Lecture 1.

THEORETICAL
GRAMMAR: BASIC NOTIONS.
 Theoretical grammar and its subject.
 Morphology and syntax as two parts of
grammar.
 Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations.
 Grammatical meaning.
 Grammatical categories.
 Theoretical grammar and its
subject.
 The term “grammar” goes back to a Greek word
that may be translated as the “art of writing”.
But later this word got a wider sense of the
whole study of language. In the middle ages,
grammar was the study of Latin. Not until the
early 20th century did grammarians began to
describe languages on their own terms.
 Grammar may be practical and theoretical. The aim of
practical grammar is the description of grammar rules
that are necessary to understand and formulate
sentences. The aim of theoretical grammar is to offer
explanation for these rules. Generally speaking,
theoretical grammar deals with the language as a
functional system. System implies the
characterization of a complex object as made up of
separate parts (e.g. the system of morphemes).
Language is a structural system. Structure means
hierarchical layers constituting the whole. In the
grammatical structure of language there are three
main structural levels: morphological, syntactical and
supersyntatical.
 Each level has its own system, therefore,
language is regarded as a system of
systems. The units of a lower level serve the
building material for the units of a higher
level. This similarity and likeness of
organization of linguistic units is called
isomorphism. This is how language works –
a small number of elements at one level can
enter into thousands of different
combinations to form units at the other level.
 Another common way to divide the different
types of grammars is to call them descriptive
or prescriptive. Prescriptive is rules of correct
usage; its aim is to say what is correct without
describing actual usage. Descriptive grammar
is a systematic description of the structure of a
language. In other words, practical grammar is
prescriptive, while theoretical grammar has
analytical aims. But it’s necessary to mention
that many modern grammars contain both
descriptive and prescriptive features.
 There are three chief methods of explaining
language phenomena in scientific/ theoretical
grammar, namely by means of: 1) historical
grammar, 2) comparative grammar, and 3)
universal/general grammar.
 Historical grammar tries to explain the phenomena
of a language by studying their history.
 Comparative or typological grammars study
grammatical facts of kindred or non-kindred
languages on a comparative basis.
 Universal grammar is concerned with general
principles which underlie the grammatical
phenomena of all languages.
 It’s also necessary to distinguish between two
shades of meaning of the word “grammar”:
 1) Objective (grammar as part of l-ge );
 2) Subjective (a course in grammar or a book).

