Ministry of higher and secondary education of the republic of uzbekistan karakalpak state university

Lecture 4 Theme: Morphology and Syntax Problems for discussion:

1. 
   The definition of morphology
   
2. 
   The definition of syntax
   
   1. 
      paradigmatic morphology
      
   2. 
      syntagmatic morphology
      
   3. 
      paradigmatic syntax
      
   4. 
      syntagmatic syntax
      
3. 
   morphemes
   
4. 
   word and morpheme.
   

The usual definition of morphology, which may be accepted as it stands, Is this: morphology is the part of grammar which treats of the forms of words. As for the usual definition of syntax, it may be said to be this: syntax is the part of grammar which treats of phrases ans sentences.
These definitions are based on the assumption that we can clearly distinguish between words and phrases.
The problem becomes more complicated if we take into account such formations as has been often found, where one word "often" comes to stand between two elements of the form of another word "find". Such formations will have to be considered both under morphology and under syntax.
There is another way of approach to the problem of the distinguishing between morphology and syntax. For instance, could you take me in to town? The word take which is used in the snetence can be considered from two different viewpoints.
On the hand, we can consider it in its surroundings in the sentence, namely in its connection with the word "you", which denotes the door of the action, with the word "me", which denotes the object of the action,etc. This would be analysing the syntagmatic connections of the word "take".
On the other hand, we can consider "take" as part of a system including the forms observe that this system is analogous, both in sound alternation andin meanings, to the system forsake forsakes, forsaking, forsook, forsaken, and in a wider perspective, to the system write, writes, writing, wrote, written; sing,sings, singing, sang, sung, etc.
This would be analysing the paradigmatic connections of "take", and this gradually opens up a broad view into the morphological system of the language. The connection between "took and wrote" is entirely unsyntagmatic, as a sequence "took wrote" is unthinkable.
It may be said that in a way, morphology is more abstract than syntax, as it does not study connections between words actually used together in sentences, but conections between forms actually found in different sentences and, as it were extracted from their natural surroundings.
In the another way, morphology would appear to be less abstract than syntax, as it studies unity of a smaller and, where as syntax deals with larger units, whose types and varieties are hard to number and exhaust.
Analytical verb forms mentioned above such as "have done, will go" etc. They are morphological facts in so far as they belong to the system of the verb in question, as the auxiliary verb adds nothing whatever to the lexical meaning expressed in the infinitive or participle making part of the analytical form. But the same forms are fact of syntax in so far as they consist of two or three or sometimes four elements and occsionally some other word, which does not any way make part of the analytical form, may come in between them. It is true that in modern english possibilities of such insertions are not very great, yet they exist and must be taken into account. We will not go into details here and we will only point out that such words as often, never, perhaps,probably etc. They must come between elements of an analytical verb form: has always come, will probably say etc.
According to a modern view, the relation between morphology and syntax is not so simple as had been generally assumed. In this view we distinguish between two angles of research:

1. 
   The elements dealt with; from this point we divide grammatical investigation into two fields: morphology and syntax.
   
2. 
   These elements are studied: from this viewpoint we distinguish between paradigmatic and syntagmatic study. So we get four divisions: 1. a)paradigmatic morphology, b) syntagmatic morphology. 2. a)paradigmatic syntax. B) syntagmatic syntax.
   

