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Grammatical meaning . The difference between the grammatical and the lexical meaning.
· general, abstract meaning
· typical of a certain class of words
· expressed by the grammatical formal marker (or by the absence of the latter).
| Lexical meaning | Grammatical meaning |
| 1. degree of abstraction | |
| individual | More abstract, as it is typical of classes of words (unites classes of words) |
| 2. the function in the language | |
| Reveals fragments of reality relevant to the speakers | Organizes the knowledge of fragments of reality in the language (relations) the same in same forms of dif words |
| 3. degree of autonomy | |
| Autonomous | Are expressed only being combined with lexical meanings |
| 4. obligatory/non-obligatory character | |
| Not obligatory | There is a limited set of grammatical meanings, which are obligatory for expression |
For example, when we say: It has been raining for hours, the verb rain expresses one lexical meaning and seven grammatical meanings (person, number, tense, aspect, time correlation, voice, and mood).
Глокая куздра штеко будланула бокра и кудрячит бокренка. The grammatical meanings are the same in the same forms of different words.
Grammatical form , its types. Criteria of a word combination being an analytical grammatical form.
Grammatical form – that which expresses the grammatical meaning. marker
· Simple synthetic
· Analytical
Simple synthetic form – a unit all the elements of which are written together.
Synthetic means:
· Affixation (beautiful)
· Sound-interchange (take-took)
· Suppletivity (good – better)
Criteria of words being suppletive (A.I. Smirnitsky)
1. Words should be identical as to their lexical meaning
2. They should have no parallel pairs.
3. Other words belonging to the same class should build up the same opposition without suppletivity.
Analytical form – a combination of elements which are written separately.
The analytical form:
· The functional element
· The notional element
a. They function as one semantic unit
b. They perform the same syntactic role
| Synthetic forms | Analytical forms |
| They are simple forms all elements of which are written together | All parts are written separately |
| grammatical and lexical meanings are represented in one word | meanings are divided in them |
| built with the help of synthetic means | Morphemes |
| words both in form and meaning | words in meaning and combinations in form |
Paradigms of words may consist of simple synthetic forms only as in boy-boys. A paradigm may embrace both: simple and analytical forms as in comes – has come. But pure analytical form cannot form separate paradigms. The grammatical centre of any paradigm is always presented by simple synthetic forms.
Grammatical category . Principles of the grammatical category. The method of binary oppositions. Types of grammatical oppositions. An oppositional reduction (transposition, neutralization).
Gramm category - is a unity of grammatical meaning and grammatical form.
· Any gr form present a certain grammatical category.
· Opposition with the category is obligatory
· One and the same gr form can be a member of dif gr cat-s
· A grammatical category cannot exist without formal markers.
· One and the same word cannot have more than one gr formal expr of one category
Grammatical categories
· General (=grammatical category): case
· Partial (=category form): Nominative, Genitive, Dative
The opposition – generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed. The correlated elements must posses two types of features: common (the basis of contrast), differential (immediately express a funct. in question)
Norms of gender marking
• The masculine gender is considered to be the norm in the use of lexical and grammatical units.
• The feminine gender is associated with certain markers, thus with the idea of derivation and subordination.
e.g. she = s + he --- female = fe + male
One can prove the semantic character of the category of gender by the fact that one and the same noun can be substituted by different pronouns: e. g. love (it, he); moon (it, she).
Real sex distinctions can be shown in English with the help of lexical or derivational means:
a) the words: cock – hen, boy – girl, brother – sister, bull – cow, etc.;
b) combined words: he-goat, she-goat, Tom-cat, Pussy-cat, man-doctor, woman-doctor, boy-friend, girl-friend, male reader, female reader, etc.;
The element man at the beginning of a word always denotes a male (man-servant); when it is placed at the end of a word, it can denote either a male or a female. e. g. She was chairman of the club.
c) derivational suffixes: wait-er – wait-ress, lion – lion-ess (Cf. учитель - ница , доктор - ша).
a postman – a letter carrier, a postal worker;
a fireman – a fire fighter;
a businessman – a business leader, a merchant, an industrialist;
a cameraman – a photographer, a camera operator;
a chairman – a chairperson, a chair, a moderator, a department head;
a craftsman – a craftsworker, an artisan;
a deliveryman – a delivery person, delivery driver;
a forefather – an ancestor;
a makeup man – a makeup artist;
mankind – humankind, humanity;
brotherhood – unity, community;
manpower – work force, personnel, workers;
men – humans, human beings, people, persons;
a policeman – a police officer;
a salesman – a salesperson, a salesclerk;
a showman – a performer;
a soundman – a sound technician.
traditional cases of personification. Thus, ships, vehicles, countries, spring, dawn, the Moon, the Earth are associated with the feminine gender while death, war, the Sun – with the masculine.
