Syntactical theories

In the xXth - xxIth centuries

Treatment of different grammatical descriptions in terms of SYNTAX.

Taxonomic description of different morphological phenomena. Little attention was paid to syntax. This change of scientific attention (from morphology to S) is explained. Scientists realized that science as a closed discipline is no longer productive. 2WW added to the change of the treatment of science. Very many people were killed: it seemed that mankind became scares in number: the immediate interest of science shifted towards the role of MAN as the main scientific object.

The Wars endangered the existence and development of different languages, Wars stimulated technological development -> new people were discovered and new languages! These new languages needed description. If you use language to explain what you feel, it is natural that you use sentences rather than morphemes or parts of speech. Linguistics focused on syntax: the way sentences appear, function etc. There will be still another shift: closer to '80 linguists realized that sentence is not that important as the whole text.

And still futher linguists came to discourse.

Syntactic theories -> text -> discourse.

Mind - syntactic structure.

SENTENCE is a complex unit:

- Structural aspect

any S has a precise shape that is determined by how words are organized according to the rules of a particular L. This aspect is the oldest in terms of its studying. It's been studies more thoroughly.

- Semantic aspect

This aspect has got to do with the Meaning of the S. We have to take into account several factors. S Meaning depends on the Ms of W, but at the same time the M of the S is mainly oriented towards the description of the situation of objective reality. the M of S covers the facts of Objective Reality and the possible relations between these facts.

The bearer, concentrated form of the M of the S is the Category of Predication. It's the predicate (verb) that bears the meaning in the sense of what happens, where it happens, in what way it happens, whether it is real or unreal. We have to take into account the interrelation pattern. Very often thanks to intonation we can decide what kind of statement we deal with.

- Actual aspect

The S is characterized by an information unit against the broader information prospect. It so happens that talking of European languages, we are always ... by the fact that within each and every S we deal with 2 types of information. Inf covers the inf exchange between the 2 partners. To be communicatively successful we have to introduce in every sentence some inf that is already shared and some inf that is new. Otherwise there's no communication progress. In eur L such new inf is placed closer to the end of the S.

- Pragmatic aspect

The S is a unit of communication in the sence that every S is uttered with a certain purpose. Thuse structural scheme of S has been distributed according to communicative intentions. S are used to state facts, questions,...

If we summarize what we know about SYN these days, we can say that modern grammar has moved from description of separate L units to explanation of how they work and interact in the process of speech production and comprehenison.

!!! Елена Кубрякова "Научная парадигма конца ХХ века"

1) Classical / Traditional Grammar.

2 varieties:

- Traditional Scientific

- Structural Descriptive

TRADITIONAL SCIENTIFIC

Smirnitskii, Vorontsova, Henry Sweet, CHarles Onions, ...

TSG is the oldest and most elaborated type of description. It is deeply rooted to Greek and Latin traditions. It often uses the notion and terms that were introduced already in ancient grammars (the noun, the verb, the subject, the predicate). All the grammat. units are distinguished and defined on the bases of their meanings, functions in Ss and typical word-use. Besides, it must be also added that TSG is hugely logically oriented.

TSG analyzes S in terms of S-parts. The Ss as such are seen as linear sequence of Ws united by certain relations and built according to fixed rules. Predominantly, speaking about relations, TSGrammarians take into consideration the equality or inequality of different words. The definitions produced by TSGrammarians are based on the semantic bases/grounds, thus they become vague and ambiguous.

DISADVANTAGES:

As a result, among the main drawbacks scholars register:

- they do not cover the fact existing in other eur Ls and modern Ls in particular. Придерживаются устаревших канонов.

- do not recognize and cant explain the paradigmatic relations between syntactic units.

Modern grammarians:

2 kinds of Subj:

- the formal Subj

- the notional Subj

Traditional Grammarians didnt know how to define secondary parts of S.

"I want to go there". To go - object or predicate?

"It is necessary to go there". To go - subject or object or predicate?

Difficulties in the Traditional Syntactical Analysis:

1) No strict, other than semantic, criteria for distinction of sentence parts:

The weather that winter was cold. "That winter" - adv modifier t attribute?

2) No reflection of paradigmatic relations on syntactical level:

John's arrest: John was arrested. Smb arrested John.

How are these patterns related to express the same meaning?

3) No explanation for cases of syntactical ambiguity.

DESCRIPTIVE STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS

Indian tribes. At the beginning of the XX centuries these Ls were quickly dying out. These Ls had no writing and these people left no history. The main message employed by DLinguistics - COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD.

However, it soon became clear that this method can not be applied as there was nothing to apply it to. To use the CHM linguists needed written texts. Instead, what they had was oral stories told them by native speakers and for quite a ong period of time to make record of speech, transcribe them and them used for analyses. When such samples were received finally, DLinguists analyzed their documents, registering linguistic form according to their position and co-occurrence in the S.

What they disregarded altogether was the possible lexical meaning of the elements. The did it on purpose, because lex meaning is always subjective, while linguistic description should be objective, devoid of the possible interpretation by the scholars.

what they received was long lexonomies of language ... which according to them constituted the structure of language. Within their taxonomies there were units of different language levels: phonological morphological, syntactical The longer such a taxonomy was, the better was the grammar.

They never tried to explain why these elements met in the flow of speech, how they are interacting. They simply dd mechanical work splitting speech into elements.

Leonard Bluefield, Charlse Freese, ...

Speakign about syntax, we can say that syn structures are used in the way similar to TSG.

DISADVANTAGES:

-AT the same time, we have to mention that they ignored the lex M of Ws in S.

-They mostly concentrated on the formal connections between the neighboring language units.

- They made no distinction between the morphological units and syntactic elements.

Their main finding is associated with the Distributional Method, with the help of which they discussed the Structural M of the S.

With the help of this DM Descriptive Grammarians tried to explain the grammatical input of a particular element into a S.

Анализ касался только 2 соседних элементов.

DIfficulties in the Distributional Analysis:

The police shot man in the red cap. - attribute

The police shot the man in the right arm. - adv modifier

20.02 - MISSING

26.02