Размещено на

Chapter I. General view on the problem of grammatical categories in English

1. 
   Syntagmatic connection of words in the systemic conception of language
   

Language is a means of forming and storing ideas reflection of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature: it is inseparable connected with the people who are its creators and users; it grows and develops together with the development of society.

Language incorporates the three constituent parts each being inherent in it by virtue of its social nature; these parts are the phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. Only the unity of these three constituent parts form a language, without any one of them there is no human language in the above sense.
The phonological system is the sub foundation of language; it determines the material appearance of the significative units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is, words and stable word-groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances at thinking process.
Each of the three constituent of language is studied by a particular linguistic discipline. These disciplines a serial of approaches to their particular objects of analysis give the corresponding "descriptions" of language consisting in ordered expositions of the constituent of language in question. Thus, the phonological description of language is effected by the science of phonology; the lexical description of language is effected by the science of lexicology; the grammatical description of language is effected by the science of grammar.
Any linguistic description may have a practical or theoretical purpose. A practical description is aimed at providing the student with a manual of practical mastery of the corresponding part of language. Since the practice of lingual intercourse, however, can only be realized by emplaying language as a unity of all its constituent parts, practical, linguistic manuals more often than not comprise the three types of description presented in a complex. As for theoretical descriptions pursue analytical aims and therefore present the studied parts of language in relative isolation, so as to gain ensights into their inner structure and expose the intrinsic mechanisms of their functioning. Hence, the aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
In the earlier periods of the development of linguistic knowledge, grammatical scholars believed that the only purpose of grammar was to give strict rules of writing and speaking correctly. The rigid regulations for the correct ways of expression, for want of the profound understanding of the social nature of language, ere often based on purely subjective and arbitrary judgments of individual grammar compliers. The result of this "prescriptive" approach was, that alongside of quite essential and useful information, non-existent "rules" were formulated that stood in sheer contradiction with the existing language usage, i.e. lingual reality Traces of this arbitrary prescriptive approach to the grammatical teaching may be easily be found even in to-dates school practice.
To refer to some of the numerous examples of this kind, let us consider the well-known rule of the English article stating that the noun which denotes an object "already known" by the listener should be used with definite article. Observe, however, English sentences taken from me, works of distinguished authors directly contradicting "Ive just read a book of yours about Spain but I wanted to ask you about it" — "Its not a very good book, Im afraid" (S.Maugham). I feel a good deal of hesitation about telling you this story like other stories I have been telling you; it is a true story (J.K.Jerome).
Or let us take the rule forbidding the use of the continuous tense — forms with the verb be as a link, as well as with verbs of perceptions. Here are examples to the contrary.