Theoretical Course of English Grammar
Script by prof.
Nino Kirvalidze
11
Hierarchical structuring of language system.
In modern linguistics language is regarded as a system of signs which is organized (i.e.
structured) by the principle of hierarchy of levels of lingual units.
The
peculiarity of this
hierarchy lies in the fact that units of any higher level are analyzable into (i.e. are formed of)
units of the immediately lower ones. Thus morphemes are formed of phonemes, words of
morphemes, sentences of phrases and words and so on.
But this hierarchical relation does not imply that it might be reduced to the mechanical
composition of larger units from the smaller ones. Units of each level are characterized by their
own, specific functional features according to which they differ from each other.
The lowest level of lingual units is a phonemic level which is formed by phonemes. Pho-
nemes are not signs yet as they have no meaning. They serve as material elements to
build the
higher level segments – morphemes and words. Their function is purely differential, as they
differentiate morphemes and words as material bodies. For instance:
bad
[b
æ
d] and
bed
[bed];
pork
and
fork
, etc. Phonemes are represented by letters in writing.
Units of the higher levels are meaningful, therefore they represent signs.
The level located above the phonemic is a morphemic or morphological level. The mor-
pheme is an elementary meaningful part of the word. It is built up
by a sequence of phonemes
or even by one phoneme. E.g.: ros-y; come-s, etc.
The third level in the lingual hierarchy is the lexemic level represented by words as lexi-
cal items or lexemes.
The word is built up by a sequence of morphemes or one morpheme and
it
is the smallest naming (nominative) unit of language
:
it names things, their qualities or their
relations.
The fourth level in the hierarchy of language system is the syntactic level the main unit of
which is a sentence.
The sentence is an elementary full sign as
it not only names a certain
extralinguistic situation or event but performs communicative function as well, transmitting a
piece of information.
The sentence is not the highest unit of language in the hierarchy of levels. The highest
level of lingual units is the textual level represented by a text.
From
the structural viewpoint,
text can be defined as a sequence of thematically interrelated well-formed sentences.
Unlike a
Theoretical Course of English Grammar
Script by prof.
Nino Kirvalidze
12
sentence, text nominates a set of extralinguistic events or situations which constitutes its target
(referential) space.
From the functionalist viewpoint, a lingual unit of any length, be it a sequence of themat-
ically interrelated
well-formed sentences, one simple sentence or even a word, can be defined
as a text if it performs a communicative function. This definition explains the existence of such
one-word texts as: “Fire!”; “Help!” and many others, which are restricted
by the setting of the
given speech act.
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