LECTURE 1 mine

0 (s), (z), (iz)

singular plural

Another example. In English adjectives there's one grammatical category - the degrees of

comparison. What features does it have?

1. It has a general grammatical meaning: degrees of comparison;

2. The degrees of comparison consist of three particular meanings: positive, comparative and

superlative;

3. They are opposed to each - other;

4. They have their own grammatical means depending on the number of syllables in the word.

If in the category of number of nouns there are two particular meanings, in the grammatical category of degrees of comparison there are three. Thus, a grammatical category is a linguistic phenomenon that has a general grammatical meaning consisting of at least two particular meanings that are opposed to each - other and that have constant grammatical means of their own to express them (iriskulov) A grammatical category is a set of meanings which are arranged on the principle of opposition to express the same general notion, and which are systematically realised by a paradigm of grammatical word forms (bocharova). (find defenitions by Bloch, Ilyish, Rayevska, Quirk, Chomsky, Crystal, etc. and present them at the seminar).

Grammatical forms (or the notion of opposition). Any grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical forms (e.g. the grammatical category of number – singular and plural forms). The relation between two grammatical forms differing in meaning and external signs is called opposition – book::books (unmarked member/marked member). All grammatical categories find their realization through oppositions, e.g. the grammatical category of number is realized through the opposition singular::plural.

Taking all the above mentioned into consideration, we may define the grammatical category as the opposition between two mutually exclusive form-classes (a form-class is a set of words with the same explicit grammatical meaning).

Means of realization of grammatical categories may be synthetic (near – nearer) and analytic (beautiful – more beautiful).