9. Contrastive grammar as a part of contrastive
linguistics: its tasks
Contrastive grammar (CG) of English and Ukrainian languages, being the part of contrastive linguistics, has as its object the grammar structure of these two contrasted languages. The subject matter of contrastive grammar are the peculiarities of expression of
the main grammatical categories and syntactic structures in both contrasted languages.
Grammatical phenomena of different languages can be contrasted according to three aspects: according to the content (у плат змюту), according to the expression means (у плаш вираження), and according to the type of functioning (у плаш функцюнування).
According to the content (grammatical meanings, categories) languages can have the following differences:
a) one language can have a certain grammatical category which is absent in another language. For example, in English, French, German, Rumanian and Swedish languages there is the category of determination (категор1я означеносп), whereas all Slavonic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, do not possess it;
b) a grammatical category exists in certain two or more languages but does not coincide according to the content and shades of meaning, or according to its subtypes. For example, the category of gender is present in Ukrainian and French languages, but the Ukrainian language has three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter genders), whereas the French language has only two genders (masculine and feminine genders); the categories of tense and mood are present both in Ukrainian and English, but the number of tense forms and moods is different. The type of divergence (тип розбЬкностч), when one type categories have a different amount of content in both contrasted languages, is the most widespread one.
According to the expression means ways of divergence can concern the correlation between the synthetic and analytical means of expression. Nevertheless one should not confuse the synthetic and analytical means of expression of a language with the synthetic or analytical language structure. There are no languages characterized purely either by synthetic or analytical means of expression. One can speak about the type of a language only taking into account the level of the language structure. For example, both Ukrainian and German languages have two major types of the word change - the synthetic one (by means of external an internal flexions) and the analytical (by means of function words). In Ukrainian the synthetic way is prevalent. The German language is characterized by a more or less equal
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combination
of synthetic and analytical means, whereas in English analytical
means are dominant.
According to the type of functioning the divergence can be obvious in the following way:
in the correlation between grammar and vocabulary. Thus, In Ukrainian the forms of singularity and plurality are possessed only by countable nouns, the category of voice/state is possessed only by transitive verbs, the degree of comparison is characteristic only of qualitative adjectives. In some other languages (for example, in French) lexico-grammatical categories are not so strictly limited: some words can acquire certain grammatical categories non-compatible with their semantics, changing simultaneously their meaning (abstract nouns can acquire the plural form, intransitive verbs, often become transitive);
in the secondary functions of grammatical forms (the usage in secondary functions of different parts of speech, grammatical categories, syntactic constructions). Compare: in English They told me "Mem сказали" and / was told "Ябув сказаний " (literally) - the latter is impossible in Ukrainian.
Since the morphological level of a language has different units (a morpheme, a word, a grammatical meaning, a grammatical category, a part of speech, etc.) of importance is the choice of some constant for contrasting. The unit of comparison (одиниця зютавлення) on the morphological level should meet the following criteria: it should have the functional similarity and embrace not some separate words but a class of homogeneous words. These criteria are fully satisfied by a grammatical category. The difference of morphological systems of languages are found, first of all, in the ways of expression of morphological meanings, wider - grammatical categories [11; 165-167].
Therefore, one of the most important notions of CG is the notion of grammatical category. The grammatical category - is the system of opposed to each other rows of grammatical forms with homogeneous (однорщний) meanings, for example the grammatical category of case, gender etc. The number of grammatical categories can vary from language to language and depends on the language type.
The tasks carried out in contrastive grammar studies are first of all corresponding to the demands of the practical usage, that is: the methodology of language study, compiling different textbooks, dictionaries and reference books in translation techniques etc. especially important are such contrastive grammar textbooks for school teaching. Contrasting of the two languages should help their mutual study. Since in the process of the foreign language mastering there appears the material for contrasting and comparing, a lot of native language phenomena are comprehended and studied better. On one hand native language can have positive influence on the process of foreign language acquisition since learners can operate the same experience, the same methods and skills they used while studying their own language. On the other hand such influence can be negative since learners can transfer to the foreign language those phenomena that are rather specific in their native tongue and thus we come up against the problem of the "interference" phenomenon.
Contrastive two language grammars and contrastive type of research are of use to translators and editors as well as linguists in general. Contrasting of two language systems can reveal certain regularities in one of them which have not become the object of study till this time. In recent years the synchronic comparative study of languages has become still more topical in connection with the research in the field of machine translation. Close connection of contrastive grammar with the teaching methodology is obvious first of all because of the fact that CG gives the basis for methodology to invent new teaching methods. CG is a subdivision of the linguistic science, whereas methodology belongs to pedagogical studies. That is why, the CG serves for the needs of a number of other spheres of culture and science, not restricting itself to the needs of school teaching [5; 4].