Analytical forms:
1) word combinations of the type more / most + Adj do not differ from synthetic degrees of comparison like bigger, biggest in their meaning; so more and most are identical with - er, -est as grammatical markers of the category of degrees of comparison;
2) the lexical meaning of qualitative adjectives of the difficult- or beautiful- type demands that they should have the category of degrees of comparison as far as they denote gradable qualities;
3) the distribution of - er / -est and more / most is complementary. They embrace all the adjectives which may have degrees of comparison;
4) one and the same lexical meaning is present in all the three forms of degrees of comparison;
5) there exists the possibility of the distant use in more / most + Adj combinations when the first element is detached from the notional element:
e. g. more attractively beautiful (Cf. have never been);
6) the more / most + Adj combinations have a steady combinability; they can be used only with gradable words;
7) etymologically the suffix - most (which is present in some modern words such as utmost, innermost, etc.) is a combination of two elements. The first part – the suffix m-, is typical of the words of Latin origin like primus, optimus.
As for the structures of the type less / least + Adj there are also scholars who deny their grammatical character. B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya put forward the following arguments:
1) less and -er have different, even opposite meanings;
2) one and the same word can attach both less and - er, so their distribution is not complementary: prettier – less pretty;
3) less is systematically substituted by not so which is not the case with more.
Some scholars admit the grammatical status of less / least + Adj combinations. To prove this L.I. Baisara refers to the following facts:
1) less / least are used with certain groups of words: adjectives and adverbs;
2) the functional word is often detached from the notional one:
e. g. less readily available;
3) more and less can go together in one and the same sentence where they mark the comparative degree of one word;
4) they have similar left-hand combinability with intensifiers.
Regarding less / least + Adj combinations as analytical grammatical forms Y. Blokh calls them forms of "reverse comparison" and claims that the paradigm of degrees of comparison consists not of three but five different forms: e. g. the least beautiful – less beautiful – beautiful – more beautiful – the most beautiful.
Imperfective aspect
Common aspect
Comparing the Russian and the English grammatical category of aspect one can state that grammatical category forms have the following meanings:
1) the Russian imperfective aspect denotes the duration of an action, its development in the course of time;
2) the Russian perfective aspect denotes the degree of completeness of an action;
3) the English common aspect states the fact of the performance of an action;
4) the English continuous aspect denotes the duration and development of an action.
Some linguists claim that there are five aspects in modern English. A.G. Kennedy distinguishes the following aspect forms on the basis of the semantic factor.
1) the terminative aspect – that which represents the action as a whole:
e. g. He went to town;
2) the ingressive aspect – that which points at the beginning of an action:
e. g. He began to work;
3) the effective aspect – that which shows the conclusion of an action:
e. g. She ceased speaking;
4) the durative aspect – that which presents an action as continuous:
e. g. He is walking along the street;
5) the iterative aspect – that which presents an action as repeated:
e. g. Each night the old man would walk to town.
The Composite Sentence
The composite sentence is a polypredicative syntactic unit composed from two or more clauses (analogous in their syntactic structures to simple sentences) which constitute a syntactic, semantic and communicative whole.
The composite sentence is not a mere combination of simple sentences but it is a qualitatively new syntactic unit of a higher syntactic sublevel.
The composite sentence has (a) semantic, (b) structural and (c) communicative peculiarities.
(a) It denotes more than one situation of reality and relations between them.
(b) There are two or more predicative lines.
(c) Clauses constituting a composite sentence lose their independent status, and the communicative status of the resultative composite sentence is established on the basis of the clause which has the status of the principal clause.
It is characterized by several levels of actual sentence division. The first level is drawn between the clauses. And the order of clauses follows the rule: the clause that comes first is the theme; the clause that comes last presents the rheme.
Besides, each clause in the structure of the composite sentence has its own level of actual sentence division.
