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My holiday at Crome isnt being a disappointment (A.Huxley). For the first time, Bobby felt, he was really seeing the man (A.Christie).
The given examples of English articles and tenses, though not agreeing with above "prescriptions", contain no grammar mistakes in them.
The said traditional view of the purpose of grammar has lately been re-stated by some modern tends in linguistics. In particular scholars belonging to these trends pay much attention to artificially contructing and analyzing incorrect utterances with the aim of a better formulation of the rules for "the construction" of correct ones. But their examples and deductions, too, are often at variance with real facts of lingual usage.
Worthy of note are the following two artificial utterances suggested as far back as 1956. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Furiously sleep ideas green colourless.
According to the idea of their creation, the American scholar N.Chomsky, the first of the utterances, although nonsensical logically, was to be classed as grammatically correct; while the second one, consisting of the same words placed in the reverse order, had to be analyzed as a disconnected, enumeration a "non-sentence". Thus, the examples, by way of contrast, were intensely demonstrative of the fact that grammar as a whole amounted to a set of non-semantic rules of sentence formation.
However, a couple of years later this assessment of the lingual value of the given utterances was disputed in an experimental investigation with informants natural speakers of English, who could not come to a unanimous conclusion about the correctness or incorrectness of both of them. In particular, some of the informants classed the second utterance as "sounding like poetry".
To understand the contradictions between the bluntly formulated "rules" are reality, as well as to evaluate properly the results of informant tents like the mentioned above, we must bear in mind that the true grammatical rules or regularities cannot be separated from the expression of meanings; on the contrary they are themselves meaningful. Namely they are connected with the most general and abstract parts of content inherent in the elementsof language. These parts of content, together with the formal meanings thorough which they are expressed are treated by grammarians interms of "grammatical categories" such are, for instance, the categories of number or mood in morphology, the categories of meaningful, it becomes clear that the rules of grammar must be stated semantically, or more specifically, they must be worded functionally. For example, it would be fallacious to state without any further comment that the inverted word order in the English declarative sentence is grammatically incorrect. Word order as an element of grammatical form is laden with its own meaningful functions. It can express, in particular, the difference between the control idea of the utterance and the marginal idea between emotive and un emotive modes of speech, between different types of style. Thus, if the inverted word order in a given sentence does express these functions, then its use should be considered as quite correct. E.g. In the centre of room, under the chandelier, as become a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon himself (J.Galsworthy)
The word agreement in the utterance expresses a narrative description, with the central informative element placed in the strongest semantic position in narration, i.e. at the end. Compare the same sort of arrangement accompanying a plainer presentation of subject matter: Inside on a wooden bunk laid a young Indian woman (E.Hemingway).
Compare, further the following:
And even did his soul; tempt him with evil, and whisper of terrible things. Yet did it not prevail against him, so great was the power of his love (O.Wilde). Here the inventor word order is employed to render intense emphasis in a legend — stylized narration. One thing and one thing only could she do for him (R.Kipling). Inversion in this course case is used to express emotional intensification on the central idea.
Examples of this and similar kinds will be found in plenty in Modern English literary texts of good style repute.
The nature of grammar as a constituent part of language is better understood in the light of explicity discriminating the two places of language, namely, the plane of context and the plane of expression.
The pane of context comprises the purely semantic elements contained in language while the plane of expression comprises the material units of language taken by themselves, apart from the meanings rendered by them. The two planes are inseparably connected, so that no meaning can be realized without some material means of expression. Grammatical elements of language present a unity of content and expression (or in some what more familiar terms, a unity of form and meaning). In this the grammatical elements, though the quality of grammatical meanings as we have stated above, is different in principle from the quality of lexical meanings.
On the other hand, the correspondence between the planes of context and expression is very complex, and it is peculiar to each language. This complexity is clearly illustrated by the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.
In cases of polysemy and homonymy two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of expression. For instance, the vertically renders the grammatical meanings of habitual action, notion at the present moment action taken as a general truth homonymically renders the grammatical meanings of the third person singular of the verbal present tense, the plural form of the noun, the possessive form of the noun i.e. several units of plane of content.
In cases of synonymy; conversely, two or more units of the plane of expression correspond units of the plane of expression correspond to one unit of the plane of content. For instance, the forms of the verbal future indefinite, future continuous and present continuous can in certain contexts synonymically render the meaning of a future action.
Taking into consideration the discrimination between the two planes, we may say that the purpose of grammar as a linguistic discipline is, in the long run, to disclose and formulate the regularities of the correspondence between the plane of content and the plane expression in the formation of utterances out of the stocks of words as part of the process of speech production.
