GRAMMAR AS THE BACKBONE OF LANGUAGE Lecture 1

LECTURE OUTLINE Grammar as a design feature of human language. The term ‘grammar’ and its etymology. Practical vs. theoretical grammar. Grammar: the historical background. The notions of modern linguistics/grammar.

LINGUISTICS üis the scientific study of human language. üLanguage is difficult to define (different perspective can be taken; it is a ‘system of systems’).

THE MOST COMMON DEFINITION Language is the vehicle for the expression or exchanging of thoughts, concepts, knowledge, and information as well as the fixing and transmission of experience and knowledge.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE Language is the linguistic competence of a speaker. His ability to produce sentences, depending on his/her communicative needs (generative or dynamic understanding of language).

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE Language is a specific system of signs (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes) and combinatory rules, which are arbitrary but passed on as conventions (F. de Saussure, structuralism).

THE SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS the phonological system (the sounds), the lexical system (the words), and the grammatical system (the set of regularities).

DIFFERENT UNITS – DIFFERENT FIELDS Grammar can be defined as one of the fields in linguistics, which deals with the grammatical system of language (грамматический строй языка).

THE GRAMMATICAL SYSTEM The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process; a system of means used to turn linguistic units into communicative ones: the units of language into the units of speech.

MORPHOLOGY +SYNTAX =GRAMMAR Grammar is the study of the grammatical system, which is a set of regulations determining the ways of changing words (morphology) and the ways they combine into word -groups or sentences (syntax).

MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX Morpphology deals with morphemes, the internal structure of words, peculiarities of their grammatical categories and their semantics. Traditional syntax deals with the rules governing the way words are combined into sentences.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF LINGUISTIC UNITS as the elements of a particular language or across languages (Grammar in general vs. the grammar of a particular language); descriptively vs. prescriptively (be vs. must be grammar); synchronically vs. diachronically (at a particular period of time vs. in development overtime); theoretically vs. practically.

PRACTICAL VS. THEORETICAL GRAMMAR Practical: providing the student with a manual of practical mastery of the corresponding part of language. The aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to scientifically analyse and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF GRAMMAR The uniqueness of the human language: human language vs. animal language. Design or unique features of language, which are numerous.

THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF LANGUAGE “Language is the most human of all human attributes. More than just a means of communication, it is our vehicle of thought. We cannot imagine human beings without language, and if we came across another creature with language in our sense we would say it was human or human-like, or intelligent in the way that humans are. Language influences every sphere of human activity, including all the sciences, from physics through sociology to literary criticism”.

THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF LANGUAGE ü vocal-auditory channel (vs. gesture systems); ü arbitrariness (no connection between the sign and the object of reality); ü prevarication (being able to lie); ü learnability ( learning more than one language).

THE MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURE duality of patterning (the use of a small number of meaningless elements (phonemes) in combination to produce a large number of meaningful elements (words, sentences), which is GRAMMAR! Grammar is the backbone of a language! A man is homo grammaticus!

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE The term ‘grammar’ comes from the Greek word grammatikē, ‘gramma’ meant ‘letter’ and was derived from the stem which originally was interpreted as ‘to draw or write’, tikē’ (from technē) meant ‘art’. Literally, Grammatikē is the art of writing. Generally, both philology and literature in the broadest sense. "

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME: PRESCRIPRIVE (PRE-SCIENTIFIC) Dionysius Thrax, Protagoras, Aristotle, Varro, and Priscian. Dionysius Plato, Thrax (c. 100 B. C. ): the sentence (logos) and the word as the units of grammatical description.

D. THRAX The sentence is understood as “expressing a complete thought”. The classes of words: noun class words (nouns and adjective), verbs, particles, pronouns, preposition, adverbs, conjunctions; as well as their categories. For the nouns he distinguishes: 1) Génos (gender): masculine, feminine, neuter; 2) Eīdos (type): primary or derived; 3) Schēma (form): simple or compound; 4) Arithmós (number): singular, dual, or plural; 5) Ptōsis (case): nominative, vocative, objective, genitive, dative.

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR IN ANCIENT ROME Roman linguistics was largely based on the Greek tradition. Varro: derivation vs. inflection. Priscian: omits articles, include the interjection. Having borrowed its foundations from the Greek tradition, for centuries Latin grammar was seen as the basis for other languages.

MIDDLE AGES: PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS Latin grammars for Englishspeakers; teaching Englishmen to read, write and sometimes converse in the lingua franca of Western Europe, Latin.

THE RENAISSANCE Interest in modern languages; admiration for Ancient culture (Greek and Latin). Grammars of modern languages (English), based on and oriented at Latin.

