Теоретическая грамматика (английский язык). Практикум

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ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ГРАММАТИКА ( А Н Г Л И Й С К И Й Я З Ы К )

3. CATEGORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORD

Цель: сформировать понятия «грамматическое значение» и «грамматическая форма»; рассмотреть различные грамматические категории и значения; а также сформировать навыки определения типов оппозиций и отношений в них.

Знания и умения, приобретаемые студентами: студенты должны усвоить базовые понятия – «грамматическое значение» и «грамматическая форма»; а также уметь определять типы оппозиций и отношений в них.

Формируемые компетенции: ОПК-3.

Актуальность темы определяется тем, что в ее рамках осваиваются понятия «грамматическое значение» и «грамматическая форма»; рассматриваются различные грамматические категории и значения; а также формируются навыки определения типов оппозиций и отношений в них.

Теоретическая часть Theoretical part

The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are interrupted in linguistics as categorical grammatical meanings. Grammatical meaning is useful to compare with lexical meaning. Both of these types of meanings have differences and similarities. Their similarity consists in content-based part of linguistic units, they are the units of content and both of them have abstract character.

The difference between lexical and grammatical meaning is first, that lexical meanings are much more numerous than grammatical.

A table, a house, a bird →each of it has lexical meaning but they are united by the grammatical meaning “thingness”.

Second, lexical meanings are individual, grammatical meanings are above individual.

Third, appearing as the generalization of individual lexical meanings, grammatical meaning in diachronic approach is later formation than lexical.

Forth, grammatical meaning is obligatory and is determined in every unit of the lexicon, though lexical meaning of some units of the lexicon may be completely lost (article) or unclear (prepositions, particles, conjunctions).

Grammatical form is closely connected with grammatical meaning. There is double way to view the outer side of linguistic units. From one side the attention of a researcher can be on morphological structure of a word, on the mechanics of the combination of morphemes inside of

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it, and from the other side from what kind of grammatical meaning and additional meaning.

Tables → From lexical aspect there are 2 morphemes in this word which consists of a stem and flexion. From grammatical point of view this is the form of plural number which is made up from the singular form and the element denoting plurality.

Has been waiting → From the morphological point we deal with analytical form of the verb to wait, consisting of 4 morphemes: three of them are free (has, been, wait-) and “-ing” is a bound morpheme.

Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. Grammatical categories are divided into following types:

a)nominal and verbal. Grammatical categories which characterize nominal parts of speech are called nominal (case, gender, number and so on), and those which characterize verbal parts of speech are called verbal (aspect, mood, voice, tense and others).

b)general and individual. Under general category we understand the category without any concrete lingual connection to any language. And individual category is a category realized in concrete language (for example, a category of tense in the English language).

c)word-changing and classifying. First are realized by opposing two or more linguistic forms on the level of paradigmatics. Word-changing grammatical category is not fixed constantly to the form of the word, is not its permanent classification feature and is not indicated in the dictionaries as the feature of lexeme. Word-changing categories are the category of number of nouns, the category of comparison of adjectives, the category of tense of verbs and so on. Classifying grammatical categories are category of transitiveness/intransitiveness, animateness/inanimateness.

d)morphological and syntactical. Morphological categories refer to the sphere of morphology and characterize the number of grammatical features of words as parts of speech (categories of number, case, gender, mood, voice and etc.) syntactical grammatical categories are transitiveness and intransitiveness, coordination/subordination, predicativeness, modality and so on.

e)overt and covert. Overt grammatical categories are those which are determined by the word-form without turning to context. Table – tables covert grammatical categories are those which potentially are in lexeme but are determined through the context. For example, most

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ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ГРАММАТИКА ( А Н Г Л И Й С К И Й Я З Ы К )

English verbs have notes vt (verb transitive) and vi (verb intransitive), so the category of transitiveness/ intransitiveness of the verb but is manifested in the context.

He walks in the park every evening (intran.).

He walks his dog in the park every evening (trans.).

Вопросы, выносимые на обсуждение Points for discussion

1.What do we call grammatical category?

2.How can we understand grammatical forms?

3.What grammatical elements constitute a paradigm?

4.What types of paradigms do you know?

5.What ensures a stylistic load of transposition?

6.What makes neutralization stylistically colourless?

Задания Exercises

Exercise I. Define the types of the opposition and interpret the categorical properties of their members in privative terms.

MODEL: play – played The words “play - played” make up a binary privative opposition. The strong member is“played”; its differential feature is the denotation of a past action. The marker of this categorical meaning is the grammatical suffix “-ed”.

a)he –she, he – they, he – it, we – they;

b)intelligent – more intelligent – the most intelligent;

c)I understand – I am understood;

d)Tooth –teeth, pincers – a pair of pincers;

e)He listens – he is listening

f)Mother - room

Exercise II. Make a paradigm of the plural form of the noun.

Exercise III. Make a paradigm of the degrees of comparison of adjective.

Exercise IV. Determine “marked” and “nonmarked” member of opposition.

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ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ГРАММАТИКА ( А Н Г Л И Й С К И Й Я З Ы К )

4. GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS

Цель: рассмотреть различные принципы грамматической классификации слов, рассмотреть самостоятельные и служебные части речи, сформировать понятие лексической парадигмы номинации.

Знания и умения, приобретаемые студентами: студенты должны усвоить различные принципы грамматической классификации слов, а также уметь идентифицировать лексическую парадигму номинации.

Формируемые компетенции: ОПК-3.

Актуальность темы определяется тем, что в ее рамках осваиваются различные принципы грамматической классификации слов, рассматриваются самостоятельные и служебные части речи, формируется понятие лексической парадигмы номинации.

