Practical and theoretical grammar

Linguistic levels

Language and Speech

Lecture 4.

Theme: Grammar in the system of language. Morphology. Parts of speech.

Plan:

1. Language and Speech.

2. Linguistic levels.

3. Practical and theoretical grammar.

4. The main features of an analytical language.

5. Morphology and Syntax.

6. Word.

7. Morpheme.

8. Different approaches to the classification of words.

9. Scerba's classification of words.
lO.Notional and functional parts of speech.

Recommended Literature:

1. M.Y.Blokh. A Course in the Theoretical English Grammar. - M., 1983, pp.6-
17,17-28,32-35,37-45.

2. B.Ilyish. The Structure of Modern English. -L., 1971, pp. 5-10, 12-13, 22-26,
27-35.

3. N.M.Rayevska. Modern English Grammar. - K., 1976, pp. 11-36, 60-66, 67-71.

4. И.П.Иванова, В.В.Бур лакова, Г.Г.Почепцов. Теоретическая граматика
английского языка. М., 1981, с. 4-6, 11-14, 14-20.

Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. It is social by nature.

Language is a system of signs - meaningful units. The sign in language has only potential meaning. It is a system of means of expression:

a) material units (sounds, morphemes, words, word-groups);

b) regularities (rules) of the use of these units.

Language gives expression to human thoughts. Speech is the manifestation of the system of language in the process of communication, the use of signs, the act of producing utterances and the utterances themselves. In Speech the potential meaning is made situationally significant as part of the grammatically organized text. Grammar connects Language and Speech as it categorially determines the process of utterance production.

1. Phonological (determines the material appearance of its significative units);

2. Lexical (the whole set of naming means of language: words, word-groups);

3. Grammatical (the whole set of regularities, determining the combination of
naming means in the formation of utterances).

Only the unity of the 3 levels forms a language.

Lingual hierarchy of levels:

I. Morphological

1. phonemic

2. morphemic

3. lexemic

II. Syntactic

4. phrasemic

5. proposemic

6. supra-proposemic

The basic units of the lingual levels:

1. Phoneme - the smallest distinctive unit, has no meaning, is not a sign (big -

Eig);

2. Morpheme - a minimal meaningful unit (fault-s);

3. Word - the smallest naming unit, a sign;

4. Phrase - a combination of 2 or more syntactically connected words;

5. Sentence - a predicative unit, a sign of a situational event;

6. Textual unity - a combination of separate sentences.

Practical grammar p rovides with a manual of practical mastery of the grammatical rules.

Theoretical grammar - description of the grammatical system, it scientifically analyses and defines the grammatical categories, the ways the words are combined.

The "strict" rule: to see isn't used in the Continuous form, but: "For the first time Bobby felt, he was really seeing the man" (A.Christie).

In theoretical grammar we state some facts, analyze them from different angles, and try to explain them. We deal with many theories, many approaches to one and the same phenomenon.

The are 2 plans of language: context (comprises the purely semantic elements);

expression (comprises the material, formed units). Each formal unit has a meaning. No meaning can be realized without some material means of expression. Each grammatical element presents a unity of content and expression, but the correspondence is very complex:

habitual action

Present Indefinite form action at the present moment

action taken as a general truth

3^rd person, singular

morphemes – s/ es the plural of the noun

the possessive form

Grammatical meaning is an abstract meaning of large meanings of words expressed by the formal grammatical market: "-s" marks plurality (lawyers). Grammatical meaning is typical of grammatical form. Grammatical form is typical of grammatical meaning. One and the same form may express different grammatical meaning: "The Negroes were getting to their feet" The Negroes evokes the idea of black human beings, the doers of the action, the conception of plurality.

Grammatical category - common feature of a linguistic phenomenon of a certain class, having their grammatical form and grammatical meaning, a complicated unity of grammatical form and grammatical content (the category of number, mood, ect).

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms (marked:.unmarked). Every grammatical category is characterized by the opposition, the categorial meaning and the function. For example, the category of number:

plurality:: singularity

faults:: fault

plurality:: non-plurality

ashes:: foliage

Grammatical forms may be synthetical and analytical. Synthetical:

1. inflection (morphemic changes without changing their lexical meaning:
sentence, sentences, sentenced);

2. suppletivity (combining different roots: be, am, is/are, was/were).

English inflection has been gradually simplified. It has developed analytical tendencies.

4. The features of an analytical language:

1. few grammatical inflections (case, degrees of comparison, 3^rd person, singular,
Present Tense, ect);

2. a sparing use of sound alternations (foot-feet, get-got);

3. a wide use of prepositions to connect words, to denote relations between object
(a man of wealth);

4. a prominent use of word order (rather fixed: S+Pr+DO+IO+Adv.Mod. "The
woman accused the boy of stealing books from the library ").

An analytical form consists of two (or more) words but constitutes one sense unit. One element has lexical meaning, the other - grammatical meaning (/ shall exchange it: shall — 1^st person, futurity, exchange — обмінювати).

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