According to the basic semantic difference in the relations between clauses, that of coordination / subordination, the composite sentence falls into two types: compound and complex.
| The composite sentence | ||
| ↓ | ↓ | |
| Compound | Complex | |
| Coordination reflects the most general types of logical relations between situations and events: conjunction, disjunction, juxtaposition, cause and consequence. | Subordination reflects various relations of dependence between events: condition, result, cause, etc. |
The meaning of coordination / subordination is manifested by special words (conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, and pronouns) which perform a double function: they connect the clauses into one whole and specify the type of semantic relations between clauses.
1. The Compound sentence is a syntactic unit which consists of two or more clauses joined together on the basis of coordinate relations.
There exist 4 types of semantic relations between clauses:
· copulative
· adversative
· disjunctive
· causative-consecutive.
2. The Complex sentence is a polypredicative syntactic structure that includes two or more clauses with subordinate relations between them.
The complex sentence reflects the dependence between the events.
There exist different classifications of complex sentences.
On the basis of similarity of functions of parts of the sentence it is possible to differentiate between: subject, predicative, object, attributive and adverbial clauses.
On the basis of the morphological criterion it is possible to differentiate between: noun, verbal, adjectival and adverbial clauses.
1. THE DEFINITION OF THE PHRASE
The largest syntactic units – sentences – can be decomposed into smaller units: word-combinations (or word-groups, word-clusters, or phrases). So phrases can be considered constituents of a sentence. They can be also viewed upon as combinations built outside a sentence (each grammatical class has its own combinatorial properties, so they can form language units larger than a word).
There are different definitions of the phrase, but there is not any on which scientists were unanimous.
Traditionally we define a phrase as a cluster of words connected in accordance with a certain morphological and syntactic pattern.
B. Ilyish defines a phrase as ‘every combination of two or more words that is a grammatical unit but is not an analytical form of some words’ (Ilyish, p. 171).
Cf. has been coming is not a phrase but a form of a word.
There are two specific features of the phrase:
1. It is a combination of two or more notional words, from which it follows that a combination of a notional word with a functional word is not a phrase, but a syntactic form of word (e. g. in the yard).
2. The phrase is basically different from the sentence. The principal difference between the phrase and the sentence lies in the fact that the sentence is a unit of communication whereas the phrase is not.
The phrase names some phenomena thus performing the naming function (the word also performs the naming function). There are a lot of phrases which are equivalent to words: e. g. a new born child – a baby, an anmarried man – a bachelor, an unnaturally small person – a dwarf, a very cheap and lucky buy – a steal, a very beautiful girl – a stopper, etc.
2. CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASES
There are different approaches to classification of phrases.
Phrases can be classified morphologically according to the classes of words the elements of a phrase belong to. Thus, phrases fall into:
1) nominal, or substantive
e. g. a silver spoon, room at the top, three chapters
2) verbal
e. g. to run quickly, to live happily, to build castles
3) adjectival
e. g. exceedingly greedy, stone silent
4) adverbial
e. g. too seldom, very briefly.
This principal of classifying phrases is most widely spread.
The structural, or formal, classification is based on the presence or absence of a head word in the phrase. It was worked out by one of the well-known linguists who made his contribution to the theory of a phrase – the American scientist L. Bloomflied (the 30-s, this century). His understanding of a phrase is very wide. According to his point of view any syntactically organized group can be treated as a phrase in the aspect of its linear structure. Thus he divided all phrases into 1) endocentric (headed); 2) exocentric (non-headed).
Head is a lexical unit around which a phrase is built.
The head of a phrase has two distinctive features. First, this element is always present in the phrase. Second, the meaning associated with the phrase is the meaning inherent to the head.
The main feature of endocentric phrases is that one or another constituent can function instead of the whole combination, in other words an endocentric group has the same position as its head-word.
e.g. poor John is endocentric because the element John can substitute the whole combination poor John in Poor John ran away. It will look like John ran away.
It is true with the phrase Tom and Mary as Tom and Mary ran away can be substituted for Tom ran away and Mary ran away.
In exocentric phrases the substitution of the part for the whole is impossible as the distribution of an exocentric group differs from the distribution of its components. In the sentence I like reading books the combination reading books is endocentric. One can say I like reading. In contrast I like is exocentric, it has no head, and the attempts to substitute the part for the whole will give the following: I reading books, like reading books. Neither makes sense.
