Конспекты лекций по теоретической грамматике

Конспекты лекций по теоретической грамматике

Lecture 1

Fundamentals of grammar

The subject matter of morphology is the grammatical classes and groups of words, their grammatical categories and systems of forms (paradigms) in…

Grammatical category. Grammatical meaning. Grammatical form

The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are interpreted in linguistics as grammatical… Grammatical forms can be morphemes, synthetic forms, and grammatical word…

Theory of oppositions. Types of oppositions. Oppositions in morphology

Three main qualitative types of oppositions were established in phonology: privative, gradual, and equipollent. By the number of members contrasted,… The most important type of opposition in morphology is the binary privative… Equipollent oppositions in the system of English morphology constitute a minor type and are mostly confined to formal…

Oppositional reduction. Neutralization and transposition.

A stylistically indifferent oppositional reduction is called neutralization. Use of the unmarked member does not transgress the expressive… Another type of oppositional reduction is called transposition. It is defined…

Distribution. Types of distribution. Distributional analysis.

Three main types of distribution are discriminated: contrastive, non-contrastive and complementary. The distributional analysis is used to fix and study the units of language in…

Morpheme. Morphemic analysis

Themorpheme is the smallest meaningful unit into which a word form may be divided.

The morphemic analysis is a process of singling out morphs in a word and stating their meaning. To state the borders between morphemes correctly, it is necessary to study the word in a row of words which are structurally similar (words with the same root and suffixes).

 

Lecture 2

The Parts of Speech Problem. Grammatical Classes of Words

1. The principles of classification as used by prescriptive grammarians.
2. The principles of classification as used by non-structural descriptive grammarians.
3. The principles of classification as used by structural descriptive grammarians.
4. The classification of words in post-structural traditional grammar.

The Principles of Classification as Used by Prescriptive Grammarians

Prescriptive grammarians, who treated Latin as an ideal language, described English in terms of Latin forms and Latin grammatical constraints. Similar to Latin, words in English were divided into declinables and indeclinables. The underlying principle of classification was form.

The Principles of Classification as Used by Non-Structural Descriptive Grammarians

Henry Sweet divided words into declinable and indeclinable. He speaks of three principles of classification: form, meaning, and function. However, the results of his classification reveal a considerable divergence between theory and practice.

Otto Jespersen’s system is a further elaboration of Henry Sweet’s system. Although the scholar speaks of form, function and meaning, in practice he gives preference to form.

The Principles of Classification as Used by Structural Descriptive Grammarians

As a result, 19 classes were singled out. It is obvious that in classifying words into word-classes Charles Fries in fact used the principle of…

The Classification of Words in Post-Structural Traditional Grammar

In accordance with the said criteria, we can classify the words of the English language into notional and functional.

Lecture 3

Noun and Its Categories

1. General characteristics.

2. The category of number.

3. The category of case.

4. The problem of gender.

5. The article.

General characteristics

Morphologicalfeatures of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into simple, derived,… Syntacticfeatures of the noun. The noun can be used in the sentence in all…

The category of number

The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form.

According to Prof. Isachenko, the category of number denotes marked and unmarked discreteness (not quantity).

The category of case

1. There are two cases. (limited case theory) The Common one and The Genitive; 2. There are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same… 3. There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of objective pronouns me,…

The Problem of Gender in English

Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof. Blokh states that the existence of the category of…

The Article

The articles, according to some linguists, do not form a grammatical category. The articles, they argue, do not belong to the same lexeme, and they… If we treat the article as a morpheme, then we shall have to set up a…

Lecture 4

Verb and Its Categories

1. A general outline of the verb as a part of speech.

2. Classification of verbs.

3. The category of person.

4. The category of number.

5. The category of tense.

6. The category of aspect.

7. The category of temporal correlation.

8. The category of voice.

9. Language means of expressing modality. The category of mood.

A General Outline of the Verb as a Part of Speech

Morphological features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude… Syntactic features. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their…

Classification of Verbs

Morphological classifications

1. According to their stem-types all verbs fall into: simple, sound-replacive, stress-replacive, expanded, composite, phrasal.

