SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

Семинар (февраля: 5 пн – Р763,

Пн – Р764, 13 вт - Р765)

OnGrammatical Statements                                        9

In discussing grammatical categories, we shall often have to mention oppositions, that is, pairs of grammatical forms opposed to each other in some way. A simple case in point is the opposition between the singular and the plural number in nouns, with their definite meanings: one as against more than one.

It is often found that of two members of an opposition one has quite a definite meaning, whereas the meaning of the other is less definite, or vague. This is found, for instance, in the opposition between the forms was writing and wrote: the meaning of the form was writing is quite definite, while that of the form wrote is hard even to define. The terms usual for such cases are, "marked" and "unmarked". Thus, the form was writing is the marked, and the form wrote, the unmarked member of the opposition. We shall have more than one occasion to apply these terms.

ON GRAMMATICAL STATEMENTS

As the teaching of a language to foreigners requires the formulation of rules which the learner has to observe if he is to speak and write the language correctly, practical grammars, written both by speakers of the language in question and by foreigners, tend to be excessively strict in laying down what is "inadmissible" in the language. Numerous specimens of exaggerations may be found practically in every grammar book.

Let us consider a few of the most characteristic examples of such exaggerations.

It is frequently laid down as a rule that verbs of perception, such as see, hear, feel (in the meaning 'experience'), also those denoting emotions, such as love, like, hate, etc., cannot be used in any of the continuous forms.

This rule, thus bluntly formulated, is not borne out by actual usage. All of these verbs can, under certain circumstances, be used in the continuous forms though of course they are less commonly used in these forms than, say, verbs of physical action, such as walk, beat, strike, jump, run, etc., or verbs of position in space, such as stand, sit, lie, hang, kneel, etc. To be sure, was seeing is a much rarer form than was running. And yet was seeing is not impossible, nor is was hearing, was liking, etc., and also was being, e. g.. in the sentence He was being polite to you. In a similar way, the verb feel can be used in the continuous form, as for instance in a question addressed to a sick person: Are you feeling better to-day?

Another example of a rule formulated too bluntly is that about the use of tenses in a conditional if-clause. It usually runs something like this: "In a conditional if-clause the present tense is used instead of the future." There are two points to be noted here.

10                                                  Introduction

(1) The expression "instead of the future" has no reasonable sense at all. What is meant here is that if the action mentioned in a conditional if-clause refers to the future the present tense of the verb is used. (2) Besides, the rule, thus formulated, is much too strict, and requires some modification. If it is taken literally at its face value, it should mean that in a clause of this type the groups "shall + infinitive" and "will + infinitive" are completely inadmissible. This, however, is rather far from the truth, at least, in so far as the group "will + infinitive" is concerned. This group may, in fact, be found in conditional if-clauses. The verb will apparently has a certain trace of its lexical meaning preserved, but the group nevertheless is an analytical form of the future tense, as will be seen from the following example: Twenty thousand francs for you, Madame, if you'll stop breathing on my neck and go away. (R. WEST) Thus, an absolute prohibition of the use of "will + infinitive" in conditional if-clauses proves to be a misstatement of the facts of the language. With reference to the group "shall + + infinitive" the statement appears to be more true. Indeed it is hard to find examples of such a use, and the rule may be laid down with a very high degree of probability.

Careful observation of the facts of the language and attention to their possible stylistic colouring (compare also p. 354 ff.) will often help to modify some too strict prohibitions and assertions of impossibility to be found in grammarians' statements.

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

It is a very common statement that Modern English is an analytical language, as distinct from Modern Russian, which is synthetical. Occasionally this statement is slightly modified, to the effect that English is "mainly analytical" and Russian "mainly synthetical". These statements, on the whole, are true, but they remain somewhat vague until we have made clear two important points, viz. (a) what we mean by "analytical language'', and (b) what are the peculiar features distinguishing Modern English from other analytical languages, for instance, Modern French. It would be a gross error to suppose that English and French, being both analytical, are exactly alike in their grammatical structure.

The chief features characterising an analytical language would seem to be these:

(1) Comparatively few grammatical inflections (viz., case inflections in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and personal inflections in verbs).

(2) A sparing use of sound alternations to denote grammatical forms.

(3) A wide use of prepositions to denote relations between objects and to connect words in the sentence.

(4) Prominent use of word order to denote grammatical relations: a more or less fixed word order.

Now, features distinguishing the Modern English language from, say, Modern French, are also fairly numerous.

Without going into more minute details, it may be pointed out here that English adjectives are not inflected for either gender or number, whereas French adjectives are, or that English has no future tense formed without auxiliary verbs, whereas French has one, or again, that in English the attributive adjective (with a few exceptions) comes before its noun, whereas in French such an adjective (with a few exceptions, too) comes after it, etc. These examples may be sufficient to show that by calling the English language analytical we do not give an adequate description of its structure. We shall arrive at that adequate description only at the end of the book.

MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

Though the difference and the boundary between morphology and syntax seem obvious enough as a matter of principle, drawing a clear-cut line between them in a given language sometimes proves to be a task of some difficulty. Let us consider a few cases of this kind in Modern English.

The usual definition of morphology, which may be accepted as it stands, is this: Morphology is the part of grammar which treats of the forms of words. ¹As for the usual definition of syntax, it may be said to be this: Syntax is the part of grammar which treats of phrases and sentences. ²

These definitions are based on the assumption that we can clearly distinguish between words and phrases. This, however, is far from being the case. Usually the distinction, indeed, is patent enough. E. g., indestructibility is obviously a word, long as it is, whereas came here, short as it is, is a phrase and thus falls under the heading of syntax. But now what are we to make of has been found? This is evidently a phrase since it consists of three words and thus it would seem to fall under syntax, but it is also a form of the verb find and thus it would seem to fall under morphology.

Of course many more examples might be given of a phrase being at the same time a form of a word. It is obvious that we have here a kind of overlapping of syntax and morphology. It seems most advisable to include all such cases under morphology, considering the syntactical side of the formation to have been put, as it were, at the disposal of morphology.

The problem becomes more complicated still if we take into account such formations as has been often found, where one word (often) comes to stand between two elements of the form of another word (find). Such formations will have to be considered both under morphology and under syntax.

There are also other cases of overlapping which will be pointed out in due course. All this bears witness to the fact that in actual

¹ We will not consider here those definitions of morphology which include word-building.

² Different authors have differing views on the relations between the two parts of syntax.

Morphology and Syntax                                        13

research work we do not always find hard-and-fast lines separating phenomena from each other, such lines as would make every single phenomenon or group of phenomena easy to classify. More than once we shall have to deal with more involved groupings which must be treated accordingly. For the present the usual preliminary definition of the borderline between morphology and syntax must suffice.

There is also another way of approach to the problem of distinguishing between morphology and syntax.

Let us take as an example the sentence Could you take me in to town? (GALSWORTHY)

The word take which is used in this sentence can be considered from two different viewpoints.

On the one hand, we can consider it in its surroundings in the sentence, namely in its connection with the word you, which denotes the doer of the action, with the word me, which denotes the object of the action, etc. This would be analysing the syntagmatic connections of the word take.

On the other hand, we can consider take as part of a system including also the forms takes, taking, took, taken; we can observe that this system is analogous, both in sound alternation and in meanings, to the system forsake, forsakes, forsaking, forsook, forsaken, and, in a wider perspective, to the system write, writes, writing, wrote, written; sing, sings, singing, sang, sung, etc., and in a wider perspective still, to the system live, lives, living, lived; stop, stops, stopping, stopped, etc. This would be analysing the paradigmatic connections of take, and this gradually opens up a broad view into the morphological system of the language. It should be emphasised that this view is basically different from any view we might obtain by analysing the syntagmatic connections of the form in the sentence. For instance, the connection between took and wrote is entirely unsyntagmatic, as a sequence took wrote is unthinkable.

It may be said that, in a way, morphology is more abstract than syntax, as it does not study connections between words actually used together in sentences, but connections between forms actually found in different sentences and, as it were, extracted from their natural surroundings.

In another way, however, morphology would appear to be less abstract than syntax, as it studies units of a smaller and, we might say, of a more compact kind, whereas syntax deals with larger units, whose types and varieties are hard to number and exhaust.

The peculiar difficulty inherent in the treatment of analytical verb forms mentioned above, such as have done, will go, etc., lies in the fact that they have both a morphological and a syntactical quality. They are morphological facts in so far as they belong to the

14                                                   Introduction

system of the verb in question, as the auxiliary verb adds nothing whatever to the lexical meaning expressed in the infinitive or participle making part of the analytical form. But the same forms are facts of syntax in so far as they consist of two or three or sometimes four elements, and occasionally some other word, which does not in any way make part of the analytical form, may come in between them. It is true that in Modern English possibilities of such insertions are not very great, yet they exist and must be taken into account. We will not go into details here and we will only point out that such words as often, never, such words as perhaps, probably, etc. can and in some cases must come between elements of an analytical verb form: has always come, will probably say, etc. Since it is impossible that a word should be placed within another word, we are bound to admit that the formation has. .. come is something of a syntactical formation. The inevitable conclusion is, then, that has come and other formations of this kind are simultaneously analytical verb forms and syntactical unities, and this obviously means that morphology and syntax overlap here (see above, p. 13). This is perhaps still more emphasised by the possibility of formations in which the auxiliary verb making part of an analytical verb form is co-ordinated with some other verb (usually a modal verb) which does not in any way make part of an analytical form, e. g. can and will go. This would apparently be impossible if the formation will go had nothing syntactical about it. ¹

¹The same applies to the Russian language: there, too, a word can come in between the auxiliary and the infinitive, as in the formation будузавтразаниматься, and the auxiliary may be co-ordinated with another verb, as in хочуибудузаниматься.