method of opposition (A.I. Smirnitsky)

Structure of words. Grammatically relevant types of morphemes.

The smallest meaningful units of grammar are called morphemes. Morphemes are commonly classified into free (those which can occur as separate words) and bound. A word consisting of a single (free) morpheme is monomorphemic, its opposite is polymorphemic.

According to their meaning and function morphemes are subdivided into lexical (roots),-lexico-grammatical (word-building affixes) and grammatical (form-building affixes, or inflexions).

Morphemes are abstract units, represented in speech by morphs. Most morphemes are realized by single morphs: unselfish. Some morphemes may be manifested by more than one morph according to their position. Such alternative morphs, or positional variants of a morpheme are called allomorphs: cats, [s], dogs [z], foxes [iz].

Morphemic variants are identified in the text on the basis of their cooccurence with other morphs, or their environment. The total of environments constitutes the distribution.

There may be three types of morphemic distribution: contrastive, non-contrastive, complementary. Morphs are in contrastive distribution if their position is the same and their meanings are different: charming - charmed. Morphs are in non-contrastive distribution if their position is the same and their meanings are the same: learned - learnt. Such morphs constitute free variants of the same morpheme. Morphs are in complementary distribution if their positions are different and their meanings are the same: speak s - teach es. Such morphs are allomorphs of the same morpheme.

Grammatical meanings may be expressed by the absence of the morpheme: book - books. The meaning of plurality is expressed by the morpheme -s. The meaning of singularity is expressed by the absence of the morpheme. Such meaningful absence of the morpheme is called zero-morpheme.

The function of the morpheme may be performed by a separate word. In the opposition work - will work the meaning of the future is expressed by the word will. Will is a contradictory unit. Formally it is a word, functionally it is a morpheme. As it has the features of a word and a morpheme, it is called a word morpheme. Word-morphemes may be called semi-bound morphemes.

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. Traditional categories are: the category of gender, number, person, case, tense, mood, voice.

The set of grammatical forms constitutes a paradigm. The paradigmatic relations of grammatical forms in a category are exposed in the so-called grammatical opposition. In other words, grammatical category is some total of all the oppositions of words.

E.g. the category of number. The opposition of 2 forms: pen – pens (z). The correlated members of the opposition must possess 2 types of features: common features (the basis of the contrast) and differential features (immediately express the function in question): pen (weak memeber) – pens (strong member).

Oppositions can be classified into qualitative types:

- privative: one member has a certain distinctive feature; this member is called marked, or strong (+); the other member is characterized by the absence of this distinctive feature. This member is called unmarked, or weak (-): (study (-) - studied (+),

- gradual: members of the opposition differ by the degree of certain property: (large - larger - largest),

- equipollent: Both members of the opposition are marked (am⁺ - is⁺ - are⁺),

Most grammatical oppositions are privative. The marked (strong) member has a narrow and definite meaning. The unmarked (weak) member has a wide, general meaning.

In certain contexts the difference between members of the opposition is lost, the opposition is reduced to one member. Usually the weak member acquires the meaning of the strong member: We leave for Moscow tomorrow. This kind of oppositional reduction is called neutralization. The strong member may be used in the context typical for the weak member. This use is stylistically marked: He is always complaining. This kind of reduction is called transposition.

By the number of opposemes - into binary, ternary, quaternary, etc.

Types of categories:

- notional (of quantity, agent);

- semantic (of gender, modality);

- morphological (number and case of nouns; degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs; tense, voice, aspect, correlation, mood of verbs);

- syntactical (of predicativity, of agent).

Grammatical categories may be influenced by the lexical meaning. Such categories as number, case, voice strongly depend on the lexical meaning. They are proper to certain subclasses of words.

As grammatical categories reflect relations existing in objective reality, different languages may have the same categories. But the system and character of grammatical categories are determined by the grammatical structure of a given language.

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