1. The subject matter of grammar. Morphology and syntax.

The subject matter of grammar includes, first, the mechanisms and devices by which words are combined into larger units of discourse; and second, the total linguistic structure of such units.

Morphology is the study of the word structure. Morphology is concerned with the study of word forms.

Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages

Morphology studies the structure of words. While sytax studies the structure of sentences

2. Basic characteristics of English as an analytical language. Types of word-form derivation.

There are 2 main types of word-form derivation.

1)synthetic type (which limited to changes in the body of the word, without having recourse to auxilary words.)

2) analytical type ( implying the use of auxilary words)

Synthetic type

The number of morphemes used for deriving word-forms in modern english is very small. (much smaller than in russian or in german) There is the ending –s (-es) with three variants of pronouncation and the endings –en and –ren (oxen, children)

Sound alternations are a way of expressing grammatical categories which consists in changing a sound inside the root. In nouns when the root vowel (au) of mouse is changed to (ai) in mice, in verbs for example (write-wrote-written) or (meet-met-met)

Analytical types

These types consists in using a word to express some grammatical category of another word. Analytical character of such formations as , has invited or is invited. The verbs such as have, be, and, do, have no lexical meaning

While the existence of analytical form of the english verb cannot be disputed the existence of such forms in adjectives and adverbs is not universally recognised.

3 . Grammatical category, forms and meanings.

A grammatical category is a unit of grammar based on a morphological oppposition of grammatical meanings presented in grammatical forms.

Grammatical meanings are very abstract and general. Grammatical meanings is ranged in oppositions and presented in grammatical forms build grammatical categories.

Grammatical forms can be morphemes, synthetic forms or grammatical word-combinations, which are analytical forms. Synthetic forms unite both lexical and grammatical meanings in one word. Example,,,, book and books, -s ,, is a form-building morpheme that builds a grammatical form because it is characterized by the level of grammatical abstraction realized in an unlimited range of occurrence.

4. . The theory of oppositions, types of oppositions. Oppositional reduction.

Oppositions are the pairs of grammatical forms opposed to each other in some way. The opposition may be defined as a generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed. The oppositional theory was originally formulated as a phonological theory,

There are 3 main types of oppositions were established in phonology.

Binary privative opposition is formed by a contrastive pair members in which one member is characterized by the presence of a certain differential feature (strong, marked, positive), while the other member is characterized by the absence of the feature ( weak, unmarked, negative)

Gradual opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a feature, but by the degree of it.

Equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features.

5. Distibution. Types. Distibutional analysis

Distribution is the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units of the same level, in other words the position which lexical units occupy or may occupy in the text or in the flow of speech.

3 types of distribution/ contrastive, non-contrastive, complementary distribution

Contrastive and non-contrastive distribution concern identical environments of different morphs. The morphs are said to be in contrastive one, if their meanings are different, but if their meanings are the same, so it is non-contrastive distribution.

Complementary distribution concerns different environments of formally different morphs which are united by the same meaning. If two or more morphs have the same meaning and the different in their forms these morphs are said to be in complementary distribution.

6. Morph and morpheme. The allo-emic theory. Morphemic analysis.

A morpheme is defined as 'the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning'. If you cannot 'split' the word any further into smaller parts, then this is the morpheme, e.g. 'the' is a morpheme as there is no smaller unit of meaning within it. 'Unthinkable' has three morphemes - 'un-' 'think' and '-able'. Often, a word with more than one morpheme uses affixes like 'un-' and '-able' here

A morph is simply the phonetic representation of a morpheme - how the morpheme is said. This distinction occurs because the morpheme can remain the same, but the pronunciation changes. The best example of this is the plural morpheme in English '-s'. '-s' is the morpheme, but the morph changes in different words: Cats - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /s/ Dogs - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /z/ Houses - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /ɪz/

The morphemic analysis is one of possible methods of analyzing word structure along with the word-building analysis. The procedure of morphemic analysis consists of two operations:

1. The stem is seperated from the inflection by means of comparing word-forms of the word.

2. Relations between morphemes in the stem are stated by means of comparing cognate words.

7. The parts of speech problem. Classifications of Henry Sweet, Jespersen and Fries.

The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics. The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversal issues in linguistics. There are 4 approaches to the problem. Classical. Functional. Distributional. Complex.

Such grammarians as Henry Sweet divided words into declinalbe and indeclinable. To declinables he attributed noun-words, adjective words, verbs, verbals. To indeclinables adverbs, prepositions, conjuncions, interjenctions. Henry Sweet marked 3 principles of classification (form, meaning and function).

Talking about Otto Jespersen who also spoke about 3 classifications. He believed that everything should be kept in view, form, function, meaning. Jespersen and Sweet are both seperates nouns from noun-words. Jespersen distinguishes pronouns as separate part of speech,

American linguist Charles Fries rejected the traditional principle of classification of words into pairs of speech replacing it with the methods of distibutional analysis and substitution.

For example,,,,, The concert was good. ( the word, concert, can be substituted with coffee, tea, food and etc.