The copenhagen linguistic school. Copenhagen structuralism

L. Hjelmslev, H. Uldall

This approach is very complicated. This is superfunctional approach to the phoneme, the so-called abstract conception of the phoneme. This trend defines phonemes as independent on the acoustic and articulatory properties associated with phonemes. That is independent on speech sounds. These linguists regard the phoneme as an abstract conception existing in mind but not reality. They manifest maximal estrangement between phoneme and sound. R. Jacobson defines this conception algebraic.

Syllabic structure of english words

A syllable (G.P. Torsuyev) is the smallest unit into which a word can be divided from articulatory point of view. The syllable is articulatorily autonomous [Торсуев 1975: 4].

G.P. Torsuyev: 4 types of syllable in English:

1. V type: fully open (i.e. consisting of one vowel, e.g. I, or);

2. CVC type: fully closed (i.e. consisting of a vowel preceded and followed by consonants, e.g. cup, time, strong);

3. CV type: initially covered (прикрытый в начале) (i.e. beginning with one or several consonants, e.g. sea, play, straw);

4. VC type: finally covered (прикрытый в конце) (i.e. ending in one or several consonants, e.g. at, acts, and) [Торсуев 1975: 8].

The fully-closed type has 12 subtypes:

1. CVC

2. CVCC

3. CVCCC

4. CCVC

5. CCCVC

6. CCVCC

7. CCVCCC

8. CCCVCC

9. CCCVCCC

10. CVCCCC

11. CCVCCCC

12. CVCCCCC

Theories of syllable formation

1) ancient theory: there are as many syllables as there are vowels.

2) Expiratory theory = pressure theory (R. Stetson): each syllable corresponds to a single expiration.

3) Sonority theory (O. Jesperson): there are as many syllables as there are peaks of sonority. He offered the scale of sonority of sounds: the most sonorous are a) back vowels, then come b) semi-vowels and sonorants; then c) voiced and voiceless consonants, the least sonorous are plosive voiceless consonants.

4) Theory of muscular tension (L.V. Shcherba): the syllable is defined as an arc of articulatory or muscular tension. Different types of consonants: 1. finally-strong or initially-weak and 2. initially-strong or finally-weak.

The parts of speech

The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes.

English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech.

There are 4 approaches to the problem:

• Classical (logical, inflexional)

• Functional

• Distributional

• Complex

1. Classical approach

It is based on Latin grammar. All words are divided into:

Declinable:

• Nouns

• Pronouns

• Verbs

• Participles

Indeclinable:

• Adverbs

• Prepositions

• Conjunctions

• Interjections

It can’t be applied to the English language as the principle of declinability / indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.

2. Functional approach

It was introduced in the 19^th century by Henry Sweet. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles.

To nominative parts of speech belonged noun words (noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive and participles); while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles.

3. Distributional approach

It’s a classification introduced by Charles Fries. He introduced 4 major classes of words and 15 form-classes.

The basis for his analysis formed 3 test frames.

Frame A: The concert was good (always).

Frame B: The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly).

Frame C: The team went there

4. Complex approach

In modern linguistics parts of speech are discriminated according to 3 criteria:

• semantic

• formal

• functional (function in the sentence and combinability)

The semantic criterion presupposed the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning).

Meaning is not the individual meaning of each separate word (lexical meaning) but the meaning common to all the words of the given class and constituting its essence.

The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties:

• relevant grammatical categories

• form of the words

• the specific inflexional and derivational features

It is possible to divide all the words of the language into:

notional:

• nouns

• pronouns

• numerals

• verbs

• adjectives

• adverbs

functional:

• particles

• prepositions

• conjunctions

• modal words

• interjections