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Grammatical meaning and the means of its expression. Paradigmatic correlation of individual grammatical forms. Grammatical category as a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning. Oppositional analysis of grammatical category. The theory of oppositions. The types of oppositions: binary and supra-binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.) oppositions; privative, gradual, and equipollent oppositions. Oppositions in grammar. Privative bi­nary opposition as the most important type of categorial opposition in grammar. The strong (marked, positive) and the weak (unmarked, negative) members of the opposition, their formal and functional features. Grammatical category in communicati­on: contextual oppositional reduction (oppositional substitution). The two types of oppositional reduction: neutralization and transposition. Synthetical and analytical grammatical forms. The types of synthetical grammatical forms: outer inflection, inner inflection, and suppletivity. The principle of identifying an analytical form; grammatical idiomatism of analytical forms. The types of grammatical categories: immanent and reflective categories, closed and transgressive categories, constant feature categories and variable feature categories.

Grammatical meanings of notional words are rendered by their grammatical forms. For example, the meaning of the plural in English is regularly rendered by the grammatical suffix –(e)s: cats, books, clashes. Grammatical meanings of individual grammatical forms are established as such in paradigmatic correlations: the plural correlates with the singular (cat – cats), the genitive case of the noun correlates with the common case (cat – cat’s), the definite article determination correlates with the indefinite article determination (a cat – the cat), etc.

The generalized meaning rendered by paradigmatically correlated grammatical forms is called “categorial”. Category is a logical notion denoting the reflection of the most general properties of phenomena. Categorial meanings in grammar are expressed by grammatical paradigms. For example, within the system of the English noun the generalized, categorial meaning of “number” is expressed grammatically through the paradigmatic correlation (or, opposition in a paradigm) of two members, of two grammatical forms, each with its own grammatical meaning: the singular (e.g., cat) and the plural (cats).

Thus, the definition of grammatical category is as follows: grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized categorial meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. In other words, it is a unity of a generalized grammatical meaning and the forms of its expression.

Paradigmatic correlations, as shown above, are exposed by “oppositions” of grammatical forms - the members of a paradigm. Oppositions are analyzed linguistically with the help of a special method known as “oppositional analysis”. N. S. Trubetzkoy, a member of the Prague Linguistic Circle, developed it at the turn of the 20^th century for the purposes of phonological research; later it became widely employed in the analysis of grammatical categories. Opposition members are characterized by two types of features: common features and differential features. Common features serve as the basis for uniting the grammatical forms within the same paradigm; in the example above, the two forms, cat and cats, are paradigmatically united as forms of one and the same word, sharing the categorical grammatical meaning of number. Differential features serve to differentiate the members of an opposition; for example, the grammatical form of the plural, cats, has an inflection, or a grammatical suffix, which the form of the singular, cat, has not.

On the basis of various combinations of common and differential features, several types of oppositions are distinguished. The prevalent type in English grammar is a binary privative opposition. The term “binary” means, that the opposition consists of two members, or forms; besides binary oppositions, there are oppositions, that may include more than two members (‘ternary’, ‘quaternary’, etc.). The term “privative” means that the members of the opposition are characterized by the presence/absence of a certain differential feature, which serves as the formal mark of one of its members; in the example above, cat – cats, the ending of the plural is its formal mark. The member of the opposition characterized by the presence of the differential mark is called “marked”, “strong”, or “positive” (commonly designated by the symbol +). The other member of the opposition, characterized by the absence of the differential feature, is called “unmarked”, “weak”, or “negative” (commonly designated by the symbol -). In the category of number the strong, marked member is the plural form, because it possesses a special formal mark (either the productive suffix -(e)s, or other formal means, such as -en in children, etc.), the weak, unmarked member of the opposition is the singular form, which possesses no special mark. To stress the negative marking of the weak member it is also defined in oppositional theory with “non-”terms: e.g., the singular is referred to as “non-plural”.

Besides the differences in the form, there are also regular semantic differences between the members of the privative oppositions: the meaning of the weak member is always more general and more abstract, while the meaning of the strong member is always more particular and concrete. Due to this difference in meaning, the weak member of the opposition is used in a wider range of contexts than the strong member and it can even regularly substitute the strong member in certain contexts. For example, the singular form of the noun can be used generically to denote all the objects belonging to a certain class: The rose is my favourite flower = (All) Roses are my favourite flowers.

