1. Notion of sign system. Types of signs. Language as a sign system. Levels and units of language.

Sign is a material object that stands for smth else than itself. Signs are everything that organize our social life: money, schemes, traffic lights signals and others. With the help of signs the semantic information can be transferred, f.e. signal to stop, arrows of the street moving. Types of signs: 1. Iconic – graphic signs that imitate the form of the objects (pictures, traces); 2. Indexes – signs that show the direction (fingering, arrows); 3. Symbolic signs – they don’t imitate the form of the object or don’t show anything, but they are universal and powerful (words).

Language is a sign system. This system is open and dynamic. It is the combination of grammar, syntax, lexical, phonetic and morphological levels. Every level has its own rules and laws. Each level consists of the minimum units of the language, they are: morpheme, phoneme, words, word combinations, sentences

2. Notion of structural linguistics. Language and speech. Synchronic and diachronic approaches. Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. Principles of opposition in linguistics.

Structural linguistic is a school of linguistic that pays attention to the structure rather than to content of language. F.e. in grammatical category the paradigm is important, in phonetics oppositions are important, in syntax sentence structure is important.

Language is the unity of language as a system and language as an action. Language as a system is a set of rules plus the vocabulary. Speech is practice of use of this vocabulary and rules. Speech is the material incarnation (воплощение) of language. Speech is the only accessible, we can hear it, see it, produce it, but language is an abstraction.

Synchronic approach is the view of language from the modern position (--). Diachronic approach is the view from historical position (l). F.e. synchronically phraseological units are not always understandable, diachronically we can explain them (to come to the whole hog, red tape). In the diachronic researches the results of the synchronic are used. Researching of the language in the synchrony is important for the solving all the linguistics (языкознания) applications (прикладных задач). There are some disputable questions within the researchers regarding the approaches, some points of view. Frederic de Sossure considered that the subject of the diachronic linguistic is the relations between elements of historical chain replaced one by one, but not forming the system; the subject of synchronic approach is logical and psychological relations, joining elements and forming the system. Today the main point of view is that diachronic (l) study doesn’t exclude the notion of the system and synchronic (--) description cannot exclude the notion of evolution.

Syntagmatic relations are horizontal relations, f.e. маленькая девочка. A linguistic unit enters into syntagmatic relations with other units of the same level it occurs with. SR exist at every language level. They can be of three different types: coordinate, subordinate and predicative. Coordinate SR exist between the homogeneous linguistic units, they are the relations of independence: you and me; They were tired but happy. Subordinate SR is the relations of dependence when one linguistic unit depends on the other- teach + er - morphological level; a smart student - word-group level; predicative and subordinate clauses - sentence level. Predicative SR is the relations of interdependence: primary and secondary.

Paradigmatic relations are vertical relation in grammar, f.e. paradigm of case. These relations based on the principles of similarity. They exist between the units that can substitute (заместить) one another. According to different principles of similarity PR can be of three types: semantic, formal and functional. Semantic PR are based on the similarity of meaning: a book to read = a book for reading. Formal PR are based on the similarity of forms. Such relations exist between the members of a paradigm: man - men; play - played'- will play ~ is playing. Functional PR are based on the similarity of function. They are established between the elements that can occur in the same position.

The Oppositional Theory. The opposition – generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function (weak or strong, voiced or voiced less) is expressed. According to the number of opposed members oppositions can be: Binary; More than binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.). Three main qualitative types of opposition: Privative (отрицательная) (based on a morph. differential feature which is presented in its strong (marked) member (+) and absent in its weak (unmarked) member (–), work (-) – worked (+).The differential feat. is the suffix. –(e)d); gradual (a contrastive pair or group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a feature but by the degree of it. big – bigger – biggest); equipollent (равноценный) (a contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features. In morph. it is mostly confined to formal relations. am – is – are (correlation of the person forms of the verb to be)).