Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. Учебно-методическое пособие

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Кожанов, Д.А.

Теоретическая грамматика английского языка : учебно-методическое пособие / Д.А. Кожанов. – Барнаул : АлтГПУ, 2017. – 128 с.

Рецензенты:

Майзенгер Н.В., кандидат филологических наук, доцент (Алтайский государственный педагогический университет); Широкова Н.П., кандидат филологических наук, доцент (Алтайский государственный педагогический университет)

Содержащиеся в пособии материалы позволяют организовать работу студентов как аудиторно, так и самостоятельно, что делает возможным использование данного пособия как на очной, так и заочной формах обучения. Учебно-методическое пособие предназначено дать общее представление о проблематике современных грамматических исследований и методике научного анализа языкового материала, рассматривая теорию уровней языка, оппозиционную теорию грамматических категорий и проблематику синтаксических исследований с последующим выходом на уровень организации текста.

Учебно-методическое пособие предназначено для студентов 3 курса, обучающихся по направлениям подготовки «Педагогическое образование» (профиль подготовки «Иностранный язык») и «Лингвистика» (профиль подготовки «Перевод и переводоведение»).

Рекомендовано к изданию редакционно-издательским советом АлтГПУ 23.03.2017 г.

© Алтайский государственный педагогический университет, 2017

Предисловие

Данная книга представляет собой учебно-методическое пособие, предназначенное для студентов в качестве руководства для практических занятий по теоретической грамматике английского языка. Курс теоретической грамматики английского языка входит в число базовых курсов обучения студентов, для которых английский язык является профильной дисциплиной специальности.

Настоящее пособие ориентировано на системное описание грамматического строя современного английского языка, рассматривая морфологию и синтаксис как единую систему порождения речи. Отвечая требованиям программы, данное учебно-методи– ческое пособие ставит своей целью дать общее представление о проблематике современных грамматических исследований и методике научного анализа языкового материала. В данном контексте в курсе рассматривается теория уровней языка, оппозиционная теория грамматических категорий с раскрытием особенностей функционирования грамматических форм в речи, проблематика синтаксических исследований с последующим выходом на уровень организации текста. Особое внимание уделяется рассмотрению семантической составляющей на всех уровнях описания, что соответствует широко распространенному в настоящее время когнитивнокоммуникативному подходу к описанию языковых явлений, фактов

ипроцессов.

Впредлагаемом учебно-методическом пособии реализуются следующие задачи курса:

- рассмотрение основ грамматического строя английского языка в соответствии с современным состоянием науки о языке;

- введение в общую проблематику современных научных исследований грамматического строя английского языка;

- развитие умения применять теоретические знания по грамматике английского языка в практическом преподавании английского языка на разных ступенях обучения.

Предлагаемое учебно-методическое пособие организовано таким образом, чтобы обеспечить последовательное освоение обеих частей курса, структура которого представлена в планах семинар-

ских занятий. Теоретическая часть курса представлена конспектами лекций, создающих базовые представления о предмете настоящего курса и предполагающих дальнейшую самостоятельную работу студента с предлагаемыми теоретическими источниками. Практическая часть пособия представлена блоками упражнений, направленных на овладение студентами специальными методиками грамматических исследований (морфемно-дистрибутивный анализ, оппозиционно-категориальный анализ, трансформационный анализ и др.).

Для контроля усвоения материала курса в учебнометодическое пособие включены тесты, которые в зависимости от уровня подготовки студентов могут выполняться или на аудиторных занятиях, или индивидуально.

К основному тексту пособия прилагается глоссарий, включающий как общелингвистические, так и специальные термины. Приводимые дефиниции терминов рассчитаны на то, чтобы дать студентам ориентиры при работе со специальной литературой в процессе подготовке к семинарским занятиям.

Расположение разделов пособия внутри каждой темы не обязывает к жесткой последовательности изучения изложенного в них материала. Пособие содержит достаточный объем языкового материала, что позволяет варьировать его в зависимости от уровня подготовки студентов и количества часов, выделяемых на дисциплину в рамках учебной программы.

Introduction into the theory of grammar The position of grammar in the structure of language

Language is a complex, many-sided and many-functional phenomenon and therefore not easy to define. Today it is studied by linguists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists and other specialists. Language is “many things – a system of communication, a medium for thought, a social institution, a factor in nation building”. Thus language has many aspects and the definition of language depends upon which aspect comes into the focus of the researcher, upon what becomes the subject matter of research.

Linguists point out three main aspects and, consequently, three main ways of representing language:

-as a result of speech activity;

-as a lingual competence a speaker, the language in the speaker’s

mind;

-as a result of linguistic research presented in dictionaries, grammar books and dissertations.

Thus language can be represented in three ways: language as text, language as competence and language as system.

These three ways of language representation allow to give the following definition of the language: a structured system of signs used for forming, storing and exchanging information in the process of human communication.

The attribute ‘structured’ suggests that the language system presents a hierarchy and consists of subsystems, or levels. A level can be defined as a subsystem of language which presents a totality of homogeneous units (morphemes, words, phonemes) and a set of rules regulating their use and classification. Language structure consists of

three main domains: phonetics, lexicon and grammar which are further subdivided and form six levels: phonemic, morphemic, lexemic, phrasemic, sentential and suprasentential).

The lowest is the phonemic level with its central unit – the phoneme, the smallest unit of language whose function is to differentiate meanings. This level is closed, it comprises a limited set of phonemes and it is relatively stable.

The next level is constituted by morphemes – the smallest meaningful parts of the language. The function of morphemes is either to build grammatical forms and express grammatical meanings (formbuilding morphemes) or to derive new words and express new lexical meanings (derivational, or wordbuilding morphemes).

