- •Теоретическая грамматика английского языка
- •§ 2. The phoneme, the morpheme, the word and the sentence are units of different levels of language structure. The phoneme is a unit of the lowest level, the sentence — of the highest.
- •§ 5. The structure, classification and combinability of phonemes is studied by a branch of linguistics called phonology.
- •Morphology
- •Introduction
- •§ 10. The morphemes book- and -s differ essentially:
- •§ 13. Besides lexical and grammatical morphemes there exist some intermediate types.
- •§ 18. In accordance with their structure the following four types of stems are usually distinguished:
- •§ 25. All the words of a lexeme, both synthetic and analytical, are, as defined (§ 19), united by the same lexical meanings.
- •§ 26. Analytical words are closely connected with synthetic ones.
- •§ 28. As shown by a. I. Smirnitsky, words derived from different roots may be recognized as suppletive only under the following conditions:
- •§ 29. The above-mentioned criteria serve to prove the identity of lexical morphemes in spite of their difference in form. The same criteria can be used to prove the identity of any morphemes.
- •§ 30. We have already spoken (§§ 14, 15, 18) about lexico-grammatical morphemes and their functions as stem-building elements. Now we are to see their role in building up classes of words.
- •§ 31. Let us compare the following columns of words:
- •Parts of speech
- •§ 39. Lexemes united by the genera! lexico-grammatical meaning of "substance" are called nouns. Those having the general lexico-grammatical meaning of "action" are called verbs, etc., etc.
- •§ 43. It must be borne in mind, however, that not all the lexemes of a part of speech have the same paradigms.
- •§ 44. The influence of the category of number is obliquely felt even in a case like milk. The word milk is closer to the "singular" member of a number opposeme than to the "plural" one.
- •§ 48. In accordance with the principles described above it is possible to distinguish the following parts of speech in English:
- •§49. Many linguists point out the difference between such parts of speech as, say, nouns or verbs, on the one hand and prepositions or conjunctions, on the other.
- •§ 51. A similar distinction can be drawn between notional and semi-notional lexemes within a part of speech (see § 194) and between notional and semi-notional parts of speech.
- •§ 57. A. I. Smirnitsky defines conversion as a type of word-building in which the paradigm is the only means of word-building.
- •§ 63. The relations between these variants remind us of conversion:
- •§ 64. As follows from our previous discussion of the parts of speech in English, the noun may be defined as a part of speech characterized by the following features:
- •§ 66. Many nouns are related by conversion1 with lexemes belonging to other parts of speech:
- •§ 70. A noun may be used in the function of almost any part of the sentence, though its most typical functions are those of the subject and the object. (See Syntax.)
- •§ 79. Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form 3.
- •§ 80. Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same, lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.
- •§ 82. Case is one of those categories which show the close connection (a) between language and speech, (b) between mor-phology and syntax.
- •§91. Nouns representing 'plural' grammemes may denote:
- •§ 92. Nouns representing 'common case' grammemes express a wide range, of meanings, the exhaustive examination of which is hardly feasible. Here are some of them.
- •§ 93. As we have seen, 'possessive case' nouns occur a great deal less frequently than their opposites1.
- •§ 97. In the Russian language a noun in the genitive case may be adnominal and adverbial, I. E. It can be attached to a noun and to a verb.
- •§ 100. Let us compare the-English noun with its Russian counterpart. The five properties we use as criteria for distinguishing parts of speech will serve as the basis of comparison.
- •§ 101. Adjectives are a part of speech characterized by the following typical features:
- •§ 104. Suppletive opposemes are few in number but of very frequent occurrence.
- •§ 113. In certain speech environments adjectives can bе used to communicate meanings in some respect different from those of the grammemes they belong to.
- •§ 115. Following is a brief comparison of the basic features of English and Russian adjectives.
- •§ 116. The adverb is a part of speech characterized by the following features:
- •§ 123. Quantitative adverbs like very, rather, too, nearly, greatly, fully, hardly, quite, utterly, twofold, etc. Show the degree, measure, quantity of an action, quality, state, etc.
- •§ 124. Circumstantial adverbs serve to denote various circumstances (mostly local and temporal) attending an action. Accordingly they fall under two heads:
- •§127; Circumstantial adverbs are mostly used in the function of adverbial modifiers of time and placer
- •§ 130. The numeral as a part of speech is characterized by
- •§ 131. The lexico-grammatical meaning of 'number' is not to be confused with the grammatical meaning of 'number'.
