3. Types of Meaning in Grammar

The morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word. It is built up by phonemes, so that the shortest morphemes include only one phoneme.

E.g.: ros-y, come-s [-zl.

The morpheme expresses abstract, "significative" mean­ings which are used as constituents for the formation of more concrete, "nominative" meanings of words.

The third level in the segmental lingual hierarchy is the level of words, or lexemic level. The word, as different from the morpheme, is a directly naming (nominative) unit of language: it names things and their relations. Since words are built up by morphemes, the shortest words consist of one explicit morpheme only.

Cf.: man; will; but; I; etc.

The next higher level is the level of phrases (word-groups), or phrasemic level.

To level-forming phrase types belong combinations of two or more notional words. These combinations, like sepa­rate words, have a nominative function, but they represent the referent of nomination as a complicated phenomenon, be it a concrete thing, an action, a quality, or a whole situa­tion.

Cf., a picturesque village; to start with a jerk; extremely difficult; the unexpected arrival of the chief.

This kind of nomination can be called "polynomination", as different from "mononomination" effected by separate words.

Above the phrasemic level lies the level of sentences, or "proposemic" level.

The peculiar character of the sentence ("proposeme") is determined by the fact that, naming a certain situation, or situational event, it expresses predica­tion, i.e. shows the relation of the denoted event to reality. Namely, it shows whether this event is real or unreal, desir­able or obligatory, stated as a truth or asked about, etc. In this sense, as different from the word and the phrase, the sentence is a predicative unit.

Cf.: to receive — to receive a letter — Early in June I received a letter from Peter

Thus, the functions of level units are different:

the function of the phoneme is differential,

the function of the morpheme is significative,

the func­tion of the word is nominative,

the function of the sentence is predicative

As different from these, morphemes are iden­tified only as significative components of words, phrases pres­ent polynominative combinations of words, and supra-sen­tential constructions mark the transition from the sentence to the text.

4. Nuclear and Periphery

The system of language displays systemic characteristics in the mode of its organization. As any systemic organization the system of language has the core /nuclear/ and the periphery. The core of the system is represented by the stock of those elements which possess the typologically differential features characteristic of the elements of the given system. The peripheral elements have weakened differential features and may be migrants from other systemic arrangements. Some linguists consider "sphericity" and "nucleation" to be the mode of the language organization.

Accordingly, the system of lan­guage is parted into separate spheres or subsystems each of which displays systemic characteristics too: Grammar, Lexicon, Phonetics.

From this point of view the grammar of the language is the system of grammatical devices used by the language for providing the deriva­tion of the elements and their organization in the system of language. There are several grammatical studies of such orientation. First come Derivational grammatical theories aiming at the esta­blishment and analysis of the systems of those grammatical devices which are used in the processes of paradigmatic and syntagmatic de­rivation of linguistic units.

E.g. Derivational morphology is the theory of Word-building which establishes the system of word-building devices and studies the process of the word-derivation on the basis of derivational patterns.

It is important to note that Derivational theories in Syntax are commonly defined as Generative grammars due to their goal to expose the regularities in the generation or derivation of syntactic units, of sentences in particula/.

The principle of sphericity presupposes the establishment of diffe­rent spheres in the system of language. This is only one way possible in the internal analysis of language which is based on the analytical procedure of "partition" or "segmentation". The ways and directions of partition predetermine the models, methods and the domains of corresponding grammatical studies.

Part 2

Tasks and study questions

1. Comment on the following statements:

a) “Each system is a structured set of elements related to one another by a common function.” (Blokh M.Y. A Course of Theoretical English Grammar. – M, 1983. - P.11)

b) “The systemic nature of grammar is probably more evident than that of any other sphere of language, since grammar is responsible for the very organization of informative content of utterances” (Blokh, ibid., p.11)

2. Enumerate the main characteristics of the language viewed

   1. as a structure;

   2. as a system

and analyze their significance for linguistic study.

3. Do you consider the description of the structural levels of the language consistent and valid? Provide your reasons.

4. Compare the nature/essence of lexical and grammatical meaning. Give examples.

5. Analyze the information about nucleus and periphery as they are defined in linguistics, think of examples of your own.

Part 3

Sentence Parsing

1. Identify predication lines to divide the sentence into constituent parts.

2. Make a scheme to show the relations between sentence parts.

3. Define the constituents of each sentence.

1. Less than a week after their first meeting at the poetry reading, she found a message waiting for her, asking her to ring Clelia’s number, and she rang, and Clelia invited herself round to tea. (P.80)

2. Clara often found herself wondering what her mother would think. (P.123)

3. Her finals were approaching, and she had no idea of what she would do next, and indeed, did not dare to think about the future for she knew that it offered her little in the way of readily acceptable projects. (P.81)

4. He looked so unlike a poet that Clara felt that he could be nothing else, that he was unmistakably the real thing, and she found his solid, impassive cultured countenance a guarantee of worth. (P.13)

5. Clara was highly impressed by the way in which the plight of Robert was gradually turned into a public discussion; Peter, Eric Harley and his friend, and finally she herself were all drawn into the debate, and found themselves talking at some length about the psychological and philosophical basis of some plight, which Clelia had somehow managed to convey to them in a classic structural sense as a case far removed from the contaminations of the inconveniently unknown personality upon which it rested.(P.20)

6. She had to wait for some time before the door was opened, and she hoped very much that it would be opened by Clelia, but it was not; it was opened by a thin, brown, balding, youngish looking man. (P.90)

Additional:

It isn’t after all as though we had any reason for not having them, because now that Amelia and Magnus and Gabriel are all married there’s plenty of room, and my parents are anyway worried, politically speaking if you know what I mean, about having so much empty house (though he’s hardly the kind of tenant that that kind of consideration would provide), and he even pays some rent from time to time. (P.84)

(The sentences offered for analysis are from the novel “Jerusalem the Golden” by Drabble M., Penguin Books, 1987)