The latter is only the reflection of the former. OG

exists irrespective of our mental ability, it exists
in l-ge itself. SG includes a people’s
assessment of grammar of language (articles;
manuals, lectures).
 Brief history of the English grammar
Historically, English grammars, according to their
general aims and objectives, can be divided into:
a) traditional (prescriptive and non-structural
descriptive (Brief Grammar for English by William
Bullokar, 1586) / early descriptive) (Henry Sweet
New English Grammar, Logical and Historical
(1891);
b) b) structural descriptive (Leonard Bloomfield (his
book Language (1933)
c) c) transformational-generative (Z. Harris, N.
Chomsky, 1950-70s),
d) d) cognitive grammar (mid-1970s, Ronald
Langacker).
Morphology and syntax as two
parts of grammar.
 The word morphology is derived from Greek:
morphe ‘form’ + logos= word, study. Morphology
deals with paradigmatic and syntagmatic properties
of morphological units – morphemes and words. It
is concerned with the internal structure of words
and their relationship to other words and word
forms within the paradigm. It studies morphological
categories and their realization. In simpler words,
morphology studies parts of speech and their
properties.
 A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that
carries grammatical and/or semantic meaning.
This means that it cannot be further divided into
smaller grammatical units. For example, the
English word unacceptable can be segmented
into three morphemes, un, accept, able, each of
which carries a certain semantic meaning and
cannot be further segmented.
 Morphemes can be divided into free
morphemes and bound morphemes
according to whether they can be used
independently as free forms or not. If a
morpheme can constitute a word (free form)
by itself, it is called a free morpheme, like
"room", "bottle", "stand", "large". If a
morpheme has meaning only when
connected with at least another morpheme, it
is bound, like un- in "unlucky", and the plural
-s in "bags". A free morpheme can be also
called a stem/root.
 Bound grammatical morphemes can be further
divided into two types: inflectional morphemes
(e.g., -s, -est, -ing) and derivational morphemes
(e.g., -ful, -like, -ly, un-, dis-). Inflectional
morphemes express grammatically-required
features or indicate relations between different
words in the sentence. In English they are only
suffixes. Derivational morphemes typically occur
between the stem and any inflectional affixes. Thus
in governments,-ment, a derivational suffix,
precedes -s, an inflectional suffix. In English
derivational morphemes may appear either as
prefixes or suffixes: pre-arrange, arrange-ment.
 Morphemes (bound or free) can be either
content or function morphemes.
 Content morphemes carry some semantic
content as opposed to performing a
grammatical function. For example car, -able,
-un.
 Function morphemes act solely to provide
grammatical information and syntactic
agreement. as plural –s
 Syntax, = Latin “syntaxis”, originating from the Greek
words syn, meaning "co-" or "together" and táxis,
meaning "sequence, order, arrangement"), can be
described as the study of the rules that deal with the
way words are combined into phrases, clauses,
sentences. It also deals with the arrangement of words
in a sentence. The order of words in sentences varies
from language to language. English-language syntax,
for instance, generally follows a subject-verb-object
order, as in the sentence “The dog (subject) bit (verb)
the man (object).”
 Syntax is also concerned with the external functions of
words and their relationship to other words within the
linear units.
 Paradigmatic and syntagmatic
relations.
 A linguistic unit can establish paradigmatic
relations with all the units that can also occur in
the same environment.
 PR are relations based on the principles of
similarity. They exist between the units that can
substitute one another. For instance, in the
word-group A PINT OF MILK the word PINT is
in paradigmatic relations with the words bottle,
cup, etc. The article A can enter into PR with
the units the, this, one, etc.
According to different principles of similarity PR can
be of three types: semantic, formal and
functional.
 Semantic PR are based on the similarity of
meaning: a book to read = a book for reading. He
used to practice English every day – He would
practice English every day.
 Formal PR are based on the similarity of forms.
Such relations exist between the members of a
paradigm: man – men; play – played – will play – is
playing.
 Functional PR are based on the similarity of
function between the elements that can be used in
the same position. For instance, noun determiners:
a, the, this, his, Ann’s, some, each, etc.
 PR are associated with the sphere of
‘language’.
 The grammatical paradigm is the smallest
grammatical system of correlated meanings
and forms based on only one grammatical
category.
 A linguistic unit establishes syntagmatic
relations with other units of the same level it
is used with. SR exist at every language
level. E.g. in the word-group A PINT OF
MILK the word PINT has SR with A, OF,
MILK; within the word PINT – P, I, N and T
are in syntagmatic relations.
SR can be of three different types: coordinate,
subordinate and predicative.
 Coordinate SR exist between the homogeneous
linguistic units that are equal in rank, that is, they are
the relations of independence: you and me; They were
tired but happy.
 Subordinate SR are the relations of dependence when
one linguistic unit depends on the other: teach + er –
morphological level; a smart student – word-group
level; predicative and subordinate clauses – sentence
level.
 Predicative SR are the relations of interdependence:
primary (subject + predicate: she plays) and
secondary predication (constructions with verbals: her
playing).
SR are linear, that is why they are manifested in speech.
 Grammatical meaning
The word combines in its semantic structure two
meanings – lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning
is the individual meaning of the word (e.g. table).
Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole
class or a subclass. For example, the class of nouns
has the grammatical meaning of thingness. If we take
a noun (table) we may say that it possesses its
individual lexical meaning (it corresponds to a definite
piece of furniture) and the grammatical meaning of
thingness (this is the meaning of the whole class).
Besides, the noun ‘table’ has the grammatical
meaning of a subclass – countability.
There are some classes of words that are devoid of any
lexical meaning and possess the grammatical
meaning only. This can be explained by the fact that
they have no referents in the objective reality. All
function words belong to this group – articles,
particles, prepositions, etc.

