THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

I. Introductory to the theoretical study of the English Language Grammar

The Subject of Theoretical Grammar.

Kinds of Theoretical Grammar.

1.3. Main grammatical notions:

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.

Grammatical categories.

Language levels.

General characteristics of the contemporary English language system.

The Subject of Theoretical Grammar

Grammar system of language refers to the whole complex of conformities to natural laws where the latter defines ways of words’ alterations and also… As any complex object Grammar is a complex system that is presented by… Grammar elements refer to morphemes, words, word-combinations and sentences.

Kinds of Theoretical Grammar

In accordance with an approach there is a kind of Theoretical Grammar (Drawing 1.1).  

Theoretical approaches to language data interpretation

Thus, there are two general approaches – pure linguistic and semantic. To the former Structural or Formal Grammar is referred, and to the latter –…   It tends to comprehend and explain all phenomena of language by inner relations among signs:…

Main grammatical notions

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.

Other words, connections of language elements can be syntagmatic or paradigmatic (drawing 1.3).               Relations of contiguity The relations…

Grammatical categories.

Grammatical Meaning differs from Lexical Meaning. The latter implies an idea or a sense that a word represents. Grammar Meaning also implies an idea… For instance: Class of words Proprieties The Noun …  

General characteristics of the contemporary English language system

All languages are classified on the ground of two basic principles – of their genealogy (origin and relations) and of their typology (structure). … Typological classification is one which is based on the distinguishing… Typological classification was firstly worked out, grounded and proposed by the brothers August and Fririch Sleggel…

II Structure of the Word. Problem of Parts of Speech

The notions of the Word and the Morpheme.

Principles of subdivision of parts of speech.

Classification of parts of speech.

Theory of the field structure of the word.

The notions of the Word and the Morpheme

The word morphology is based on the two Greek words morpheme and logos. Morpheme means form. Logos was regarded as one of the main notions of the Old Greek philosophy. It meant both: 1) word (expression,…

Kinds of Morphemes

NOTE! In English the Root coincided with the Stem. Stem is also regarded to be a root morpheme. Stem is a significant unity of Morphology, a part of…   In a language Morpheme is presented by its versions, allomorphemes (алломорфы, from the Greek allo = other/another). …

Principles of subdivision of parts of speech

The whole structure of Language is divided into lexical-grammatical classes or parts of speech. Different linguistic schools ground different ways of lexical-grammatical… 1.Henry Sweet (19th century), an English linguist

The essence of the Theory of Three Ranks

BUT morphological classification, syntactic function and theory of three tanks used together bred some confusion. For example: In the expression a dinner table the word table is regarded as a primary word.

Classification of parts of speech

The biggest subdivision of parts of speech are the ones of Categorematic words (знаменательные слова) and Syntacategorematic/syntactic words… Syntacategorematic words Refer to the Categorematic words/parts of speech But under certain…

Theory of the field structure of the word.

In a group of words there are ones which have all indications (signs) of a definite morphological part of speech; there are also words which have…   For example:

III The Noun

General characteristics of the Noun. Its Grammatical Meaning, syntactic functions and the system of word-formation.

Subcategorization of the Noun.

Grammatical categories of the Noun.

The problem of the Gender of the English Noun.

The category of Number.

The category of the Case.

General characteristics of the Noun. Its Grammatical Meaning, syntactic functions and the system of word-formation.

1. The Noun refers to the Categorematic parts of speech: it has lexical meaning and can take a definite syntactic position and serve some functions of a member of a…

Subcategorization of the Noun.

 

There are two general classifications of the Noun.

The first is based on the principle of three properly correlated kinds of nouns – individual names, generalized names for alike things and names for a group of things. It is schematically presented in the table 3.1.

Table 3.1

The first classification of nouns

Table 3.2

The second classification of nouns

Grammatical categories of the Noun.

Grammatical categories of the Noun are poor.

*There is the Category of the Number.

*The Category of the Case has been still under certain doubts.

*The Category of the Gender is considered to have completely disappeared by the end of the Middle Ages, though there is still some arguments as for considering Gender as a grammatical category of the English Noun.

The problem of the Gender of the English Noun.

Some scientists, however, (for example, an American linguist Strand, a Russian linguist Bloch) consider Gender as a category of the English Noun as…

The category of the Number.

  For example: parent – parents, tree –trees, man –men, life – lives, etc.

The category of Case.

The Case refers to the relations of an object/thing/phenomenon (which is denoted by a… presents the means of material or linguistic expression of these relations, on the other.

Comparing Grammatical Forms of the cases of the Latin and English Noun

Critics by O.H.Jespersen. It is seen from the example that the English Noun does not have a grammatical…  

Correspondence of the syntactic function and the case of the Noun

The drawback of the approach. The Case is a morphological Category. In the approach under critics, firstly,…  

The principle of Substitution in stipulating the three English Cases

The approach is quite a reasonable one as it takes into consideration the Lexical Meaning (a propriety to substitute a noun by a proper personal… Though Morphologically the English Noun can hardly change: it has an…  

IV The Problem of English Article

Interpretation of the status of the English Article.

The problem of the number of articles (how many morphological forms the Article can be presented in).