- •§ 133. In our opinion, the pair ten — tenth forms an oppo-seme of the grammatical category of numerical qualification.
- •§ 135. As to their stem structure English numerals fall into
- •§ 136. Numerals are easily substantivized, acquiring noun features. •
- •§ 144. The personal pronouns are the nucleus of the class. They are: I (me), thou (thee)1, he (him), she (her), it, we (us), you, they (them).
- •§ 157. Self-pronouns are often used in apposition for emphasis. Dickson's view on the Middle Ages themselves would have to wait until another time. (Amis).
- •§ 159. Demonstrative pronouns can be:
- •§ 162. The pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun which has a case opposite, whom, as in Whom did you meet?
- •§ 180. Most quantitative pronouns form opposemes of comparison:
- •§ 181. Here belong other (others, other's, others'), another (another's) and otherwise.
- •§ 182. The pronoun one stands somewhat apart, outside the classification discussed above.
- •§ 183. As an indefinite pronoun it is usually a pro-adjective with the meaning "a certain" and refers to both living beings and inanimate things.
- •§ 184. As an indefinite or generalizing personal pronoun one indicates only a person. It is a pro-noun. It has a case opposite one's and is correlated with the reflexive pronoun oneself.
- •§ 186. Summing up, we may say that the pronouns are hot united by any morphological categories, or syntactical functions. So they cannot be regarded as a part of speech.
- •§ 188. As a part of speech the verb is characterized by the following properties:
- •§ 194. Semantically verbs divide into notional and semi-notional (see § 50).
- •§ 196. Modal verbs are characterized:
- •§ 198. Verbs are divided into subjective and objective, depending upon their combinability with words denoting the subjects and the objects of the actions they name (see § 191).
- •§ 200. As usual, variants of a verb lexeme may belong to different subclasses (see § 62).
- •§ 201. Verbs can be classified in accordance with the aspective nature of their lexical meanings into terminative and non-terminative.
- •§ 202. As usual, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses. When meaning '(to) engage in physical or mental activity', the verb (to)work is non-terminative.
- •§ 208. Participle II may have left-hand connections with link-verbs.
- •The Category of Order (Time Correlation)
- •§ 213. Linguists disagree as to the category the 'perfect' belongs to.
- •§ 216. Let us take an extract from j. Galsworthy's novel To Let:
- •§ 219. The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. There is but little consensus of opinion about this category in Modern English.
- •§ 222. Besides those properties that characterize the verb as a whole, the finites possess certain features not shared by the verbids.
- •§ 224. Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.
- •§ 229. The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system including all the categories of the verb.
- •§ 233. The correlation of time and tense is connected with the problem of the absolute and relative use of tense grammemes.
- •§ 236. In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities.
- •§ 240. The development of the modal verbs and that of the subjunctive mood — the lexical and morphological ways of expressing modality1 — have much in common.
- •§ 243. The 'passive voice' and 'continuous aspect' meanings are expressed much in the same way as in the indicative mood system.
- •§ 245. The difference between the two sets of opposemes
- •Verb Grammemes in Speech
- •§ 252. The systems of different moods, as we know, contain different grammemes. We shall therefore discuss the grammemes of the indicative, subjunctive and imperative moods separately.
- •Indicative Mood Grammemes
- •§ 254. The action it denotes may either coincide with the moment of speech or cover a more or less lengthy period of time including the moment of speech.
- •§ 255. In a context showing that reference is made to the past, the present non-continuous non-perfect may be used to denote past events, mostly presented as the speaker's reminiscences.
- •§ 274. The present non-continuous perfect is regularly found in adverbial clauses of time and condition when the connotation of priority is implied.
- •§ 275. What makes the present non-continuous perfect fundamentally different from the past non-continuous non-perfect can be briefly summarized as follows:
- •§ 276. As a unit of the language system it presents an act in the past (past tense) unspecified as to its character (non-continuous aspect) and preceding some situation (perfect order).
- •§ 277. When used with terminative verbs it may acquire a distinct connotation of resultativity, as in
- •§ 278. The past non-continuous perfect may be inclusive in meaning if supported by the context.
- •§ 280. As a part of the verb system it presents a future action (future tense), unspecified as to its character (non-continuous aspect) and prior to some situation in the future (perfect order).
- •§ 285. The past continuous perfect has much in common with the present continuous perfect, the main difference between them being that of tense.
- •§ 286. Like the present continuous perfect it may be inclusive if supported by the context or else exclusive as in
- •§ 287. The future perfect continuous is actually nonexistent.
