Categorial structure of the word

The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning is the individual meaning of the word. Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass. Thus, categorial grammatical meanings are the most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms.

The grammatical meaning may be of several types (Fig. 18). It may be explicit and implicit. The implicit grammatical meaning is not expressed formally.

The explicit grammatical meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker.

The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and dependent. The general grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part of speech. The dependent grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part of speech.

Fig. 18

Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the same form. Thus, the grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms.

We may define grammatical categories as references of the corresponding objective categories. For example, the objective category of time finds its representation in the grammatical category of tense, the objective category of quantityfinds its representation in the grammatical category of number. Those grammatical categories that have references in the objective reality are called referential grammatical categories.

However, not all of the grammatical categories have references in the objective reality. Such categories correlate only with conceptual matters. They are called significational categories. To this type belong the categories of mood and degree (Fig. 19).

Fig. 19

The ordered set of grammatical forms expressing a categorial function constitutes a paradigm.

Meansof realization of grammatical categories may be synthetical and analytical (Fig. 20).

Synthetical Analytical

means means

Fig. 20

Accordingly, the grammatical forms themselves are classed into synthetical and analytical, too (Fig. 21).

Fig. 21

Synthetical grammatical forms are realised by the inner morphemic composition of the word. Analytical grammatical forms are built up by a combination of at least two words, one of which is a grammatical auxiliary (word-morpheme), and the other, a word of “substantial” meaning.

Synthetical grammatical forms are based on inner inflexion, outer inflexion, and suppletivity; hence, the forms are referred to as inner-inflexional, outer-inflexional, and suppletive.

Any grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical forms. The relation between two grammatical forms differing in meaning and external signs is called opposition. All grammatical categories find their realization through oppositions.

There exist qualitative and quantitative types of oppositions (Fig. 22).

By the number of members contrasted, oppositions are divided into binary and more than binary.

There are three main types of qualitatively different oppositions: “privative”, “gradual”, “equipollent”.

The privative binary opposition is formed by a contrastive pair of members in which one member is characterized by the presence of a certain feature called the “mark”, while the other member is characterized by the absence of this differential feature (Fig. 23).

The gradual opposition is formed by the degree of the presentation of one and the same feature of the opposition members.

The equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members which are distinguished not by the presence or absence of a certain feature, but by a contrastive pair or group in which the members are distinguished by different positive (differential) features.

Fig. 22

Fig. 23

In the process of communication grammatical categories may undergo the processes of oppositional reduction. Oppositional reduction is the usage of one member of an opposition in the position of the counter-member. From the functional point of view there exist two types of oppositional reduction: neutralization of the categorial opposition and its transposition (Fig. 24).

e.g. Man conquers nature. e.g. She is always leaving things around.

(man – people) (leaves – is leaving)

Fig. 24

In case of neutralization one member of the opposition becomes fully identified with its counterpart. In other words, neutralization is the reduction of the opposition to one of its members.

Transposition takes place when one member of the opposition placed in the contextual conditions uncommon for it begins to fulfil two functions – its own and the function of its counterpart. Transpositionis the use of a linguistic unit in an unusual environment or in the function that is not characteristic of it. As a result, transposition is always accompanied by different stylistic effects.

GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS

The parts of speech are classes of words. All the members of these classes have certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes. All the words of the English language are grouped into different types of classes. The problem of word classification into parts of speech remains one of the most controversial problems in modern linguistics. Parts of speech are differentiated either by a number of criteria, or by a single criterion.

There are four approaches to the problem:

1. Classical (logical-inflectional)

2. Functional

3. Distributional

4. Complex or traditional

The classical parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of speech all words were divided into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech. Declinable words included nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles, indeclinable words – adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. This classification is quite successful for Latin or other languages with developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but it cannot be applied to the English language because the principle of declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.

A new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by Henry Sweet. This approach may be defined as functional. singled out nominative units and particles. To nominative parts of speech belonged noun-words (noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective-words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles. However, though the criterion for classification was functional, Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in other words, declinable and indeclinable (Fig. 25).

Fig. 25

A distributional approach to the parts of speech classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis, that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was not taken into account. He introduced four major classes of words and 15 form-classes. It turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same as traditional nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his investigation of 15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first linguist to pay attention to some of their peculiarities (Fig. 26).

All the classifications mentioned above appear to be one-sided because parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of only one aspect of the word: either its meaning or its form, or its function.

Fig. 26

In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional (Fig. 27). This approach may be defined as complex or traditional. The semantic criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words. The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words, their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic peculiarities.

Fig. 27

The linguistic evidence makes it possible to divide all the words of the language into:

a) those denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with the corresponding references in the objective reality – notional words (nouns, pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs);

b) those having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame utterances – function words, or grammatical words (articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and modal words).

NOUN AND ITS CATEGORIES