Вопрос 1. English Theoretical Grammar. General overview.

The subject of theoretical grammar is a systematic study of the grammatical structure of

Modern English. The difference between practical and theoretical grammar is that grammar theory

makes it possible to understand the laws according to which any language functions. Practical

grammar gives the rules of using the laws of the language in speech.

- An early XX century Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure commented on the correlation

between those two phenomena: language is a system of means of communication; speech is the

activity using language in the practical process. The structure of language is systematic, speech is

linear; language is static, speech is dynamic, language is general, speech is concrete, language is

social, speech is individual; language is reproductive, speech is productive; language is a means,

speech is the purpose. We need the means of the language to make our speech understandable, but

speech is necessary as the source of the language. Three aspects of the language – phonetics,

vocabulary and grammar – are studied by three corresponding branches of linguistic science –

phonology, lexicology and theoretical grammar.

- History and methods of study of T.G.:

1. Early descriptive (описательная) grammar – William Bullocar, 1585 “Brief Grammar of

English” – the method of describing formal elements of the structure by applying the method of

distribution ( distribution of language elements(phonemes, morphemes, lexems) according to the

laws of the language.)

2. The middle of the XIII century – prescriptive grammar: setting up a certain standard of

correctness (school grammar, formal grammar).

3. By the end of the XIX century – traditional system of grammar, descriptive and explanatory.

4. Young grammarians – late XIX – early XX century made an important contribution into the study

of all the aspects of English, but their study was diachronical (диахронический,

исторический), they didn't give the modern state of the language careful consideration, they

spread phonological laws to the rest of the language, ignoring phycological and sociological factors.

The new method is the Modern Structural Linguistics, which claims of describing the structure of

English on an entirely new, really scientific bases. Structural linguistics studied the language

syncronically, namely described its modern state, tried to avoid subjective, but used only objective

methods of study. Structural linguistics is represented by several different schools: Prague school

(functional linguistics) Matezius, Trubetckoi studied the language as a functional system,

connected with spheres of human activity, they take into consideration the meanings of the language

phenomena(semantic approach), studied the language both synchronically and diachronically (the

evolution of the language factors), study extra-linguistic factors, historical and cultural. American

school is represented by descriptive linguistics (Blumfild, Glison), generative

grammar,(порождающая грамматика), describing grammar as a mechanism, generating the

correct speech according to the rules of a particular language. Inner structure can be studied and

then applied for creation of artificial word combinations, phrases, sentences. The generative pattern

is then tested from the point of veiw of its appropiacy. Transformational analysis

(трансформационная грамматика) (Chomski, Liz) holds that some rules are transformational, i.e.

they change one structure into another according to such prescribed conventions as moving

(перемещение), inserting (включение), deleting (исключение), and replacing (замена). Eg.:

Sharpness of animals’ sight; animals’ sight is sharp; animals see sharply. This method reveals two

levels of syntactic structure: deep structure (an abstract underlying structure interpreting the

information) and surface structure (syntactic features required to convert the sentence into a spoken

or written version). They introduced a method of immediate constituents (метод

непосредственных составляющих): every unit consists of two elements (root and affix in words,

two words in a word combination). Copenhagen school (Brendal, Elmslev) introduced a new

method – glossemantics, which studies the language as a system of signs, using the methods of

math, this system of signs is not related with the contectual meaning. London school uses the

method of discourse analysis (ситуационный контекст, социальные аспекты языка).

One of the modern methods of study is the comparative method (сравнительный), when similarlanguage phenomena are compared with those of relative languages, as well as with facts that

hipothetically existed in the previous historical stages of development of the language. It helps to

study ways of development and changes of the language, the nature of borrowings, the degree of

assimilation.

Two branches of grammar – morphology, syntax

There are two branches of grammar: morphology and syntax. Morphology treats of the forms of

words; syntax treats of phrases and sentences. The problem of distinguishing between a word and a

phrase: word is a nominative unit of language, it enters the lexicon of language as its elementary

component (indivisible into smaller segments as regards its nominative function, the function to

name things, properties, actions, etc). Phrases consist of separate words, though analytical forms of

words (has been found), which historically were phrases, lost syntactical connections between their

parts. There can also be a word between these parts (has often been found), which is one of the

cases of overlapping syntax and morphology. Another case is analytical word – take off, put on .

Thus, the polar approach to the definition of a word is “minimal unit of a language possessing the

positional independence in the sentence. It is the smallest discrete unit, the smallest unit capable of

syntactic functioning and the largest unit of morphology.