LOWTH’S SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR (1762) “to teach us to express ourselves with propriety. . . and to enable us to judge of every phrase and form of construction, whether it be right or not”. The criterion – LATIN! Nouns were described as follows: Nominative: the house Genitive: of the house Dative: to the house Accusative: the house Ablative: in, at, from the house Vocative: house

PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS Patterning after Latin in classifying words into word classes and establishing grammatical categories; Reliance on meaning and function in definitions; The standards of correctness are logic, which was identified with Latin, and the past; Emphasis on writing rather than speech.

NON-STRUCTURAL DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR In the second half of the 19 th c. : the need for a scientific explanation of the actually occurring structures without assessing their correctness. Henry Sweet’s New English Grammar, Logical and Historical (1891): “. . the statement of facts, without attempting to settle their relative correctness <…> If an ‘ungrammatical’ expression is in general use among educated people, I accept it as such, simply adding that it is avoided in the literary language” (H. Sweet, 1891: XI).

NON-STRUCTURAL DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR IN SUMMARY actual evaluating; usage without change in language is not associated with corruption.

STRUCTURAL DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR The 20 s of the 20 th c. are considered to be the birth of MODERN linguistics; structuralism. Europe: F. de Saussure (a Swiss linguist; his lectures which were published in 1915 by his followers, The Course in General Linguistics). In the US, Leonard Bloomfield, his book Language: “The study of language can be conducted. . . only so long as we pay no attention to the meaning of what is spoken”.

AMERICAN STRUCTURALISM English was regarded as a language having its specific structure. The structure of a language can be revealed by using scientific (i. e. formal) methods of analysis. Language is a highly organized affair, where the smaller units are built into larger units, which in turn are built into larger ones, until the largest unit is reached. Meaning was ignored because it was not observable.

IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS ANALYSIS (IC ANALYSIS)

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL METHOD Zellig Harris (the 1950 s); to reveal similarities and differences in the structure of the units. 1) Mary has a new car. vs. 2) Mary has a good time. Mary has a new car. _ *A new car is had by Mary has a good time. _ A good time is had by Mary. If linguistic units cannot be subjected to the same transformation, their structure is different.

EUROPEAN STRUCTURALISM: THE BASIC NOTIONS OF MODERN LINGUISTICS F. de Saussure: a language should be regarded as a structured system of elements, in which the place of each element is defined chiefly by how it relates to other elements.

SAUSSURE’S IDEAS Language is a system of signals (linguistic signs), interconnected and interdependent. Language may be compared to other systems of signals, such as writing, alphabets for the deaf-and-dumb, military signals, symbolic rites, forms of courtesy, etc. Language is the object of a more general science, semiology (semiotics, the study of signs).

SAUSSURE’S IDEAS System vs. structure: Language is regarded as a system of elements (or: signs, units) such as sounds, words, etc. These elements have no value without each other, they depend on each other, they exist only in a system, and they are nothing without a system. System implies the characterization of a complex object as made up of separate parts (e. g. the system of sounds). Language is a structural system. Structure means hierarchical layering of parts in 'constituting’ the whole.

THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE The segmental units of language form a hierarchy of levels: The lowest level of lingual segments is phonemic (the phoneme). The morphemic level (the morpheme). The lexemic level (the word). The phrasemic level (the word-group). The level of sentences, or "proposemic" level (the sentence). The supra-proposemic (a sentence group, forming textual unity).

THE SIGNIFIED VS. THE SIGNIFIER THE CONTENT SIDE VS. THE EXPRESSION SIDE A linguistic unit (sign) is a bilateral element possessing both a directly observable material structure and directly unobservable content or meaning. The two elements are intimately united and each recalls the other. Accordingly, we distinguish the content side and the expression side.

LANGUAGE VS. SPEECH Language is a collective body of knowledge, it is a set of basic elements, but these elements can form a great variety of combinations. Speech is the result of using the language, the result of a definite act of speaking. Speech is individual, personal while language is common for all individuals. Grammar dynamically connects language with speech, because it determines the lingual process of utterance production.

SYNTAGMATIC VS. PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence (string); relations "in praesentia" (observed). Paradigmatic relations exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur; each lingual unit is included in a set or series of connections based on different formal and functional properties; relations "in absentia"" cannot be observed in a line).

SYNCHRONY VS. DIACHRONY A synchronic approach to language is the study of language at a particular period of time, ignoring the numerous historical factors and influences which led to that state. A diachronic approach is historical, it studies the development of language overtime.

ACCORDING TO SAUSSURE: Linguistics is the study of language (not speech); It is synchronic; It must be concentrated on the units of language and relations between them.

CONCLUSION The ideas introduced by de Saussure are still of great importance. Linguistics, as well as grammar, is developing and broadening its horizons (new fields). Grammar is the study of the grammatical system of language. The grammatical system of language can be seen from different perspectives.