7 Nature of language.

Language is a means of forming & storing ideas as reflections of reality & exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature, it’s inseparably connected with the people who are its creators & users, and it grows and develops together with the development of the society. Language incorporates 3 constituent parts: phonological system, lexical system, grammatical system. Without anyone with them there’s no human language in the above sense. The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it determines the material appearance of its significative units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is words & word groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process. Each of 3 constituent parts of language is studied by a particular discipline: phonology, lexicology, grammar. The aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system. Language is a system of signs which are closely interconnected & interdependent. The systemic nature of grammar is more evident since it’s responsible for the very organization of informative content of utterances. Difference between language & speech: language is a system of means of expression, speech – the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse.

8. Participle II.

The verbals (infinitive, gerund, and participle) make up a part of the English verb system. None of the verbals has any category of person or mood, number. They have the categories of aspect, tense, correlation, and voice.

The past participle (Participle II) is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adj, serving as the qualifying-processual name. It is the single form, having no paradigm of its own. It conveys the categorical meaning of the perfect and the passive. As different from the present participle, it has no distinct combinability features. The main self-positional functions of the P2 the sentence are those of the attribute and the predicative: Moyra’s softened look gave him a new hope (attributive front position). P2 is included in the structural formation of the present participle (perfect, passive), which, together with the other differential properties, vindicates (доказывает) the treatment of this form as a separate verbal.

The attributive P2 of limitive verbs in a neutral context expresses priority (A tree broken by the storm blocked ...), while the P2 of unlimitive verbs expresses simultaneity (I saw that the picture admired by the general public hardly had a fair chance with the judges).

Like the present participle, the past participle is capable of making up semi-predicative constructions of complex object (I want the document prepared for 4 p.m.), complex subject (We sank down and for a while lay there stretched out and exhausted), absolute complex (expresses priority in the correlation of two events: The talks completed, it became possible to concentrate on the central point).

P2 of non-objective verbs are rarely used in independent sentence-part positions, they are mostly included in phraseological or cliché combinations: faded photographs, fallen leaves.P2 is traditionally interpreted as being capable of adverbial-related use, notably in detached syntactical positions, after the introductory subordinative conjunctions: Though welcomed heartily by his host, Frederick was dissapointed.

9. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations in the language. Modern linguistics lays a special stress on the systemic character of language and its constituent parts. The main idea is that language is a system of signs (meaningful units) which are closely interconnected and interdependent. The common function of all the linguistic signs is to give expression to human thoughts. Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. They exist on all levels of the language. Syndagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence. This relations can be described as relations “in the presence”. “The spaceship was launched without the help of a booster rocket”. In this sentence syntagmatically connected are the words and word-groups: the spaceship, was launched, the spaceship was launched, was launched without the help, the help of the rocket, a booster rocket. Morphemes within the words are also connected syntagmatically: space|ship, launch|ed. Phonemes are connected syntagmatically within morphemes and words, as well as at various juncture (соединение) points: the process of assimilation and dissimilation. The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic “syntagma”. There are four main types of notional syntagmas: predicative (the combination of a subject and a predicate), objective (a verb and its object), attributive (a noun and its attribute), adverbial (word and its modifier).The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic and called paradigmatic, are such as exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur. These intra-systemic relations and dependencies find their expression in the fact that each lingual unit is included in a set or series of connections based on different formal and functional properties. Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations cannot be derectly observed in utterances, that is why they are referred to as relations “in absence”. In phonology such series are build up by correlations of phonemes on the basis of vocality or consonantism, voicedness or devoicedness, the factor of nasalization, length. In vocabulary: on the correlation of synonymy and antonymy, on various topical connections, on different word-building dependencies. In grammar: grammatical numbers and cases, persons and tenses, gradations of modalities, sets of sentence patterns of various functional nature. Paradigmatic relations coexist with syntagmatic relations in such a way that some sort of syntagmatic connection is necessary for the realization of any paradigmatic series.Units of language are divided into segmental (phonemes, syllables, morphemes, words, etc.) and suprasegmental (do not exist by themselves, but are realized together with segmental: intonations, accents, pauses, patterns of word-order).