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FOREWORD

The book is designed for the students of the senior courses of the University faculties of foreign languages and Teachers' Training Colleges. The aim of the book is therefore to lead the students to a scientific understanding of new assumptions and views of language as system, keeping abreast of the latest findings set forth in the progressive development of grammatical theory by Soviet and foreign scholars in recent times.

The central interest in functional semantic correlation of grammatical units has given shape to the whole book. In a description of language structure we have to account for the form, the substance and the relationship between the form and the situation. Linguistic activity participates in situations alongside with man's other activities.

Grammatical categories are viewed as a complicated unity of form and grammatical content. Due attention has been drawn to contextual level of analysis, to denotative and connotative meanings of grammatical forms, their transpositions and functional re-evaluation in different contexts, linguistic or situational.

Linguistic studies of recent years contain a vast amount of important observations based on acute observations valid for further progressive development of different aspects of the science of language. The conception of the general form of grammars has steadily developed. What becomes increasingly useful for insight into the structure and functioning of language is orientation towards involving lexis in studying grammar.

In a language description we generally deal with three essential parts known as phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. These various ranges, or levels, are the subject matter of the various branches of linguistics. We may think of vocabulary as the word-stock, and grammar as the set of devices for handling this word-stock. It is due precisely to these devices that language is able to give material linguistic form to human thought.

Practically speaking, the facts of any language are too complex to be handled without arranging them into such divisions. We do not mean to say, however, that these three levels of study should be thought of as isolated from each other. The affinities between all levels of linguistic organisation make themselves quite evident. Conceived in isolation, each of them will always become artificial and will hardly justify itself in practice. It is not always easy to draw precise boundaries between

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grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes the subject matter becomes ambiguous just at the borderline. The study of this organic relationship in language reality seems to be primary in importance.

For a complete description of language we have to account for the form, the substance and the relationship between the form and the situation. The study of this relationship may be referred to as contextual level of analysis.

Grammar, whose subject matter is the observable organisation of words into various combinations, takes that which is common and basic in linguistic forms and gives in an orderly way accurate descriptions of the practice to which users of the language conform. And with this comes the realisation that this underlying structure of the language (as system) is highly organised. Whatever are the other interests of modern linguistic science, its centre is surely an interest in the grammatical system of language.

To-day we have well-established techniques for the study of language from a number of different points of view. Each of these techniques supplements all the others in contributing to theoretical knowledge and the practical problems of the day.

Language is a functional whole and all its parts are fully describable only in terms of their relationship to the whole. This level of linguistic analysis is most obviously relevant to the problems of "overt" and "covert" grammar and the problem of "field structure" in grammar that has long attracted the attention of linguists.

There is a discussion of the problems that arise in the presentation of the material in this light but the scope of the material presented is dictated by its factual usefulness.

Analysing the language from the viewpoint of the information it carries we cannot restrict the notion of information to the cognitive aspect of language. Connotative aspects and emotional overtones are also important semantic components of linguistic units.

The components of grammatical meaning that do not belong to the denotation of the grammatical form are covered by the general term of connotation most obviously relevant to grammatical aspects of style.

Grammatical forms play a vital role in our ability to lend variety to speech, to give "colour" to the subject or evaluate it and to convey the information more emotionally.

The given quotations from different sources serve to show how the structural elements of English grammar have been variously treated by different writers and which of the linguistic approaches seems most convincing.

Extracts for study and discussion have been selected from the works of the best writers which aid in the formation of the student's literary taste and help him to see how the best writers make the deepest resources of grammar serve their pen.

Only some of the quotations used are the gatherings of the author's note-books through many years of teaching, and it has not seemed possible in every instance to trace the quotation to its original source. Most

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INTRODUCTION

SURVEY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENG-

LISH GRAMMATICAL THEORY

EARLY PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

English grammatical theory has a long tradition going back to the earliest Latin grammars of the 17th century when "grammar" meant only the study of Latin. Until the end of the 16th century there were no grammars of English. One of the earliest Latin grammars written in English was W. L i l y ' s work published in the first half of the 16th century.

Looking at English through the lattice of categories set up in Latin grammar, W. Lily presented standards for similar arrangement of the English grammatical material proceeding from Latin paradigms and using the same terminology as in Latin grammar.

Lily's work went through many editions until 1858. In other early "prenormative" grammars the arrangement of the material was similar to that of "Lily's grammar. It is to be noted that using Latin categories the writers of that time did not altogether ignore distinctions that the English language made. Thus, for instance, in Lily's grammar translation of Latin inflectional forms is given with the important points of reservation that some of their English equivalents are analytical forms, which include auxiliary words as "signs".

Attempts to break with Latin grammatical tradition characterise the treatment of the structure of English in B u l l o k a r ' s and Ch. B u t l e r ' s grammars but in many cases they still follow the Latin pattern.

