Теоретическая грамматика английского языка (Theoretical Grammar of the English language)
oppositions they were divided into 1) binary, 2) more than binary. The most important for analysis is the binary privative type of opposition. The binary privitive opposition is formed by a contrastive pair of members in which one member is characterized by the presence of a certain differential feature (mark), while the other is characterized by the absence of this feature. The member in which the feature is present is called the marked, or the strong, positive member; the member in which the feature is absent, is called the unmarked, weak, negative member. Example 1: I study (weak member – non-past) – I studied (strong member – past). Example 2: a bird (weak member- non-plurality) – birds (strong member – plurality).
The gradual opposition exists only on semantic level. It’s formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not only by the presence or absence of a feature, but by the degrees of it. Example: the degrees of comparison in adjectives: strong-stronger-strongest.
The equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features. Example: to be-forms: am – is – are – they are equal in value.
The meaning of the weak member of the privative opposition is more general and abstract as compared with the meaning of the strong member, which is more definite and concrete.
In various contextual conditions one member of the opposition can be used in the position of the other. This phenomenon is called oppositional reduction, or oppositional substitution. E.g.: Tonight we start for London.-the weak member– Present tensereplaced the strong one- the Future tense. Such case is called neutralization of oppositions. E.g.: She is constantly grumbling. – It’s an exaggeration, not a continuous process. Here a strong member is used in the meaning of the weak member for stylistic purposes. This kind of oppositional reduction is called transposition (Blokh, 2000).
The means employed for building up member forms of categorial oppositions are traditionally divided into: 1.synthetical, 2. analytical. So the grammatical forms themselves are classed into synthetical and analytical grammar forms. Synthetical grammar forms are realized by inner morphemic composition of the word. Analytical forms are built by a combination of at least two words, one of which is an auxiliary, and the other – a notional word. Synthetical grammar forms may be:
– Inner-inflectional: goose-geese,
– Outer-inflectional:boy-boys,
– Suppletive: good-better-best, is -was, were-been.
The first type is not productive in Modern Indo-European languages, it is used in English in forms of irregular verbs: keep-kept-kept, forms of singular and plural: man-men.
Suppletivity is not productive either. It is based on the correlation of different roots: be-was, were-been.
Outer-inflectional forms belong to the productive means of affixation. There are quite a few grammar suffixes which are used to build up the number and case forms of the noun; the person, number, tense, participial and gerundial forms of the verb; forms of comparison of adjectives and adverbs.
The analytical grammar forms are traditionally considered to be a combination of an auxiliary and a basic word, and it’s one of the most typical ways of form-building.
Module 2
Grammatical Classes of Words. Parts of Speech. Principles of differentiation
The entire vocabulary of the English language, like in all Indo-European languages, is divided into certain lexico-grammatical classes, called parts of speech ( Ivanova, 1989).
Prof. A.I.Smirnitsky calls these classes of words “lexico-grammatical categories”. The term “part of speech” is purely traditional and conventional, it was introduced in Ancient Greece. The theoretical study of language in the history of science began with the attempts to identify and describe grammatical classes of words called "parts of speech". The fi rst classifications were made by ancient philosophers of Ancient Greece. They were hardly based on any clear criteria, it was a natural classification reflecting the result of the cognitive activity of a person. The grammatical system of European languages was formed on the basis of the grammatical teaching of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.
The existence of such lexico-grammatical classes has never been a debatable issue among the linguists, although there are different views on the principles of classifications. The representative of the English scientific grammar H. Sweet stressed the need to take into account the meaning, form and function of words, but he emphasized the priority of the form over the other criteria. The representative of structuralism Ch.Fries emphasized the priority of the function (syntactic criterion).
In modern linguistics parts of speech are also differentiated either by a number of criteria, or by a single criterion.
Traditional classification
The polydifferential ("traditional") classification of words is based on the three criteria: semantic, formal, and functional. The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized (categorial) meaning of the words of the given part of speech. The formal criterion provides for the exposition of all formal features (specific inflectional and derivational) of all the lexemic subsets of a particular part of speech. The functional criterion concerns the typical syntactic functions of a part of speech. Contractedly the set of these criteria is referred to as "meaning, form, function" (Blokh, 2000).
In accord with the traditional criteria of meaning, form, and function, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional.
Prof. Blokh calls the notional parts of speech the words of complete nominative value; in the utterance they fulfill self-dependent functions of naming and denoting things, phenomena, their substantial properties (Prof. Blokh). Opposed to the notional parts of speech are the functional words which are words of incomplete nominative value, but of absolutely essential relational (grammatical) value. In the utterance they serve as all sorts of mediators (Blokh, 2000).
To the basic functional parts of speech in English are usually referred the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection. Functional words are limited in number. On the lines of the traditional classification they are presented by the list, each of them requiring its own, individual description.
The syntactic (monodifferential) classification of words is based on syntactic featuring of words only. The syntactic classification of words, in principle, supplements the three-criteria classification specifying the syntactic features of parts of speech. For the Russian language the basic principles of the syntactic classification of words were outlined in the works of A.M. Peshkovski. In English the syntactico-distributional classification of words was worked out by structuralists L. Bloomfield and his followers Z. Harris and Ch. Fries. The syntactico-distributional classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution tests. As a result of this testing, a standard model of four main syntactic positions of notional words was built up. These positions are those of the noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Pronouns are included into the corresponding positional classes as their substitutes. Words incapable to occupy the said main syntactic positions are treated as functional words.
The noun as a part of speech
The noun as a part of speech has the categorical meaning of “substance. The noun is characrerised by the syntactical function of a subject, object, predicative, adverbial modifier, attribute. Typical of nouns is the prepositional combinability with another noun, with adverb, and adjective. The noun is characterized by the following grammatical categories: gender, number, case and article determination (prof. Blokh).
English nouns are divided into several subclasses.
Prof. Blokh states that the order in which the subclasses are presented is chosen by convention: the given set of subclasses cannot be structured hierarchically.
The category of gender
There