LECTURE 2.

THE WORD AS THE

CENTRAL UNIT OF
LANGUAGE.
GRAMMATICAL
MEANING OF THE
WORD. GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORIES
1. The word as
the central unit
of language
ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE:
THERE ARE THREE
APPROACHES TO TREATING
THE WORD:

1) AS A UNIT OF MEANING
2) AS A PHONOLOGICAL UNIT
3) AS AN INDIVISIBLE UNIT
1) ‘A word may be defined
as a unit of a particular
meaning with a particular
complex of sounds capable
of a particular grammatical
employment’

heavy smoker
criminal lawyer
THAT STUFF THAT’S TOUGH

A NICE CAKE AN ICE CAKE

GREY DAY GRADE A

THE WORD IS THE MAIN EXPRESSIVE UNIT OF HUMAN LANGUAGE, WHICH
ENSURES THE THOUGHT-FORMING FUNCTION OF THE LANGUAGE.

IT IS THE BASIC NOMINATIVE UNIT OF LANGUAGE WITH THE HELP OF

WHICH THE NAMING FUNCTION IS REALIZED.
 CONCEPT
WORD =
SOUND IMAGE
 2. The notion of ‘grammatical
meaning’
THE SEMANITIC STRUCTURE OF THE
WORD COMBINES TWO MEANINGS:
LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL.
LEXCAL MEANING IS THE
INDIVIDUAL MEANING OF THE
WORD.
GRAMMATICAL MEANING IS THE
MEANING OF THE WHOLE CLASS
OR A SUBCLASS.
 MAJOR GRAMMATICAL MEANINGS

• NOUNS THINGNESS
(SUBSTNTIALITY)
• VERBS VERBIALITY
(ABILITY TO DENOTE ACTIONS OR STATES)
• ADJECTIVES QUALITATIVENSS
(ABILITY TO DENOTE QUALITIES)
• ADVERBS ADVERBIALITY
(ABILITY TO DENOTE QUALITY OF QUALITIES)
 3.TYPES OF GRAMMATICAL
MEANING

THE GRAMMATICAL MEANING MAY BE

EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT.
‘EXPLICIT’ MEANS SOMETHING CLEARLY
AND FULLY EXPRESSED.
‘IMPLICIT’ MEANS SOMETHING IMPLIED
OR UNDERSTOOD THOUGH NOT
DIRECTLY EXPRESSED.
THE EXPLICIT GRAMMATICAL
MEANING IS ALWAYS MARKED
MORPHOLOGICALLY.

THE IMPLICIT GRAMMATICAL

MEANING IS NOT FORMALLY
EXPRESSED.
THE IMPLICIT GRAMMATICAL
MEANING CAN BE OF TWO TYPES:
GENERAL AND DEPENDENT.
THE GENERAL GRAMMATICAL
MEANING IS THE MEANING OF THE
WHOLE CLASS – THE PART OF SPEECH
MEANING.
THE DEPENDENT GRAMMATICAL
MEANING IS THE MEANING OF A
SUBCLASS WITHIN THE SAME PART
OF SPEECH.
 THE DEPENDENT
GRAMMATICAL MEANING
INFLUENCES THE REALIZATION
OF GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORIES!!!
 GRAMMATICAL MEANING

EXPLICIT IMPLICIT

GENERAL DEPENDENT
4.THE NOTION OF ‘GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORY’

CONCEPTUAL REALITY

OBJECTIVE REALITY LINGUAL REALITY

 CONCEPTUAL CATEGORY

OBJECTIVE CATEGORY GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY

 QUANTITATIVENESS

QUANTITY NUMBER
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES CAN BE OF
TWO TYPES:
REFERENTIAL AND SIGNIFICATIONAL.

REFERENTIAL GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

HAVE REFERENCES IN THE OBJECTICE
REALITY.

