Lecture 2

1.Definition and structure of grammar

2.The lexical and grammatical in
language
3. Grammatical categories and
grammatical forms
 1.Definition and structure of grammar
There are two shades of meaning of the word
"grammar“: objective grammar and
subjective grammar. When we speak of
grammar as part of language it will be
objective grammar. When we speak of a
course in grammar or a book in grammar, it is
subjective grammar.
How many grammars can a certain language
have? If we mean objective grammar, the
answer will be____. But when we mean
courses or books in grammar, the answer will
be _______.
There are different kinds of books and courses in
grammar:
-primary, practical and normative grammars for
beginners,
-advanced practical normative grammars for students,
-comparative or typological grammars which study
grammatical facts of kindred or non-kindred
languages on a comparative basis,
-historical grammar as a part of the history of a certain
language ,
-general grammar as a part of theoretical linguistics,
-theoretical grammar of a certain language.
Nowadays modern approaches to grammatical studies
include: descriptive grammar, transformational,
generative grammar and contrastive grammar or
typology.
 Inner division of grammar
Grammar consists of two parts:
morphology and syntax which cannot be
mixed up. Reasons:
1) they belong to different structural levels of
language: morphology deals with words
and their grammatical categories which
belong to the conceptual level of
language; while syntax is concerned with
higher units (phases and sentences) which
belong to the communicative level of
language.
2) Morphology and syntax are different
methods in dealing with linguistic units.
Syntax regards language facts in linear
aspect, that is, it studies the ways of
combining words into utterances (phrases
and sentences); while morphology studies
grammatical properties of words and their
grammatical categories.
3) Morphology and syntax have different
tasks. The former studies all properties of
parts of speech; while the latter studies
methods of making sentences and
different types of sentences.
Note! Phraseology partly belongs to lexicology and
partly to syntax
Relation between morphology and syntax
We subdivide grammar into morphology and
syntax for scientific and methodological
purposes. In actual speech they work
together. However, not all morphological
phenomena are equally related to syntax.
Some of them are syntactic by their nature
and by their function, e.g., case forms are
morphological by their forms but they exist
to express certain syntactic functions. The
same can be said about other grammatical
categories: person, number, gender which
are always reflected in syntax, though
actually these facts are not syntactic by their
nature.
2. The lexical and grammatical in language
a)books b)My father works at a factory
pens His mother teaches at a school
trees Her sister goes to school
forks Our teacher explains us the rules
common features: ___________
different features:____________
Preliminary conclusion: what is individual in
language units is not grammar, and what is
common in these units belongs to grammar
Another very important feature of the grammatical
in language is that grammatical meanings are
based on strict correlation: we distinguish the
plural number because there is the singular
number, we distinguish the present tense
because there are other non-present tenses
(future and past). In lexis correlation makes
separate couples of antonyms. This correlation
is limited: day-night, white-black, good-evil. At
this stage we can make a comprehensive
conclusion: the principal feature of the
grammatical in language is that it includes
common traits of language units (words and
sentences) and that the common is based on a
strict correlation.
There other distinctive features of the grammatical in
language:
-grammar organizes lexis enabling us to make
communicative units (sentences)
-grammar is a closed system (not easily admitting of
the new elements) while lexis is an open system
easily admitting of new words
-grammar facts are compulsory, therefore the use of
them is but little influenced by the content of
actual speech (unlike the choice of lexis)
-while lexis is expressed in language mostly by roots,
grammatical phenomena are usually expressed
by inflections, intonations and word-order.
Grammar is a part of language that organizes lexis and
constitutes the structure of language. Grammar is based
on common features of language units and on strict
correlation.
3. Grammatical categories and
grammatical forms
Grammatical meanings are strictly correlated.
This means that there cannot exist a
grammatical meaning in language without its
counterpart. Such kindred meanings are
correlated on some wider grammatical
conception. E.g., the singular number and the
plural number both mean number; the present
tense, the past tense and the future tense are
correlated on the conception of tense
common to all of them.
Correlation itself can be defined as
opposition of meanings of the same
order, that is belonging to the same
wider conception, e.g., the present
tense can be correlated only with some
other tense, but not with number or
degree of comparison. In the basis of
any grammatical correlation lies some
wider grammatical conception, e.g.
number, tense, aspect, comparison.
This wider conception is a
grammatical category.
The grammatical category is a more or
less wide grammatical conception that
lies in the basis of grammatical
correlation. Grammatically correlated
meanings make the smallest grammatical
system of meanings and forms which is
called a grammatical paradigm. A
paradigm is the smallest grammatical
system of correlated meanings and
forms based on only one grammatical
category. Therefore, we can define a
grammatical category as a system of
meanings and forms based on one
paradigm.
 The example of a grammatical paradigm:
NUMBER
(a grammatical conception: category)
SINGULAR PLURAL
(gram.meaning) (gram.meaning)
Table Ø (zero inflection) Tables (inflection –s)
(gram.form) (gram.form)
Any grammatical meaning must have its own
specific form for its expression, without which a
grammatical meaning cannot be detected and
identified.
Any material means of expressing a grammatical
meaning is grammatical form. There are different kinds
of grammatical forms:
1)inflections (work-worked);
2)self-gradation – (begin-began, begun);
3) suppletive forms, that are forms derived form different
roots (good-better, the best, go went , gone; many, much,
more, most);
4)formal words – auxiliaries (be, do, have, shall, will);
5)word order (“father killed a bear”, or “a bear killed a
father”)
6)intonation and stress.
Zero forms. The absence of a positive indicator of a certain
grammatical meaning included in a paradigm is a zero
form.
E.g., Ask - Asked – will ask
the form "ask" in comparison with "asked" has a zero
termination, and in comparison with "will ask" has a zero
auxiliary.
The analytical forms. When one grammatical meaning is
expressed by more than one word of which at least
one must be purely formal, that grammatical form is
an analytical one, e.g. am writing, was broken, will come,
has arrived, don’t like.
Such forms are included into a paradigm along with synthetic
forms (likes, liked), e.g. the grammatical category of
aspect: continuous (analytical: was sleeping) – indefinite
(synthetical: sleeps); the degrees of comparison with –er,
–est (synthetical- bigger, the biggest) can go along with
“more, the most” (analytical - more important, the most
important).