Tasks and study questions

1. Language and Speech

Special attention should be paid to the differentiation of the " lan­guage" and " speech" planes because these analytical procedures of parting language proved essential and efficient for the adequate gram­matical investigations.

The differentiation of the two planes " language" and " speech" is the primary concern of grammar. The problem in general is of philo­sophical relevance since it concerns the ontological status of lingual phenomena, and it has always been one of the most acute in linguistics. The differentiation of the two planes " language" and " speech" in the human language matter seems justified because the essence of the whole is revealed in the unity and opposition of its parts as:

" real" vs " ideal",

" actual" vs " potential",

" general" vs " concrete".

With this assumption in view, the " language—speech" dichotomy can be characterized as the following.

First of all, the relations between these two planes of language are correlative. These are the relations of actualization, manifestation and concretization.

The elements of the " language" plane are constructs which are ideal, abstract and potential. They cannot be described in physical terms of concrete actual lingual phenomena such as sounds, word-forms and utterances. The elements of the plane " language" are given by their generalized abstracted forms. But they do not exist if not actualiz­ed and concreticized by their speech counterparts which appear their speech manifestations, actualizations and concretizations in particular conditions of the language use. Human language exists through its speech manifestation which is actual speech product. It is the speech utterance, in the general meaning of the word, that is actual and perceptible. So the differentiation of the " language" and " speech" planes in human language can be recognized as valid.

The differentiation of the " language" and " speech" planes is essen­tial for grammatical analysis because the orientation of grammatical studies may be different.

Thus, language in the narrow sense of the word is a system of means of expression, while speech in the same narrow sense should be understood as the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse.

The system of language includes, on the one hand, the body of material units—sounds, morphemes, words, word-groups; on the other hand, the regularities or " rules" of the use of these units. Speech comprises both the act of produc­ing utterances, and the utterances themselves, i.e. the text. Language and speech are inseparable, they form together an organic unity. As for grammar (the grammatical system), being an integral part of the lingual macrosystem it dynam­ically connects language with speech, because it categorially determines the lingual process of utterance production.

Thus, we have the broad philosophical concept of language which is analysed by linguistics into two different aspects — the system of signs (language proper) and the use of signs (speech proper).

The sign (meaningful unit) in the system of language has only a potential meaning. In speech, the potential meaning of the lingual sign is " actualized", i.e. made situationally significant as part of the grammatically organized text.

E.g. Text-grammar deals with the grammatical peculiarities of the actual speech product as the text is. Thus, its " speech" orientation cannot be denied. Special terminology is correspondingly used and appropriate methods are implemented by the Text-grammar for the investigation of textual material. On the contrary those grammatical studies which aim at the exposure of the essential regularities in the internal organization of human languages are surely " language" oriented. Such structural grammars should have appropriate terminological apparatus and implement lin­guistic methods satisfying the requirements of structural analysis

Thus language can be analyzed in two different aspects – the system of signs, i.e. language proper and the use of signs, i.e. speech proper. The sign in the system of language has only a potential meaning which is actualized, i.e. made situationally significant in a text as the product of speech.

 

                         2. Syntagmatics and Paradigmatics

Another way of segmentation is exemplified by the partition of language matter into the spheres of Paradigmatics and Syntagmatics. These are the two spheres where the systemic value of linguistic ele­ments and their systemic relationships are realized.

. Originally the differentiation between paradigmatics and syntagmatics was based on the recognition of the two planes of language: " language" (langue) and " speech" (parole). In keeping with this, paradigmatics was identified with " language" whereas syntagma­tics coincided with the sphere of " speech". Later on this saussurian postulate underwent revision and reinterpretation. It became clear that the given principles of the partition of language exemplify independent analytical procedures in the attempt of linguists to penetrate into the very essence of the internal organization of human language. In modern linguistics a clearcut distinction is made between the two language spheres: paradigmatics and syntagmatics. It is lingual units that stand to one another in these two fundamental types of relations: syniagmatic and paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations be­tween units in a segmental sequence (string).

E.g.: The spaceship was launched without the help of a booster rocket.

In this sentence syntagmatically connected are the words and word-groups " the spaceship", " was launched", " the spaceship was launched", " was launched without the help", " the help of a rocket", " a booster rocket".

Morphemes within the words are also connected syntag­matically.

E.g.: space/ship: launch/ed; with/out; boost/er.

Phonemes are connected syntagmatically within mor­phemes and words, as well as at various juncture points (cf. the processes of assimilation and dissimilation).

