FACTORS OF THE LANGUAGE FUNCTIONING.
In their functioning the levels of grammatical organization are based on the principles of integration, the investigation of which is considered to be the widest and therefore the most complicated problem of modern linguistics. The complexity of their revealing lies in a large volume of such factors as: 1) logical (defining the main points of connection of language and thinking); 2) psychological perceiving reality as being divided into separate meaningful fragments common to all the representatives of a definite language community; 3) sociological (discovering some channels of connecting language with the productive activity of people).
The hierarchy of factors: 1) logical, 2) psychological, 3) sociological, - is not, however, of such a direct nature in its functioning. Language is certainly based on the logical factor as on the correlation ground which gives rise to any correction structure of language. But it is tied with the psychological and sociological factors because any meaningful unit is called to life by the psychological factor as well as any language mutations being initially inserted into its code structure are called to life by the sociological factor. Thus language as a relatively independent phenomenon is actually the result of the specific integration of three factors: logical (which is based on), psychological (which governs its evolutional changes), and sociological.
The logical factor presupposes the splitting of the informational contents into two unequal centres known as its theme and rheme. The first gives the initial platform which the process of correlation is fixed from. The second centre contains the main logical meaning for the sake of which the line of correlation is established. The logical factor includes its semantic, paradigmatic, and syntagmatic aspects. The semantic aspect is based on the universally constant meanings (UCMs) which are equal in representing the concept in any grammatical type. This equality is explained by their function to express generalized meanings common to all people. The paradigmatic aspect is based on the constants (Cs) which group together the grammatical categories to form the definite paradigmatic classes or parts of speech. The syntagmatic aspect is based on the paradigmatic one which depends on the position. The latter may be either centripetal (SPbeO) or centrifugal (SPhaveO). The position is governed by the functional syntactic dependence which establishes the main positional components.
The psychological factor divides reality into definite fragments fixed by language units which are reproduced by any member of the same language community. There are also three main aspects of this factor: semantic, paradigmatic, and syntagmatic. The semantic aspect represents the way of the meaningful division of the world by the whole linguistic community of people. This division is fixed in semantic-phonetic complexes. The paradigmatic aspect is expressed in the specific representation of constants from the view-point of the specific set of grammatical categories inherent in each constant (For ex. the constant of nouns which included the categories of old English gender and case while in Modern English this constant is not marked by these categories, but its quality – to render the meaning of substances is the same in all periods of English language history). Therefore the psychological factor predetermines the concrete peculiarities of each individual language at the definite historical period of its development. The syntagmatic aspect is also concentrated in the purely national way of word combinations (for ex. Complex Object, Complex Subject constructions in English).
The sociological factor in its turn presupposes such influence of the extra linguistic phenomena which leads both to: the change of language structures and accelerating the tempo of the language. The sociological factor is stimulating one. It accelerates the action of the language inner rules. The change of the language type or expansion of its borders, interfering with the usual rhythm of the language changes, brings about an accelerating reaction within the language forms. But certainly not every historical fact may become relevant for the language system changes and its transition from one type to another. They cause the appearance of such processes of adstratum, substratum, and superstratum being determined by: 1) the necessity of the quickest possible normalization of the grammatical processes; 2) the preservation of approximately equal tempos of their further development.
