Grammar in the systematic conception of language. The development of grammar and its types

GRAMMAR IN THE SYSTEMATIC CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE. THE DEVELOPMENT OF GRAMMAR AND ITS TYPES


Plan of the lecture:
1. Definitions to the term “grammar”.
2. The aims of the theoretical course of Grammar
3. Language families and groups
4. The typology of non-related languages
5. Grammar and its types
Key words: Germanic, Indo-European, typology, related, non-related.
In linguistics,
The word “grammar” derives from Greek and means “art of letters”
(grammar letter). Grammar is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes phonology, morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics.
Speakers of a language have a set of internalized rules for using that language and these rules constitute that language's grammar. The vast majority of the information in the grammar is – at least in the case of one's native language – acquired not by conscious study or instruction, but by observing other speakers. Much of this work is done during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves a greater degree of explicit instruction.Thus, grammar is the cognitive information underlying language use.
The term "grammar" can also be used to describe the rules that govern the linguistic behaviour of a group of speakers. The term "English grammar", therefore, may have several meanings. It may refer to the whole of English grammar, that is, to the grammars of all the speakers of the language, in which case, the term encompasses a great deal of variation. Alternatively, it may refer only to what is common to the grammars of all, or of the vast majority of English speakers (such as subject–verb–object word order in simple declarative sentences). Or it may refer to the rules of a particular, relatively well-defined variety of English (such as standard English for a particular region).
A specific description, study or analysis of such rules may also be referred to as a grammar. A reference book describing the grammar of a language is called a "reference grammar" or simply "a grammar" (see History of English grammars). A fully explicit grammar that exhaustively describes the grammatical constructions of a language is called a descriptive grammar. This kind of linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription, an attempt to discourage or suppress some grammatical constructions, while promoting others. For example, preposition stranding occurs widely in Germanic languages and has a long history in English. John Dryden, however, objected to it (without explanation), leading other English speakers to avoid the construction and discourage its use.
Outside linguistics, the term grammar is often used in a rather different sense. In some respects, it may be used more broadly, including rules of spelling and punctuation, which linguists would not typically consider to form part of grammar, but rather as a part of orthography, the set of conventions used for writing a language. In other respects, it may be used more narrowly, to refer to prescriptive grammar only and excluding those aspects of a language's grammar that are not subject to variation or debate. Jeremy Butterfield claimed that, for non-linguists, "Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to."
Grammar may be practical and theoretical. The aim of practical grammar is the description of grammar rules that are necessary to understand and formulate sentences. The aim of theoretical grammar is to offer explanation for these rules. Generally speaking, theoretical grammar deals with the language as a functional system. As for theoretical linguistic descriptions, they pursue analytical aims and therefore present the studied parts of language in relative isolation, so as to gain insights 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 analyse and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
Such discipline as Grammar studies the gram. sys-m of language, analyses and defines its gram. categories the mechanisms of gram. formation of utterances out of the words in the process of speech making. Lingual units stand to one another in to fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. Synt. rel, are immediate relations between units in a segmental sequence, they are syntagmatically connected (I was invited by my friends to a new night-club). Morphemes within the words are also connected syntagmatically (invit/ed/; friend/s/; night/-club/). The combination of to words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic syntagma. They are of four types: predicative, objective, attributive, adverbial. The other type of relations opposed to syntagmatic is called paradigmatic. These relations exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they occur. This intra-systemic relations 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 (gram. cat-ies, parts of the sent., synonyms etc.). Syntag. relations are actually observed in utterances and they are, so to say, “in presence”. Unlike syntag. paradigmatic relations can not be directly seen that’s why they are referred to as relations “in absence”. Also units of lang. are divided into segmental and supra-segmental. Supra-segm. units do not exist by themselves and are realized only with segm. units. They are intonation, pauses, ascents, patterns of word-order etc. Segmental units form a certain hierarchy of six levels(phonemic, morphemic, lexemic, phrasemic, proposemic, textual).
The aims of the theoretical course of Grammar: to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system, to analyze and determine its grammatical categories, to study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making, to give an analysis of English Grammatical structure in the light of general principles of linguistics. 
The words of every language fall into classes which are called parts of speech In Modern English there is following system of parts of speech: The Noun. The Adjective. The Pronoun. The Adverb. The Numeral. The Verb. The Preposition. The Conjunction. The Interjection. 
The parts of speech differ from each other in meaning, in form and function. In modern linguistics, parts of speech are described according to three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. The semantic criterion regards the grammatical forms of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning). 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 sentences and their combinability. 
All the words of the language can be divided into: notional words which denote things, objects, qualities, notions; functionional or grammatical words having no references of their own in the objective reality, most of them are used only as grammatical means to form up utterances. It is commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, numeral, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. The functional parts of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions. 
In notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. In actual speech the border line between notional and function words is not always clear. For example, some verbs can function both as notional and function words: the verb to have (I have a car) is a notional verb; as a modal verb it is a function word: (I have to do it). The verb to look (He looked at me) – notional verb, (He looked tired) it is a function word – link verb. 
The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings: lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning is the individual meaning of the word, including everything as a thing or object (e.g. table, peace, boy). Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass. The lexical meanings of such words as “a table”, “a pen” are different but the grammatical meanings are the same because both of them are nouns of the same number and case. If we take such words as: table – tables, pen – pens, friend – friends and try to compare them, it will be clear enough that they have different forms. 
Morphology and syntax - two parts of linguistic description. There are two main parts of grammar – morphology and syntax. Morphology deals with the internal structure of words, peculiarities of their grammatical categories and their semantics. The morphological system of a language reveals its properties through the morphemic structure of words. Syntax deals with the structure, classification and combinability of sentences. The sentence is the immediate integral unit of speech built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a relevant communicative purpose. 
The grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalised grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. Any verb combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote actions or states. The verb is characterized by the system of grammatical categories: tense, aspect, mood, voice, person and number. An adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of the whole class of adjectives – qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities. Adverbs possess the grammatical meaning of adverbiality – the ability to denote quality of qualities. Some adverbs indicate time or place of an action (yesterday, here, tomorrow). 
Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the same form (e.g. singular – plural) Grammatical categories as references can have: the objective category of time –grammatical category of tense; the objective category of quantity -the grammatical category of number (singular and plural forms). Realization of grammatical categories may be synthetic (near – nearer) and analytic (beautiful – more beautiful). 
Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature; it is inseparably 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 ("sides"), 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 elements forms a language; without any one of them there is no human language in the above sense.
The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it determines the material (phonetical) appearance of its 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 as the embodiment of thinking process.
Each of the three constituent parts of language is studied by a particular linguistic discipline. These disciplines, presenting a series of approaches to their particular objects of analysis, give the corresponding "descriptions" of language consisting in ordered expositions of the constituent parts 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 (within the limits determined by various factors of educational destination and scientific possibilities). Since the practice of lingual intercourse, however, can only be realised by employing 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 linguistic descriptions, they pursue analytical aims and therefore present the studied parts of language in relative isolation, so as to gain insights 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 analyse and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
In 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, were often based on purely subjective and arbitrary judgements of individual grammar compilers. 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 easily be found even in to-date's 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 the definite article. Observe, however, English sentences taken from me works of distinguished authors directly contradicting