Functions and significance of the Article.

    the a / an Transcription Position Example   …

Interpretation of the status of the English Article

I. II.               As a word it defines a certain type of the Noun and has its Grammatical Meaning (to define…

Three Morphological Forms of the Noun in the Category of the Article

1) Article resembles the Auxiliary of the Verb as both of them create a definite analytical form of a part of speech, auxiliary verbs – of the Verb,… a) article is a formal morphological index of the Noun; b) article does not have Lexical Meaning.

The problem of the number of articles (how many morphological forms the Article can be presented in)

1) there are two articles in English (drawing 4.1): definite and indefinite (the Category of Article is based on the opposition); 2) there are three articles (table 4.1): zero, definite and indefinite (the…  

Functions and significance of the Article

1). Morphological function of the Article. Article is the main formal material morphological index of the Noun. For example:

V The Verb

Grammatical Meaning of the Verb

Word-formative and word-changing systems of the Verb

Classification of verbs

Morphological

Semantic

Syntactic

Grammatical Categories of the English Verb

Grammatical Meaning of the Verb

it has lexical meaning and can take a definite syntactic position and serve some functions of a member of a sentence. The Verb has its own Grammatical Meaning: it expresses a dynamic sign which elapses in time, so it has the Grammatical Meaning of action:

Word-formative and word-changing systems of the Verb

There are two main means of word-changing of the Verb             … Drawing 5.1. Two main means of word-changing of the Verb

Classification of verbs

There are three main classifications of verbs based on the different principles.

Morphological Classification

The classification is based on the Principle of Form (tab. 5.1).

Table 5.1

Scheme of Morphological Classification of Verbs

Semantic Classification

Table 5.2 Scheme of the 1st Semantic Classification of Verbs Verbs … *There is a problem, a certain confusion:

Syntactic Classification

The classification is based on the Principle of Syntactic Behaviour (tab. 5.3)

Table 5.4

Scheme of Syntactic Classification of Verbs

Grammatical Categories of the English Verb

General Characteristics of the Categories of the English Verb

I Categories of the Finite Verbs

A carpenter made a table (AV). The table is made of silver (PV)   The Mood (Indicative (expresses a statement),… For example:

II Categories of the Non-Finite Verbs

1. The Infinitive
2. The Gerund do not refer to a Person but refer to another verb in a Finite Form
3. The Participle

 

VI Non-Finite Forms of the Verb

Terms that are used when Non-Finite Forms are studied

The Paradigm of the Non-Finite Forms

Functions and Significance of the Non-Finite Forms

Terms that are used when Non-Finite Forms are studied

In the tab. 6.1 different names for the Non-finite Forms of the Verb are presented and certain critics towards the attitudes.

Table 6.1

Terms that are used to name Forms of the Verb that do not make agree with Persons

Non-finite Forms are included to the system of the Verb on the ground of the following characteristics: They keep the Grammatical Meaning of…   There are different number of Non-Finite Forms distinguished in Classical and Traditional Grammar (drawing 6.1). …

The Paradigm of the Non-Finite Forms

General Paradigm of the Non-Finite Forms of the Verb which is grounded on the Traditional Classification is presented in the tab. 6.2.

Table 6.2

The General Paradigm of the Non-Finite Forms of the Verb

Infinitive includes 4 general Forms, 2 of which are used in Active and Passive and 2 – only in Active (in sum total – 6): a) 2 units (Active and Passive) of Simple (Present) Form; b) 2 units (Active and Passive) of Perfect Form;

Functions and Significance of the Non-Finite Forms

Two morphological forms of the Non-Finite Forms of the Verb: *Simple: to speak (simple or present infinitive active),

VII Word-combination

The problem of the definition of Word-combination

Classification of Word-combinations

The problem of the definition of Word-combination

1) A phrase; 2) A word cluster / a cluster of words; 3) A word group / a group of words.

Classification of Word-combinations

4) Principle of Form (inner structure, grammatical morphological relations and sequence of elements inside of WC); 5) Principle of Syntactic Function (behaviour of WC and its elements inside of…  

Classification of Word-combinations grounded on the Principle of its Inner Structure

Meanings of the presented types of WC (tab. 7.1): I. Nuclear WC is a group of words where one element takes the superior position (becomes the main word). The element…

Examples of types of word-combinations

VIII Sentence

Main characteristics of the Sentence, its notion, models of the Sentence.

Classification of sentences. Structural Approach.

Semantics of the Sentence. Relevant Model.

Main characteristics of the Sentence, its notion, models of the Sentence.

  Syntactic autonomy (the absence of grammatical indices of being included into a bigger structure: in comparison with the … For example: Him go – WC, is not an autonomic structure;

General Structure of the Simple Sentence

1. As for the purpose of utterance: 1) Narrative (Affirmative (утвердительные), Negative (отрицательные)): All people are created equal.

Correspondence of Semantic Roles and their syntactic realisation

1. Agent. 1). The man has brought a good news (Subject). 2). The news was brought by the man (Object).

PRACTICE I

Has been cleaning, meaning, an, has been peeled, beauty, they, girl, potato, he, meaningful, slowly, cleaned, she, the, is peeling, oranges, flat,… For example:

TEST I (S)

   

PRACTICE I

Main grammar notions

Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. Grammar categories

  Has been cleaning, meaning, an, has been peeled, beauty, they, girl, potato,…