Basic units of language and speech

1. Basic units of language and speech.

Distinction between language and speech was first introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure. Language – is a system of units used in the process of speaking by all members of a community. Speech – is the process of using articulate (distinctly uttered) sounds to convey information. In the process of language we use many units to code the information we are going to convey, therefore any instance of speech is a particular realization of a language.

The basic units of language and speech are:

● The phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit. The phoneme [b]? for instance, is the only distinctive feature marking the difference between tale [teil] and table [teibl].

● The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit. Un-fail-ing-ly, for instance, cointains four meaningful parts, that is four morphemes.  

● The word is the smallest naming unit. Though the words terror, terrinle, terrific, terrify contain more than one morpheme each, they are the smallest units naming a certain feeling, certain properties and a certain action respectively.

● The sentence is the smallest communication unit which expresses a complete thought or an idea. It rains is a sentence because it communicates a certain particular idea. Though a sentence contains words, it is not merely a group of two words (or other units), but something integral, a structural unity built in accordance with one of the patterns existing in a given language. All the sounds of a sentence are united by typical intonation. All the meanings are interlaced according to some pattern to make one communication. And a communication is a direct thought.

The structure, classification and combinability of phonemes is studied by a branch of linguistics called phonology. The structure, classification and combinability of words is the object of morphology. Syntax deals with the structure, classification and combinability of sentences. Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. The set of rules governing a particular language is also called the grammar of the language; thus, each language can be said to have its own distinct grammar.

 

2. Word as a basic language unit. The structure of words.

One of the main properties of a word is its double nature. The material aspects of the word (written or oral) will be regarded as its forms, and its meanings (ideal or immaterial aspects) as its content. The word book can be broken in two parts: book and s. Such meaningful parts are called morphemes. The morphemes book and k differ essentially:

1. In their relation to reality and thought: book – is directly associated with some object, s – is connected with the world of reality indirectly (through the morpheme it is linked with).
2. In their relations to the word which they are part of:  Book is more independent than s.
3. In their relations to similar morphemes in other words: the meaning of s is always relative.

The meanings of the morphemes –s, -ed, being relative, dependent and only indirectly reflecting reality, are grammatical meanings of grammatical morphemes. Morphemes of the book-type and their meanings are called lexical. Morpheme shall has the properties of both a word and a grammatical morpheme, it can be called a grammatical word-morpheme.

Lets compare the two units: invites and shall invite. (Invite – common lexical morpheme, s and shall – different grammatical morphemes). The grammatical morpheme –s is a bound morpheme. The grammatical morpheme shall is a free morpheme or a word-morpheme. Units like invites, with bound morphemes, are called synthetic words. Units like shall invite, with free grammatical morphemes, or grammatical word-morphemes, are called analytical words.

Since the difference between synthetic and analytical words is a matter of form, not content, we may speak of synthetic (синтетична або проста форма) and analytical (аналітична або складена форма) forms. The lexical morpheme is regarded as the root of the word, all the other bound morphemes as affixes: prefixes, suffixes and infixes.

Words  without their grammatical morphemes (mostly suffixes, often called endings or inflections) are known as stems. In accordance with their structure the following 4 types of stems are usually distinguished:

1. simple (прості основи), containing only the rot, as in day, dogs, write, wanted, etc.
2. derivative (похідні щснови), containing affixes of other stem-building elements, as in boyhood, rewrite, strength, etc.
3. compound (складні основи), containing two or more roots, as in white-wash, pickpocket, motor-car, brother in law, etc.
4. composite (складені основи), containing free lexico-grammatical word-morphemes or otherwise having the form of a combination of words, as in give up, two hundred and twenty five, at last, in spite of, etc.

 

3. The classification of words. The combinability of words.

All the lexical meanings of the word runs, inherent of the morpheme run-, unite this word with to run, running, will run, shall run, has run, had run, is running, was running etc., into one group called a lexeme. All the grammatical meanings of the word runs, inherent in the morpheme – s, unite this word with walks, stands, sleeps and a great many other words into a group we shall call a grammeme. As we see, each word of a lexeme represents a certain grammeme, and each word of a grammeme represents a certain lexeme. The set of grammemes represented by all the words of a lexeme is its paradigm.

 

	Lexeme 1	Lexeme 2
Grammeme 1	Boy	Girl	Common case, singular number
Grammeme 2	Boy’s	Girl’s	Possessive case, singular number
Grammeme 3	Boys	Girls	Common case, plural number
Grammeme 4	Boys’	Girls’	Possessive case, plural number
	Male, child, son, male, servant, etc.	Female, child, daughter, maid, servant, etc.	Meanings of lexemes	Meanings of grammemes

 

The combinability of words is as a rule determined by their meanings, not their forms. Therefore not every sequence of words may be regarded as a combination of words. On the other hand, some words may be inserted between the components of a word combination without breaking it:

1. read books,
2. read many books,
3. read very many books.

In case (a) the combination read books is uninterrupted. In cases (b) and (c) it is interrupted, or discontinuous (read…books).

