Grammatical categories

Categorial Structure of the Word

1. Definition of the Word

There are many definitions of the term ‘word’ and none of them is generally accepted. But usually people experience no difficulty in separating one word from another in their native tongue. The analysis of numerous definitions of this term is the domain of lexicology. For the purposes of theoretical grammar we’ll accept the following one:

“A word is a free lingual unit (свободная языковая единица) that cannot be divided wholly into smaller free units that can be used to build a sentence.”

There are often restrictions on the phonetic make-up of the word, e.g. English words cannot begin with the sounds [ŋ] and [Ʒ]. The position of a stress is often fixed, that is, it is determined by the boundaries of words or their syllabic structure. Elements within words show greater cohesion ([ko'hi:Ʒn] – связь]) than within larger units. Thus, stems and affixes cannot be separated except by other affixes. Nor does the order of their elements tend to vary.

Distinctions are often drawn:

1. Between a phonological word or word as seen from the viewpoint of phonology, and a grammatical word, established by grammatical criteria only;

2. Between words distinguished in the lexicon (e.g. sing) and the individual word-forms that they can possess (e.g. sang, sung, singing).

2. The Hierarchy of Levels

(1) The lowest level of lingual segments is pho'nemic. It is formed by 'phonemes. The phoneme has no meaning, its function is purely differential. It differentiates morphemes and words: pit – bit, bit – beat, etc.

(2) The next level is the mor'phemic one. The 'morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word.

(3) The third level is the level of words, or le'xemic level. The word is different from the morpheme. The morphemes express abstract, ‘significative’ meanings which are used as constituents for the formation of more concrete, ‘nominative’ meanings of words. The word is a directly naming , nominative unit of language; it names things and their relations.

(4) The next higher level is the level of phrases (word-groups).

(5) Above the level of phrases lies the level of sentences.

(6) The 6^th level comprises topical grouping which are defined as 'dictemes, or elementary topical segmental units of the continual text. In the printed text, these grouping coincide with paragraphs.

3. The Lexeme. The 'Grammeme

While a word may have only one phonological form (sheep, sg. – sheep, pl.), this is not always the case. Let’s, for example, take GO and WENT. Native speakers of English know that these are different forms of the same word. That’s why it is necessary to distinguish between the abstract vocabulary word GO and the phonological and orthographical forms it can take: goes, gone, went, going. We can think of these forms as the realizations (in sound and print) of the abstract vocabulary word. Linguists call such an abstract vocabulary word a lexeme. It means that a single lexeme can have a variety of word-form realizations. The number of these realizations in an English lexeme may vary from one (e.g. always, sheep) to several dozens.

Now let’s take the form ‘goes’. The suffix –(e)s has such meaning as 1) present tense, 2) 3^rd person, 3) singular number, 4) active voice, 5) indicative mood.

This form is a grammeme. When we speak of a word as a grammeme we don’t think of its lexical meaning. We concentrate on the kind of grammatical information it carries. The lexical meaning is irrelevant for the detection of the type of grammeme. So, ‘goes’, ‘runs’, ‘stands’, ‘sits’, etc. is one grammeme.

For practical purposes of grammatical description the term ‘word-form’ is usually used.

A grammeme may be analytical by structure, which means that it may consist of more than one element: will go, have gone. An analytical grammeme is equivalent to one word-form.

Morphemes and grammemes are directly observable units by nature, lexemes are not.

4. The Categorial Grammatical Meaning. The Paradigm.

Notional words, first of all verbs and nouns, possess some morphemic features expressing grammatical (morphological) meanings. These features determine the grammatical form of the word, that is, the type of grammeme.

Grammatical meanings are very abstract, very general, therefore the grammatical form is not confined to an individual word, but unites a whole class of words: plural of nouns – boys, girls, dogs, buildings, trees, etc.; 3^rd person, sg. of verbs – runs, takes, gives, etc.

The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are called categorical grammatical meanings. Thus, the categorical grammatical meaning unites the individual meanings of the correlated word-forms and is exposed through them. The correlated word-forms carry specific grammatical information. They form a paradigm. A grammatical paradigm formed by the ordered set of grammatical word-forms expresses a categorical grammatical meaning.

For example, the verb forms ‘am speaking, is speaking, are speaking, was speaking, were speaking, etc.’ are units with a common meaning that brings them together into one paradigm. This common meaning is the grammatical meaning of duration or development.

Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories. The minimal paradigm consists of two word-forms. This kind of paradigm we see, for example, in the category of noun number: boy – boys.

A more complex paradigm can be divided into two, three and more subparadigms.

The Paradigm of Personal Pronouns

Singular

The nom. form The obj. form The poss. form The poss. form (absolute)

I me my mine

he him his his

she her her hers

it it its its

Plural

we us our ours

you you your yours

they them their theirs

5. The Grammatical Opposition

The paradigmatic correlations of grammatical forms in a category are exposed by the so-called grammatical oppositions. The opposition is a correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain function is expressed.

The correlated members of the opposition possess two types of features: common features and differential ones. Common features serve as the basis of contrast, while differential ones express the function in question.

There are 3 main qualitative types of opposition: privative ['prIvqtIv], gradual ['grxdjVql], equipollent [IkwI'pOlqnt].

