II. Form, meaning, function

This idea found its way into grammar through a famous Danish grammatitian Otto Jespreson. It is necessary to study the morphological characteristics of words as well as their syntactic position (abilities). He produced the third rank theory. It was based on mutual relations of words in sentences. When he illustrated his theory, he used the following patterns: 

1) an extremely hot weather

2) a furiously barking dog

Describing relations between the words that:

“weather”, “dog” – should be called primary word

“hot”, ”barking” – secondary word

“extremely”, “furiously” – tertiary word.

He considered the morphological features of Eng words under the general title of syntax. But this theory was new at that time, and it was widely employed by the scholars of his school. This theory doesn’t cover the relations of all the main word classes. This theory left out the most important part of speech – the verb. His idea that words should be used in sentences was so popular, that some grammatitians tried to work out a p.of sp. classification based on syntactic criterion only – representatives of American school of describing linguists (Charles Freeze).

To classify words it is not enough to rely on the description of elements in the sintagmatic chain. Meaning is to be taken into consideration. But his understanding of meaning is not traditional.

Structural meaning

~The man gave the boy the money.

It conveys the following information: who preformed a certain action. How many men were involved in the action. The time of the action. See whether the situation is presented as a fact or as sth desirable. Sth state, required, desired. All this information (mostly grammatical) doesn’t coincide with the lexical information; it makes the structural meaning of the sentence.

He states that no sentence can be acceptable if it lacks either structural or lexical meaning. Then he claims that grammar is a system of devices that signals structural meanings. Formal devices – that can be given to different word-groups. His starting point is purely formal. He aims at analyzing formal exponent of grammar. He takes into account ordering of elements in syntagmatic chains. He declared that a part of speech is a functional pattern. To illustrate the patterns he introduced the minimal free utterance test frames.

a) the concert was good (always)

b) the clerk remembered the tax (suddenly)

c) the team went there.

Each word within the frames represents a particular slot (выемка, щель). All words that could fill the same slot as with no change of structural slot as with no change of structural meaning – class I words. In frames b) and c)

Class I words are identified by means of substitution. “Clerk” – names of presons. He also introduced a so-called adjective frame for the plural form of the noun.

~The concerts were good.

The idea of substantivation was further applied to the other word in the frames and thus he signaled out class II words (remembered).

Went + class III words – there

Good + class IV words – always.

He never provided any differences. He simply enumerated words belonging to this and that class. He never included other words in his frames. Instead of describing these words, he introduced the term “function words”, and grouped them into 15 groups, and ascribed the leters to them.

Group A (= marker of class I words) included determiners which can have the position of the definite article in frame a) (no, both, few, John’s, most, one). Viewed traditionally, determiners are represented by pronouns, adj, numerals, nouns in the possessive case.

Group B (= markers of class II words) is formed by the substitutes in the adjusted frame. ~The concert may be good. (must, should, come, got).

Group C (not)

Group D comprises words we can use instead of “very”.

~The concert was very good.

His grouping of functional words appeared as a result of using the semantic principle. Freeze claims that functional words must be learnt separately as peculiar signs that signal particular structure means. Among finctional words there are modal verbs, auxiliary words, modal verbs – are treated as separate words viewed apart from class words. He also grouped modal verbs and auxiliary verbs in groups. If it is so, we cannot divide verb forms into synthetic, analytical. Synthetic and analytical forms show different grammatical categiries (tense – synthetic; aspect - analytical).

Freeze’s classification is inconsistent. It is claimed to be fomal but in many cases he relies on meaning. His classification is based on 2 principles:

1) He analyses functioning of words of the 4 major classes. He studies their meaning including them into functional words.

2) His classification never explains the grammatical difference between classes of forms, functional groups, notional goups.

The grammatical school of Russian Soviet linguists has made a serious input in the problem of p.of sp. classification. All the known principles have been taken into consideration, and put in a reliable system. To divide words into p-s of sp., 3 ideas are to be applied to a word:

1) semantically, lexico-grammatical meaning of a word is to be considered.

Taking into accout that the lexico-grammatical meanings are different but are closely connected. Thus words known as nouns show signs of substantivity. Verbs denote actions and state which are different aspects of the process.

2) The morphological principle is described as the aspect of the formal view of grammatical phemonena. It has 2 sub-principles:

a) describing a word, we are to consider its morphological categories. Each p.of sp. possesses certain morphological categories which are not found in other p.pf sp. This principle is applied to words that have certain form-building means to signal the presence of categories (changeable words).

b) word-building affixes. There are affixes typical of this or that p.of sp.

Of the 2 sub-principles, the first is more important because most word-building affixes are ambiguous (двусмысленный). (friendly, homely, kindly, safely, possibly, merely)

3) Syntactic principle.

a) we rely on the syntactic role of a word in a sentence

b) we consider the syntactic description of words in phrases, sentences.