The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic " syntagma". There are four main types of notional syntagmas:

predicative (the combination of a subject and a predicate),

objective (the combination of a verb and its object),

attributive (the combination of a noun and its attribute),

adverbial ( the combination of a modified no­tional word, such as a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier).

The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic and called " paradigmatic", are such as exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur. These intra-systemic relations and dependencies find their expres­sion in the fact that each lingual unit is included in a set or series of connections based on different formal and func­tional properties.

In the sphere of phonology such series are built up by the correlations of phonemes on the basis of vocality or consonantism, voicedness or devoicedness, the factor of nazalization, the factor of length, etc. In the sphere of the vocabula­ry these series are founded on the correlations of synonymy and antonymy, on various topical connections, on different word-building dependencies. In the domain of grammar ser­ies of related forms realize grammatical numbers and cases, persons and tenses, gradations of modalities, sets of sentence-patterns of various functional destination, etc.

Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations can­not be directly observed in utterances. The minimal paradigm consists of two form-stages. This kind of paradigm we see, for instance, in the expression of the category of number: boy — boys. A more complex para­digm can be divided into component paradigmatic series, i.e. into the corresponding sub-paradigms (cf. numerous para­digmatic series constituting the system of the finite verb).

The paradigmatic and syntagmatic properties of linguistic units have always been in view of grammar. The corresponding traditional definitions of the main parts of Grammar are based on the wordcentric approach accord­ing to which the Word is assumed to be the main unit of language:

The wordcentric grammars which consist of the two independent parts with their own domains: Morpho­logy and Syntax. The domain of Morphology is the paradigmatics of the word whereas the syntagmatics of the word is recognized to be the domain of Syntax. Morphology studies the forms of words and their paradigms, Syntax studies the combinations of words in word-groups and sentences.

 

               3. Plane of Content and Plane of Expression

The nature of grammar as a constituent part of lan­guage is better understood in the light of discrimi­nating the two planes of language, namely, the plane of content and the plane of expression.

The plane of content comprises the purely semantic ele­ments contained in language, while the plane of expression comprises the material (formal) units of language taken by themselves, apart from the meanings rendered by them. The two planes are inseparably connected. Grammatical elements of language present a unity of con­tent and expression (or a unity of form and meaning). In this the grammatical ele­ments are similar to the lingual lexical elements, though the quality of grammatical meanings is different in principle from the quality of lexical meanings.

On the other hand, the correspondence between the planes of content and expression is very complex, and it is peculiar to each language. This complexity is clearly illustrated by the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy, and synonymy.

In cases of polysemy and homonymy, two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of expression.

E.g. the verbal form of the present indefinite (one unit in the plane of expression) polysemantically renders the grammatical meanings of habitual action, action at the present moment, action taken as a general truth (several units in the plane of content).

The morphemic material element -s/-es (in pronunciation [-s, -z, -iz]), i.e. one unit in the plane of expression (in so far as the functional semantics of the elements is common to all of them indiscrim­inately), homonymically renders the grammatical meanings of the third person singular of the verbal present tense, the plural of the noun, the possessive form of the noun, i.e. several units of the plane of content.

In cases of synonymy, two or more units of the plane of expression correspond to one unit of the plane of content.

E.g. several verbal forms can express the meaning of a future action.

 

                                  4. Language Type

This traditional interpretation of the structural peculiarities of the " language type" is nowadays refutable as insufficient and to some ex­tent misleading. The matter is that the problem of the structural order of human languages is more complicated than it seems.

Human languages are not artificial static systems. In the course of time different spheres of human languages undergo certain changes. It is true that the historical changes in human life and society are reflected most actively and directly in the semantics of the nominative units of the language vocabulary. As to the grammatical structure, it is relatively stable, its qualitative changes may take centuries and its development is evolutionary in character. In the course of time the accumulation of some new typological features takes place and the acquirement of such features may lead to the qualitative changes in the grammatical structure of the language. As a result, it may display the typological features of another " language type".

The evolution of human languages is caused by lin­gual and extralingual factors. But the development of the structure of language goes in the direction which is predetermined by the com­plex of favouring intralingual factors representing the so-called " ge­neral grammatical tendency" of the language. This notion is workable in the analysis of the typological changes which the grammatical struc­tures undergo. The general grammatical tendency may predetermine the transition of the grammatical structure from one order to another.