By the number of members, oppositions are divided into binary (two members) and more than binary – ternary ['tWnqrI] (three members), quaternary [kwq'tWnqrI] (four members), etc.

The binary privative opposition is formed by a pair of members in which one member is characterized by the presence of a certain differential feature (“mark”), while the other member is characterized by the absence of this feature.

The member in which the feature is present is called the marked, or strong, or positive member; the member in which the feature is absent is called the unmarked, or weak, or negative member: boy – boys; strong – stronger; democratic – antidemocratic.

The gradual opposition is formed by a group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a feature, but by the degree of it: strong(ø) – stronger – strongest.

The equipollent opposition is formed by a pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive features: phenomenon – phenomena.

It is difficult to find the examples of this kind of opposition in English morphology (am – is – are), but in lexicology the best known examples are antonyms, that is, the pairs of antonyms having different roots: alive – dead, progressive – reactionary, etc.

The most important type of opposition is the binary privative opposition. The other types are reducible to it: strong – stronger – strongest > strong – stronger, strong – strongest; productive – wasteful > productive – unproductive.

6. Oppositional Substitution (Reduction)

In various contextual conditions, one member of an opposition can be used in the position of the other member. This is called ‘oppositional substitution’, or ‘oppositional reduction’, e.g.

The train leaves tomorrow.

The verb in this sentence has the form of the present indefinite while its meaning in the context is the future. So, the weak member (the present tense form) has replaced the strong member (the future tense form). The oppositional substitution shown in the above given sentence is stylistically indifferent. This kind of oppositional substitution is referred to as neutralization. The position of neutralization is filled in by the weak member of the opposition due to its more general semantics.

Alongside the neutralizing substitution (or reduction) there exists another kind of reduction when the use of the form is stylistically coloured. E.g. He is constantly grumbling.

The form of the present continuous here stands in sharp contradiction with its regular grammatical meaning “action in progress at the present moment”. The contradiction is purposeful: exaggeration.

This kind of oppositional substitution belongs to the domain of transposition. Transposition may be defined as a contrastive use of the counter-member of the opposition. As a rule, the strong member (or the counter-member) of the opposition is transpositionally employed. The stylistic colouring is explained by the comparatively limited regular functions of the strong member (limited semantics).

7. Synthetic(al) and Analytical Grammatical Forms

The grammatical forms fall under two main groups: synthetic and analytical.

Synthetic grammatical forms are realized by the inner morphemic composition of the word, while analytical grammatical forms are built up by a combination of at least two words: a grammatical auxiliary and a word of “substantial” meaning.

Synthetic grammatical forms are based on (1) inner inflexion, (2) outer inflexion and (3) suppletivity.

Inner inflexion, or phonemic vowel interchange, is not productive now: take – took, man – men, etc.

Suppletivity is not productive too. It is based on the correlation of different roots in one paradigm: go – went, good – better.

Outer inflexion is more productive. It is represented by grammatical suffixation: table – tables, take – takes, large – larger, etc. Grammatical prefixation can only be found in Old English.

The synthetic grammatical forms in English are used to build up (1) the number and case forms of the noun (boy – boys, boy – boy’s); (2) the person-number and tense of the verb (take – takes; work – worked), (3) participial and gerundial forms of the verb (take – taken, work – worked, take – taking), (4) the comparison forms of the adjective and adverb.

In the oppositional correlations of all these forms, the initial paradigmatic form of each opposition is distinguished by a zero suffix: boy + Ø – boy + s.

The forms consisting of two or more words are not always recognized as the analytical ones. Many linguists call them peri'phrastic constructions, or structures. The problems connected with the analytical form were investigated mostly by Russian grammarians. They have developed the criteria for the identification of analytical forms.

For example, the main features of a verbal analytical form are the following:

(1) It is a collocation of a constant element which is manifested by an auxiliary finite verb in one of the tense forms, and a variable element – notional verb. The notional verb stands in one of the non-finite forms – infinitive, participle I, participle II.

(2) This collocation is indivisible in grammatical sense, though its components are separate words.

(3) The auxiliaries are limited in number and fixed.

(4) The analytical form has an unlimited range of occurrence [q`kArqns] as a grammatical unit. It covers the whole of the verbal lexicon.

Grammatical categories

The grammatical categories are realized by the types of forms organized in paradigmatic oppositions, e.g. girl - girls (the category of number), large - larger (the category of comparison), etc. They can be divided into immanent categories, that is, categories innate for a given class of words, and reflective categories, that is, categories serving as a sign of correlation with some other class. Reflective categories are categories of a secondary, derivative semantic value.

For instance, the categories of number and person for nouns and pronouns are immanent, while the verbal person and the verbal number are reflective because the forms of these categories are based on grammatical agreement (The boy is smiling. The boys are smiling). For verbs the immanent categories are those of tense, aspect, voice and mood.

These is another important division of grammatical categories. The feature expressed by the category can be either constant (unchangeable) or variable (changeable).

Variable feature categories can be seen in the nominal number (singular - plural), the degrees of comparison (positive - comparative - superlative), the verbal tense, etc.

An example of a constant feature category can be seen in the category of gender.

Constant feature categories reflect the static classifications of phenomena, while variable feature categories expose various connections between phenomena.

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