17. Phrase. Principles of classification

The phrase (a free word combination) is a syntagmatic grouping of 2 or more words.

It can be made of

• Notional words ( an old man)

• Notional and functional words ( in the corner) –naming function

• Functional words only ( one of)-disputable

Word combinations are divided into free word combinations and analytical forms of a word.

Free word combinations (phrases) - are units of syntax. If we use other word, grammatical meaning stays the same. (blue sky, blue dress, green dress).

Analytical forms of a word - are units of morphology. Morphological features are included into the word’s paradigm. ( am doing, have done, did).

Features of the analytical forms are the following:

• There are an auxiliary element and a notional element;

• It has developed grammatical idiomaticity;

Like a word, which names different phenomena as individual entities (substances, processes), a naming unit names different phenomena, supplying more details about them.

A table- an old round table

So, phrases name complex phenomena and their properties (a soul in pain, hurrying along the station).

The structure Noun + Verb forms names a situation and is a communicative unit, so, it’s often excluded from phrases. (the girl smiled). The word combinations Noun+Verb are treated as sentences.

The structure Noun+Verb can be regarded at 2 levels of syntactic analyses:

• At the level of combinability pre-functional level-as a syntagmatic grouping of 2 words (a Noun and a Verb). It’s a free word combination( phrase)

• At the level of function - as a sentence, then the constructions are described in terms of their syntactic functions.

Independence ( the girl smiled) – is a reciplical ( 2 ways) dominational relation within the Noun+Verb group. The Noun dominates the Verb determine the person of predication( agreement). And the Verb dominates the Noun determine the event of predication, ascribing to the person some action or state or quality (the girl smiled-the girl’s smile).

Word combinations are classified according to different criteria. Semantically, word combinations are classified into free and phraseologically bound. In free word combinations, the components retain their original lexical meaning, e.g.:

(There was) a long pause (S. Sheldon).

Free word combinations are made up in speech for each given occasion.

In phraseologically bound word combinations, one or both components weaken or lose their original lexical meaning, e.g.:

a lame duck - a person or enterprise that is not a success and has to be helped;

a rainy day - a time of financial hardship;

a square meal - a meal which offers enough good food to satisfy one.

Phraseologically bound word combinations cannot be freely made up in speech. They are reproduced in speech as ready-made units which are semantically and functionally closer to words than to word combinations.

There are the following classification criteria:

1. The inner structure of the word combination (phrase)

• The syntactic relations between the components;

• Morphological expressions of the components;

• Position, order, arrangement of the components

2. The external functioning:

• Function of the whole phrase and its components;

• Distribution( it’s a set of all possible environments of a unit)

Henry Sweet (combination of words to express thoughts) rejected the term “phrase” because of the confusion between the scalars and its popular meaning. He preferred to speak of “word groups”. Relations in the phrase based on grammatical and logical subordination. He distinguished the relations:

• Of the modifier and modified (adjunct and a head-word)-subordination (tall men are not always strong)

• The relationships of coordination, which is shown either by word-order or by the use of form words (men, women and children are human beings)- between the first 2 words just by their order and between the last 2 words by the form word and.

He believed, there were degrees of subordination:

• Agreement. (I bought these books. -The Adjunct word these agrees in its grammatical form with the head-word books);

• Government. ( I see him.- him is governed by see, it means that him assumes its grammatical form through being associated with another word see);

• King Alfred – subordination is so slight that 2 words are almost coordinate.

Otto Jesperson introduced the theory of 3 ranks, which is based on the principle of determination.

A densely¹ populated² country³

Tertiary-secondary-primary rank.

The secondary may be joined to the primary in 2 ways:

• Junction (=attributive relations)- relations of subordination;

• Nexus ( predicative relation S+Pr)- interdependence;

Structural classification by Leonard Bloomfield takes the features of distribution and substitution as classification criteria.

There are the following types of phrases:

• Endocentric word-groups ( =headed) – the word-group takes the same position as its head-word. (Belarus is a densely populated country- Belarus is a country)

• Exocentric ( =non-headed)- the distribution of the components differs from the distribution of the whole word-group.

There are several types of phrases:

• Coordination – coordinate phrase- further classification goes according to the morphological expression of the constituents;

• Subordination- subordinate phrase- further classification goes according to the morphological expression of the kernel (ядро)- blue sky (subordinate N-phrase)

• Interdependence – predication – interdependent predicate phrase – the roof of the house ( a subordinate N-phrase)

The city of Minsk

I live in the city of Minsk doesn’t coincide with I live in the city. But it’s the same with I live in Minsk.

So, city- is a syntactic nucleus and Minsk is a semantic one.