Modern linguistics lay on a special stress on the systematic character of language and all its constituent parts. In accentuates the idea that language is a system of signs which are closely interconnected and independent. Units of immediate interdepencies within the framework of all the lingual signs are to give expression of human thoughts. The systematic nature of grammar is probably more evident than that of any other sphere of language, since grammar is responsible for the very organization of the informative content of utterances. Due to the fact, even the earliest grammatical treatises, within the cognitive limits of their times disclosed some systematic features of the described material. But the scientifically sustained and consistent principles of systematic approach to language and its grammar were essentially developed in the linguistics of the twentieth century, namely, after the publicationb of the works by the Russian scholar Beaudion de Courtenay and the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure. These two great men demonstrated the difference between lingual synchrony and diachrony and defined language as a synchronic system of meaningful elements at any stage of its historical evolution.
On the basis of discriminating synchrony and diachrony, the difference between language proper and speech proper can be strictly defined, which is of crucial importance for the identification of the object of linguistic science.
Language in the narrow sense of the word is a system of means of expression, while speech in the same narrow sense should be understood as the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse.
The system of language includes, on the one hand, the body of material units sounds, morphemes, words, word-groups; on the other hand, the regularities or "rules" of the use of these units. Speech comprises both the act of producing utterances, and the utterances and the utterances themselves, i.e. the text. Language and speech are inseparable; they form together an organization unity. As for grammar, being an integpart of the lingual marcosystem it dymamically connects language with speech, because it categorically determines the lingual process of utterance production.
Thus, we have the broad philophical concept of language which is analyzed by linguistics into two different aspects into two different aspects — the system of signs and the use of signs. The generalizing term "language" is also preserved in linguistics, showing the unity of these two aspects.
The signs in the system of language have only a potential meaning. In speech, the potential meaning of the lingual sign is "actualized", i.e. made situationally significant as part of the grammatically organized text.
Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.
Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence. E.g.: the spaceship was launched without the help of a booster rocket.
In this sentence syntagmatically connected are the words and word-groups "the spaceship", "was launched", "the spaceship was launched", "was launched without the help", "the help of a rocket", "a booster rocket".
Morphemes within the words are also connected syntagmatically. E.g.: spaceship, launched, without, booster
Phonemes are connected syntagmatically within morphemes and words, s well as at various juncture points.
The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic "syntagma". There are four main types of national syntagmas: predicate (the combination of a subject and a predicate), objective (the combination of a verb and its object), attributive (the combination of a noun and its attribute), adverbial (the combination of a modified notional word, such as a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier).
Since syntagmatic relations are actually observed in utterances, they are described by the Latin formula as relations "in praesentia".
The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic and called "paradigmatic", are such as exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur. These intra-systematic relations and dependencies find their expression in the fact that each lingual unit is included in a set or series of connections based on different formal and functional properties.
In the sphere of phonology such series are built up by the correlations of phonemes on the basis of vocality or consonantism voicedness or devoicedness, the factor of nazalisation, the factor of length, etc. In the sphere of the vocabulary these series are founded on the correlations of synonymy and antonymy, on various topical connections, on different word-building dependencies. In the domain of grammar series of related forms realize grammatical numbers and cases, persons and tenses, gradations of modalities, sets of sentence — patterns of various functional destination, etc.
Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations cannot be directly observed in utterances, that is why they are referred to as relations "in obsentia" (in the absence).
Paradigmatic relations conxist with syntagmatic relations in such a way that some sort of syntagmatic connections is necessary for the realization of any paradigmatic series. This is especially evident in a classical grammatical paradigm which presents a productive series of forms each consisting of a syntagmatic connection of two elements one common for the whole of the series, the other specific for every individual form in the series (grammatical feature — onflexion, suffix, and auxiliary word). Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories.
The minimal paradigm consists of two forms — stages. This kind of paradigm we see, for instance, in the expression of the category of number boy — boys. A more complex paradigm series, i.e. into the correspondence sub paradigma (of numerous paradigmatic series constituting the system of the finite verb). In other words, with paradigms, the same as with, systematically organized material, macro and micro — series are to be discriminated.
Units of language are divided into segmental and suprasegmental. Segmental units consist of various status (syllable, morpheme, words, etc) such rasegmantel units do not exist by themselves, but are realized together with segmental units are express different modificational meanings which are reflected on the strings of segmental units. To the supra-segmental units belong intonations, accents, pauses, and patterns of word-order.
