L. Bloomfield, W. Twaddel, B. Bloch, Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris

AMERICAN STRUCTURALISM

L. Bloomfield, W. Twaddel, B. Bloch, Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris

L. Bloomfield: phoneme is a bunch (or cluster) of distinctive features.

W. Twaddel (fictionalist view): phoneme is an abstractional unit, a scientific fiction.

B. Bloch, Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris (materialistic view): phoneme is a class of phonetically similar sounds, contrasting with all similar classes in the language; the phoneme is a mechanical sum of its allophones.

 

2 laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution:

1. Allophones of different phonemes always occur in the same phonetic context;

2. Consequently, the allophones of the same phoneme (with the exception of its free variants) never occur in the same phonetic context and always occur in different positions.

2 conclusions come from these laws:

1. If more or less different speech sounds occur in the same phonetic context, they should be allophones of different phonemes (= contrastive distribution);

2. If more or less similar speech sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic context, they are variants of one and the same phoneme (=complementary distribution).

Thus the phonemic status of a sound can be established even without knowing the meaning of words, that is only on the basis of the distribution of sounds in it. This is the purely distributional method of identifying phonemes.

 

The English Phonetic School

D. Jones: phoneme is a family of sounds, and the members of this family show phonetic similarity. No member of one family can occur in the same context as any other member of this family.

 

THE PROBLEM OF NEUTRALIZATION.

The Moscow Phonological School.

R.I. Avanesov, A.A. Reformatsky, V.N. Sidorov, P.S. Kuznetsov and others.

Cases of neutralization – when it is necessary to state the phonemic status of a sound in neutral position (i.e. in words and their grammatical forms in which the phonemes lose their distinctive function due to the neutralization of a phonemic opposition resulting from the loss of a minimal DF by one member of the opposition).

Problem: to establish the phonemic status of a sound in neutral position.

Decision: morphological approach ( to establish the status of a sound in a phonologically neutral position, one should find an allomorph of the same morpheme in which the phoneme under question occurs in the strong position).

Phoneme is dependent on morpheme.

Phonetic row (R. Avanesov) – a phonetic unit which is represented by a row of sounds changing according to their positions.

Hyperphoneme – a phoneme in a strong position.

THE PROBLEM OF NEUTRALIZATION.

THE COPENHAGEN LINGUISTIC SCHOOL.

COPENHAGEN STRUCTURALISM

L. Hjelmslev, H. Uldall

This approach is very complicated. This is superfunctional approach to the phoneme, the so-called abstract conception of the phoneme. This trend defines phonemes as independent on the acoustic and articulatory properties associated with phonemes. That is independent on speech sounds. These linguists regard the phoneme as an abstract conception existing in mind but not reality. They manifest maximal estrangement between phoneme and sound. R. Jacobson defines this conception algebraic.

 

THE PARTS OF SPEECH

The parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of other classes.

English grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech.

There are 4 approaches to the problem:

- Classical (logical, inflexional)

- Functional

- Distributional

- Complex

1. Classical approach

It is based on Latin grammar. All words are divided into:

Declinable:

- Nouns

- Pronouns

- Verbs

- Participles

Indeclinable:

- Adverbs

- Prepositions

- Conjunctions

- Interjections

It can’t be applied to the English language as the principle of declinability / indeclinability is not relevant for analytical languages.

2. Functional approach

It was introduced in the 19^th century by Henry Sweet. He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out nominative units and particles.

To nominative parts of speech belonged noun words (noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund), adjective words (adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb (finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive and participles); while adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection belonged to the group of particles.

3. Distributional approach

It’s a classification introduced by Charles Fries. He introduced 4 major classes of words and 15 form-classes.

The basis for his analysis formed 3 test frames.

Frame A: The concert was good (always).

Frame B: The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly).

Frame C: The team went there

4. Complex approach

In modern linguistics parts of speech are discriminated according to 3 criteria:

- semantic

- formal

- functional (function in the sentence and combinability)

The semantic criterion presupposed the grammatical meaning of the whole class of words (general grammatical meaning).

Meaning is not the individual meaning of each separate word (lexical meaning) but the meaning common to all the words of the given class and constituting its essence.

The formal criterion reveals paradigmatic properties:

- relevant grammatical categories

- form of the words

- the specific inflexional and derivational features

It is possible to divide all the words of the language into:

notional:

- nouns

- pronouns

- numerals

- verbs

- adjectives

- adverbs

functional:

- particles

- prepositions

- conjunctions

- modal words

- interjections

 

THE NOUN

The noun is the central lexical unit of the language. It’s the main nominative unit of speech.

Semantic features of a noun

The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantivity. According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses:

1) according to the type of nomination: proper and common

2) according to the form of existence: animate and inanimate

Animate nouns fall into: human and non-human

3) according to their quantitative structure: countable and uncountable

 

Morphological features of a noun

In accordance with a morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into:

- simple (neither suffix nor prefix)

- derived (either suffix or prefix or both)

- compound (2 or more stems)

- composite (2 or more stems with suffixes or prefixes)

 

Syntactic features of nouns

The noun can be used in all syntactic functions but predicate.

It can go into right-hand and left-hand connections with practically all parts of speech.

 

The category of number

It is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity.