Semantic principle: each class (the N, V, Adj) has a unified abstr m-ng): N denote substances, V – process, act; Adv – properties of act; Adj – prop-s of substances, qualities.

Though POS posess Gr m-ng and material shape in language they form an independent system and may contact in speech. Many parts of speech have their own special sets of morphological categories and form-building morphemes that signal those categories (grammatical paradigme).

The status of the Article in language str-re. The number of Articles. The meanings and functions.

The status

The ground is that the Article isn't inflected (e/g in German Article is a word).Some Grammarians speak of the morphemic character of the Eng Article. By them, the Article is a structural element building morphemes. The article can change its position in reference to a Noun (e/g a dog; a black dog; a lovely black dog) The A can be substituted by other Ws (the dog = this/ my dog) => such features aren't characteristic of the morphemes. Most linguists say that Article is a separate word.

Several points of view: Place Article among other Ps of speech:

1. Classical Eng Grammar - Article = adj or more often a pronoun. It reminds of a pronoun b/c "the" has originated from the Old Eng. Pronoun "se"

2. The grammarian Kruisinga include indef A - indefinite pronoun, definite - demonstrative pronoun

3. Jesperson & Sweet Article = pronoun

4. Curme A = pronominal attribute

5. Structural Gr Article = function W (determiners)

6. Soviet Linguists A= functional P of Sp

The number of Articles

The older Grammatical Tradition spoke about 2 As. BUT: e.g Language is a means of communication, we use the term ZERO ARTICLE. The idea of a zero article originates from the notion "zero morpheme".

Modem Eng = 3 Articles ( Бархударов, Штеллинг)

The notion of a zero morpheme has been applied to the Article on the grounds that, when there's no Ab4 a noun- reminds of the absence of inflexion in such forms as cat-cats. This point of view is opposed by some Grammarians. They argue that we can speak about a zero Art if we treat the A as a morpheme. Meaningful absence of the Article - significant meaningful absence of the article. But the omition of the A but this term describes a different phenomenon typical of newspapers, acts, etc. (winner gets prize)

Functions of the Article

Whether the Article has meanings or functions?

Barhudarov => The M of the A is highly abstract, it's more proper to speak about functions. Different spheres of Grammar - different functions

• Morphologically - to serve as the formal indicator of a Noun. Ильиш: to indicate substantivity. The presence of the A signals that what follows is a noun or what has acquired some nominal characteristics. (e/g black - a black ( 1 человек), the black (раса)

• From the syntactic point of view - a) to separate the noun phrase from other members of the sentence. What stands btw the A and the noun is one and the same member of the sentence( e/g I bought a think English book)

b) to connect different Sentences

e/g We saw a man. The man was approaching us.

• Semantic role consists in relating a given utterance to a given speech situation. (=actualization). Ws denote many things, they have different meanings but when speaking, people choose one aspect of the thing.

* Barmina, Verkhovskaya "The Eng Article": A has category of definiiteness / indefmiteness A = the determiner of the N or a noun-phrase. Determiners=formal means of expressing this category. This category presents the object as known/unknown, general/individual, identifiable/ non-identifiable. In Eng article is the main means of expressing this category, besides

possessive, demonstrative, indefinite pronouns, Ws denoting place,. numerals and some others.

5. The art (A), № of A, def & indef A.

The noun is usually preceded by the A.

Problems:

~the number of As; ~the status of the A; ~meanings/functions

The status of the A in modern Eng. 2 aspect of the question:

1) Is the A a morpheme or is it a separate word?

If we compare Eng to German→in German the A is a word, it has different forms, each form will find reflection of the categories of gender, number and case. Every form of the A in German contains the root morpheme and the inflexion morpheme.

Some grammarians mentioned morphemic character of the Eng A. They term the Eng A a structural element of the noun. They say that the indefinite A with the noun “cat” signals singularity (as the morpheme “s”[cats] signals pluraliry). The A can change its position in reference to the noun (a cat, a blafck cat, a lovely black cat). A-s can be substituted by other words (the cat→this cat, my cat). Such features are not characteristic of morphemes → most Eng grammarians treat the A as a separate word.

2) If the A is a separate word, is it a separate p.of sp. or is it not such? If not, the A is to be described among other p-s of sp.

Class-cal Eng grammars treat the A is an Adj; or more often as a pronoun. The idea that the A is sort of a pronoun originates from the fact that in Old Eng, the As were derived from pronouns. This is true only of “the” (se→the).

Круизинга includes “a” among the indefinite pronouns and “the” – among the demonstrative pronouns.

Jesperson and Sweet also treat As as pronouns.

Kerm → a pronominal attribute.

Representatives of structural grammar (Freeze) treated the A among the structural words called the determiners.

Russian linguists treated the A as a functional p.of sp. because different A-s have specific meanings and functions.

The number of Eng A-s

The older grammatical tradition spoke of 2 A-s(the, a). But practical use of language showa that in speech nouns can be used in 3 different ways:

~(1)Language is a means of communication.