Paradigmatic morphology is what we used to call morphology and syntagmatic syntax is what we used to call syntax.
Syntagmatic morphology is the study of phrases: "substantive+subsubstantive"; "adjective=substantive"; "verb=substantive"; "verb=adverb", etc.
The usual definition of morphology, which may be accepted as it stands, is this: morphology is the part of grammar which treats of the forms of words. As for the usual definition of syntax, it may be said to be this: syntax is the part of grammar which treats of phrases ans sentences.
These definitions are based on the assumption that we can clearly distinguish between words and phrases.
The problem becomes more complicated if we take into account such formations as has been often found, where one word "often" comes to stand between two elements of the form of another word "find". Such formations will have to be considered both under morphology and under syntax.
There is another way of approach to the problem of the distinguishing between morphology and syntax. For instance, could you take me in to town? The word take which is used in the snetence can be considered from two different viewpoints.
On the hand, we can consider it in its surroundings in the sentence, namely in its connection with the word "you", which denotes the door of the action, with the word "me", which denotes the object of the action,etc. This would be analysing the syntagmatic connections of the word "take".
On the other hand, we can consider "take" as part of a system including the forms observe that this system is analogous, both in sound alternation andin meanings, to the system forsake forsakes, forsaking, forsook, forsaken, and in a wider perspective, to the system write, writes, writing, wrote, written; sing,sings, singing, sang, sung, etc.
This would be analysing the paradigmatic connections of "take", and this gradually opens up a broad view into the morphological system of the language. The connection between "took and wrote" is entirely unsyntagmatic, as a sequence "took wrote" is unthinkable.
It may be said that in a way, morphology is more abstract than syntax, as it does not study connections between words actually used together in sentences, but conections between forms actually found in different sentences and, as it were extracted from their natural surroundings.
In the another way, morphology would appear to be less abstract than syntax, as it studies unity of a smaller and, where as syntax deals with larger units, whose types and varieties are hard to number and exhaust.
Analytical verb forms mentioned above such as "have done, will go" etc. They are morphological facts in so far as they belong to the system of the verb in question, as the auxiliary verb adds nothing whatever to the lexical meaning expressed in the infinitive or participle making part of the analytical form. But the same forms are fact of syntax in so far as they consist of two or three or sometimes four elements and occsionally some other word, which does not any way make part of the analytical form, may come in between them. It is true that in modern english possibilities of such insertions are not very great, yet they exist and must be taken into account. We will not go into details here and we will only point out that such words as often, never, perhaps,probably etc. They must come between elements of an analytical verb form: has always come, will probably say etc.
According to a modern view, the relation between morphology and syntax is not so simple as had been generally assumed. In this view we distinguish between two angles of research:

1. 
   The elements dealt with; from this point we divide grammatical investigation into two fields: morphology and syntax.
   
2. 
   These elements are studied: from this viewpoint we distinguish between paradigmatic and syntagmatic study. So we get four divisions: 1. a)paradigmatic morphology, b) syntagmatic morphology. 2. a)paradigmatic syntax. B) syntagmatic syntax.
   

Paradigmatic morphology is what we used to call morphology and syntagmatic syntax is what we used to call syntax.
Syntagmatic morphology is the study of phrases: "substantive+subsubstantive"; "adjective=substantive"; "verb=substantive"; "verb=adverb", etc.
Paradigmatic syntax is a part of grammatical theory wmch am not appear as such in traditional system. For instance: 1) my friend has come.

2. 
   my friend has not come.
   
3. 
   has my friend come?
   
4. 
   my friend will come.
   
5. 
   my friendwill not come.
   
6. 
   will my friend come?
   
7. 
   my friends have come.
   
8. 
   my friends have not come, etc.
   