- •Voice Grammemes
- •§ 292. It has often, been claimed that passive structures can be regarded as transforms of certain active structures 1.
- •§295. Representatives of subjunctive I grammemes can be distinguished from their indicative and imperative mood homonyms as follows.
- •§ 296. Following are some types of clauses in which should grammemes and their synonyms are regularly used.
- •Imperative Mood Grammemes in Speech
- •§ 303. Besides the features common to the English verb as a whole (see § 188) the verbids have certain features of their own distinguishing them from the finite verb.
- •§ 306. The verbids do not possess many of the categories of the finite verb, such as number, person, tense and mood.
- •§ 307. Here is a table presenting the paradigms of the verbids.
- •§ 308. The combinability of the verbids is of mixed nature. Partly, as we have seen, it resembles that of a finite verb. But some models of combinability are akin to those of other parts of speech.
- •§ 311. The infinitive is a verbid characterized by the following features:
- •§ 317. The participle is a verbid characterized by the following properties:
- •§ 319. As we have already mentioned, the adjectival and the adverbial features of the participle are connected with its combinability.
- •§ 321. The gerund is a verbid characterized by the following features:
- •§ 324. The gerund, which is a peculiarity of the English language, is very extensively used as the centre of complexes (nexuses) synonymous with subordinate clauses. Compare:
- •§ 326. In compliance with the system adopted we shall now work out the comparison of the basic features of the English verb with those of the Russian verb.
- •The adlink (the category of state)
- •§ 327. In Modern English there exists a certain class of words such as asleep, alive, afloat, which is characterized by:
- •The modal words (modals)
- •§ 329. As a part of speech the modals are characterized by the following features:
- •§ 331. The relatively negative combinability of modal words manifests itself in various ways.
- •§ 332. Functioning as a parenthetical element of a sentence, a modal word is usually connected with the sentence as a whole.
- •§ 333. The usage of modals depends upon the type of sentence. They are found almost exclusively in declarative sentences, very rarely in interrogative and almost never in imperative sentences.
- •§ 334. The response-words yes and no are characterized as a separate class by
- •§ 335. Practically every notional word can alone make a sentence in a certain situation of speech.
- •§ 336. Their lexical meanings are those of 'affirmation' and 'negation'. Their lexico-grammatical meaning is that of 'response statement'. They confirm or deny a previous statement.
- •§351. The combinability of at in the last example resembles, to some extent, that of an adverb. Cf. To be laughed away (off).
- •§ 359. The combinability of subordinating conjunctions is somewhat different from that of coordinating ones.
- •§ 360. The division of conjunctions into coordinating and subordinating ones is chiefly based on their lexical meanings and the types of units they connect.
- •§ 361. According to their meanings coordinating conjunctions are divided into
- •§ 362. Though for and so are considered coordinating conjunctions, they are in fact intermediate between coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
- •§ 363. The conjunctions are not numerous, but of very frequent occurrence in speech.
- •§ 364. The two words a(n), the form a separate group or class characterized by
- •§ 367. Some grammarians speak of the 'zero article' 1 or the 'zero form of the indefinite article' 2. We are definitely against these terms.
- •§ 369. In accordance with its meaning 'one of many' the indefinite article is used to denote one thing of a class and is therefore a classifying article.
§ 79. Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form 3.
People in the meaning of 'народ' is a countable noun. In the meaning of 'люди' it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Family in the sense of "a group of people who are related" is a countable noun. In the meaning of "individual members of this group" it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Thus, the lexeme family has two variants:
Sg.
1) family
2) -
Pl.
families
family
E. g. Almost every family in the village has sent a man to the army. (Hornby).
Those were the oldest families in Jorkshire. (Black).
Her f a m i ly were of a delicate constitution. (Bronte).
Similar variants are observed in the lexemes committee, government, board, crew, etc.
Colour in the meaning "red, green, blue, etc." is a countable noun. In the meaning "appearance of reality or truth" (e. g. His torn clothes gave с о l о и г to his story that he had been attacked by robbers. A. Hornby.) it has no plural opposite and belongs to the singularia tantum. Colours in the sense of "materials used by painters and artists" has no singular opposite and belongs to the pluralia tantum.
Thus, the lexeme has three variants:
Sg.
1) colour
2) colour
3) -
Pl.
colours
-
colours.
When grammarians write that the lexical meanings of some plurals differ from those of their singular opposites, they simply compare different variants of a lexeme.
§ 80. Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same, lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.