The combinability of words depends on their lexical(1), grammatical(2) and lexico-grammatical(3) meanings. 1-the lex-gram, meanings of –er in runner and –ly in quickly do not go together and prevent these words from forming a combination, whereas quick runner and run quickly are regular word combinations.

One may speak of lexical, grammatical, and lexico-grammatical combinability, or the combinability of lexemes, grammemes and parts of speech. Each word belonging to a certain part of speech is characterized by valency, or in other words, the combinability of lexical units.

It is convenient ot distinguish right-hand and left-hand connections or combinability. With analytical forms inside and outside connections are also possible. In the combination has already done the verb has an inside connection with the adverb and the latter has an outside connection with the verb. There are also unilateral, bilateral and multilateral combinability. Most verbs may have:

●zero(Go!)   ●unilatteral(boys←jump)  ●bilateral(i←did→it) ●multilateral (yesterday I saw him there) in other words the combinability of verbs is variable. There are direct and indirect connections: look at him (look and at – direct, look and him - indirect).

 

 

 

 

4. The notions of grammatical opposition and grammatical category.

When opposed, the two words, runs and is running, form a particular language unit. All their meanings but those of aspect counterbalance one another and do not count. Only the two particular meanings of ‘non-continuous’ and ‘continuous’ aspect united by the general meaning of aspect are revealed in this opposition or opposeme. The general meaning of this opposeme (‘aspect’) manifests itself in the two particular meanings (‘non-continuous aspect’ and ‘continuous aspect’) of the opposite members (or opposites). Thus, the elements which the opposition is composed of is called opposites of members of the opposition. Opposites can be different: 1)non-marked (table), 2) marked (tables). Non-marked opposite is used more often than the marked opposite is.

A part of speech is characterized by its grammatical categories manifested in the opposemes and paradigms of its lexemes. Nouns have categories of number and case. Verbs – tense, voice, mood etc. Neutralization – the reduction of an opposeme to one of its members under certain circumstances. This member can be called the member of neutralization.

A grammatical category is a systematic opposition of different morphological forms possessing different referential meanings. Each gram.cat. is composed of at least two contrasting forms. Otherwise a category would stop existing.

A morphological opposeme is a minimum set of words revealing (by the difference in their forms) only (and all) the particular manifestations of some general grammatical meaning. Any morphological category is the system of such opposemes whose members differ in form to express only the particular manifestations of the general meaning of the category.

Grammatical category unites in itself particular grammatical meanings. Grammatical meaning is an abstract meaning added to the lexical meaning of a word, expressing its relations to other words or classes of words. As a rule, a word has several gram.meanings. Gram.meanings are realized in a grammatical word form – the variety of the same word differing from other forms of this word by its grammatical meaning. Grammatical form of a word can be simple (synthetic) (дощ, дощу, дощем) or composite (analitical) (буду говорити, більш привабливий). The analytical-synthetic grammatical word form is a combination of two previous types of word forms (малювала би).

 

5. Part of speech as one of the main grammatical notions.

A dictionary usually describes individual lexemes, a grammar book mostly deals with classes of lexemes, traditionally called parts of speech. Parts of speech are generally said to be classes of words having the same meaning, morphological forms and functions. By meaning we do not refer to the individual (lexical) meaning of each separate word but the one common to all the words of the given class and constituting its essence. By form we mean the morphological characteristics of a type of word (noun by category of number, verb by tense, mood etc). By function we mean the syntactic properties of a type of word: method of combining with other and forming  syntactic structures. The content of a part of speech is its meaning; its form is the way it is linguistically treated.

A part of speech is a word or a class of words linguistically representing phenomena and relationships of the objective reality (including meaning man and the products of his mind) in a specific way (as substances, properties, changes etc). The general meaning of a part of speech is neither lexical nor grammatical, but it is connected with both, and we call it lexico-grammatical meaning. Lexemes united by the general lexico-grammatical meaning of substance are called nouns. Those having the general lexico-grammatical meaning of action are called verbs and so on. In general, a part of speech is characterized by:

1) its lexico-grammatical meaning;

2) its lexico-grammatical morphemes (stem building elements);

3) its grammatical categories or its paradigms;

4) its combinability;

5) its function in a sentence.

 

 

6. Contrastive studies of languages.

Any human language is characterized by three types of constitutional features: universal (pertaining to all or to the majority of languages), typological (characteristic only of a certain group of languages, creating a language type) and individual (found only in one language). To reveal the mentioned features os possible only with the help of comparison or contrasting. The method of comparison or contrasting is not a new one and is employed as major one by a number of linguistic disciplines, namely: the comparative historic linguistics – studying the genetic kinship of languages in their development; the areal linguistics- dealing with languages of a particular geographic area despite their genetic relations with respect to their mutual influence of one language upon the other; typological linguistics – studying similarities and differences of languages; contrastive linguistics – has not yet found its final position within the system of linguistic disciplines.

