Synthetical relations between the components of a phrase

№ 8 The noun as a part of speech. The problem of the category of gender.

The Noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word.

Noun has a categorial meaning of thingness,because noun effects nomination of the fullest value.N-central nominative lexemic unit of L. It functions are determined by it’s semantic. It can be subject,object,attribute,adverbal & predicative.

Types of combinability:

-Prepositional with other nouns,verbs,adjectives,adverbs. Ex:An entrance to the house.

-The case that is possessive ex:The President’s speech

-With one another by sheer contact ex:Film festival

The existance of this combination (3 types) is a big problem for many scholars. How to treat them? Weather its one separate word or a word group. It’s a so called “stone-wall problem”

The N is characterized by a set of formal features. It has it’s typical suffixes, stem modals,conversial patterns.Not all scholars are unanimous on the number of grammatical category of the noun.

Ilyish:The Noun in ME has only 2 grammatical categories: number & case. The existence of case appears to be doubtful & has to be carefully analyzed.

Хаймович, Роговская: besides number & case,articale determination.

Blokh: Noun is the main nominative part of speech, effecting nomination of the fullest value within the framework of the notional division of lexicon.

Classification of nouns:

1.Proper&common noun (the base of this division is “type of nomination”

2.Animate&Inanimate(the base of this division is form existance)

3.Human&Non-human(based on personal quality)

4.Countable&Uncountable (quantative structure)

The problem of the category of gender:

Ilyish The ME noun has not got the category of grammatical gender.

+ Between the Sg & the Pl an additional difference of meaning has developed à the plural form develops a completely new meaning which the singular has not got at all (e.g. colour/colours)- the plural form has been lexicalized.

Blokh:The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the 3^rd person.It’s strictly oppositional, firmed by 2 oppositions hierarchically related.1.Personal noun (strong).2.Non-person (weak).

The other oppositions function in the subject of person nouns only. The cases of reductions:1.Non-person & their substitute are used in the positions of neutralization.

2.Great number of nouns are capable for expressing both female & masculine person genders. Ex:person,parent,friend have a common gender. In plural all genders-neutralized.

Nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically ex:boy-friend,girl-friend or woth the help of suffixes –ess (mistress). Categories of gender in English is semantic because it reflects the actual features of the named objects, but the semantic of the category doesn’t in the list make it into non-grammatical.

№23 The phrase,it’s definition.The study of the phrase in Russian and foreign linguistics.

There are 2 understandings of the term phrase:

A phrase is a combination of 2 or more notional words connected by means of subordination: e.g. cold weather, writing letters, fruit salad, Peter’s book,.The elements of the phrase may belong to any PofS.Some of the scholars do not single out the phrase at all.H.Sweet-a word group.

Prof.Barkhudarov: a phrase is a combination of 2 or more notional words, connected by means of subordination, coordination and predicative relation if it cannot function as a sentence: mother and father

The diff-ce between a phrase and a sentence is fundamental.

A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or process, just as a word is. Each component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes in accordance with gr. cat-ris without destroying the unity of the phrase.

A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form of one or more words would produce a new sentence.A phrase or a word has no intonation. A sentence has it.

The study of the phrase in Russian and foreign linguistics:

Иванова, Бурлакова, Почепцов:

Russian Linguistics:

The creation of the theory of a phrase is due to Russian linguists. This theory is connected with such linguists as Фортунатов, Шахматов, Пешковский. All through its development the theory underwent a lot of changes. Until the 50-s the wide understanding of the term “phrase” prevailed. And any syntactically organized group was considered as a phrase, no matter what constituted it.

This point of view is still accepted.

But by the 50-s there appeared in the modern linguistics a new interpretation of this problem, and the term “phrase” acquired an extremely narrow sense and was applied only to those phrases which include not less than 2 notional words, connected by the relations of subordination. Predicative and prepositional groups were excluded from the phrase theory. This point of view was introduced by Vinogradov and was supported by many Russian linguists.

This is characteristic of Russian linguists to bring a word and a phrase together to the maximum.

Though this point of view was not supported by some of linguists (Ilyish, Жирмунский), it became the predominant in the middle of the 20 century, and the traditional understanding of a phrase in the Russian linguistics is restricted to subordinate structures only.

!!! Sentences are communicative units of language, phrases – non-communicative. But, the phrase can acquire the properties of a sentence, e.g. Mother and father? (an elliptical sentence).

Foreign Linguistics:

The scientific theory on the phrase appeared abroad much later. It acquired its theoretical interpretation only in the 30-s due to an American linguist Leo Bloomfield.

Immediate constituent analysis (IC analysis)

‘Any English-speaking person who concerns himself with this matter, is sure to tell us that the immediate constituents of Poor John ran away are the two forms poor John and ran away, that each of these is, in turn, a complex form; that the immediate constituents of ran away are ran and away; and that the constituents of poor John are poor and John.’

IC analysis is relevant for any level. A sentence is not a mere combination of words, it’s not a linear sequence of words, sentences are made of layers of immediate constituents. Each unit of a lower level is part of the unit of a higher level.

The IC analysis can be graphically presented in a number of ways. We may use brackets [(Poor John)(ran away)] or we may construct a tree diagram.

In studying phrases from a gr-al point of view we’ll divide them according to their function in the sentence

-those which perform the function of one or more parts of the sentence

-those who’s function is that of a preposition or conjunction

Synthetical relations between the components of a phrase

agreement – method of expressing a synthectical relationship which consist in making the subordinate word take a similar form of the head word // this book, those books as to the problem of agreement of the verb with the noun and pronoun denoting the subject of the action // a child plays, children play – usually treated on the sentence level

government – the use of certain form of subordinate word required by its head word but not coinciding with the form of the head word.

Only case in ENG – personal pronouns //invite him

adjoinment – the connection between these words is preserved owning to the grammatical and semantic compatibility of the adv. Only verb + adv

enclosure – some element of a phrase is enclosed between 2 parts of another element