Endocentric and exocentric groups according to the position of the head-expression are further classified into:
Endocentric:
1) tail-head expressions: the centre stands at the end of the combination;
1a) the head is a noun (noun-headed phrases): e. g. a nice apple;
1b) the head is a verb (verb-headed phrases): e. g. may come, may have come, may possibly come.
2) head-tail expressions;
2a) noun-phrases: e. g. funds available to all, news strange enough, a lemon impossible to eat;
2b) verbal-headed phrases: infinitive, -ing-form: e. g. reading books.
Exocentric :
1) prepositional phrases
P + N
P + Pron;
2) subject-predicate groups
e. g. She is reading.
The semantic classification is based on the meaning of the head-word which serves to unite words derived from the same root (to love books, love for books, a lover of books, a book lover, loving books).
A classification of phrases may be complex, based on several principles.
The development of generative and semantic syntax brought about one more approach to the classification of phrases based on their derivational history. In this classification all phrases fall into two large classes: primary, or non-derivational and secondary, or derivational.
Primary phrases are those which are not derived from sentences, they are not results of transformation of sentences. Primary phrases can be classified on the morphological principle into verbal, adjectival, adverbial, pronominal and partially substantive. The primary substantive phrases include:
a) noun phrases which consist of a determiner and a noun
e. g. every child, any boy, three books etc.
b) noun phrases which consist of a noun and an adjective with an evaluative, identifying or an intensifying meaning
e. g. dear friend, old Jolyon, a mere child, a perfect idiot.
Such phrases are not derived from sentences which is easily verified by the fact that they cannot be used in the position of predicatives, e. g. *the child is mere, *the idiot is perfect.
Secondary phrases are phrases derived from sentences by means of the syntactic process of nominalization and correlated structurally and semantically with the sentences from which they are derived.
Nominalization is defined as a process of changing a sentence into a form that can appear in the position of NP in another sentence.
e. g. He is ill → His being ill → His illness → I did not know about his being ill (his illness).
Secondary, or derivational phrases fall into two groups according to the degree of nominalization: completely nominalized and partially nominalized.
Completely nominalized phrases are those in which the verb of the basic sentence is deleted.
e. g. The smile is sweet → a sweet smile, the sweetness of the smile;
The wall is of stone → a stone wall.
Partially nominalized phrases include infinitival, gerundial and participial structures.
e. g. You are wise → to be wise → being wise. It’s easy for you to be wise. I rely on your being wise in this situation.
2. SYNTACTIC TIES WITHIN PHRASES.
In the process of building a phrase the components of a phrase are not just put together but the relations between them are based on certain types of grammatical means characteristic of a particular language.
There are 4 grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of a phrase, types of syntactic ties:
1) concord (agreement);
2) government;
3) adjoinment (примыкание); enclosure (рамочная конструкция, замыкание)
4) connection (the arrangement of ).
The distribution and significance of these four types varies across languages and depends on the type of the language. In inflectional languages with highly developed morphology the most important role is played by agreement and government.
Concord is such a way to connect words when the leading element influences the form of the dependent word (and the latter has the same form).
e. g. in Russian adjectives agree with nouns (in A + N combinations) in number, gender, case.
But this is not mere copying of the form of the head-word by the subordinate word. Both express the same meaning by means of the same forms of the connected words.
Compare in Russian: голубой вагон , голубая чашка , голубое небо , голубые дали or in German: ein blaues Kleid, ein blauer Wagen, eine blaue Tasse.
There exist the following cases of agreement in English:
a) between the head-word and its attribute
The sphere of usage is limited: there is no agreement in gender or case, only in number between ‘a demonstrative pronoun (this, that) + a noun’, and ‘the indefinite article + a noun’.
b) between the subject and the predicate
Some scholars, professor Ilyish for one, think that in English in contrast with Russian there is no agreement between subjects and predicates. The reason for this is that in English it is possible to say ‘My family is small’ and ‘My family are not potato-eaters’. The fact that these sentences exist side by side proves that there is no agreement in English.
Government is such a way to connect words when the form of the head-word requires a certain form of the subordinate word, but these forms do not coincide (this is the main difference between agreement and government).
The only case that can be called government in English is the use of the objective case of personal pronouns and of the pronoun who when they follow a verb or a preposition.
e. g. I see him; to him.
Some scientists say that government can not be applied to the form whom as it is often substituted by the form who in sentences like Who(m) were you talking to? There is no government with nouns in English. Government is typical of languages with the developed case system.
Cf. Russ: Я вижу мальчика.