SIGNIFICATIONAL GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORIES HAVE NO REFERENCES IN
THE OBJECTIVE REALITY – THEY
CORRELATE ONLY WITH CONCEPTUAL
MATTERS.
CONCEPTUAL CORRELATE

LINGUAL CORRELATE
 5.THE NOTION OF ‘OPPOSITION’

OPPOSITION IS THE RELATION

BETWEEN TWO GRAMMATICAL
FORMS DIFFERING IN MEANING
AND EXTERNAL SIGNS
Opposition in linguistics is usually
marked by means of four dots
::
E.G. BOOK :: BOOKS
A BINARY OPPOSITION USUALLY
CONSISTS OF TWO MEMBERS:

A MARKED MEMBER :: AN UNMARKED MEMEBER

 ALL GRAMMATICAL

CATEGORIES

ARE REALIZED THROUGH

OPPOSITIONS!!!
 6. Transposition and
neutralization of morphological
forms
TRANSPOSITION IS THE USE OF A
LINGUISTIC UNIT (OR GRAMMATICAL
FORM) IN THE FUNCTION THAT IS NOT
CHARACTERICTIC OF IT
NEUTRALIZATION IS THE REDUCTION
OF THE OPPOSITION TO ONE OF ITS
MEMBERS
X :: CUSTOMS
 Кафедра германської і фіно-угорської філології
проф. Волкова Л.М.
Теми курсових з теоретичної граматики англійської мови
(для студентів факультету германської філології і перекладу
2022-2023 навч.рік

1. Functional peculiarities of articles in Modern English.

2. Prepositions in Modern English: structure and functions.
3. Functional peculiarities of the Passive voice.
4. The category of voice in English: theoretical and functional aspects.
5. Theoretical and practical aspects of non-finite forms of the verb in English.
6. Means of expressing modality in Modern English.
7. Lexical-grammatical classes of words. The parts of speech problem.
8. Modal verbs in Modern English: semantics and functioning.
9. The category of modality: modal verbs, Subjunctive Mood and modal words.
10. Theoretical aspects of the verb: classes, grammatical categories, functioning.
11. The category of aspect in Modern English: functional peculiarities.
12. The adverb as a part of speech: functional peculiarities, the problem of classification.
13. English interjections: communicative and pragmatic aspects.
14. Interrogative utterances in the English dialogical discourse.
15. Function words in Modern English: the problem of classification and peculiarities.
16. Functional peculiarities of the category of voice in Modern English.
17. The category of aspect in Modern English: functional approach.
18. Grammatical categories of the verb within the scope of linguistic analysis.
19. Modal verbs as a means of verbalization of the author’s intention.
20. The parts of speech problem in Modern English.
21. Function words in language and speech: theoretical and practical aspects.
22. Semantic and pragmatic peculiarities of particles in Modern English discourse.
23. Modal words as markers of the author’s intention in Modern English.
24. Emotional aspect of English interjections.
25. Emotional aspect of exclamatory utterances.
26. Means of rendering emotions in Modern English.
27. Emotional communication: distinctive features.
28. Generative grammar: current trends
29. Noam Chomsky’s main theories of language.
30. Text Linguistics: means of textual coherence and cohesion.
31. Speech Act Theory: basic principles and notions.
32. Speech Act Theory: direct and indirect speech acts.
33. Classifications of speech acts by different language analysts.
34. Indirect speech acts in communication.
35. Discourse Analysis as the study of language in use: current trends.
36. Basic directions of Discourse Analysis.
37. Cooperative Principle: communicative maxims.
38. Theory of Implicature by Paul Grice.
39. Politeness theory: positive and negative politeness.
40. Politeness strategies in Modern English conversational discourse.
41. Pragmatic linguistics: current trends and directions.
42. Indirect speech acts as a means of realization of Politeness Principal.
43. Face saving strategies and tactics.
44. Political discourse as a linguistic phenomenon.
45. Dialogical discourse as an object of linguistic analysis.