Seminar 16 Textual Grammar

1. The text in the hierarchy of language. Text and discourse. The notion of the supra-phrasal unity. The paragraph in the text.

Lecture:

L.Bloomfield: sentences – independent linguistic form not included in any larger linguistic form.

The level of sentence is not the highest level of language hierarchy. Blokh: supraproposemeic/dectimic level (text).

Assumptions:

1. Text is the highest unit of speech and a sentence serves constituents of the text.

2. Text is made according to some certain principles of text production. These principles reflect the semiotic nature of the text.

3. Text being a complex linguistic phenomenon comprises several levels:

• supra-phrasal units

• paragraphs

• whole text

??? What is the difference between the notions sentence, utterance, supra-phrasal units, text?

There should be some global coherent structure – macro-structure as distinguished from local structures (micro-structures).

Sentence presupposes some structuring and corresponding manifestation in speech.

Utterance belongs to speech, functional notion.

Supra-phrasal unit is a specially structured and limited chain of sentences which constitutes one utterance.

Paragraph – a term of composition of a written text.

Blokh: dicteme

• nomination denoting the event

• predication –reference to reality

• thematization uniting the message into the whole.

• stylization – choice of linguistic meaning

Text – a lingual element, suprasententional construction with semantic unity and semantic cohesion (or syntactic).

Communicative direction  monologue/dialogue.

Blokh:

Text is a lingual entity with its 2 distinguishing features:

1. semantic (topical) unity

2. semantico-syntactic cohesion

Paragraph:

A cumuleme is formed by 2 or more independent sentences making up a topical syntactic unity. The 1^st of the sentences in a cumuleme is its “leading” sentence, the succeeding sentences are “sequential”.

1. Paragraph is a stretch of written literary text delimited by a new line at the beginning and an incomplete line at the close.

2. Paragraph is a polyfunctional unit of written speech and as such is used not only for the written representation off a dicteme, but also for the introduction of utterances of a dialogue, as well as for the introduction of separate points in various enumerations.

3. Paragraph in a monologue speech can contain more than 1 dicteme.

Text is ligual unit which has

• semantical or topical unity

• semantico-syntactic cohesion

2. Textual categories.

• informativeness: factual content, conceptual content and implicit content;

• divisibility, i.e. discreteness of textual parts, these being supra-phrasal units or more complex fragments of the text, such as chapters in a book;

• cohesion, i.e. means of connection between the parts of the text;

• coherence, i.e. the psychological wholeness of the text and completeness of the message;

• continuum, i.e. development of facts and events in space and time;

• autosemanticity, i.e. dependence of textual fragments on the text as a whole (aphorisms, quotations, author’s thoughts);

• retrospection and prospection, i.e. connection of the given part of the text with the previous or following parts;

• modality, i.e. subjective attitude of the author to his or her message, this attitude being manifested by various linguistic means including intonation, particles, interjections, parentheses, accentuation, epithets, quotations, etc.

3. Types of connectors in the text.

Lecture:

2 types of sentence connection:

1. One-direction sequence is based on syntactic cumulation – cumulative sequence. Cumuleme – topical component.

2. Two-direction sequence is based on its sentences being positioned to meet one another – occurseme occupies the place above the cumuleme. Occurseme – exchanged topical component.

Explicit connectors: pro-forms – pronouns, pronounal adverbs (so, this, that), word-substitutes, conjunctions.

Implicit connectors may be accounted for grammatical reasons. Grammatical implicitness, when the sentence is incomplete. Semantic implicitness, when the informative parts are missing.

Blokh:

Sentences can be connected either “prospectively” (cataphorically) or “retrospectively” (anaphorically).

Prospective cumulation is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to one that is to follow it, it signals a continuation of speech: the sentence containing it is semantically incomplete.

Retrospective cumulation is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence tot the one that precedes it and is semantically complete by itself.

On the basis of the functional nature of connectors, cumulation is divided into 2 fundamental types:

1. conjunctive cumulation – is effected by conjunction-like connectors:

1. regular conjunctions (coordinative and subordinative)

2. adverbial and paranthetical sentence-connectors (then, yet, however, consequently, hence, besides, moreover, nevertheless)  can be specialized (functional and semi-functional words) and non-specialized units performing the connective functions for the nonce (специально для данного случая, в данное время; временно).

2. correlative cumulation – is effected by a pair of elements one of which, the “succeedent”, refers to the other, the “antecedent”, used in the foregoing sentence  by means of this reference the succeeding sentence is related to the preceding one, or else the preceding sentence is related to the succeeding one  the direction may be either retrospective or prospective.

1. substitutional cumulation – is based on the use of substitutes, e.g. Spolding woke me with the apparently noiseless efficiency of the trained housemaid. She drew the curtains, placed a can of hot water in my basin, covered it with the towel, and retired. A substitute may have as its antecedent the whole of the preceding sentence or a clausal part of it. Furthermore, substitutes often go together with conjunctions, effecting cumulation of mixed type, e.g. And as I leaned over the rail methought that all the little starts in the water were shaking with austere merriment. But it may have been only the ripple of the steamer, after all.

2. representative correlation – is based on representative elements which refer to one another without the factor of replacement, e.g. I went home. Maria accepted my departure indifferently. Representative correlation is achieved also by repetition, which may be complicated by different variations, e.g. Well, the night was beautiful, and the great thing not to be a pig. Beauty and not being a pig! Nothing much else to it.