"I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it." — "It's not a very good book, I'm afraid" (S. Maugham). I feel a good deal of hesitation about telling you this story of my own. You see it is not a 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:
My holiday at Crome isn't 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 the 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 trends in linguistics. In particular, scholars belonging to these trends pay much attention to artificially constructing and analysing 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 creator, 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 analysed as a disconnected, "ungrammatical" enumeration, a "non-sentence". Thus, the examples, by way of contrast, were intensely demonstrative (so believed the scholar) 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" and reality, as well as to evaluate properly the results of informant tests like the one 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 elements of language. These parts of content, together with the formal means through which they are expressed, are treated by grammarians in terms of "grammatical categories". Such are, for instance, the categories of number or mood in morphology, the categories of communicative purpose or emphasis in syntax, etc. Since the grammatical forms and regularities are 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 central idea of the utterance and the marginal idea, between emotive and unemotive 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 the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood the head of (he family, old Jolyon himself (J. Galsworthy).
The word arrangement 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 lay a young Indian woman (E. Hemingway).
Compare, further, the following:
And ever 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 inverted word order is employed to render intense emphasis in a legend-stylised narration.) One thing and one thing only could she do for him (R. Kipling). (Inversion in this case is used to express emotional intensification of the central idea.)
Examples of this and similar kinds will be found in plenty in Modern English literary texts of good style repute.