Definition of language. Constituent parts of language

Early New English (from the introduction of printing in 1475 to 1660, the age of Shakespeare) the first printed book was published by William Caxton in 1475. This period is a sort of transition between two outstanding epochs: the age of Chaucer and the age of Shakespeare known as literary Renaissance.

Caxton’s English of the printed books was a sort of bridge between the London literary English of the M.E. period and the language of literary Renaissance.

The London dialect has risen to prominence as a compromise between various types of speech prevailing in the country and formed the basis of the National English language.

In the N.E. period the number of the English speaking people increased still more. The English language spread in North America . Australia, South Africa.This period is characterised by the establishment of the National literary language , the so-called Standard English. The old tribal dialects gradually disappeared , their place being taken by social dialects.

The N.E. vocabulary shows an enormous growth of words reflecting the rapid progress of technology, science and culture. Besides there are further numerous borrowings from the classical languages: Latin and Greek as well as from international fund of the vocabulary.

In grammar the levelling of inflectional forms and breaking down of the synthetical structure is going on, the analytical structure becomes predominant. H. Sweet called this period the period of lost endings.

In phonetics in unstressed syllables the loss of vowels is the most important phonetic change, these being preserved only in the most favourable positions..(horses, wishes, wanted)but (dogs, cats. loved). The loss of the unstressed vowels resulted in the confusion of of many grammatical forms which differed in M.E.

The great Vowel Shift is one of the most important changes of stressed vowels. The shift led to divergence of the English spelling and pronunciation. The Latin graphical system got broken. The shift also resulted in a great number of diphthongs peculiar to Modern English.

The expansion of English proceeded together with the growth of the British Empire in the XIX c. and with the increased weight of the United States. English spread to all inhabited continents. Some geographical varieties of English are now recognized as independent variants of the language.

The aim of theoretical grammar of language

The term ‘grammar’ goes back to the Greek word ‘grammatike’ that may be translated as the ‘art of writing’. But later this word acquired a much wider sense and can now be used in at least three different meanings to denote: 1) the grammatical structure of language; 2) a linguistic discipline studying the abovementioned structure of language; 3) a textbook containing information about the grammatical structure of language.

Language (a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse) incorporates three constituent parts:

1) the phonological system,

2) the lexical system,

3) the grammatical system.

The grammatical system can be regarded as the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means (that is words and stable word-groups) in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process. The grammatical description of language is effected by the science of grammar.

Any linguistic description may have a practical or theoretical purpose. The aim of practicalgrammaris the description of grammar rules that are necessary to understand and formulate sentences. It is aimed at providing the student with a manual of practical mastery of the grammatical part of language. The aim of theoreticalgrammar of a language is to offer explanation for these rules, to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system, to scientifically analyse and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.

36. Language and speech