E: I see the / a boy.
In Russian there are cases of the so-called free use of some forms.
Cf. Я вижу смысл (вин.пад.)
Я не вижу смысла (род.пад.)
Он выпил воду / воды (depends on the context).
The difference between the agreement and government consists in the following: in the case of agreement the subordinate word has the same grammatical forms(s) as the subordinating word. In the case of government the form of the subordinate form is not the same as that of the subordinate word, but it is determined by the subordinate word.
Language as a system presents an integral whole in which everything is interconnected and interdependent, so nothing can happen in one place without echoing in another. The loss of the significance of agreement and government as the grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations between the components of a phrase which was the result of the loss of inflections was compensated by the growing significance of the two other means: adjoining and connection.
Adjoining and connection became the leading grammatical means of expressing syntactic relations in English.
Adjoinment is such a way to connect words when there is no change in form, the elements are connected by their position and meaning.
English adjectives and nouns are connected by means of adjoinment.
e. g. a green apple
The same is with verbs and adverbs.
e. g. read fluently
In cases of adjoinment two factors: grammatical and lexical subordination work at a time.
In Russian adjoining is actually defined negatively as absence of both agreement and government whereas in English the essence of adjoining consists in the position of the subordinated word (preposition or postposition) and is actually related to fixed word order which came to replace the free word order after the loss of inflections.
It is worthwhile to return to the problem of case. If case is understood as a category of deep syntax expressing the relations between the action and its participants then adjoining is one of the means to express case relations: an object is placed in postposition to the head verb, the indirect non-prepositional object precedes the direct object, the adverb of manner and degree follows the verb etc.
Of special importance is one variety of adjoining called enclosure which arranges the relations in a noun phrase.
Enclosure is such a way to connect elements of a phrase when a certain element is enclosed between two parts of another element.
Adjectives in English are enclosed between nouns and articles. In fact, any part of speech, a phrase and even a whole sentence placed in between the determiner and the head noun becomes an attribute to the head noun.
e .g. a yes man, a carrot-and-stick policy, a know-nothing face, a head-in-the-sand attitude, a little-eaten lunch.
Despite their length, enclosed prepositive attributes are perceived as single attributes and for this reason they are often hyphenated to look like one word, even if a prepositive attribute is expressed by a sentential structure.
The second type is a split infinitive. e. g. to fully guess the idea.
The compound sentence.
1. The Compound sentence is a syntactic unit which consists of two or more clauses joined together on the basis of coordinate relations.
Clauses combined by means of coordination are regarded as independent, they are linked in such a way that there is no hierarchy in the syntactic relationship, they have the same syntactic status. Two clauses are coordinated if they are connected by a conjunct or a coordinator. Coordinated clauses are sometimes called “conjoins”. Coordination can be asyndatic or syndatic.
Asyndetic Compound Sentences: In them coordinators are absent. Two or more clauses can be made into one sentence without a coordinator being used. The result is a.c.s. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. In writing, asyndetically joined coordinate clauses are separated by a semicolon (;), colon (:) or a dash (-).
Syndetic compound sentences: In them the type of coordination is expressed explicitly by means of coordinators, coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, so that ex. The lights went out, the curtain went up and the show began. The peculiarity of and and or is that they can link more than two clauses. Coordinators can be divided into one-member, or simple (and, but) and multi-member (either…or).
Coordinators and conjuncts in a compound sentence express four logical types of coordination: copulative, disjunctive, adversative and causative-consecutive.
Form the semantico-syntactic point of view there are 2 basic types of connection:
1.Marked coordinative connection – copulative, causal, resultative, adversative, disjunctive, e.g. We cannot go upstairs for we are too tired.
2.Unmarked coordinative connection - is realized by the coordinative connector “and” and also asyndetically (copulative, enumerative, causal, resultative relations), e.g. Time passed, and she came to no conclusions. We cannot go upstairs, we are too tired.
Gramm structure of compound sentences:
The semantic relations between the clauses making up the compound sentence depend partly on the lexical meaning of the conjunction uniting them, and partly on the meanings of the words making up the clauses themselves: -Copulative conjunctions - and, neither…nor, -Disjunctive conjunctions - or, otherwise, either…or, -Adversative conjunctions - but, yet, still, nevertheless, however
As to the use of tenses in clauses making up a compound sentence, we should note that there is no general rule of their interdependence. However, in a number of cases we do find interdependence of co-ordinate clauses from this point of view.
