Chart 1. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

MAJOR GRAMMATICAL NOTIONS

1. Language as a system:

v the distinction between language and speech;

v paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in the system of language.

1. Grammatical meaning, grammatical form and grammatical category.
2. The notion of opposition in theoretical grammar.
3. Synthetic and analytic forms.
4. Morphology and Syntax as two main parts of grammar.

1. Language as a system

The interpretation of language as a system was first suggested by Ferdinand de Saussure in his “Course in General Linguistics” compiled by his pupils Charles de Bally and Albert Sechehaye and published in 1916. According to Saussure, language is a system: phonological, lexical, and grammatical.

Another idea suggested by Saussure which was innovative for linguistics consisted in the differentiation of language and speech. First he singles out langage which is understood as the faculty of speech all humans are endowed with. The language as it exists at a particular time is described as a system which Saussure calls la langue. Langue is the underlying system on the basis of which speakers are able to understand and produce speech. Needless to say, no speaker has a full command of langue which only exists fully as a shared, social phenomenon. The system is only accessible through the study of instances of its realization, i.e. through parole. Parole is the actual utterances speakers produce.

The language system is seen by F. de Saussure as a system of signs. By sign, he means the relationship between a concept (the signified) and some acoustic or graphic form used for it (the signifier). The sign relations are arbitrary.

The signs in the language system are related to each other in two ways: there are rules for their combination, and there are contrasts and similarities between them. These two dimensions (combination and contrast/similarity) are commonly illustrated diagrammatically as two axes, the syntagmatic and paradigmatic:

(vertical) = Syntagmatic (horizontal) = parole

l

a

n

g

u

e

On the syntagmatic axis words are linked, or chained, together according to grammatical rules. Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence. In other words, syntagmatic relations deal with elements of a sentence. They are relations between elements in speech when elements go strictly one after another. But every sign is related to all those signs in the system that is langue, or on the paradigmatic axis.

Thus, along the syntagmatic axis, elements form structures, while on the paradigmatic axis, elements are arranged in systems. According to M.A.K. Halliday, paradigmatic relations are more fundamental than the syntagmatic relations as paradigmatic relations deal with underlying grammar.

Paradigmatic relations are related to the word paradigm. Historically, a paradigm was understood as a model of declension of the noun and conjugation of the verb. In contemporary linguistics a paradigm is a class of linguistic units opposed to one another and at the same time united due to some common feature, or in other words, an aggregate of linguistic units tied together by the relations of similarity and contrast[36]. This definition can be interpreted in its broader and narrower sense. Thus, the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics explains the term broadly giving a very simple definition of a paradigm as “forms of a given noun, verb, etc. arranged systematically according to their grammatical features” [Matthews 1997: 263]. R. Huddleston and G.K. Pullum call a paradigm “the set of inflectional forms of a variable lexeme (together with their grammatical labels)” [Huddleston & Pullum 2006: 29]. Thus, broadly, a paradigm is understood as a set of forms of a given word.

A paradigm may also be defined narrower as a set of forms within a certain category. Thus, in the textbook on grammatical analysis by P.R. Kroeger a paradigm is defined as “a set of forms which includes all the possible values for a particular grammatical feature” [Kroeger 2006: 252]. To sum it all up, paradigmatic relations exist between elements of the system.

E.g. to be am, is, are all these forms of the verb to be

was, were form a paradigm and, consequently,

been they are in paradigmatic

being relations to each other.

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