Contents

Part I Lectures on the Theoretical Grammar of the

English Language

Lecture 1 Grammatical System as a Subfoundation of Language:

Contents 1

Lecture 5 Noun: General Characteristics 6

Lecture 6 The Noun. The Grammatical Category of Number 7

Lecture 7 The Noun. The Grammatical Category of Case 8

Lecture 7 The Noun. The Grammatical Category of Case 9

The Noun. The Grammatical Category of Gender 11

Lecture 9 The Noun. The Category of Article Determination 11

Lecture 10 Peculiarities of the Adjective as a Part of Speech 12

Lecture 12 The Verb: General Overview 14

Lecture 18 Non-Finite Forms of the Verb (Verbids) 21

a) 26

c) 26

IV.Comment oil the oppositional reduction of the categorial nounal forms: 27

a)the category of number 27

b)the category of case 27

d) 30

d) 30

Part J Lectures on the Theoretical Grammar of the English

Language

Lecture 1

Grammatical System as a Subfoundation of Language:

Plane of Content and Plane of Expression

Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Being social by nature language grows and develops together with the development of society. Language incorporates the three constituent parts. These parts are the phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. Only the unity of these elements forms a language.

The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it represents the material appearance of its significative units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is, words and stable word groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances.

Each of the three constituent parts of language is studied by a particular linguistic discipline. Thus, the phonological description of language is effected by the science of phonologyrthe lexical description - by lexicology, the grammatical

• by grammar. Any linguistic description may have a practical or theoretical purpose. So the aim of the practical grammar is to provide the student with a manual of practical usage of the language. The aim of theoretical grammar is to present a theoretical description of the grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyze and define grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances.

The nature of grammar is better understood in the light of discrimination between the two planes of language, namely, the plane of content and the plane of expression.

The plane of content deals with the purely semantic elements contained in language, while the plane of expression comprises the material units of language taken by themselves. The two planes are inseparably connected, so that no meaning can be realized without some material means of expression. So grammatical elements of language present a unity of content and expression.

The correspondence between the plane of content and expression is very complex, and it is peculiar to each language. This complexity is clearly illustrated by the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.

In cases of polysemy and homonymy, two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of expression. For ex.: the verbal form of the present continuous polysemantically renders the grammatical meanings of actions in progress and planed actions. The morphemic element - s/-es being a unit in the plane of expression homonymically renders the grammatical meanings of the third person singular present tense, the plural of the noun, the possessive form, i.e. several unit of the plane of content.

In cases of synonymy, conversely, two or more units of the plane »>l expression correspond to one unit of the plane of content. For ex.: the forms ol the verbal future indefinite, future continuous, and present continuous (several units in the plane of expression) can in certain contexts synonymically render (In- meaning of a future action (one unit in the plane of content).

Taking into consideration the discrimination between the two planes, we may say that the purpose of grammar is to disclose and formulate the regularities of the correspondence between the plane of content and the plane of expression in the process of utterance formation out of lexica! units.

Lecture 2 Systemic Character of Language: Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relations

Modem linguistics is essentially based on the systemic conception of language System in general is defined as a structured set of elements related to one another by a common function. The interpretation of language as a system develops a number «>1 notions, namely: the notion of language levels and language units, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, the notions of form and meaning, of synynchrony and diachrony, of analysis and synthesis, and some others.

Modem linguistics stresses the idea that language is a system of signs which are closely interconnected and, interdependent. Units of immediate interdependencies form different microsystems (subsystems) within the framework of the global macrosystem of the whole language. The scientifically sustained and consistent principle of systemic approach to language and its grammar were essentially developed in the linguistics of the 2Q^lb century after the publication of the works by the Russian scholar Beaudoin de Courtenay and the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure. They demonstrated the difference between lingual synchrony (coexistence of lingual elements) and diachrony (different time-periods in the development of lingual elements) and defined language as a synchronic system of meaningful elements at any stage of its historical evolution. They also strictly differentiate between language proper and speech proper.

Language in the narrow sense of the word is a system of means ol expression while speech in the same narrow sense should be understood as the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse. The system of language includes, on the one hand, the body of material units - sounds, morphemes, words, word-groups; on the other hand, the regularities of the use ol these units. Speech comprises both the act of producing utterances, and the utterances themselves or the text. Language and speech are inseparable, they form an organic unity. The stability of this unity is ensured by grammar since being an integral part of the lingual maerosystem it dynamically connects language with speech, because it categorically determines the lingual process of utterance production.

