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Theoretical grammar as a branch of linguistics

The object of theoretical grammar as a science is the grammatical structure of language, i.e. the system of laws governing the change of grammatical forms of words and the building of sentences.

Grammar of a language is not a list of rules forced on people who speak it. It is just a record made by careful observation of how people speak a language.

Laws of grammar are objective. They can be compared with those of nature. Law of nature are a few things that people have observed as the way nature acts. If we find that nature is now acting according to these rules, we do not try to force nature to obey them. We change our ideas about nature and discover new laws.

It’s the same with grammar. English of today is not quite the same English as English of 17th century. What was good grammar for Shakespeare could he had grammar for shaw.

The main difference between the grammatical structure of English and that of Russian and Ukrainian lies in ways of expressing grammatical relations between words in word-groups and sentences. In Ukrainian or Russian grammatical relations between words in a sentence are mainly expressed by forms of the words. Such a type of grammatical structure is called analytical.

Practical (normative) grammar is a collection of rules, which will enable one to speak and write correctly.

Theoretical (scientific) grammar is a scientific description of grammatical structure of a language.

Practical grammar is dogmatic to same extent.

Theoretical grammar is connected with phonology, lexicology and the history of language.

Traditionally grammar is divided into morphology and syntax.

Morphology (which means “study of law”) is the part of grammar that treats of forms of words. Syntax is the part of grammar that of phrases and sentences. Morphology and syntax are closely connected and it’s impossible to draw precise boundaries between them.

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Basic grammatical notions

By grammatical forms we understand variations of a word having the same lexical meaning but differing grammatically (e.g. child, child’s children, children’s; teaches, taught, teaching).

Meaning expressed by a grammatical form is called grammatical meaning. Each notional word is a unity of two types of meaning – lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning is of individual character. It is common in a lot of words, which have different lexical meanings (e.g. tables, chairs, men, women, events; played, lived, wrote, ran, went).

Grammatical meaning is always expressed by a grammatical marker and it is obligatory.

Grammatical meanings are revealed in oppositions.

Oppositions are pairs of grammatical forms opposed to each other in some way” (B.Ilysh).

A two-member opposition is called binary. Of the two members of an opposition one is called marked and the other one unmarked. For example, in the opposition “cat//cats” “cats” is the marked member. The meaning of the marked member is quite definite, whereas the meaning of the unmarked one is less definite and even vague.

Binary oppositions are typical of the English language. An opposition may consist of more than two members. (e.g. the tense opposition: studies – studied – will study).

The general meaning of two or more homogeneous grammatical meanings opposed to each other, makes up a grammatical category. E.g. the general meaning of singular and plural makes up the grammatical category of number; future tense makes up the grammatical category of tense.

There are two conditions for existing a grammatical category:

  1. a grammatical category must be represented by at least two homogeneous grammatical meanings;

  2. it must be expressed by some grammatical means.

Grammatical categories may not coincide in different languages. For example, in Russian and Ukrainian there exists the grammatical category of animateness/ inanimateness, which does not exist in English; in English there exists the grammatical category of definiteness/indefiniteness, which does not exist in Russian and Ukrainian.

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