2. According to the way of forming past tenses and Participle II verbs can be regular and irregular.

Syntactic classifications

According to the nature of predication (primary and secondary) all verbs fall into finite and non-finite.

Functional classification

According to their functional significance verbs can be notional (with the full lexical meaning), semi-notional (modal verbs, link-verbs), auxiliaries. Auxiliaries are used in the strict order: modal, perfective, progressive, passive.

The Category of Person

Te category of person is represented in English by the two-member opposition: third person singular vs. non-third person singular. The marked member of the opposition is third person; the unmarked member is non-third person (it includes the remaining forms – first person, second person forms – singular and plural). The opposition is privative both in the plane of content and in the plane of expression.

The Category of Number

The analysis of the examples demonstrates the weakness of the English verb as concerns the expression of person and number and its heavy reliance on…

The category of tense

According to one view, there are only two tenses in English: past and present. Most British scholars do not recognize the existence of future. In traditional linguistics grammatical time is often represented as a… According to the concept worked out by Prof. Blokh, there exist two tense categories in English. The first one – the…

The category of aspect

The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of manner of action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive). The opposition is privative both in the plane of content and in the plane of expression. It is easily neutralized, i. e. non-continuous forms substitute continuous forms when the notion of duration is expressed by other means (eg. lexical).

The category of temporal correlation

The category of perfect is a peculiar tense category, i. e. a category which should be classed in the same list as the categories… The category of perfect is a peculiar aspect category, i. e. one which should… The category of perfect is neither one of tense, nor one of aspect but a specific category different from both.

The category of voice

The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. Some scholars admit the existence of Middle, Reflexive and Reciprocal voices.

The Category of Mood

As for the imperative mood, traditionally it has been referred to as a separate mood. However, Prof. Blokh thinks that the imperative is a variety… Prof. Khlebnikova analyzed the morphological system of the English verb on the… The category of mood is represented by the opposition the indicative mood vs. the spective mood. The indicative mood…

Lecture 5

Non-Finite Forms of the Verb

Verb forms make up two distinct classes: finites and non-finites, also called verbals, verbids. Finites serve to express a primary predication, i.e.… The non-finite forms of the verb combine the characteristics of the verb with…

The Infinitive

The infinitive has two presentation forms: marked and unmarked. The categorial paradigm of the infinitive includes eight forms. The continuous… The verbal features of the infinitive. Like the finite form of verb, the infinitive distinguishes the categories of…

The Gerund

The verbal features of the gerund. Like the verb, the gerund distinguishes the categories of voice and temporal correlation. The nounal features of the gerund. Similar to the noun, the gerund can be… Unlike the noun, the gerund cannot be used in the plural; it cannot be preceded by the article (or its substitute); it…

Participle I

Verbal features. Both the present participle and the gerund distinguish the same grammatical categories of voice and temporal correlation. Like the verb, it combines with the object, the adverbial modifier; like the… The present participle, similar to the infinitive, can build up semi-predicative complexes of objective and subjective…

Participle II

Its verbal features are participation in the structure of the verbal predicate and the use as secondary predicate. Its adjectival feature is its attributive function. Similar to the present participle, the past participle can be used in postposition or in preposition to the noun.

Lecture 6

The Adjective

1. A general outline of the adjective.
2. Classification of adjectives.
3. The problem of the stative.
4. The category of comparison.

