|
Читайте также: |
In the early periods of linguistic studies development grammatical studies were mostly "normative" or "prescriptive". Their purpose was to give strict rules of writing and speaking correctly. Very often these rules were based on purely subjective and arbitrary judgments. That is why the result of prescriptive approach sometimes stood in contradiction with real language usage.
e.g. 1) Let us consider for instance the well-known rule of the English article stating that the noun, which denotes an object already known by the listener, should be used with the article “the”. Observe however English sentences taken from the works of distinguished authors directly contradict this rule:
"I have just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it. – It is not а very good book I am afraid.”
e.g. 2) Let us take the rule forbidding the use of the continuous forms with the verbs "be" as а link and "see" as a verb of perception. Here are examples to the contrary:
"My holiday at Crime isn’t being a disappointment". (Huxley);
"For the first time Bobby felt he was really seeing the man" (A. Christie)
The given examples have no grammar mistakes in them; normative grammar doesn’t explain the facts of the language, while theoretical grammar gives a scientific interpretative description of language structure.
The aim of theoretical grammar of language (English) is to give a theoretical description of its grammatical system, that is, to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical categories and disclose and formulate the regularities of the correspondence between the plane of content and of expression and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
As to the units dealt with Grammar is divided into 2 parts: morphology and syntax.
Morphology deals with the forms of words (the grammatical teaching of the word).
Syntax treats phrases, sentences, higher syntactic units (the grammatical teaching of the sentence).
Parts of grammar
- paradigmatic morphology (Parts of speech taken separately are within paradigmatic morphology);
- syntagmatic morphology (If we say that an adjective serves to modify a noun or an adverb modifies a verb we are already in the domain of syntagmatic morphology which is therefore the study of phrases which consist of words belonging to different parts of speech);
- paradigmatic syntax (Paradigmatic syntax is а part of grammatical theory, which treats variations of one and the same sentence. e.g.: My friend has/has not come.);
- syntagmatic syntax (Syntagmatic syntax is what we traditionally call “syntax”. It studies relations between words and sentences).
Units of language are divided into segmental and suрrаsеgmental:
- Segmental units consist of phonemes; they form phonemic strings of various status (a morpheme made up by phonemes).
- Suprasegmental units do not exist by themselves, but are realized with segmental units and express different modificational meanings reflected on the strings of segmental units (an element accompanying the realization of utterances and expressing different modificational meanings, such as accent, intonation contours, pauses, patterns of word-order).
Units of language in general and of grammar in particular, form а hierarchy of interconnected elements, а rank scale. The lowest grammatical unit on that scale is the morpheme. Every lower unit forms part of a higher one. The position of the unit on the low or high step of the rank scale depends on its size. The longer (in linear progression) is the unit, the higher is its place on the linguistic ladder.
The segmental units of language form a hierarchy of levels. Each level has its own structure
the phonological level:
- phonemic (the lowest level of lingual units). It is formed by phonemes. The phoneme has no meaning, its function is purely differential. A phoneme is a distinctive unit.
the morphological level:
- morphemic. The morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word built up by phonemes. The morpheme expresses abstract, “significative”, meaning.
- lexemic. Its differential unit is the word. The word realizes the function of nomination. A word is the main nominative part.
the syntactical level:
- dеnоtеmiс. Its constituent unit is denoteme (notional part of the sentence). A word group is the dependent syntactical unit.
- proposemic (a proposeme is a language unit expressing a thought). It is built up by sentences. As a sign, the sentence simultaneously fulfils two functions — nominative and predicative. A sentence is the main communicative unit.
- the level of topicalization. Its constituent element is the "dicteme" (an elementary topical unit / "utterance"). The function of the dicteme is to build up a topical stretch of some text. The dicteme fulfils four main signemic functions: the functions of nomination, ргеdiсаtion, topicalization, and stylization. A text presents the supersyntactical level.
3. Basic units of morphology. Difference between them. Morph, morpheme, allomorph, word.
- Morph a word segment that represents one morpheme in sound or writing. For example, the word infamous is made up of three morphs-- in-, fam(e), -eous --each of which represents one morpheme.
While a morpheme is an abstract unit of meaning, a morph is a formal unit with a physical shape.
- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.
- An allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes.
- a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word, by definition, is freestanding.
Дата добавления: 2015-02-16; просмотров: 348 | Поможем написать вашу работу | Нарушение авторских прав |