§ 2. The significance of syntax

In the history of english

Historically English (as well as some other Germanic languages) has undergone a radical typological (structural) reconstruction, which was described by W. Y. Plotkin as “a radical change from the synthetic inflexional type to­ the analytical type combining isolating and agglutinative properties” [1989: 232]. Such a profound change suggests a considerable growth of the significance of syntax. This stable tendency (strategy) manifests itself in several smaller changes.

A) Gradual Change in the Nature of Parts of Speech

We find it useful to state, with Randolph Quirk [Quirk et al, 1982], that there are 'open' and 'closed' classes of words in Modern English. He calls nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs 'open' classes because they are indefinitely extendable [Ibidem: 27]. It is hardly ever possible to set up a complete inventory of such words.

By contrast, form words are called 'closed classes', because normally they are not extended with new members in any comparable size. Moreover, they display a tendency to preserve their individuality and unique character. In English, there are such classes of form words as pronouns, preposi­tions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, etc.

As for the change in the nature of parts of speech, it mostly concerns 'open' classes. If one depicts the relationship and borderlines among the open classes diagrammatically (with several overlapping circles), one can see that such word-forms as (to) look and (a) look in English, or любимый (человек) и (мой) любимый in Russian should be placed in the overlapping areas between the classes of verbs and nouns and nouns – adjectives, respectively. The number and size of the overlapping areas in parts of speech largely depend on the structural type of the language. Languages of synthetic inflecting type have clear-cut borders be­tween parts of speech: the overlapping areas (if there are any) are usually very small. It is probably true to say that words in such lan­guages belong to parts of speech and can be classified as such in accordance with morphological, semantic, and functional criteria. All these criteria are applicable, morphological being the leading one. This fact makes it possible to treat parts of speech as lexico-morphological classes of words. Each part of speech has its own affixational word-changing and word-building paradigms. A change in a word's affix is associated with a change of the general grammatical meaning (part-of-speech affiliation) of the word. This change becomes evident without any context.

Cf.: Old English Russian

mod; modignes (nouns) смелость (noun)

modig, modiglic (adjectives) смелый (adjective)

modiglice (adverb) смело (adverb)

modigian (verb) осмелеть (verb)

As might be gathered from the examples above, formally Old English parts of speech look like Russian and consequently can be viewed as lexico-morphological classes.

In analytical languages (like Modern English, which is also de­veloping isolating and agglutinating strategies) words can be classi­fied into parts of speech insofar as they are used as such. They are, rather, syntactic and positional classes. There being few or no af­fixes at all in such languages, morphology fails to provide a reliable criterion for dividing words into lexico-morphological classes, similar to the ones of inflecting languages. In Modern English mono- or disillabic words of the analyticised stratum (see § 3 below) display part-of-speech flexibility (they may be identified as syntactic and positional classes), i.e. they are used in the positions of different parts of speech without special morphological markers changing their form. Polysyllabic words of the synthetic stratum are functio­nally specified, their part-of-speech characteristics are recognizable through their form.

Cf.: Who can back you up? Look at his back.

We can offer you a back room. Please, come back.

But: comprehend, comprehensive, comprehension,

comprehensibility, comprehensively.