L ecture 2: THE PARTS OF SPEECH PROBLEM. WORD CLASSES
(Лекция, семинар)
- Different approaches to the parts of speech.
- Henry Sweet’s theory.
- Charles Fries’s classification.
- Modern classification.
The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes. The problem of word classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the problem:
1. Classical (logical-inflectional)
2. Functional
3. Distributional
4. Complex
The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. This system was reproduced in the earliest English grammars. The first of these groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. The logical-inflectional classification is quite successful for Latin or other languages with developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but it cannot be applied to the English language because the principle of declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.
A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English language. This approach may be defined as functional. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles. To nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles. However, though the criterion for classification was functional, Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in other words, declinable and indeclinable.
A distributional approachto the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was not taken into account.
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It turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same as traditional nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his investigation of 15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first linguist to pay attention to some of their peculiarities.
All the classifications mentioned above appear to be one-sided because parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of only one aspect of the word: either its meaning or its form, or its function.
In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. This approach may be defined as complex. The semantic criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning). The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities.
The linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study makes it possible to divide all the words of the language into:
a) those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding references in the objective reality – notional words;
b) those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – function words, or grammatical words.
It is commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and modal words.
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The division of language units into notion and function words reveals the interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning. In notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in actual speech the border line between notional and function words is not always clear cut. Some notional words develop the meanings peculiar to function words - e.g. seminotional words – to turn, to get, etc.
Notional words constitute the bulk of the existing word stock while function words constitute a smaller group of words. Although the number of function words is limited (there are only about 50 of them in Modern English), they are the most frequently used units.
Generally speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech is far from being solved. Some words cannot find their proper place. The most striking example here is the class of adverbs. Some language analysts call it a ragbag, a dustbin (Frank Palmer). Russian academician V.V.Vinogradov defined the class of adverbs in the Russian language as мусорная куча.
It can be explained by the fact that to the class of adverbs belong those words that cannot find their place anywhere else. At the same time, there are no grounds for grouping them together either. Compare: perfectly (She speaks English perfectly) and again (He is here again). Examples are numerous (all temporals). There are some words that do not belong anywhere - e.g. after all. Speaking about after all it should be mentioned that this unit is quite often used by native speakers, and practically never by our students. Some more striking examples: anyway, actually, in fact. The problem is that if these words belong nowhere, there is no place for them in the system of words, then how can we use them correctly? What makes things worse is the fact that these words are devoid of nominative power, and they have no direct equivalents in the Russian language. Meanwhile, native speakers use these words subconsciously, without realizing how they work.
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List of books:
1. B.Ilyish. The Structure of Modern English.
2. M.Blokh. A Course in Theoretical Grammar.
3. Iofic L.L., Chakhoyan I.P., Pospelova A.G. Readings in the theory of English grammar.
4. Смирнитский А.И. Морфология английского языка.
Lecture 3: SURVEY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL THEORY
(Лекция, семинар)
1. Early prescriptive Grammar.
2. Classical scientific Grammar.
3. English grammars in the 20th century. Structural and Transformational Grammars
- Early prescriptive Grammar.
English grammatical theory has a long tradition going back to the earliest Latin grammars of the 17th century when "grammar" meant only the study of Latin. Until the end of the 16th century there were no grammars of English. One of the earliest Latin grammars written in English was W. Lily's work published in the first half of the 16th century.
Looking at English through the lattice of categories set up in Latin grammar, W. Lily presented standards for similar arrangement of the English grammatical material proceeding from Latin paradigms and using the same terminology as in Latin grammar.
Lily's work went through many editions until 1858. In other early "prenormative" grammars the arrangement of the material was similar to that of "Lily's grammar. It is to be noted that using Latin categories the writers of that time did not altogether ignore distinctions that the English language made.
Attempts to break with Latin grammatical tradition characterise the treatment of the structure of English in Bullokar's and Ch. Butler's grammars but in many cases they still follow the Latin pattern.
The early prenormative grammars of English reproduced the Latin classification of the word-classes which included eight parts of speech.
In the earliest English grammars the parts of speech were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech or words with number and words without number (Ben Jonson), or words with number and case and words without number and case (Ch. Butler).
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In J. Brightland's grammar (the beginning of the 18th century) the number of parts of speech was reduced to four. These were: names (nouns), qualities (adjectives), affirmations (verbs) and particles.
Brightland's system was accepted only by a few English grammarians of the period. But since that time the adjective came to be viewed as a separate part of speech.
Brightland's grammar was the first to include the concept of the sentence in syntax proper.
The logical definition of the sentence existed in old times, but grammarians understood the subject matter of syntax only as a study of word arrangement.
The second half of the 18th century is generally referred to as the age of the so-called prenormative grammar. The most influential grammar of the period was R. Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar, first published in 1762.It started the age of prescriptive grammar. To a prescriptive grammarian, grammar is rules of correct usage; its aim was to prescribe what is judged to be correct rather than to describe actual usage.
Lowth's approach to the study of grammar was upheld by his followers.
The first to be mentioned here is Lindley Murray's Eng lish. Grammar Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners. First published in 1795, it was then widely used in its original form and in an abridged version for many years to come.
2. Classical Scientific Grammar
The end of the 19th century brought a grammar of a higher type, a descriptive grammar intended to give scientific explanation to the grammatical phenomena. To descriptivists, grammar is a systematic description of the structure of a language.
This was H. Sweet's New English Grammar, Logical and Historic al (1891).
Instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, Sweet's explanatory grammar aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated. This leads to a scientific understanding of the rules followed instinctively by speakers and writers, giving in many cases the reasons why this usage is such and such.
Scientific grammar was understood to be a combination of both descriptive and explanatory grammar. It is to be noted, that H. Sweet's ideas seem to anticipate some views characteristic of modern linguistics.
The same viewpoints were advocated by other linguists of the first half of the present century, such as C. Onions, E. Kruisinga, H. Poutsma, G. Curme, O. Jespersen, H. Stokoe, M. Bryant, R. Zandvoort and others 2.
According to O. Jespersen, for instance, of greater value than prescriptive grammar is a purely descriptive grammar, which, instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated, and thus may lead to a scientific understanding of the rules followed instinctively by speakers and writers. Such a grammar should also be explanatory, giving, as far as this is possible, the reasons why the usage is such and such.
As a matter of fact, scientific grammar gave up the strictly structural concept of a clause as of a syntactic unit containing a subject and a predicate, recognised by prescriptive grammar. Beginning with Sweet's grammar, grammarians have retained the concepts of half-clauses, abridged clauses, verbid clauses, etc. Thus, H. Poutsma treats substantive clauses, adverbial clauses, infinitive clauses, gerund clauses and participle clauses as units of the same kind.
3. English grammars in the 20th century. Structural and Transformational Grammars
The modern period can be divided into two chronologically unequal parts, the first from the beginning of the 20th century till the 1940’s, when there were only two types of grammars in use – the prescriptive and the classical scientific, the second from the 1940’s, during which time structural grammar tended to supplant the older scientific grammar, which we call classical in order to distinguish it from the new theoretical grammars of English.
Coexistence of several types of grammars can naturally lead to influence of one type of grammar by another. Curiously enough, prescriptive grammar was not greatly influenced by the rapidly developing classical scientific grammar; on the contrary, it was prescriptive grammar which influenced scientific grammar, not only in the beginning, when it furnished the grammatical basis of classical scientific grammar, but even later. Moreover, there is an extremely complicated interaction between prescriptive and structural grammars.
The authors of prescriptive grammars published since the 1950’s tended to assimilate structural terminology or some specific notions of structural grammar, though on the whole their grammatical system remained unchanged.
On the other hand, some authors of structural grammars have tried to blend the principles of structural analysis with some notions and concepts of traditional (prescriptive) grammar, in order to introduce new ideas into the practical teaching of English grammar.
Besides this kind of interaction there is a borrowing of some of the concepts of prescriptive and classical scientific grammars by the authors of both structural and transformational grammars, especially in the field of syntax.
Structural grammarians have abandoned many of the commonly held views of grammar. With regard to the methodology employed their linguistic approach differs from former treatments in language learning. Structural grammatical studies deal primarily with the "grammar of structure", and offer an approach to the problems of "sentence analysis" that differs in point of view and in emphasis from the usual treatment of syntax.
Structural grammarians prided themselves on being true linguists: they based their analysis on actual English, giving preference to spoken English; they used ‘discovery procedures’ such as distribution and substitution tests, transformations of various sorts, etc.
Giving an overall evaluation of structural grammar, it is necessary to point out that it pays special attention to analysis, to the distinction of structural units (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, sentences). Structuralists were too preoccupied with the sequence of phoneme-to-sentence and failed to see the interrelationships outside the sentence.
Structural linguistics is known to have its varieties and schools. Among the famous structuralists are Ch. Fries, N. Trubetzkoy and R. Jakobson.
The theory of transformational grammar begins by making fundamental distinction between two kinds of sentences: kernel sentences and their transforms. Kernel sentences are the basic elementary sentences of the language from which all else is made. All constructions that are not basic are transforms, i. e. they are derived from the basic ones by certain grammatical rules. Transformations can change and expand the kernel in many ways to form the great variety of sentences possible in a given language.
The system of any language contains a rather small number of basic sentences and other structural elements (such as morphemes and phonemes). All the other linguistic forms, sentences of different structure, are derived (generated) from these basic (kernel) elements by certain regular derivation rules involving different kind of operations. This understanding of the system of any language is, in fact, the main assumption of the transformational grammar.
The transformational rules show how to derive something from something else by switching things about, putting things or leaving them out and so on.
Thus we see that in the process of the development of English Grammatical theory, despite the great divergence of the types, aims, objectives and approaches of English grammars, a certain continuity may be observed in establishing and keeping up the English grammatical tradition. The foundations of the English grammatical system were laid already in the first part of the first, prescientific period, in early prenormative grammar, though its morphological system leaned heavily on that of the Latin grammar.
The prescriptive or normative grammar is considered to be the most important type of grammar because it has the longest tradition as it arose in the mideighteenth century and still dominates classroom instruction. Its most significant contribution to English grammatical theory was the syntactic system evolved in the midnineteenth century.
The three types of scientific grammars of English discussed here have not quite succeeded in creating any really independent or new grammatical notions and systems. The interests of the scholars centered round the grammatical system of prescriptive grammar. They either elaborated it further (in classical scientific grammar) or refuted it, retaining at the same time some of its ideas (in structural grammar) or acknowledged its merits as an implicit transformational grammar and reformulated its ideas (in transformational grammar).
List of books:
1. B.Ilyish. The Structure of Modern English.
2. M.Blokh. A Course in Theoretical Grammar.
3. Iofic L.L., Chakhoyan I.P., Pospelova A.G. Readings in the theory of English grammar.
4. Волкова
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