Besides privative oppositions, there are gradual and equipollent oppositions, which are minor types in morphology. Gradual oppositions are formed by a series of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a differential feature, but by the degree of it. A gradual morphological opposition in English can be identified only in the plane of content in the category of comparison, cf.: big – bigger - biggest. Equipollent oppositions are formed by members, which are distinguished by a number of their own features. An equipollent morphological opposition in English can be identified in the plane of expression in the paradigms of suppletive forms, for example, in the correlation of the person and number forms of the verb be: am – are – is (was – were).

There are two basic types of means with the help of which grammatical forms are built: synthetical and analytical. Synthetical (synthetic) grammatical forms are built by means of the morphemic composition of the word. This includes the morphemic means, which were described in the previous unit: outer inflexion with the help of adding grammatical suffixes to the stems of the words, e.g.: cat - cats; inner inflexion, or vowel interchange inside the root, e.g.: goose - geese; and suppletivity, when different roots are combined within the same paradigm, e.g.: go – went. Analytical grammatical forms are built by the combination of the notional word with auxiliary words, e.g.: come - have come. Analytical forms consist of two words which together express one grammatical meaning; in other words, they are grammatically idiomatic: the meaning of the grammatical form is not immediately dependent on the meanings of its parts. Analytical grammatical forms are intermediary between words and word-combinations. Some analytical forms are closer to a word, because the two parts are inseparable in their grammatical idiomatism; for example, the forms of the perfect aspect: come - have come. The components of some other analytical forms are more independent semantically, and they are less idiomatic grammatically; for example, the degrees of comparison: beautiful - more beautiful – most beautiful. Such combinations of an auxiliary component and a basic component are treated by some linguists as free word-combinations, but as they are correlative members of grammatical paradigms and express some specific grammatical meaning, they should be recognized as analytical grammatical forms too. Some lexical means regularly involved in the expression of common grammatical meanings can also be regarded as marginal cases of suppletivity or specific analytical forms, e.g.: the use of quantifiers with uncountable nouns or repetition groups – a bit of joy, the last two items of news, thousands and thousands, etc.

Analytical grammatical forms are prevalent in English; modern English is an analytical type of language.

Grammatical oppositions can be reduced in some contextual circumstances, when one member of the opposition is used with the meaning of the other member, or, in other words, substitutes its counter-member. This phenomenon in the theory of oppositions is treated as “oppositional reduction” or “oppositional substitution”.

Two types of oppositional reduction can be distinguished in grammar: neutralization and transposition. Neutralization takes place when the grammatical form, which is used, loses its own functional meaning and acquires the meaning of its counter-member; in other words, it becomes functionally equivalent with its oppositional counter-member. This type of oppositional reduction is stylistically indifferent (neutral); in most cases it happens when the weak member of the opposition is used in the meaning of the strong one, e.g.: The rose is my favourite flower (=Roses are my favourite flowers) - the singular, the weak member of the number category opposition, is used instead of the plural, the strong member. Transposition takes place in cases where one member of the opposition preserves to a certain extent its original functional meaning alongside the meaning of its counterpart; the two functional meanings are actually combined. This type of oppositional reduction is stylistically marked. Because of the combination of meanings and the additional stylistic colouring created, transposition can be treated as a grammatical mechanism of figurativeness, or a grammatical metaphor. In most cases it happens when the strong member of the opposition is used with the meaning of the weak one. E.g.: the waters of the ocean, the sands of the desert – the plural, the strong member of the number category opposition, is used instead of the singular, the weak member.

Grammatical categories are subdivided into several types. “Immanent”categories render the meaning innate (or, natural) for the words of a particular lexical class; for example, the category of number is innate for nouns since the referents denoted by nouns can potentially be counted. “Reflective” categories serve as a sign of formal correlation or agreement between the words in an utterance: in English the verbal number formally reflects the number characteristics of the noun or of the pronoun with which the verb corresponds in the utterance; in other words, the verbs agree with the nouns or pronouns in the category of number, e.g.: The man goes - The men go. For verbs the category of number is not immanent; it is reflective. Immanent categories can be either “transgressive” like the category of number, which transgresses the borders of the noun, or they can be “closed”, confined within the word-class; for example, the category of gender of nouns is not reflected by any other word-class in English, so it is a closed category. Another distinction is based on the changeability of the categorial feature. “Variable feature categories” are categories realized in changeable grammatical forms of words, e.g.: the category of number is a variable feature category, because most nouns have two forms, the singular and the plural, cat – cats. “Constant feature categories” reflect the classification of the words according to certain unchangeable categorial features, e.g.: the category of gender in English is a constant feature category - the noun woman is of feminine gender, substituted only by the feminine pronoun she, man is of masculine gender, invariably substituted by he, and tree - of neuter gender, substituted only by it.