Basic notions of English morphology

LECTURE № 6

1. Of all language units two levels can be singled out as the main subject of grammar. They are word and sentence. They are studied respectively by two branches of grammar – morphology and syntax.

The subject matter of morphology is the grammatical classes and groups of words, their grammatical categories and systems of forms (paradigms) in which these categories actually exist. Syntax examines the ways in which words may be combined and the relationships that exist between the words in combination.

2.

Unlike lexical meanings grammatical meanings are very abstract, very general. Therefore the grammatical form is not confined to an individual word, but unites a whole class of words.

Grammatical meanings are the most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are interpreted in linguistics as. Grammatical meanings ranged in oppositions and presented in grammatical forms build grammatical categories.

Grammatical forms can be formed by one or more morphemes, synthetic forms, and grammatical word combinations, which are analytical forms. Synthetic forms unite both lexical and grammatical meanings in one word. In analytical forms there two or more words in which at least one element is an auxiliary.

Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories. The minimal paradigm consists of two form-stages. This kind of paradigm we see, for instance, in the expression of the category of number. A grammatical category is a unit of grammar based on a morphological opposition of grammatical meanings presented in grammatical forms.

The correlated elements (members) of the opposition must possess two types of features: common features and differential features. Common features serve as the basis of comparison, while differential features express the function.

3. Parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes. The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. In English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:

1. Classical (logical-inflectional)

2. Functional

3. Distributional

4. Complex

The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. The underlying principle of classification was form.

A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined as functional. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles. Though the criterion for classification was functional, Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in other words, declinable and indeclinable. Otto Jespersen’s system was a further elaboration of Henry Sweet’s system.

Charles Fries rejected the traditional principle of classification of words into parts of speech replacing it with the methods of distributional analysis and substitution. According to Charles Fries, words that exhibit the same distribution belong to the same class. To classify the words of English, Charles Fries used three sentences called substitution frames. He tested a big number of sentences comparing them to three typical sentences used as substitution test-frames. As a result, 19 classes were singled out. Four major classes of words and 15 form-classes. It is obvious that in classifying words into word-classes Charles Fries in fact used the principle of function.

In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning). The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities.

In accordance with the said criteria, we can classify the words of the English language into notional and functional. To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb. Notional parts of speech unite the words of complete nominative meaning characterised by self-dependent functions in the sentence.

Contrasted against the notional parts of speech are words of incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence. These are functional parts of speech. Traditionally only unchangeable words are treated under the heading of functional parts of speech. To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection. Generally speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech is far from being solved. Some words cannot find their proper place. The most striking example here is the class of adverbs.

Each part of speech after its identification is further subdivided into subseries in accord with various particular semantico-functional and formal features of the constituent words. This subdivision is sometimes called "subcategorisation" of parts of speech.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-06