Types of grammatical meaning.

Grammatical meaning

implicit
explicit

general dependent
 The implicit grammatical meaning is not
expressed formally (e.g. the word table does
not contain any hints in its form as to it being
inanimate).
 The explicit grammatical meaning is always
marked morphologically – it has its marker. In
the word cats the grammatical meaning of
plurality is shown in the form of the noun.
The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types –
general and dependent.
 The general grammatical meaning is the meaning of
the whole word-class, of a part of speech (e.g. nouns
– the general grammatical meaning of thingness).
 The dependent grammatical meaning is the meaning
of a subclass within the same part of speech. For
instance, nouns have the dependent grammatical
meaning of countability/uncountability and
animateness/inanimateness.
The dependent grammatical meaning influences the
realization of grammatical categories restricting them
to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical
meaning of countability/uncountability influences the
realization of the grammatical category of number as
the number category is realized only within the
subclass of countable nouns.
 Any material means of expressing a grammatical
meaning is called a grammatical form.
 A zero form is the absence of a positive indicator of a
certain grammatical meaning included in a paradigm:
“ask”.
There are different kinds of grammatical forms:
 inflexions – desk-desks; nice-nicer;
 sound-interchange – begin-began-begun;
 suppletive forms – are derived from different roots:
good-better- best; go-went-gone;
 form-words (auxiliaries) – to do, to have, to be,
shall/will;
 word-order – The father killed a bear; A bear killed the
father;
 intonation and stress – You ‘play ‘chess?
According to the prevailing grammatical forms
languages are classified into two structural
types – synthetic and analytical:
 Synthetic languages are defined as ones of
‘internal’ grammar of the word – most of
grammatical meanings and grammatical
relations of words are expressed with the
help of inflexions (Ukrainian, Latin, etc).
 Analytical languages are those of ‘external’
grammar because most grammatical
meanings and grammatical forms are
expressed with the help of words (will do).
 Grammatical categories.
Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of
identical grammatical meanings that have the same
form (e.g. singular :: plural).
Due to dialectal unity of language and thought,
grammatical categories correlate, on the one hand,
with the conceptual categories and, on the other hand,
with the objective reality. For example, the objective
category of time finds its representation in the
grammatical category of tense, the objective category
of quantity finds its representation in the grammatical
category of number.
 Those grammatical categories that have
references in the objective reality are called
referential grammatical categories.
 However, not all of the grammatical categories
have references in the objective reality, just a
few of them do not correspond to anything in
the objective reality. Such categories correlate
only with conceptual matters. They are called
significational categories. To this type belong
the categories of mood and degree.
 Any grammatical category must be represented by at
least two grammatical forms (e.g. the grammatical
category of number – singular and plural forms). The
relation between two grammatical forms differing in
meaning and external signs is called opposition –
book :: books (unmarked member/marked member).
 Thus, we may define the grammatical category as the
opposition between two mutually exclusive form-
classes (a form-class is a set of words with the same
explicit grammatical meaning).
 Means of realization of grammatical categories may
be synthetic (near – nearer) and analytic (beautiful –
more beautiful).
 In the process of communication grammatical
categories may undergo the processes of
transposition and neutralization.
 Transposition is the use of a linguistic unit in
an unusual environment or in the function that
is not characteristic of it.
He is coming tomorrow : the paradigmatic
meaning of the continuous form is reduced and
a new meaning appears – that of a future
action.
 Neutralization is the reduction of the
opposition to one of its members: x ::
spectacles.