Lecture 4 Syntax

(a) The subject of syntax is the study of various grammatical structures which are realized as the product of speech-thinking activity of man.

(b) The main units of syntax are the word-combination, the sentence, and the text.

(c) Traditionally, the basic types of connections distinguished in syntax are coordination and subordination. Besides this two-member succession, there is another succession consisting of four members that denote relations called predicative, objective, adverbial and attributive.

Some linguists suppose that the two-member succession may be expanded to a three-member one to include the “interdependence” type, as L.Hjelmslev named it.

(d) Synonymy in syntax implies that one and the same communicative information may be conveyed by means of different syntactic structures (cf.: Having read the book, she took up another one. = As soon as she finished reading the book, she took up another one.).

Homonymy is the coincidence of sound forms of different syntactic functions (cf.: a smoking man – a smoking-room; Watching me closely, the dog slowly retreated. – I noticed a man watching me closely.).

(e) The semantic syntax covers a wide range of problems, among which are the semantics of the word-combination constituents, of the parts of the sentence and of the sentence as a whole, as well as of the role meanings of the sentence components, of the phenomena of the reference, of the presupposition and sequence, etc.

(f) The basic problem of the functional syntax is studying and systematizing various language units (syntactic structures) as they function in the speech-thinking activity of man. This general problem may be subdivided into a number of minor ones, such as the problem of combinability and valency, the problem of syntactical analysis, etc.

(a) The word-combination is defined in different ways. Some scholars assume that it is a group of words which does not possess any communicative purpose. This definition is, no doubt, correct, but it is not complete. Most linguists are of the opinion that the word-combination is any syntactically organized group of words irrespective of the type of relations on which it is based. But in any case it is a grammatical structure.

(b) The issue of the word-combination was first mentioned by Russian linguists in their early studies of grammar in the 18^th century. But it was not until late in the 19^th century and especially early in the 20^th century that a really scientific theory of the word-combination appeared. It was developed by outstanding Russian linguists F.F.Fortunatov, A.A.Shakhmatov and others. The definition of the word-combination as any syntactically organized group was predominant up to the 1950s. That viewpoint is still shared by Ukrainian linguists (G.G.Pocheptsov and others), and it was supported by Western scholars (L.Bloomfield and others).

In the 1950s a new approach found its way. The term ‘word-combination’ was interpreted as a combination of at least two notional words in subordination. This viewpoint was worded by Acad. Vinogradov and supported by many linguists.

(c) The classification of word-combinations may be based on space-position relations, on the one hand. The resulting types of word-combinations are those based on the linear space-position relations and those based on the sublinear space-position relations (independent and dependent).

On the other hand, the classification may be based on the internal structure of word-combinations. They are then classified as kernel and non-kernel.

Kernel word-combinations are grammatically organized structures in which one element dominates the others. This element is the kernel (the head, according to L.Bloomfield).

Non-kernel word-combinations are not united by any single common structural feature. They are, in turn, subdivided into independent (easy and simple; she nodded) and dependent (\send\ him a letter).