A general outline of the adjective

Morphological features. Derivationally, adjectives are related either to nouns or verbs. Syntactic features. In the sentence, the adjective performs the functions of…

Classification of adjectives

Prof. Blokh suggests that distinction be based on the evaluative function of adjectives. According as they actually give some qualitative evaluation… From a syntactic point of view, adjectives can be divided into three groups: … 1) adjectives which can be used attributively and predicatively (a healthy man – the man is healthy);

The problem of the category of state

The category of comparison

There are three ways of forming degrees of comparison: synthetic, analytic, and suppletive. The question that linguists have been grappling with is: what is the… To analytic forms of comparison M. Blokh also attributes less/least combinations. He calls them forms of reverse…

Lecture 7

The Adverb

1. A general outline of the adverb.

2. Classification of adverbs.

3. Structural types of adverbs.

A general outline of the adverb

Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial. Qualitative adverbs express immediate, inherently non-graded qualities of… Quantitative adverbs are specific lexical units of semi-functional nature expressing quality measure, or gradational…

Lecture 8

Functional Parts of Speech

1. A general outline of functional parts of speech.

2. The preposition.

3. The conjunction.

4. The particle.

5. The interjection.

6. The modal word.

A General Outline 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.

The Preposition

The preposition is traditionally defined as a word expressing relations between words in the sentence. The weakness of the traditional definition is… A new approach to prepositions and subordinating conjunctions is to treat the… Functionally, prepositions can be divided into grammatical, and non-grammatical (the latter are subdivided into…

The Conjunction

Every conjunction has its own meaning, expressing some connection or other existing between phenomena in extralinguistic reality. Syntactic features Two levels are distinguished — that of phrases and that of sentences.

The Particle

Particles usually refer to the word (or, sometimes, phrase) immediately following and give special prominence to the notion expressed by this word (or phrase), or single it out in some other way, depending on the meaning of the particle.

The question of the place of a particle in sentence structure remains unsolved.

The Interjection

The characteristic features which distinguish interjections from practically all other words lie in a different sphere. The interjections, as… Syntactic features The usual interpretation is that the interjection stands outside the structure of the sentence. Another view is that…

The Modal Word

Lecture 9

  Syntax treats phrases and sentences. Both syntactic units are studies in… The phrase is a combination of two or more words which is a grammatical unit but is not an analytical form of a…

Lecture 10

The Sentence: Principles of Classification.

The Simple and the Composite Sentence

The sentence is the immediate integral unit of speech built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a… The difference between the phrase and the sentence is fundamental: the phrase… The sentence is characterised by its specific category of predication which establishes the relation of the named…

Lecture 11

Sentence Parts. Syntactic Processes

The study of the constituent structure of the sentence presupposes the analysis of its parts. Scholars traditionally distinguish between the main… The simple sentence, as any sentence in general, is organised as a system of… Thus, the subject is a person-modifier of the predicate. The predicate is a process-modifier of the subject-person.…

Lecture 12

Semantic Structure of the Sentence

Actual Division of the Sentence

The actual division of the sentence exposes its informative perspective showing what immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the… The sentence can be divided into two sections: theme and theme. The theme… Language has special means to express the theme: the definite article and definite pronominal determiners, a loose…

Lecture 13

The Expressed and the Implied Meaning of the Sentence.

Indirect Speech Acts

Some linguists have attempted to classify illocutionary acts into a number of categories or types. David Crystal, quoting J.R. Searle, gives five… The conversational implicature is a message that is not found in the plain… In analyzing utterances and searching for relevance we can use a hierarchy of propositions - those that might be…

Lecture 14

Pragmatics. Pragmatic Types of Sentences

Paul Grice proposes that in ordinary conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle. Speakers shape their utterances to be… Leech's maxims: Tact maxim (in directives [impositives] and commissives):… Generosity maxim (in directives and commissives): minimise benefit to self; [maximise cost to self]

Lecture 15

Sentence in the Text. Cohesion and Coherence

The general idea of a sequence of sentences forming a text includes two different notions. On the one hand, it presupposes a succession of spoken or… The primary division of sentence sequences in speech should be based on the… In a monologue, sentences connected in a continual sequence are directed from one speaker to his one or several…

Lecture 16

Text Linguistics. The Problem of the Text Unit

Different types of text units are singled out. Irrespective of their specific features, all text units are united by their common function – they… Analyzing the structure of text, linguists identify semantically connected… The new approach to the nature of text was proposed by Prof. Blokh, who introduced the notion of dicteme – the…