The principle of contrasting is just as well used by two linguistic disciplines: contrastive typology and contrastive linguistics. Typology aims at establishing similar general linguistic categories serving as a basis for the classification of languages of different types, irrespective of their genealogical relationship. Contrastive typology – represents a linguistic subject of typology, based on the methods of comparison or contrasting. Aims at establishing the most general structural types of languages on the basis of their dominant or common phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic features. There are such separate typologies: universal typology (all languages); special typology (concrete languages); general typology; contrastive typology; absolute universals; near universals; typological dominant features.

 

7. Contrastive linguistics as a science and an academic discipline: its subject matter and tasks.

Contrastive linguistics as a language discipline was formed on the basis of typology studies in the middle of the 20^th century. The aim of  CL is the comparative study of two, less often more than two languages, in order to find out their similarities and differences on all levels of the language structure.

CL is a branch of linguistics which studies two or more languages irrespective of their kinship with the aim of revealing their similarities and differences on all levels of the language structure (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical-semantic).

According to M.P.Kocherhan, the object of CL are any two or more languages irrespective of their genealogical and typological nature. According to A.E.Levytsky: the object of CL are investigations as a comparison of two or more linguistic systems at the synchronous level. About the subject matter of tasks of CL exist two different types of view – from treating this discipline as a “purely” linguistic theory, closely connected with typology (K.James), to the narrow practical application of contrastive works, meant to serve the needs of foreign languages study (G.Nickel).

Acc.to Kocherhan:

Theoretical tasks of CL:

• to reveal similarities and differences in languages, the coincidence and difference by usage of language means of expression;
• to research the tendencies characteristic for contrasted languages;
• to define the cross-language correspondences and lacunas;
• to find out the reason for similarities and differences;
• to verify the deductive universals on the material of contrasted languages.

Practical tasks of CL:

• to define the methodological relevance of similarities and differences between the contrasted languages;
• to establish the character of the cross-language interference;
• to reveal the difficulties in the study of a foreign language;
• to outline the frames of the application of comparison as a way to teach a foreign language;
• to work out the procedure of the cross-language contrasting as a means to teach a foreign language.

 

 

 

8. Contrastive grammar and its tasks.

Contrastive grammar of English and Ukrainian languages, being part of contrastive linguistics, has as its object the grammar structure of these two contrasted languages. The subject matter of CG are the peculiarities of expression of the main grammatical categories and syntactic structures in both contrasted languages.

Grammatical phenomena of different languages can be contrasted according to three aspects: according to the content, according to the expression means, and according to the type of functioning.

The most important notions of CG is the notion of grammatical category – the system of opposed to each other rows of grammatical forms with homogeneous meanings, for example the grammatical category of case, gender etc. the number of gram.categ. can vary from language to language and depends on the language type.

The tasks carried out in contrastive grammar studies are first of all corresponding to the demands of practical usage, that is: methodology of language study, compiling different textbooks, dictionaries and reference books in translation techniques etc.

 

9. Methods of research, used in contrastive studies.

Contrastive research is carried out with the help of several methods. Thus, comparing of isomorphic features can very often be performed with the help of the deductive (the process of reasoning using general rules or principles to form a judgment about a particular fact or situation) and the inductive (the process of reasoning using known facts to produce general rules of principles) methods.

The immediate constituents method is employed to contrast only language units with the aim of establishing their constituent parts in one or some contrasted languages. The IC method is often employed to single out constituent parts of the syntactic level units both at the sentence level and at word-group level.

The transformational method is more often employed than the ICs method (deep and surface structure).

The contrastive linguistic method is usually employed to investigate a restricted number of genealogically related or non-related languages .

Contrastive analysis is the totality of the ways of language research and description with the help of its systematic comparison with another language with the aim to reveal its peculiarities in the background of common features.

 

10. The problem of the language etalon for comparison (tertium comparationis; TC).

The effectiveness of the contrastive analysis depends on the well-chosen etalon (the basis for comparison, the common denominator), on the basis of which the realization of a certain characteristic feature is defined. Meta-language (such hasn’t been constructed yet) should be universal to compare the systems of different languages (known and unknown). By contrasting Eng and Ukr languages one can take as a basis either of them.

A synonymic term tertium comparationis (мова-еталон – третій член порівняння, або мова зіставлення) is often used in the meaning of language-etalon. The terms mentioned are broader since they comprise not only a natural or an artificially constructed language, but also narrower, more concrete objects as a basis for comparison, for example, some notional category (causality, possessivity, modality, definiteness etc.) TCs – are not a language, but only the basis for comparison, the third member, the notion on the basis of which ways of its expression in the contrasted languages are revealed.

 

 

11. Morphology. Parts of speech.

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language's morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context (words in a lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology). Morphological typology represents a method for classifying languages according to the ways by which morphemes are used in a language —from the analytic that use only isolated morphemes, through the agglutinative ("stuck-together") and fusional languages that use bound morphemes (affixes), up to the polysynthetic, which compress lots of separate morphemes into single words.

Common parts of speech in English and Ukrainian: noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb, modal words, preposition, conjunction, particle, interjection (вигук). According to B.Khaimovich and B.Rogovkaya: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adverbs, adlinks (statives), modal words, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, interjections, articles, response words.