Guslistaya L.O.

English and Ukrainian. Contrastive Grammar

Summary

The primary goal of the course is to offer students and cadets clear, succinct, accessible explanations of the basic issues of grammar, usage, and mechanisms needed to properly translate from one language to another.

Module I

MORPHOLOGY AS OBJECT OF GRAMMAR STUDY

Lecture 1

Object of Grammar as a Linguistic Branch, its Main Goals

Issues to discuss:

1. Role of Grammar compared with other linguistic disciplines.

2. Object of Grammar study, its main goals and links with other disciplines;

3. History of Grammar development. Historical and contemporary views on Grammar as a science.

Terminology:

Grammar, morphology, syntax, word-building, parts of speech, grammar categories, binary opposition, opposeme, theory of distinctive features, notional, functional, independent elements, negation, affirmation.

1. Role of Grammar among other linguistic disciplines

Just as expert carpenters must be thoroughly acquainted with the tools of their craft and as artists must have expert knowledge of colours, so good translators have a thorough understanding of the basic material with which they work: words. Thoughts and utterances require words of several kinds – for example, naming words, asserting words, connecting words, descriptive words. One of the first steps to effective translating is, therefore, knowledge of the properties and functions of the different kinds of words. This knowledge involves what a word looks like, when it appears, and what it does within its context. A word as a language unit having various grammatical opportunities plays an extremely great role in grammar. In fact, the word is considered to be the central (but not the only) linguistic unit (одиниця) of language. Linguistic units (or in other words – signs) can go into three types of relations: a) The relation between a unit and an object in the world around us (objective reality). E.g. the word ‘table’ refers to a definite piece of furniture. It may be not only an object but a process, state, quality, etc. This type of meaning is called referential meaning of a unit. It is semantics that studies the referential meaning of units. b) The relation between a unit and other units (inner relations between units). No unit can be used independently; it serves as an element in the system of other units. This kind of meaning is called syntactic. Formal relation of units to one another is studied by syntactics (or syntax). c) The relation between a unit and a person who uses it. As we know too well, when we are saying something, we usually have some purpose in mind. We use the language as an instrument for our purpose (e.g.). One and the same word or sentence may acquire different meanings in communication. This type of meaning is called pragmatic. The study of the relationship between linguistic units and the users of those units is done by pragmatics. Thus there are three models of linguistic description: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. To illustrate the difference between these different ways of linguistic analysis, let us consider the following sentence: Students are students. The first part of the XXth century can be characterized by a formal approach to the language study. Only inner (syntactic) relations between linguistic units served the basis for linguistic analysis while the reference of words to the objective reality and language users were actually not considered. Later, semantic language analysis came into use. However, it was surely not enough for a detailed language study. Language certainly figures centrally in our lives. We discover our identity as individuals and social beings when we acquire it during childhood. It serves as a means of cognition and communication: it enables us to think for ourselves and to cooperate with other people in our community. Therefore, the pragmatic side of the language should not be ignored either. Functional approach in language analysis deals with the language ‘in action’. Naturally, in order to get a broad description of the language, all the three approaches must be combined.

Thus, translators need knowledge of Grammar, which along with phonetic organization and lexis (vocabulary) are closely connected with each other parts of any language system. “A living language is a concrete fact –grammar is its abstract substratum” (Propp).

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the rules governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics.

Each language has its own distinct grammar. "English grammar" is the rules of the English language itself. "An English grammar" is a specific study or analysis of these rules. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar". A fully explicit grammar exhaustively describing the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar, as opposed to linguistic prescription which tries to enforce the governing rules how a language is to be used.

Object of Grammar study, its main goals and links with other disciplines

The term “grammar” goes back to a Greek word that may be translated as the “art of writing”. But later this word acquired a much wider sense and came to embrace the whole study of language. Now it is often used as the synonym of linguistics. A question comes immediately to mind: what does this study involve?  Grammar may be practical and theoretical. The aim of practical grammar is the description of grammar rules that are necessary to understand and formulate sentences. The aim of theoretical grammar is to offer explanation for these rules. Generally speaking, theoretical grammar deals with the language as a functional system.

The standard framework of generative grammar is the transformational grammar model developed by Noam Chomsky and his followers from the 1950s to 1980s.

The formal study of grammar is an important part of education for children from a young age through advanced learning, though the rules taught in schools are not a "grammar" in the sense most linguists use the term, as they are often prescriptive rather than descriptive.

Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs) are more common in the modern day. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example, naturalistic Interlingua, schematic Esperanto, and the highly logic-compatible artificial language Lojban). Each of these languages has its own grammar.

Morphology is the field of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words. (Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology.) While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs, and dog-catcher are closely related. English speakers recognize these relations from their tacit knowledge of the rules of word-formation in English. They infer intuitively that dog is to dogs as cat is to cats; similarly, dog is to dog-catcher as dish is to dishwasher. The rules understood by the speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages.

In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek συν- syn-, "together", and τάξις táxis, "arrangement") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish". Modern research in syntax attempts to describe languages in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find general rules that apply to all natural languages.

Since humanity failed to create a single language (everybody knows the legend of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, speaking a single language, came so close to reaching heaven that God himself felt threatened), a professional translator has to acquire knowledge of how grammar may vary cross-linguistically, i.e., of Contrastive Grammar. Based on comparative principles and approaches, contrastive grammar allows describing the main theoretical aspects of both languages. Contrastive grammar requires such researching methods that are able to reflect specific features of each part in a particular language system compared with the complexity of the phenomena observed in other languages. Thus, the course of Contrastive Grammar of Ukrainian and English allows identifying similarities and differences between both languages needed to correct interpretation. Here are some the most evident examples.

1) In comparison with Ukrainian and Russian, there are comparatively few grammatical inflections in English (plural forms of nouns, the third person ending of verbs, degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs) and they are more unified.

2) The lack of morphological distinctions between the classes is observed in English, which accounts for the fact that a great number of words may easily pass from one class to another, their status being determined mainly syntactically, by their function in the sentence (light/to light/ light metal; to water/ water/ water flowers/ water low).

3) The order of elements in the English sentence is fixed to a greater degree than in inflected languages (as Ukrainian and Russian).

4) A most peculiar feature of English is a special set of words employed as structural substitutes for a certain part of speech: noun substitutes (one, that), the verb substitute (do), the adverbs and adjective substitute (so). For instance: Say why you are interested in the position and relate your interests to those of the company. Look younger than you did in ’98.

Hence, contrastive grammar deals with:

1. the specific traits of morphemes in languages under contrasted investigation;

2. with classes of paradigms pertaining to a notional part of speech and reflecting its paradigmatic variety;

3. the morphological categories and their manifestation in the contrasted languages;

4. the parts of speech and their typological features.

It is worth emphasizing that the general implicit and dependent grammatical meanings of notional parts of speech in both languages coincide which considerably facilitates their contrastive investigation. Besides, in the process of such investigation only correlated units and phenomena can be contrasted.