The lingual units may be grouped into lexical, phonetical, grammatical paradigms. Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories. The minimal paradigm consists of two form-stages. This kind of paradigm we see in i he expression of the category of number: boy-boys, where the morpheme -s expresses the categorial meaning of plurality.

Units of language are divided into segmental and supra-segmental. Segmental units consist of phonemes, they form phonemic strings of various status (syllables, morphemes, words, etc). To the supra-segmental units belong intonation, accent, pauses, patterns of word-order.

The segmental units of language form a hierarchy of levels. This hierarchy is of a kind that units of any higher level are decomposed into units of the immediately lower level. Thus, morphemes are decomposed into phonemes, words are decomposed into morphemes, phrases are decomposed into words, etc.

But this hierarchical system is not a purely mechanical composition: units of each level are characterized by their own specific functions.

1. The lowest level of lingual segments is phonemic: it is formed by phonemes as the material elements of the higher-level segments. The phoneme has no meaning, its function is purely differential: it differentiates morphemes and words. Phonemes are combined into syllables and represented by letters in writing.

2. The level located above the phonemic one is the morphemic level.

I he morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word. It is built up by phonemes, so that the shortest morphemes include only one phoneme. E.g.: ros-y, a-fire, come-s. The morpheme expresses abstract, “significative” meanings which are used as constituents for more concrete “nominative” meanings of words.

3. The third level is the level of words of lexemic level. The word, as different from the morpheme, is a directly naming (nominative) unit of language: it names things and their relations.

4. The next level is the level of phrases (word-groups), or phrasemic level. The units of this level like separate words, have a nominative function, but they represent a complicated phenomenon being it a concrete thing, an action, a quality, or a whole situation. This kind of nomination can be called “polynomination”.

5. Above the phrasemic level lies the level of sentences, or “proposemic” level. The peculiar character of the sentence consists in the fact that, naming a certain situation, it expresses predication, i.e. shows the relation of the denoted event to reality, namely, it shows whether this event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as a truth or asked about.

6. But the sentence is not the highest unit of language in the hierarchy of levels. Above the proposemic level there is still another one, namely, the level

7. of sentence-groups, or “supra-proposemic” level. This level comprises combinations of separate sentences forming a textual unity. Being an elementary topical unit of text it fulfils four main functions: those of nomination, predication, topicalization, and stylization.

We have mentioned six levels of language which have their own functions. Among them more- and less-significant ones may be distinguished. To the main levels belong:

phonemic with differential function; lexemic with the function of nomination; proposemic with the function of predication.

As different from them morphemic, phrasemic and supra-proposemic levels are considered to be intermediary'. Thus, the function of morphemes is purely significative, the function of phrasemes is poly-nomination, supra- proposemic units mark the transition from the sentence to the text.

Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations betw'een units in a segmental sequence (string). E.g.: The spaceship was launched without the help of a booster rocket.

In this sentence syntagmatically connected are the words and word-groups: “the spaceship", “was launched”, “the spaceship was launched”... Morphemes within the words are also connected syntagmatically: space/ship, launch/ed. boost/er.

The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic “syntagma”. There are four main types of notional syntagmas:

predicative (the combination of a subject and a predicate); objective (the combination of a verb and its object); attributive (the combination of a noun and its attribute); adverbial (the combination of a modified notional word, such as a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier).

The other type of relations, which are opposed to syntagmatic relations, are paradigmatic relations which exist between elements of the language system outside the string where they co-occur. These relations and dependencies find their expression in the fact that each lingual unit is included in a definite set based on different forma! and functional properties. In the domain of grammar such sets realize grammatical numbers and cases, persons and tenses, gradations of modalities, sets of sentence-pattems. Paradigmatic relations cannot be directly observed in utterances, that’s why they are called relations in the absence.

Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations are not isolated from one another. Paradigmatic relations со-ечшые with syntagmatic relations in such a way that some sort of syntagmatic connection is necessary for the realization of any paradigmatic scries. This is revealed to the full in a classical grammatical paradigm where it presents a productive series of forms.

Lecture 3