Cf. brother (son of same parents) — brothers brother (fellow member) — brethren fish — fish (e. g. / caught five f is h yesterday.) fish — fishes ('different species', e. g. ocean fishes).
The Category of Case
§ 81. The category of case of nouns is the system of opposemes (such as girl—girl's in English, дом — дома — дому — дом — домом — (о) доме in Russian) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality. In the sentence I took John's hat by mistake the case of the noun John's shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection of the relations between John and his hat in reality.
§ 82. Case is one of those categories which show the close connection (a) between language and speech, (b) between mor-phology and syntax.
(a) A case opposeme is, like any other opposeme, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of a case opposeme is in their combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russian with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the nominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in the combinability of each oblique case: одобрять поступок, не одобрять поступка, удивляться поступку, восхищаться поступком, etc.
Wе can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that поступок — поступка — поступку, etc. are united paradigmatically in the Russian language on the basis of their syntagmatic differences in speech. Similarly, the members of the case opposeme John — John's are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.
Naturally, both members of an English noun case opposeme have the features of English nouns, including their combinability. Thus, they may be preceded by an article, an adjective, a numeral, a pronoun, etc.
a student ...,
the student...,
a good student...,
his brother ...,
the two brothers...,
a student's ...
the student's...
a good student's...
his brother's ...
the two brothers'...
Yet, the common case grammemes are used in a variety of combinations where the possessive case grarnmemes do hot, as a rule, occur. In the following examples, for instance, John's. or boys' can hardly bе substituted for John or boys: John saw the boys, The boys were seen by John, It was owing to the boys that ..., The boys and he ..., etc.
(b) Though case is a morphological category It has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfil a number of syntactical functions not typical of possessive case grammemes, among them the functions of subject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute.
§ 83. All case opposemes are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings, of 'common' case and 'possessive' case, united by the general meaning of the category, that of 'case',' There is not much variety in the form of case opposemes either, which distinguishes English from Russian (see § 100)
An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposemes at most (man —man's, men —men's). Some lexemes have but one opposeme (England — England's, cattle — cattle's). Many lexemes have no case opposemes at all (book, news, foliage).
In the opposeme dog— dog's, men — men's, the 'common' case is not marked, i. e. dog and men have zero morphemes of 'common case'. The 'possessive' case is marked by the suffix -'s /-s, -z, -iz/. In the opposeme dogs — dogs' the difference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the two opposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are not marked.
Thus, -'s is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no exaggeration to say that the whole category depends on this morpheme.
§ 84. As already mentioned (§ 61), with regard to the category of case English nouns fall under two lexico-grammatical subclasses: declinables, having case opposites, and indeclinables. having no case opposites. The subclass of declinables is comparatively limited, including mostly nouns denoting living beings, also time and distance.
Indeclinables like book, iron, care have, as a norm, only the potential (or oblique, or lexico-gramrnatical) meaning, of the common case. But it is sometimes actualized when a case opposite of these words is formed in speech, as in The book's philosophy is old-fashioned. (The Tribune, Canada).
As usual, variants of one lexeme may belong to different subclasses (§ 62). Youth meaning 'the state of being young' belongs to the indeclinables. Its variant youth meaning 'a young man' has a case opposite (The у о и t h' s candid smile disarmed her. Black) and belongs to the declinables.
§ 85. Since both cases and prepositions show 'relations of substances' some linguists speak of analytical cases in Modern English. To the student is said to be an analytical dative case (equivalent, for instance, to the Russian студенту), of the student is understood as an analytical genitive case (equivalent to студента), by the student as an analytical instrumental case (cf. студентом), etc.
The theory of analytical cases seems to be inconvincing for a number of reasons.
1. In order to treat the combinations of the student, to the student, by the student as analytical words (like shall come or has come) we must regard of, to, with as grammatical word-morphemes1. But then they are to be devoid of lexical meaning, which they are not. Like most words a preposition is usually polysemantic and each meaning is singled out in speech, in a sentence or a word-combination. Cf. to speak of the student, the speech of the student, news of the student, it was kind of the student, what became of the student, etc. In each case of shows one of its lexical meanings. Therefore it cannot be regarded as a grammatical word-morpheme, and the combination of the student cannot be treated as an analytical word.
2. A grammatical category, as known, is represented in opposemes comprising a definite number of members. Combinations with different prepositions are too numerous to be interpreted as opposemes representing the category of case. The number of cases in English becomes practically unlimited.
