2. Main grammatical notions. Grammatical meaning and grammatical form. Grammatical categories. Method of opposition

The basic notions of grammar are the grammatical meaning, the grammatical form and the grammatical category.

Grammatical meaning = the plane of content

Notional words, first of all verbs and nouns, possess some morphemic features expressing grammatical (morphological) meanings.

Gr. meaning:

• abstract

• general

• indirect. (the gram. meaning depends on the lexical meaning and is connected with objective reality indirectly, through the lexical meaning).

• obligatory (gram. meaning must be expressed if the speaker wants to be understood)Ex. Woggles uggled diggles (more than approx. 4 did smth in the past)

• relative/ oppositional, it is revealed in relations of word forms: speak-speaks, dog -dogs

The gram. meaning must have a grammatical form of expression ( inflexions, analytical forms, word-order..) Compare the word forms walks, is writing. Both forms denote process, but only the second form expresses it grammatically.

Grammatical meanings are very abstract, very general. Therefore the grammatical form is not confined to an individual word, but unites a whole class of words, so that each word of the class expresses the corresponding grammatical meaning together with its individual, concrete semantics.

The grammatical form presents a division of the word on the principle of expressing a certain grammatical meaning.

Grammatical form = the plane of expression

Grammatical Morphological Form

= “forms”

= individual gr. forms – dog-dogs

Grammatical Syntactic Form

= distribution

The term form may be used in a wide sense to denote all means of expressing grammatical meanings. It may be also used in a narrow sense to denote means of expressing a particular grammatical meaning (plural, number, present tense, etc.)

Grammatical elements are unities of meaning and form, content and expression. In the language system there is no direct correspondence of meaning and form. Two or more units of the plane of content may correspond to one unit of the plane of expression (polysemy; homonymy). Two or more units of the plane of expression may correspond to one unit of the plane of content (synonymy).

(то же самое,но по конспекту) Every gram. unit is a unity of gr. meaning (the plane of content) and gr. form ( the plane of expression)

BUT!

There is no direct correspondence between gr.meaning and gram. form

2 or more unit of the plane of expression may correspond to 1 unit of the plane of content ex. boys-children

allomorphs

gram.forms

2 or more units of the plane of content may correspond to 1 unit of the plane of expression ex. – s inflexion dogs, asks, greens

Grammatical category

is a generalized gram. meaning realized through formal and meaningful opposition of variants of one and the same unit.

Any gram. category is represented by at min. 2 categorial forms. Otherway it does not exist because a grammatical category is a representation of a general meaning

var. its particular manifestations.

The method of opposition

The opposition (in the linguistic sense) may be defined as a generalised correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed. The correlated elements (members) of the opposition must possess two types of features: common features and differential features. Common features serve as the basis of contrast, while differential features immediately express the function in question.

Trubetskoy -> Smirnitskiy

Partially similar elements (i.e. means elements having common and distinctive features) constitute an opposition, the members of which differ in form and meaning :

Dog-dogs Common – plane of expression, number

Diff. – in form and meaning of quantity

The oppositional theory was originally formulated as a ; phonological theory. Three main qualitative types of oppositions were established in phonology: "privative", "gradual", and "equipollent". By the number of members contrasted, oppositions were divided into binary (two members) and more than binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.).

Types of oppositions

(1)According to the number (2) qualitatively:

of members (elements) opposed

• binary – 2 members -privative ex. ask⁻ - asked⁺(binary)

• tertiary – 3 members -equipollent ex. am⁺ - is⁺(binary)

• quaternary – 4 members (both elem are marked)

-gradual- gradation- only in ->degrees of comparison (ex. good – better-the best - tertiary)

*(объяснение,чтоб было понятно)The most important type of opposition is the binary privative opposition; the other types of oppositions are reducible to the binary privative opposition.

The binary privative opposition is formed by a contrastive pair of members in which one member is characterised by the presence of a certain differential feature ("mark"), while the other member is characterised by the absence of this feature. The member in which the feature is present is called the "marked", or "strong", or "positive" member, and is commonly designated by the symbol + (plus); the member in which the feature is absent is called the "unmarked", or "weak", or "negative" member, and is commonly designated by the symbol — (minus).

The equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features.

For instance, the phonemes [m] and [b], both bilabial consonants, form an equipollent opposition, [m] being sonorous nazalised, [b ] being plosive.

The gradual opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or аbsenсе of a feature, but by the degree of it.

For instance, the front vowels [i:—i—e—ae] form a quaternary gradual opposition, since they are differentiated by the degree of their openness (their length, as is known, is' also relevant, as well as some other individualising properties, but these factors do not spoil the gradual opposition as such).

In various contextual conditions, one member of an opposition can be used in the position of the other, counter-member. This phenomenon should be treated under the heading of "oppositional reduction" or "oppositional substitution".

Oppositional reduction

The opposition looses its formal distinctive force

1. Neutralization – the weak member acquires the meaning of a strong member

Ex. We leave for Moscow tomorrow.( the opposition “present - future” is reduced)

+Bloh Man conquers nature.

The noun man in the quoted sentence is used in the singular, but it is quite clear that it stands not for an individual person, but for people in general, for the idea of "mankind". In other words, the noun is used generically, it implies the class of denoted objects as a whole. Thus, in the oppositional light, here the weak member of the categorial opposition of number has replaced the strong member.

2. Transposition – one of the members of the opposition (usually a strong one) is used in context uncommon for it and stands in contradiction with its regular gram. meaning He is always complaining.

Categories

Opposition of forms

Types of opposition

Meanings of the members

Meaning of the category

Peculiarities

Grammatical morph. Categories ( Smirnitskiy)

• Semantic – depending on and showing objective properties of referents – ex. the category of Number

these are dominational

• Relational – showing the relations between the word – forms in a sentence –ex. the category of Case

these are subordinate

One grammatical form of a word is a sum of several categorial forms/ meanings

Asked –

• past tense

• non- continuous aspect

• non-perfect order

• active voice

But only the category of tense is marked in this form: ask⁻ ⁻ - asked⁺, was asking⁺- asked⁻ ⁻ ( the category of Aspect), had asked⁺ - asked⁻ ⁻ (the cat. of Order), was asked⁺ - asked⁻ ⁻ ( the cat. of Voice)