The notion of grammatical opposition

Realization of grammatical categories takes place in the paradigms which are made up of various paradigmatic forms. More exactly, the variety of grammatical categories is in accord with the variety of paradigmatic grammatical forms and with the nature of the paradigm respectively.

The notion of the grammatical opposition is one of the key points of the categorial morphology studying the rules and regularities in the realization of grammatical categories which are associated with the main classes of nominative units. In principle, it is possible to subdivide morphological categories into nominal and verbal on the ground that some categories are associated with the nomena (nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns) whereas the others pertain to the verbs, finite or non-finite. This traditional view-point is grounded on the data of traditional grammar about grammatical regu­larities of typically synthetic languages. It is quite obvious that in such languages the differentiation between nominal and verbal categories is crucially significant. The categories of Case, Number and Gender are nominal ones. The categories of Tense, Aspect, Voice and Mood are considered the main verbal categories. The same categories may be found in analytical Indo-European languages but their internal peculiarities and the regularities of their realization dif­fer from their equivalents in synthetic languages both qualita­tively and quantitatively.

The notion of the grammatical opposition is most prefe­rably workable in the morphological analysis of grammatical categories in English because they are inflectional in the most. The categorial grammatical opposition is formed on the basis of the juxtaposition of categorial forms. The +/— prin­ciple of forming grammatical oppositions does not contradict the principle of subcategorization in relations of the opposed elements to the category itself, because the marked member of the opposition contains the positive categorial marker which sig­nifies the positive categorial meaning, thus indicating the formal explication of this or that aspect of a conceptual cate­gory. The unmarked member of the opposition is devoid of the positive categorial feature. It renders, in fact, no catego­rial meaning. Its categorial relevance can be conceived only due to its juxtaposition to the positive member which signi­fies the categorial meaning.

 

Here is an example of categorial opposition:                       

plural number meaning                                 

plural categorial form---------------------------------

                                                plural number marker

                 

NUMBER OPPOSITION street: streets                                   non-plural number meaning                 non-plural categorial form----------------------------------------

                                                                                                 zero non-plural number marker

 

In syntax the sentence has several forms which must be qualified as its categorial forms on the ground that they make up the sentence-paradigm and the sentential categories such as Affirmation, Interrogation and Negation find their reali­zation through the oppositions of these sentential forms.

Compare:    They live there.

         Do they live here?

         They do not live here.

The first of sentences is not quite affirmative it is neutral as far as a paradigmatic meaning of the sentence is concerned. Affirmation has its own do-marker in sentences like " They do live there".

Another range of sentential categories is represented by the tense and mood forms of the predicate which are morphologo-syntactic in nature. Accordingly, the paradigm of the sentence is sometimes said to be made up of tense and mood sentential forms.

                       2. Transposition of grammatical forms

The use of grammatical forms in unusual surroundings is defined as transposition.

It seems logical to distinguish two types of transposition in grammar:

1) regular transposition

2) stylistic transpositions

Regular transpositions are stylistically neutral and do not lead to synonymy

e.g. If he comes we shall go there at once

( the opposition ‘present – future’ is neutralized)

Stylistic transpositions have a special stylistic value and are used in expressive language, They do lead to the development of situational synonymy in grammar.

e.g. You are not going in there!

(the opposition ‘Indicative – Imperative’ is neutralized)

e.g. Say what you will = Whatever you may (might) say …

 

Stylistic transposition can also be traced in the following example with personal pronouns

e.g. How are we feeling today (‘you’ = ‘we’)

 

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