The segmental units of language form a hierarchy of levels. This hierarchy is of a kind that units of any higher lever are analyzable into units of the immediate lower level. Thus, morphemes are decomposed into phonemes, words are decomposed into morphemes, phrases are decomposed into words, etc.
But this hierarchical reation is by no means reduced to the mechanical composition of longer units from smaller ones; units of each level are characterized by their own, specific functional features which provide for the very recognition of the corresponding levels of language.
The lowest level of lingual segments is phonemic, it is formed by phonemes as the material elements of the higher level segments. The phoneme has no meaning, its function is purely differential; it differentiates morphemes and words as material bodies. Since the phoneme has no meaning, it is not a sign.
Phonemes are represented by letters in writing. Since the letter has a representative status, it is a sign, though different in principle from the level-forming signs of language.
Units of all the higher levels of language are meaningful; they are called "signemes" as opposed to phonemes.
The level located above the phonemic one is the morphemic level. The morphemic is the elementary meaningful part of the word. It is built up by phonemes, so that the shortest morphemes include only one phoneme. E.g.: ros-y [i]; a-fire [ә]; come-s[z].
The morpheme expresses abstract, "significative" meanings which are used as constituents for the formation of more concrete, "nominative" meanings of words.
The third level is the level of phrases (word-groups), or phrasemic level.
To level-forming phrase types belong combinations of two or more notional words. These combinations like separate words; have a nominative function, but they represent the referent of nomination as a complicated phenomena, be it a concrete thing, an action, a quality or a whole situations. Cf., respectively: a picturesque village, the unexpected arrival by separate words.
Notional phrases may be of a stable type and ofa free type. The stable phrases form the phraseological part of the lexicon, and are studied by the the phraseselogical division of lexicology. Free phrases are built up in the process of speech on the existing productive models, and are studied in the lower division of syntax. The grammatical description of phrases is sometimes called smaller syntax, in distinction to "large syntax" studying the sentence and its textual connections.
Above the phrasemic level the level of sentences, or "proposemic" level.
The peculiar character of the sentence as a signemec unit of language consists in the fact that, naming a certain situation, or situational event, it expresses prediction, i.e. shows the relation of the denoted event to reality. Namely, it sows hether this event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as a truth or asked about, etc. In this sense, as different from the word and the phrase, the sentence is predicative unit. Cf.: to receive — to receive a letter. — Early in June I received a letter from Peter Melcrose.
The sentence is produced by the speaker in the procedd of speech as a conrete, situationally bound utterance. At the same time it enters the system of language by its syntactic pattern which all as the syntagmatic and paradigmatic characteristics.
But the sentence is not the highest unit of language in the hierarchy og levels. Above the proposemic level there is still another one, namely, the level of sentence-groups "supra-segmental constructions". For the sake of unified terminology, this level can be called "supra-proposemic".
The supra-sentential construction is a combination of separate sentences forming a texual unity. Such combinations are subject to regular lingual patterning making them into syntactic elements. The syntactic process by which sentences are connected into textual unities is analyzed under the heading of cumulation. Cumulation, the same as formation of composite sentences, can be both syndetic and asyndetic. Cf.: He went on with his interrupted breakfast .Lisette did not speak and there was silence between them. But his appetite satisfied, his mood changed; he began to feel sorry for himself rather than angry with her, and with a strange ignorance of womans heart he thought to arouse Lissetes remorse by exhibiting himself as an object of pity (S.Maugham).
In the typed text, the supra-sentential construction commonly coincides with the paragraph. However, unlike the paragraph, this type of lingual signeme is realized not only in a written text, but also in all the varities of oral speech, since separate sentences, as a rule, are included in a distance not singly, but in combinations, revealing the corresponding connections of thoughts in communicative progress.
We have surveyed six levels of language, each identified by its own functional units. If we now carefully observe the functional status of the forming segments, we can distinguish between them more self-sufficient and the latter being defined only in relation to the functions of other level units. Indeed, the phonemic, lexemic and proposemic levels from the functional points of view: the function of the phoneme is deferential, the function of the word is nominative, the function of the sentence is predicative. As deferent from these, morphemes are identified only as significative compounds of words, phrases present polynominative combinations of words, and supra-sentential constructions mark the transition from the sentence to the text.
Furthermore, bearing in mind that the phonemic level forms the sub foundation of language, i.e. the non-meaningful matter of meaningful expressive means, the two notions of grammatical description shall be pointed out as central even within the framework of the structural hierarchy of language. These are, first the notion of the word and, second, the notion of the sentence. The first is analyzed by morphology wich is the grammatical teaching of the word; the second is analyzed by syntax, which is the grammatical teaching of the sentence.