3. Analytical words usually form opposemes with synthetic ones 2 (comes — came — will Come). With prepositional constructions it is different. They are often synonymous with synthetic words.
E. g. the son of my friend = my friend's son; the wall of the garden — the garden wall.
On the other hand, prepositional constructions can be used side by side with synthetic cases, as in that doll of Mary's, a friend of John's. If we accepted the theory of analytical cases, we should see in of John's a double-case word 3, which would be some rarity in English, there being no double-tense words nor double-aspect words and the like.
4. There is much subjectivity in the choice of prepositions supposed to form analytical cases.4 Grammarians usually point out those prepositions whose meanings approximate to the meanings of some cases in other languages or in Old English. But the analogy with other languages or with an older stage of the same language does not prove the existence of a given category in a modern language.
Therefore we think it unjustified to speak of units like to the student, of the student, etc. as of analytical cases. They are combinations of nouns in the common case with prepositions.
______________________________________
1 See § 12.
2 See § 26.
3 "Double-genitive", in the terminology of Kruisinga.
4 This, among other reasons, accounts for the divergence of views concerning the number of cases in English.
§ 86. The morpheme -'s, on which the category of case of English nouns depends (§ 83), differs in some respects from other grammatical morphemes of the English language and from the case morphemes of other languages.
As emphasized by B. A. Ilyish, -'s is no longer a case inflexion in the classical sense of the word. Unlike such classical inflexions, -'s may be attached
a) to adverbs (of substantival origin), as in yesterday's events,
b) to word-groups, as in Mary and John's apartment, our professor of literature's unexpected departure,
c) even to whole clauses, as in the well-worn example the man I saw yesterday's son.
В. A. Ilyish comes to the conclusion that the - 's morpheme gradually develops into a "form-word".1, a kind of particle serving to convey the meaning of belonging, possession.
G. N. Vorontsova does not recognize -'s as a case morpheme at all. The reasons she puts forward to substantiate her point of view are as follows:
1) The use of -'s is optional (her brother's, of her brother).
2) It is used with a limited group of nouns outside which it occurs very seldom.
3) -'s is used both in the singular and in the plural (child's, children's), which is not incident to case morphemes (cf. мальчик-а, мальчик-ов).
4) It occurs in very few plurals, only those with the irregular formation of the plural member (oxen's but cows').
5) -'s does riot make an inseparable part of the structure of the word. It may be placed at some distance from the head-noun of an attributive group.
"Been reading that fellow what's his name's attacks in the 'Sunday Times'?" (Bennett).
Proceeding from these facts G. N. Vorontsova treats -'s as a 'postposition', a 'purely syntactical form-word resembling a preposition', used as a sign of syntactical dependence.
In keeping with this interpretation of the -'s morpheme the author denies the existence of cases in Modern English.
At present, however, this extreme point of view can hardly be accepted. The following arguments tend to show that -'s does function as a case morpheme.
1. The -'s morpheme is mostly attached to individual nouns, not noun groups. According to our statistics this is observed in 96 per cent of examples with this morpheme. Instances like The man I saw yesterday's son are very rare and may be interpreted in more ways than one. As already mentioned (§ 32), the demarcation line between words and combinations of words is very vague in English. A word-combination can easily be made to function as one word.
Cf. a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment (O. Henry), the eighty-year-olds (D. W.).
In the last example the plural morpheme -s is in fact attached to an adjective word-combination, turning it into a noun. It can be maintained that the same morpheme-'s likewise substantivizes the group of words to which it is attached, and we get something like the man-1-saw-yesterday's son.
2. Its general meaning — "the relation of a noun to another word"— is a typical case meaning.
3. The fact that -'s occurs, as a rule, with a more or less limited group of words bears testimony to its not being a "preposition-like form word". The use of the preposition is determined, chiefly, by the meaning of the preposition itself and not by the meaning of the noun it introduces (Cf. о п the table, in the table, u n d e r the table, over the table etc.)
4. The fact that the possessive case is expressed in oxen — oxen's by -'s and in cows — cows' by zero cannot serve as an argument against the existence of cases in English nouns because -'s and zero are here forms of the same morpheme (see § 29):
a) Their meanings are identical.
b) Their distribution is complementary.
5. As a minor argument against the view that -'s is "a preposition-like word", it is pointed out that -'s differs phonetically from all English prepositions in not having a vowel, a circumstance limiting its independence.
Yet, it cannot be denied that the peculiarities of the -'s morpheme are such as to admit no doubt of its being essentially different from the case morphemes of other languages. It is evident that the case system of Modern English is undergoing serious changes.