All these are considered as variation of one and the same sentence.
Morphemes.
The morpheme is one of the central notions of grammatical theory, without which no serious attempt at grammatical study can be made. Definition of a morpheme has been attempted many times by different scholars. The morphemes are the smallest meaningful units into which a word form may be divided. For instance, if we take the form writers, it can be divided into three morphemes: 1) write-expressing the lexical meaning of the word; 2)-er- expressing the idea of agent performing the action indicated by the root of the verb; 3) -s indicating number, that is, showing that more than one person of the type indicated is meant.
Two additional remarks are neaessary here: 1) two or more morphemes may sound the same but bebasically different, that is they may be homonyms. The morpheme -er, indicating the doer the morpheme -er denoting the comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs as in longer. 2) there may be zero morphemes, that is the absence of a morpheme may indicate a certain meaning.
If we compare the forms book and books, both derived from the stem book, we may say that while books is characterized by the -s morpheme as being a plural form, book is characterized by the zero morpheme as being a singular form.
Scholars belonging to the modern descriptive linguistics approach the problem from this angle: if we compare the four sentences: the student comes; the students come; the ox comes; the oxen come;
The meaning and function of the -en in oxen is the same as the meaning an function of the -s in students. On this account the -s and the -en are said to represent the same morpheme; each of them is a morphem represanting the morpheme, and they are termed allomorphs of the morpheme corresponding to students and oxen is geese where nothing is added, but the root vowel is changed. Thus, the morpheme, in this case has three allomorphs: 1) -s, 2) -en, 3) oo-ee [u:] -[i:].
Word and morpheme. In studying the morpheme we actually study the word in the necessary details of its composition and functions.
It is very difficult to give a rigorous and at the same time universal definition to the word. This difficulty is explained by the fact that the word is extremely complex and many-sided phenomenon. Within the framework of different linguistic trends and theories the wors is defined as the minimal potential sentence, the minimal free linguistic form, the elementary component of th sentence, the articulate sound-symbol, the grammatically arranged combination of sound with meaning, the meaningfully integral and immediately identifiably lingual unit, etc.
Americal scholars-representatives of Descriptive linguistics founded by L.Bloomfield recognized not the word and the sentence, but the pheneme and morpheme as the basic categories of linguistic description, because these units are the easiest to be minimal, elementary segmantal character: a) the phonemebeing the minimal formal segment of language b) the morheme, the minimal meaningful segment.
Accordingly, only two segmental levels were identified in language by escriptive scholars: the phonemic level was added to these - the level of morhemic combinations.
Summing up what has been said in this paragraph we may point out that the morpheme is a meaningful component of the word; the morpheme is formed by phonemes; as a meaningful component of the word it is elementary.
The word is a nominative unit of language; the word is formed by morphemes; it enters the lexicon of language as its elementary component.
This latter item entails some difficulty, as a morpheme is shown not necessarily to be a material entity, that is a phoneme, or a combination of phonemes, sometimes it may be a change of one phoneme into another.
Similarly, in the past tense of verbs the morpheme of the past tense has two allomorphs; 1) –ed, finished, listened 2) the change of vowel, as [ai] – [ou] – write – wrote; as [ i] – [ ]- sing – sang, etc.
In grammar, we are of course concerned with the grammatical or structural, meaning of morphemes. We do not here study the meaning oh the root morphemes, which are necessarily lexical and as to derivation morphemes, which serve to build words. Grammatical relevant and that is the case if they show that the word belongs to a certain part of speech, and if they serve to distinguish one part to speech from another. This grammatical significance of derivation morphemes is always with their lexical meaning. If we take a pair of words: write-verb; writer-noun.
The derivative morpheme “-er” has a grammatical significance, as it serve to distinguish a noun from a verb and it has its lexical meaning, as the lexical meaning of the noun “writer” is different from that of the verb “write”/
Inflection morphemes have no lexical meaning or function. There is no difference in the way of lexical meaning between “live and lived”, “house and houses”.
However, an inflection morpheme can acquire a lexical noun develops a meaning, which the singular form of a has not; the plural form “colors” has a meaning. “lag”, which the singular form “color” has not.
Together with other nominative units, the word is used for the formation I the communicative process.
In traditional grammar the study of the morphemic structure of the word was conducted in the light of the two basic criteria: 1) position ( the location of the margianl morphemes in relation to the central ones).
2) semantic or functional ( correlative contribution of the morphemes to the general meaning of the word). The combination of these two criteria in an integral description of morphemes, that is widely used both in research linguistic work and in practical lingual tuition.

Recommended literature.

1. 
   Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В. Поченцов Г.Г. « Теоретическая Грамматика современного английского языка» М., 1981.
   
2. 
   « Теоретическая Грамматика современного английского языка» Лю, 1983
   
3. 
   Ilyish B.A. “ the structure of Modern English Grammar” Leningrad 1971
   
4. 
   Blokh M.Y. “a course in Theoretical English grammar”. M., 1983
   
5. 
   “ A Theoretical English grammar syntax”. M. 1969
   
6. 
   Linda Thomas “ Beginning Syntax”. Oxford UK, 1983.