~(2)Everone ahould learn a foreign language.

~(3)She speaks English. Do you know the langage?

In the 3 cases the word “language” has different meanings:

(1) the zero A.

This term was introduced by Смирницкий and Штелинг.

→the, a, 0.

The idea of the zero article originates from the notion of the zero morpheme. Sometimes the absence of the grammatical marker is meaningful, and it doesn’t necessarily happen in the analytical language (руки, рук – no case marker). We can speak about zero A-s if we accept the point of view that an A is a morpheme. Ильишь argues that we can’t stick to this term for it’s essentially incorrect. We can prove it easily that an A is a word, and no word can be a zero. He proposes to interprete the phenomenon of the absence of the A as meaningful, and he introduces another terminological interpretation – significant meaningful absence of the article. He also notes that such cases are very different from the cases when the A is omitted. Omition of the A is a stylistic phenomenon found in newspapers, telegrams, advertisments, printing.

Functions of the article

The number of meanings and functions ascribed to the Eng A is great. It’s next to impossible to enumerate all the existing points of view. → We mention only those that are widely accepted both in Rissian and foreign linguistics. Conserning the meanngs of the A, we can say that it is abstract and hard to define.

Бархударов: the best term to describe it as identification. We identify whether the object is presented as definite or indefinite. We can also consider meanings of the A form the point of view of morphology, syntacs, semantics: 1)morphologically, A-s serve as formal indicators of nouns;as Ильшь puts it, A-s indicate substantivity. The presense of an A shows that the W that follows it is a N or it accuires features of a noun (black – Adj, but a black = nigger). In some lang-s the motphological role of the A is to show the gender, number; German – gender, number, case 2)Syntactically, the role of the A is to separate a N phrase from other members of the sentence. What stands between an A and a noun is one and the same member of the sentence.

~A book

~I bought a thick black book.

~I bought a thick book.

~I shall never forget the one fourth serious and three fourth comical astonishment.

The syntactic role of the A is also manifested in its use as a connecting element between 2 or more sentences.

~We saw a man. The man was approaching us.

3) Semantically, the role of the A is to relate a given utterance to a given speech situation. This approach is called actuialisation. Words are signs of language. And potentially, they can denote a variety of things. When speaking, people consentrate on the meaning or one aspect of the notion described by the chosen noun. Thus the object we speak about can be represented as an abstract notion (“Language is a means of communication”), as an object belonging to a class of similar objects (“Everyone should learn a foreign language”), we can also treat the object in particular(3). → Actualisation is achieved by using proper A-s, though some other means are employed. The A-s or their absence have particular meanings. The main ones are as follows:

The :1) the individualizing, or particularizing meaning. We present a noun as individual, besides the use of the definite A, there exist other means of individualization.

~The use of limiting attributes

~Previous mention of the object

~The uniqueness of the object

~and some others

2) the generic meaning

The object is described as having the common features of the qhole class. Thus this noun stands for all the genus.

~The rose is the queen of the flowers.

A: 1) the nominating function

~A gerl enters the room

2) the classifying function

~She is a student.

The object is presented as belonging to the whole class, as one of many. The noun accompanied by “a” iin the classifying function is used predicatively.

3) the generic function

~A cow is a domestic animal.

The object represents the whole class because it is like any othe object within the class.

4) the uneric function

It can be substituted by the numeral “one”.

~a thousand=one thousand

0: 1) the nominating function

What is presented by the object is viewed in its widest sense as a notion

(см. также Актуальное членение предложения. Категория определенности/неопределенности)

(indefine definite reference look seminar 8 supplementary 1).

6 General characteristics of the noun as a part of speech. The problem of

gender. Means of expressing gender.

Noun is regarded as a part of speech by all grammarians. It is distinct semantically,

morphologically and syntactically.

1.The noun denotes substance   

2.It is characterized by the categories of number and case.

3.It performs the function of the Subject

Object

Attribute

Adverbial modifier

Predicative

Combinability of noun can be modified by adjectives, nouns, articles and other.

Nouns can be either preceded of followed by prepositions or other nouns.

The category of gender in English disappeared completely by the end of Middleenglish period. So only lexical and derivational means are used to express gender:

E.g. boy - girl    lion - lioness    he-goat - she-goat

Cock - hen   waiter - waitress

Bull-cow

And the same tendency can be seen in some Indo-European languages

 E.g. учитель - учительница

   Lehrer-Lehrerin    

B, Strang, the author of the book "Modern English Structure", and some other grammarians consider that the category of gender exists in English as a noun can be substituted by a pronoun that can express gender: he, she it. But this point of view is considered to be wrong as in this case we speak of the substitution of a noun by another part of speech and thus we transfer the feature of another part of speech to the noun which doesn't have this feature. And even in this case the meaning of gender of the pronoun is purely lexical but not grammatical.