Теоретическая часть Theoretical part

Parts of speech must be defined as lexico-grammatical word-class- es which differ in their grammatical meaning and forms, word-making devices and functions in the sentence. In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of the three criteria: “semantic”, “formal”, “functional”. The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized meaning, which is characteristic of all the subsets of words constituting a given part of speech. This meaning is understood as the “categorical meaning of the part of speech”. The formal criterion provides for the exposition of the specific inflexional and derivational (word-building) features of all the lexemic subsets of a part of speech. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of a part of speech.

In accord with the traditional criteria of meaning, form and function, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional.

In English to the notional parts of speech are usually referred the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb. The notional parts of speech are the words of complete nominative value; in the utterance they fulfill self-dependent functions of naming and denoting things, phenomena, their substantial properties. Opposed to the notional parts of speech are the functional words which are words of incomplete nominative value, but of absolutely essential grammatical value. In the utterance they serve as all sorts of mediators. They are: the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.

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The open character of the notional part and the closed character of the functional part have the status of a formal grammatical feature. Between these two parts there is an intermediary field of semi-functional words. The unity of the notional lexemes, as well as their division into four infinitely large classes is demonstrated in the inner-class system of derivation. This inner class system of derivation is presented as a fourstage series permitting the lexicon. It has been given the name of “Lexical paradigm of nomination”

For example: “fancy – to fancy – fanciful - fancifully”. As the initial position in a particular nomination paradigm can be occupied by a lexeme of any word class, one can define the concrete “derivational perspective” of the given series in accord with a part of speech status of the constituent in the initial position.

Вопросы, выносимые на обсуждение Points for discussion

1.What is the grammatical essence of the term “parts of speech”?

2.What are the strong and weak points of the traditional (polydifferential) classification of words?

3.What are the advantages and disadvantages of the syntactico – distributional classification of words?

4.What parts does the whole of the lexicon consist of?

5.What is the differential feature of the notional part of the lexicon?

6.What is the notional part of the lexicon represented by?

7.What demonstrates the unity of the notional part of the lexicon?

8.What do we call functional words?

9.What is the role of suppletivity in the lexical paradigm of nomination?

Задания Exercises

Exercise 1. Build up the lexical paradigm of nomination.

MODEL: high: high – height – heighten – highly (high)

1)fool, to criticize, slow, fast;

2)new, work, to fraud, out;

3)to cut, sleep, brief, hard;

4)down, beauty, to deceive, bright.

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5. THE NOUN

Цель: рассмотреть существительное как часть речи, рассмотреть его категории, сформировать навыки морфологического разбора слова.

Знания и умения, приобретаемые студентами: студенты должны усвоить различные категории существительного как части речи, а также уметь проводить морфологический разбор слова, определять грамматико-лексические категории существительного.

Формируемые компетенции: ОПК-3.

Актуальность темы определяется тем, что в ее рамках осваивается понятие существительного как часть речи, рассматриваются его категории, формируются навыки морфологического разбора слова.

Теоретическая часть Theoretical part

The noun in Modern English has only two grammatical categories, number and case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful and has to be carefully analyzed. The existence of gender appears to be doubtful also.

Modern English, as most other languages, distinguishes between two numbers, singular and plural.

The essential meaning of singular and plural seems clear enough: the singular number shows that one object is meant, and the plural shows that more than one object is meant.Thus, the opposition is «one – more than one».

We must also consider here two types of nouns differing from all others in the way of number: they have not got the usual two number forms, but only one form. The nouns which have only plural and no singular are usually termed «pluralia tantum» (which is the Latin for «plural only»), and those which have only a singular and no plural are termed «singularia tantum» (the Latin for «singular only»).

Case is the category of a noun expressing relations between the thing denoted in the noun and other things, or properties, or actions, and manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This sign is almost always an inflection, and it may also be a «zero» sign, i.e. the absence of any sign may be significant as distinguishing one particular case from another. It is obvious that the minimum number .

Different views have also been expressed concerning the scope of meaning of the -s. Besides phrases implying possession in the strict sense of the term (my father’s books, etc.), the -s is also found in oth-

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ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ГРАММАТИКА ( А Н Г Л И Й С К И Й Я З Ы К )

er contexts, such as my father’s friends, my father’s arrival, my father’s willingness, etc. The question now arises how wide this scope may be. From this point of view it has been customary to point out that the relation expressed by the collocation- «noun + -s + noun» is often a subjective relation, as in my father’s arrival: my father’s expresses the subject of the action, cf. my father arrives. This would then correspond to the so-called subjective genitive of inflected languages, such as Russian or Latin. It would, however, not do to say that the noun having the -’s could never indicate the object of the action: cf. the example Doughty’s famous trial and execution, where the implied meaning of course is, ‘Doughty was tried and executed’. This would correspond to the so-called objective genitive of inflected languages. Now, though this particular use would seem to be far less frequent than the subjective, it is by no means impossible or anomalous. Thus it would not be correct to formulate the meaning of the -’s in a way that would exclude the possible objective applications of the -’s-formation.

There is another topic concerning the article – the determinatives. The article is a word that serves as a determiner alongside with such determiners as demonstrative, possessive and indefinite pronouns. The article is one of the main means of expressing the idea of definiteness and indefiniteness.

Вопросы, выносимые на обсуждение Points for discussion

1.What are the “part of speech” properties of a noun?

2.Is the noun the main nominal word of the English lexicon?

3.What does the peculiarity of expressing gender distinctions in English consist in?

4.What differentiates the category of gender in English from that in Russian?

5.What lexical subclasses of nouns do you know?

6.The category of number: what is the modern interpretation of the plural form?

7.What makes the category of case in English disputable?

8.What ensures a peculiar status of “-s”?

9.What are the main approaches to the treatment of the article?

10.What shows the intermediate (between the word and the morpheme) status of the article?

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