______________________________________
1 What we call a semi-notional word (see §§ 50, 51).
Noun Grammemes in Speech
§ 87. An English noun lexeme may contain four words at most (boy, boys, boy's, boys'). Each of these words, as we know (§ 19), represents not only the lexeme, but a certain grammeme as well. The grammeme represented by the word boy, for instance, includes all the English words having the two actual grammatical meanings of 'common case' and 'singular number' (girl, teacher, mile, etc.). The word book does not belong to this grammeme because it has only one actual grammatical meaning, that of 'singular number'. The meaning of 'common case' is only potential or oblique. So book represents another noun grammeme. The word England represents a different grammeme with the actual gram- matical meaning of 'common case' (cf. England's) and the oblique grammatical meaning of 'singular number'.
If we assume that each grammatical meaning can be actual and oblique, there are four grammatical meanings of 'number', and they can be combined with four 'case' meanings each, to constitute 16 grammemes. In reality, however, the 'possessive case' meaning cannot be oblique in English, i. e. there are no words with the form and combinability of a 'possessive case' member of a case opposeme that have no 'common case' opposites. Nouns like St. Paul's, the baker's, denoting places, have certainly no opposites with the same lexical meaning and the 'common case' form, but their distribution resembles rather the distribution of 'common case' nouns (cf. at the baker's, from the baker's and at the shop, from the shop). If, however, we regard them as constituting a separate grammeme with the oblique meanings of 'singular number' and 'possessive case', we may speak of 13 noun grammemes in English. In the following table they are represented by one word each.
-
Number
Singular
Plural
Case
actual
oblique
actual
oblique
Common
actual oblique
boy
book
England milk
boys books
cattle tongs
Possessive
actual oblique
boy's
-
England's St. Paul's
boys'
-
cattle's
-
§ 88. The frequency of the occurrence of different grammemes in speech1 is different. We have analysed several texts containing a total of 6,000 nouns and counted the occurrence of each grammeme. In the table below we give the results.
-
Grammemes
Frequency of occurence (per cent)
Grammemes
Frequency of occurence (per cent)
No.
representatives
No.
representatives
1
book, fact
38.4
8
cattle, police
0.5
2
boy, day
29
9
England's, earth's
0.3
3
milk, information
12
10
tongs, dregs
0.2
4
books, facts
10
11
boys', days'
0.2
5
boys, days
6.1
12
cattle's, police's
0.1
6
England, earth
1.7
13
St. Paul's, baker's
0.1
7
boy's, day's
1.4
1 It goes without saying that when speaking about grammemes in speech we mean words representing these grammemes.
§ 89. When analysing an opposeme of any category, we regard the grammatical meanings of its members as elementary, indivisible and unchangeable, determined only by the contrast with the opposite meanings. But in speech words are contrasted with other words not paradigmatically, in oppesemes, but syntagmatically, in word-combinations. Depending on these combinations, grammatical meanings may vary considerably.
We must also take into consideration that single grammatical meanings may occur in speech only in case a word has but one such meaning. Otherwise all the grammatical meanings of a word go in a bunch (§ 21) characteristic of the grammeme to which the word belongs. So if we want to see the different shades a given grammatical meaning may acquire in speech, we are to analyse in a text the words of different grammemes containing that meaning. If, for instance, the variation of the 'singular' meaning is to be investigated, we are to study the grammemes represented by the words boy, boy's, England, England's, book, milk, St. Paul's. We shall call them 'singular' grammemes for short.
§ 90. The representatives of 'singular' grammemes constitute the bulk of nouns found in an English text (more than 70 per cent of the total number). Following is a brief summary of what a 'singular' noun may denote in speech.
1. One, object. The plane struck a sea а и l l. (Daily Worker).
2. A unique object. Shakespeare' s name will live forever. (Ib.).
3. A whole class of objects. The English gentleman is dead. (Walpole).
In this sense 'singularity' gets very close to 'plurality'. So close indeed, that'sometimes 'singular' and 'plural' nouns are actually interchangeable.
Cf. The polar bear lives in the North. Polar bears live in the -North.
Here as elsewhere extremes meet.
4. A 'singular' collective noun stands for a group of beings or things viewed as an integrated whole, e. g. peasantry, humanity, mankind.
5. A 'singular' abstract or material noun may show some abstract concept or substance which is not associated with any idea of singularity.
I have accepted with tolerance the established conventions of syntax. (Vallins).