Combining morphemes we produce words, which constitute the lexemic level with the word as its central unit. The lexemic level presents the most open, densely populated and the most changeable domain of any language. A combination of words results in the formation of a phrase - the constituent of the phrasemic level.

Combining a noun-phrase with a verb phrase we build a sentence, the central unit of the sentential level. The sentence presents a complex sign; it names not an object, but a situation of reality and forms a judgment (a proposition) about this situation. Another essential difference between the sentence and the word is that the sentence fulfils not only a nominating function, but a communicative one whereas words fulfill only a nominating function. A combination of at least two sentences results in the formation of a suprasentential unit.

The definition of the level given above points out two aspects of this phenomenon. On the one hand a level is a totality of homogeneous means, i.e. a lingual reality; on the other it is a set of rules regulating the use and classification of these units which brings us to the classification of linguistic branches that study the language units. These main branches, or subsystems of linguistics traditionally recognized are phonetics, lexicology and grammar which includes two parts: morphology which studies the grammatical classes of words and their grammatical categories and syntax which studies the ways of combining words into phrases, sentences and suprasentential structures.

Note that there is no one-to-one correlation between the levels as lingual realities and the levels as the subject matter of the linguistic branches. Phonetics does study phonemes but not only them. It also studies stress, intonation which means that it deals not only with phonemes, but with words, phrases and sentences. Morphemes which include both form-building and word-building types are studied correspondingly by lexicology and morphology. Likewise words are studied by all branches of linguistics but from different aspects. The subject matter of lexicology is what the words mean and how they are created; how they are pronounced is the subject matter of phonetics; words as representatives of certain parts of speech that possess certain grammatical categories are the subject matter of morphology; how we arrange them into sentences in the process of communication constitutes the subject matter of syntax.

The boundaries between the levels are rather fuzzy. There are a lot of transitional cases between a morpheme and a word (e.g.: a seaman in which the function of element - man is very similar to the function of the suffix -or in the word sailor, and also between an analytical grammatical form and a free syntactic combination (e.g. the combination to be going to Inf. which is often similar in its function to the grammatical form of the future).

These relations are also characterized by constant interaction which takes place in the process of the language functioning. This interaction between the levels is manifested in many ways. For example, the interaction between the phonemic and lexemic levels follows from the very function of the phoneme - to differentiate meanings. Thus the change of a phoneme results in the change of a word meaning, e.g. warm – ward – card – cord – cold - the distance between warm and cold is just three words long. The change of the stress converts a word from one part of speech to another: a present – to present, a record – to record, an increase – to increase.

Language is a system of signs we use to name different objects (real or imaginable) and as a result exchange the information about state of things. So, there are three phenomena: a sign (the system of them), an object named by the sign, a person who uses the sign to name the object. Consequently, there are three aspects in the study of language:

syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics. Syntactics deals with the relations between linguistic signs; semantics – with the relations between the signs and what they name (objects, ideas, concepts, etc.); pragmatics studies the relations between the lingual sign and its users, i.e. human beings. It is essential to underline the fact that these aspects of language can be pointed out and presented separately only in the process of linguistic studies. In the process of the language functioning as a means of communication (i.e. language at work) these three aspects of the language are integrated, they come together.

Each language has a special or design which finds its manifestation on all levels of the language, but mainly on its grammatical structure. The peculiarities of the grammatical structure of English that constitute the ‘special design’ of the English language are the following:

a) The present-day English is a very flexible language which is the result of a loss of a great number of inflections in the course of its historical development. Many words in English have a simple morphological structure and no special part-of-speech markers.

b)The two most specific features that penetrate all levels of the English language and that are directly related to the simplicity of morphological structure of words and the totality of formbuilding means are polysemy and homonymy.

c)As the grammatical meaning of a word often manifests itself through its syntactic position in the sentence English is a fixed wordorder language, and more specifically, it is a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language. In Russian the grammatical relations between the words in a sentence are expressed by the morphological markers and therefore the word-order is relatively free. A specific feature of English which is absolutely unthinkable in Russian is the ability of the preposition to be placed at the end of a sentence which is related directly to the fixed word-order.

d)It is a subject-prominent language which means that all sentence must have a subject, even if it is a dummy one.

e)Speaking in terms of preferences scholars point out that English appears to have a marked tendency towards nominalization. An English speaker often prefers a nominal form of expression where Russian speakers employ a verb.

g) English has a more abundant use of the non-finite forms of the verb than Russian, therefore sentences in English are often characterized by a greater degree of compression.

Seminar Class

1.Compare various definitions of language and explain the reasons of the variety of definitions. Enumerate the main functions of the language and try to define the language with regard to its functions.

2.Give the definition of the language level, enumerate the basic levels of the language and characterize their roles in the system of the language. Speak about the relations between the levels, dwelling on the processes of interaction between them. Give examples of interaction.

3.Speak about the three main aspects in the study of language: syntactics, semantics and pragmatics.

4.Enumerate and characterize the peculiarities of the grammatical structure of the English language. Find your own examples to illustrate these peculiarities.

Exercises

I. Analyze the sentences and comment on the interaction of lexical and grammatical levels of the language.

1.He stopped reading and put the book aside. He saw an advertisement and stopped to read it.

2.He went on speaking as if nothing had happened. After a short introduction he went on to speak about the situation in the Middle East.

3.He can’t join us right now as he is talking over the phone. She is constantly talking over the phone.

II. Disambiguate the meaning of the sentences by reading them in two different ways and comment on the interaction between the phonemic and proposemic levels of the sentence.

1.I have instructions to leave.

2.She spoke with a pretty French accent.

3.He gave her dog biscuits.

III. Analyze the sentences and point out the peculiarities of the grammatical structure of English manifested in them.

1. Do you serve crabs here? – We serve anyone, sit down.