2. Basic assumptions of the external analysis

OF LANGUAGE

2.1 Communicative and expressive functions

When viewed externally language is analyzed with regard to the regularities and peculiarities of its functioning in the process of specifically human activities. Opinions differ as to the functions of human language but the two main functions are commonly recognized: the communicative one and the expressive one. These are not independent functions because the expressive function of language is realized in the process of speech communication. It is not attendant but indispen­sable from the actual speech communication. The communicative function of language is in fact the synthesis of language functions which are revealed to the full in the process of communication and cogni­tion. (Naturally, the domains of the language function oriented gram­mars (Functional grammars) are the regularities in the realization of the main functions of language).

Human language is recognized to be a functional system of semiotic nature which is intentionally used by the humans as the perfect means of communication and cognition. The realization of the communicative and expressive functions of language takes place under different conditions and under the influence of different factors. Corresponding­ly, the grammatical theories whose goal is gaining knowledge of the communicative functional relevance of grammatical phenomena should be differentiated from those theories which aim at the exposure of the interaction of lingual and conceptual entities in the process of verbal thinking.

The expressive/or representative function of language reveals the interrelation of language and thought. Human language is the living form of thought and it is the vehicle of thinking. In other words, human language functions as the means of verbalization, i. e. the means of lingual expression of conceptual entities. As a result, conceptual entities are represented lingually in the process of verbal thinking.

The expressive or representative function is performed by the linguistic means of expression which are identified as linguistic signs due to the semiotic nature of human language.

2.2 Linguistic signs: types and properties

Linguistic signs, though of semiotic nature, differ considerably from the semiotic signs of artificial languages or codes. Linguistic signs are not conventional labels or marks of things and phenomena of reality. Their use is not situationally conditioned, they can be used at any moment of time in any speech situation. Linguistic signs are lingual reflections and representations of extralingual phenomena, which are commonly termed extralingual referents of linguistic signs. Such referents can be of different ontological status: objects, phenomena, categories, relations. Those linguistic signs which have their objective referents_in the outer world are considered to possess certain referential ability /referentiality/, i. e. the ability to refer to a referent.

There are two different ways of lingual representation: nomination and signification. Therefore, the two different types of linguistic signs are distinguished in accordance with the way they represent concep­tual content: nominators and significators.

Nominators are nominative units (these being nominative words in the most), which represent conceptual content by way of nomination. It follows that nomination is the function of those linguistic signs which possess denotative ability since they can denote and nominate the referent they refer to. /Referentiality appears characteristic of most nominative signs (units) of language. It can also be found with some grammatical signs, with some categorial markers. Compare for instance, the func­tion of. the.tense-markers expressing objective time differencies/.

Nomination a complex function implying the reflection and designation of something on the part of a nominative linguistic sign. Nomination is the distinguishing feature of a notional lexical unit which serves for the verbalization of a piece of semiological content and for the designation of its referent.

Significative linguistic signs (significators) are devoid of denota­tive power and of nominative .ability. They do not.,.denote anything but signify / = or signal/ the very fact of lingual expression of some conceptual content. Such significative linguistic signs can be qualified as grammatical devices which represent conceptual content by way of signification.

Thus, the notional conceptual content is rendered lingually by the notional nominative units of the lexical type primarily whereas the propositional semiological content is expressed regularly by the grammatical units of predicative type. Lexical and grammatical means of linguistic expression interact in the process of expressing conceptual content. Grammar is concerned with the function of grammatical devices in the explication of conceptual content. Lexicology, on the contrary, studies the function of nominative units in their relation to the matter of concept, and the regularities of nomination.

Grammatical theories of linguistic relations proceed from the as­sumption that linguistic relations reflect objective relations between things and phenomena of reality /isomorphically/ but indirectly through their correlation with the corresponding conceptual reflections of objec­tive relations in human mind.