The early prenormative grammars of English reproduced the Latin classification of the word-classes which included eight parts of speech. Substantives and adjectives were grouped together as two kinds of nouns, the participle was considered as a separate part of speech.

In the earliest English grammars the parts of speech were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech or words with number and words without number (Ben Jonson), or words with number and case and words without number and case (Ch. Butler). Declinable words, with number and case, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the indeclinables — adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. Ben Jonson increased the number of parts of speech. His classification includes the article as the ninth part of speech.

In J. B r i g h t l a n d ' s grammar (the beginning of the 18th century) the number of parts of speech was reduced to four. These were: names (nouns), qualities (adjectives), affirmations (verbs) and particles.

li

Brightland's system was accepted only by a few English grammarians of the period. But since that time the adjective came to be viewed as a separate part of speech.

Brightland's grammar was the first to include the concept of the sentence in syntax proper.

The logical definition of the sentence existed in old times, but grammarians understood the subject matter of syntax only as a study of word arrangement.

In Lily's grammar, for instance, we find three Latin concords: the nominative and the verb, the substantive and the adjective, the relative pronoun and its antecedent.

The second half of the 18th century is generally referred to as the age of the so-called prenormative grammar. The most influential grammar of the period was R. L o w t h ' s Short Introduction to English Grammar, first published in 1762.

Lowth's approach to the study of grammar was upheld by his follow-

ers.

The first to be mentioned here i s L i n d l e y M u r r a y 's English. Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. First published in 1795, it was then widely used in its original form and in an abridged version for many years to come. Murray's grammar was considered so superior to any then in use that soon after its appearance it became the textbook in almost every school.

The principal design of a grammar of any language, according to Lowth, is to teach us to express ourselves with propriety, to enable us to judge of every phrase and form of construction, whether it be right or not. The plain way of doing this is to lay down rules and to illustrate them by examples. But besides showing what is right, the matter may be further explained what is wrong.

In the words of Lowth, grammar in general, or Universal grammar explains the principles which are common to all languages. The Grammar of any particular language, as the English grammar, applies those common principles to that particular language.

O. Jespersen showed good judgement in observing at this point that in many cases what gives itself out as logic, is not logic at all, but Latin grammar disguised.

The early prescriptive grammars exerted an enormous influence and moulded the approach of many generations to English grammar.

Applying the principles of Universal grammar, Lowth subjected to criticism many expressions established by long use in English, such as, for instance, the use of adverbs without the suffix -ly, the expressions it is me, these kind of, or, say, such patterns as had rather, had better.

Lowth and other grammarians of that time condemned as wrong many constructions and forms which occurred in the works of the best authors. They used passages from the works of classical writers as exercises for pupils to correct bad English or "false" English.

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Classical Scientific Grammar

The end of the 19th century brought a grammar of a higher type, a descriptive grammar intended to give scientific explanation to the grammatical phenomena.

This was H. S w e e t ' s New English Grammar, Logical and Historical (1891).

Instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, Sweet's explanatory grammar aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated. This leads to a scientific understanding of the rules followed instinctively by speakers and writers, giving in many cases the reasons why this usage is such and such.

The difference between scientific and prescriptive grammar is explained by H. Sweet as follows: "As my exposition claims to be scientific, I confine myself to the statement and explanation of facts, without attempting to settle the relative correctness of divergent usages. If an 'ungrammatical' expression such as it is me is in general use among educated people, I accept it as such, simply adding that it is avoided in the literary language.

... Whatever is in general use in language is for that reason grammatically correct" 1.

In the words of Sweet, his work is intended to supply the want of a scientific English grammar, founded on an independent critical survey of the latest results of linguistic investigation as far as they bear, directly or indirectly, on the English language.

Scientific grammar was thus understood to be a combination of both descriptive and explanatory grammar. Sweet defines the methods of grammatical analysis as follows: "The first business of grammar, as of every other science, is to observe the facts and phenomena with which it has to deal, and to classify and state them methodically. A grammar, which confines itself to this is called a descriptive grammar. ...When we have a clear statement of such grammatical phenomena, we naturally wish to know the reason of them and how they arose. In this way descriptive grammar lays the foundations of explanatory grammar."

Sweet describes the three main features characterising the parts of speech: meaning, form and function, and this has logical foundations but the results of his classification are, however, not always consistent.

It is to be noted, in passing, that H. Sweet's ideas seem to anticipate some views characteristic of modern linguistics.

Here are a few lines from H. Sweet's work which bear relevantly upon F. de Saussure's ideas about synchronic and diachronic linguistics: "...before history must come a knowledge of what now exists. We must learn to observe things as they are without regard to their origin, just as a zoologist must learn to describe accurately a horse ..."2.

1H. S w e e t . New English Grammar. Logical and Historical. Oxford, 1955,

p. 5.

3 H. Sweet. Words, Logic and Meaning. Transactions of the Philological Society. London, 1875—1876, p. 471.

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