The Concept of Categorization. Grammar Categories.
Yartseva gives the following definition: the grammatical category is a generalized abstract meaning systematically expressed in the language by the opposition of definite forms of the same word.
Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the same form (e.g. singular::plural). Due to dialectal unity of language and thought, grammatical categories correlate, on the one hand, with the conceptual categories and, on the other hand, with the objective reality.
It follows that we may define grammatical categories as references of the corresponding objective categories. For example, the objective category of time finds its representation in the grammatical category of tense, the objective category of quantity finds its representation in the grammatical category of number. Those grammatical categories that have references in the objective reality are called referential grammatical categories. However, not all of the grammatical categories have references in the objective reality, just a few of them do not correspond to anything in the objective reality. Such categories correlate only with conceptual matters: They are called significational categories. To this type belong the categories of mood and degree. Speaking about the grammatical category of mood we can say that it has modality as its conceptual correlate. It can be explained by the fact that it does not refer to anything in the objective reality – it expresses the speaker’s attitude to what he says.
Examples of grammatical categories: boy / boys, table / tables, lab / labs, etc. (singular / plural). The plural forms express plurality or ‘more-than-oneness’ as opposed to oneness or indifference to quantity in the singular form. This difference in meaning regularly corresponds to the formal opposition of no ending (zero-ending) and the ending -(e)s /z/. This correspondence of form and meaning (content) constitutes the grammatical category ‘the number of nouns’.
Means of realization of grammatical categories may be synthetic (near – nearer) and analytic (beautiful – more beautiful).
Oppositions. Types of Oppositions.
Any grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical forms (e.g. the grammatical category of number – singular and plural forms). The relation between two grammatical forms differing in meaning and external signs is called opposition – book::books (unmarked member/marked member). All grammatical categories find their realization through oppositions, e.g. the grammatical category of number is realized through the opposition singular::plural.
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According to Trubetskoy and Jacobson, the opposition is a pair of grammatical forms, opposed to each other both in meaning and in form. For example – cat- cats, dog – dogs; see – saw, look – looked; fast – faster, weak – weaker. The first member of the opposition is called unmarked and the 2nd is called marked member.
The opposition – generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed. The correlated elements must possess two types of features:
Common differential
The basis of contrast immediately expresses a function in question.
The notion of GC is central in Theoretical Grammar, it's very important to single out the GC of different types of speech. For that purpose the oppositional theory was worked out. It was originally formulated as a phonological theory.
According to the number of opposed members oppositions can be:
a. Binary
b. More than binary (ternary, quaternary, etc.)
Three main qualitative types of opposition:
Privative (отрицательная)
Based on a morph. differential feature which is present in its strong (marked) member (+) and absent in its weak (unmarked) member (–)
work (-) – worked (+) (The differential feat. is the suff. –(e)d)
Gradual
A contrastive pair or group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a feature but by the degree of it
big – bigger – biggest (the gr. category of comparison)
Equipollent (равноценный)
A contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features. In morph. it is mostly confined to formal relations
am – is – are (correlation of the person forms of the verb to be)
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