The number of clauses in a compound sentence may be greater than 2, and in this case the conjunctions uniting the clauses may be different. The length of the CS in terms of the number of its clausal parts is in principle unlimited, since it is determined by the informative purpose of the speaker
The complex sentence.
The Complex Sentence is a polypredicative construction built up on the principle of subordination. The Complex Sentence of minimal composition includes two clauses - a principal one and a subordinate one. Although the principal clause positionally dominates the subordinate clause, the two form a semantico-syntactic unity, in which they are interconnected.
The subordinate clause is joined to the principal one either by a subordinating connector (subordinator) or asyndetically.
The principles of classification: Subject- object –attributive- adverbial-functional
1)The subject clause expresses the theme of the actual division of a complex sentence. Ex.What he would do next was not even spoken of.
2)The object clause denotes an object-situation of the process. Ex. She cannot imagine what you are doing there.
3)Attributive clauses express some characteristics. Ex. I shook out my scarf which was damp.
4)Clauses of adverbial positions constitute a vast domain of syntax which falls into many subdivisions.
5)The predicative clause performs the function of the nominal part of the nominal part of the predicate, i.e. the part adjoining the link-verb (be, seem, look). Ex. Work is what keeps life going. My only terror was lest my father should follow me. Lignose looked as though a sculptor had moulded it.
The problem of language definition. The typical features of English as a world language.
Language can be viewed upon
| As the result of linguistic study | A system of signs presented in dictionaries, grammar books, etc. |
| As the result of speech activity | Different kinds of texts (literary texts, newspaper articles, students’ essays) |
| As the result of language acquisition | The speaker’s linguistic competence |
Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature; it is inseparably connected with the people who are its creators and users; it grows and develops together with the development of society
Language is a complex social phenomenon shared by a certain community, consisting of tangible signs kept in the brain.
We are to differentiate between language and speech. The first attempts to differentiate between language and speech date back to IV BC, and were made by Plato who claimed that words, taken out of sentences and speech, assert and deny nothing. They get their meaning only in sentences, in speech denoting some concrete information about things. This theory was developed later by Aristotle and served as a basis for creating a new grammatical theory containing morphology and syntax.
The name associated with strict differentiation of language from speech is the name of the well-known Swiss linguist – de Saussure. It was he who compared language with chess referring to the fact that both have many elements which organize not an occasionally-built pile, or list, but a unit all the elements of which are interconnected and determine each other, thus forming a system.
Language is a system of rules, laws of different kinds that are the base for speech. Speech is the manifestation of language.
e. g. Verbs have the category of voice, there are two of them: active and passive. This is a fact of language. But when we create concrete utterances, sentences, word combinations with these forms we obtain facts of speech.
Language and speech are interdependent. Properties of every unit as an element of the system of language determine its combinability, which, in its turn, may develop in the process of speech.
With respect to a speaker it is only natural to present the difference between language and speech as the difference between his linguistic competence and actual performance.
Language does more than provides a package of ready-made messages. It enables us to produce and understand new words, phrases, and sentences as the need arises. In short, human language is creative – "allowing novelty and innovation in response to new experiences, situations, and thoughts" [7, 1].
But this creativity is rule-governed, and this is a characteristic feature of all levels of language. e. g. Cf. (a) 1. b race (b) 1. bsarp 2. flip 2. Mbit 3. p raf 3. p tra
Comparing the words in (a) and (b) we can say that the former are recognizable as possible names for new products or inventions while the latter simply do not have the "appearance" of English words.
The example above illustrates that our subconscious knowledge of English includes a set of certain constraints thus limiting the speaker's freedom in creating new words. The same is true when new words are created from the already existing. W. O'Grady, M. Dobrovolsky write that if speakers of English, learn that there is the word soleme (used perhaps for a newly discovered atomic particle), they then automatically know that something with the properties of a soleme can be called solemic. They also know that to make something solemic is to solemicize it, and they call this process solemicization. Further, they know that the c is pronounced as [s] in solemicize but as [k] in solemic. Without any doubt, they will pronounce solemicize with the stress on the second syllable [7].
Thus, users of a language must possess certain knowledge that enables them to create and understand new utterances, and this knowledge is what constitutes linguistic competence, which is based on a set of rules according to which language works. In this respect it is possible to say that every language has its grammar.
Дата: 2019-02-19, просмотров: 883.