Number category is realized through the opposition of 2 form-classes:

- the plural form

- the singular form

The singular form may denote:

a) oneness (individual separate object, ex.: a cat)

b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class, ex.: the cat is a domestic animal)

c) indiscreetness or uncountableness, ex.: money, milk

The plural form may denote:

a) the existence of several objects, ex.: cats

b) the inner discreetness, ex.: jeans

THE CATEGORY OF CASE

 

It expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word group or sentence.

It is realized through the opposition: the common case – the possessive case.

There is no universal point to the view as to the case system in English.

Ilyish: Case is a category of a noun expressing relations between the things denoted by a noun and other things or properties and which is manifested in the noun itself.

Boy – the zero-morpheme is a formal sign for the formal case.

Bloch: case is the immanent morphological category of the noun manifested in the forms of noun declension and showing the relations of the nounal referent to other objects and phenomena. It may be called the limited case theory.

Different scholars stick to a different number of cases.

Charles Fillmore distinguished 6 cases (syntactic, semantic approach):

- agentive case, ex.: John opened the door (John – the doer)

- instrumental case, ex.: The key opened the door

- dative case, ex.: John believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected by the state or action identified by the verb)

- factitive case, ex.: The key was damaged (the result of the action or state identified by the verb)

- locative case, ex.: Chicago is windy

- objective case, ex.: John stole the book

John Lyons distinguished 7 cases (semantic approach):

- nominative case, ex.: Tom died.

- acusative case, ex.: John killed Tom.

- dative case, ex.: John gave the money to Tom. John gave Tom the money.

- genetive case, ex.: It was John’s money

- instrumental case, ex.: John killed Tom with a knife

- agentive case, ex.: Tom was killed by Bill. By Bill – agent of the action

- comitative case (in the company with), ex.: Bill went to Tom with Mary

 

There are no cases at all.

The category of case has been destroyed by the theory of possessive postposition by professor Voronzova. She considers that it has the same grammatical function as a preposition. She denies the cases because these prepositional elements may be applied not to nouns but also to other words.

 

THE CATEGORY OF GENDER

According to some language analists (Ilyish, Palmer, Marakovskaya) nouns have no category of gender in modern English as the category of sex should not be confused with the category of gender as sex is an objective biological category.

It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living being are manifested in language grammatically. Ex.: tiger – tigress.

Still other linguists Bloch, Lyons admit the existence of the category of gender.

It can be proved by the correlation of a noun with a personal pronoun of the 3^rd person (he, she, it). Accordingly there are 3 genders in English: feminine, masculine, neuter.

In the plural all the gender distinctions are neutralized.

English nouns can show the sex of their referents lexically by means of being combined with certain notional words used as sex-indicators or by suffixal derivation, ex.: boy-friend – girl-friend, lion – lioness.

 

THE VERB

 

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. It performs the central role in realizing predication – connection between situation in the utterance and reality.

 

Semantic features of the verb

The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote a process developing in time.

 

Morphological features

The verb possesses the following grammatical categories:

- Tense

- Aspect

- Mood

- Person

- Number

- Time correlation

- Voice

 

Syntactic features

- the ability to be modified by adverbs

- the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the predicate

- any verb in the form of the infinitive can be combined with the modal verb.

 

THE CATEGORY OF TENSE

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time.

The tense category is realized through the opposition: present – past.

A lot of scholars don’t recognize the existence of Future tenses as what is described as the future tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs “will” and “shall”.

Bloch: 2 tenses:

- Primary time (present and past opposition)

- Prospective time (future – non-future opposition)

Ilyish: 3 tenses:

- Present

- Past

- Future

 

THE CATEGORY OF VOICE

The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action.

The category of voice is realized through the opposition: Active – Passive.

Some scholars admit the existence of middle, reflexive and reciprocal.

Middle voice, ex.: the book sells easily.

Reflexive voice, ex.: He dressed.

Reciprocal voice, ex.: They kissed each other.

 

THE CATEGORY OF ASPECT

It is a linguistic representation of the objective category of manner of action.

It is realized through the opposition continuous – non-continuous, progressive – non-progressive.

The realization of the category of aspect is connected with lexical meaning of verbs.

 

THE SENTENCE

G.Pocheptsov: the sentence is the central syntactic construction used as the minimal communicative unit that has its primary predication, a definite structural scheme and possesses definite intonation characteristics.

AMERICAN STRUCTURALISM

L. Bloomfield, W. Twaddel, B. Bloch, Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris

L. Bloomfield: phoneme is a bunch (or cluster) of distinctive features.

W. Twaddel (fictionalist view): phoneme is an abstractional unit, a scientific fiction.

B. Bloch, Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris (materialistic view): phoneme is a class of phonetically similar sounds, contrasting with all similar classes in the language; the phoneme is a mechanical sum of its allophones.

 

2 laws of phonemic and allophonic distribution:

1. Allophones of different phonemes always occur in the same phonetic context;

2. Consequently, the allophones of the same phoneme (with the exception of its free variants) never occur in the same phonetic context and always occur in different positions.

2 conclusions come from these laws:

1. If more or less different speech sounds occur in the same phonetic context, they should be allophones of different phonemes (= contrastive distribution);

2. If more or less similar speech sounds occur in different positions and never occur in the same phonetic context, they are variants of one and the same phoneme (=complementary distribution).

Thus the phonemic status of a sound can be established even without knowing the meaning of words, that is only on the basis of the distribution of sounds in it. This is the purely distributional method of identifying phonemes.

 

The English Phonetic School

D. Jones: phoneme is a family of sounds, and the members of this family show phonetic similarity. No member of one family can occur in the same context as any other member of this family.