There are two main general grammatical tendencies according to which the grammatical structures of Indo-European languages develop:

analytization and synthetization

Analytization, for instance, is the general grammatical tendency traceable in the development of some of the Indo-European languages. Analytization itself and the forms it assumes are not obligatory for the development of all the languages. The process of analytization varies in forms from language to language. In English, for instance, the process is extremely intensive and it manifests deep changes in the grammatical structure of the language, in its morphology and in its syntax as well.

Analytization as a complex of diachronic processes has been stimu­lated by some intralingual conditions available within the Old English language. An insight into the peculiarities of the Old English gram­matical structure makes us aware of the fact that the process started in syntax first. Among other factors conditioning structural changes the functional synonymy of the means of syntactic connection should be mentioned. The functional identity of some case-inflections and pre­positions resulted in the redundancy of most inflections of the oblique cases. Thus, the decay of the Old English case-system seemed to be predetermined. The reduction of the noun-paradigm couldn't but in­fluence the standardization of the word-positions in the sentence and the fixation of the word-order in the nucleus of the sentence. Besides, analytical tendencies involved into changes the forms of syntactic con­nection: agreement and case-government gave way to adjoinment and enclosure which are marked not by case-inflections but by the word-order. Some other analytical innovations in syntax have been traced. Such syntactic processes as condensation, contamination, replacement and clustering have become very intensive in English syntax. Steadily increasing reliance upon prepositional phrases, greater employment of subordinate clauses, the increase of the verb + adverbial particle com­binations and a tendency to use almost every word as lexico-syntactical conversives — these are a few of the recent developments in the Modern English syntax.

Analytical tendencies in the Morphology of English are different in character. They are vividly revealed in the spheres of Form-deriva­tion and Word-building.

It is evident that the reduction of the noun-paradigm did not cause its analytization and the morphology of the noun, its form-derivation and its word-building, remains synthetic in character. It is the form-derivation and the word-building of the Verb which have undergone changes. Since the Early Middle English period the paradigm of the verb has become highly developed and analytical in nature because most of the paradigmatic forms of the verb are derived as analytical formations: Continuous, Perfect, Perfect Continuous and other verb-forms.

As to the analytical tendencies in the word-building of the verb, they are manifested by the productivity of those word-building devices which are considered to be characteristic of analytical languages: con­version, postposition formation and phrasing. All these devices are rather productive for the derivation of English verbs. Alongside the analytization of the verb-paradigm and its word-building other analytical tendencies can be traced in the morpho­logy of English. Firstly, the unification of grammatical forms has taken place in the paradigmatic derivation of the main word-forms. Secondly, the process of analytization led to the new forms of the word-class determination: the determination of the class-membership by means of special function-words (determiners) has become regular.

                                            Part 2

                                  Sentence parsing

1. When Richie suddenly gave up the old apartment because he had stopped paying rent, he had let her know that he was looking in neighbourhoods Terry knew to be unsafe; after a week of this, Terri found them another apartment in the city, so that Elena would be closer, and when the landlord balked at Richie’s credit, Terri cosigned the lease. (Patterson. R.N. Eyes of the child. – NY: Ballantine Books, 1996. – P.67)

2. In the almost ten years they lived together, Paget had recently calculated, they had eaten perhaps three thousand dinners in this same room – usually just the two of them, sitting under the eighteenth-century crystal chandelier at a walnut table that seated twelve – discussing the events of the day, or sports or politics or Carlo’s school friends or whatever came to mind. (Ibid, P. 3003)

3. At some point in my twenties, I understood that what I was doing was redefining myself, choosing things that weren’t predestined by who I was or the life I’d been given. (Ibid, p.455).

4. Terry did not argue; days before she had stopped asking questions; after a moment’s silence she said that it was important that the jury, before cloistering to reach a verdict, remember the people who loved Paget most; if the case was over, she added, there was nothing to keep her or Carlo from the courtroom. (Ibid, P. 483)

5. I never said it didn’t bother me, but I know what I did and didn’t do, why I acted as I did, and who it is that I really do care about. (Ibid, P. 515)

                                            Part 3

                                  Tasks and study questions

1. Provide extended answers to the following questions:

1. What is the linguistic nature of syntagma?

2. Enumerate the most significant changes in the English language syntax.

 

2. Explain the following statement:

1. Language can be analyzed in two different aspects – the system of signs, i.e. language proper and the use of signs, i.e. speech proper.

2. Analytical tendencies involved into changes the forms of syntactic con­nection, as a result, agreement and case-government gave way to adjoinment and enclosure which are marked not by case-inflections but by the word-order.

 

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