Morphology and syntax as parts of grammar. Main units of grammar and types of relations between grammatical units in language and speech.

Morphology and syntax as parts of grammar. Main units of grammar and types of relations between grammatical units in language and speech.

GRAMMAR: a structural element of language along with phonetics and vocabulary (lexis).

LANGUAGE: a system of means employed to reflect reality in the ideal form and exchange ideas in the process of communication.

SPEECH: the use of language by a speaking community in the process of communication.

Language and speech are inseparable:

• speech is impossible without language;

• language exists only in speech, is manifested in speech and is deduced from speech for the purposes of research.

Three structural parts of language:

• Phonetic system: the material, substance of language (sounds and prosody).

• Lexical system: the naming units of language (words and set phrases).

• Grammatical system: means of connecting naming units into utterances (word-changing, combinability, word order, prosodic means).

Two components of grammar:

1 Morphology is concerned with the structure of words (word-building and form-building).

• Morphemes and words/word-forms

• Paradigmatic relations of units.

2 Syntax studies combinations of words in sentences, organization of utterances.

• Phrases/word-groups and sentences/clauses

• Syntagmatic relations of units.

MORPHOLOGICAL UNITS

• The word is the smallest naming unit characterized by the unity of form and content/meaning.

• morphemes – the smallest /minimal meaningful units:

over-care-ful-ness dis-agree-d

MORPHEMES

• lexical (free morphemes – roots);

• lexico-grammatical (stem-building, or derivational affixes – prefixes and suffixes);

• grammatical (form-building suffixes – endings/inflexions).

• Morphs – speech/textual representations of the morpheme.

• Allomorphs – different variants of the same morpheme.

• Positive vs zero morphemes.

TYPES OF DISTRIBUTION

• complementary (allomorphs) – the same meaning in different environments:

books, dogs, children

• contrastive – different meaning in the same environment: played – playing

• non-contrastive – the same meaning in the same environment): learned– learnt

SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS

• linear relations of dissimilar units in a speech chain;

• unite linguistic elements which can combine, but not replace each other;

The elements connected syntagmatically produce a unit of a higher rank

Between phonemes

t - ea - ch vs ch - ea - t (* t - ch - ea)

Between morphemes

teach - er (* er - teach)

Between words

teachers and students

(* and teachers students)

PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS

• systemic relations observed in language;

• associative relations of partially similar units;

• unite elements which cannot combine but can replace each other in a speech chain.

A paradigm is a set of units related to each other by association with some distinctive feature, or category.

• LEXEME (common lexical meaning — different grammatical meanings)

(play plays played playing)

• GRAMMEME (common grammatical meaning — different lexical meanings)

(Played, smiled,brought, spoke)

Main grammatical notions. Grammatical meaning and grammatical form.

Grammatical categories. Method of opposition.

Grammatical form

• Morphological synthetic:

- affixation

- sound interchange

- suppletivity

- stress (in Russian)

• Analytical

• Syntactic:

- formal words (prepositions, conjunctions)

- word order / position

- intonation

Grammatical meaning

• a general, abstract meaning which characterizes a certain grammatical class of words and is invariably associated with a certain grammatical form.

• If the lexical meaning of the word is rooted in its stem, the grammatical meaning relies mostly on the grammatical affixes of the word form.

• is highly generalized; the number of grammatical meanings is limited;

• is dependent (expressed only together with the lexical meaning):

Lishes rop pibs; Pibs are ropped by lishes; etc.

• is relative (revealed only in relation of the given word form to the other forms of the same word):

talks — a talk t alks — talked

3. Grammatical category – a generalized grammatical meaning revealed through the opposition of grammatical forms representing the particular meanings of the category

Room^-- (Sg) vs rooms⁺ (Pl)

(categorial forms of the category of Number)

• neutralization - unmarked member expressing the meaning of the marked one;

• transposition - marked member in the meaning of the unmarked one (stylistically marked):

You are always interfering!

Features of grammatical categories:

• A grammatical category should be represented by at least two categorial forms.

• One word form can represent different grammatical categories (boys' – Pl, Poss.).

• One word form can express only one grammatical meaning of a certain category (boys is only Pl, but never Sg and Pl at the same time).

• One particular grammatical meaning cannot be expressed in all the forms of the word. Part of the paradigm should represent the opposite grammatical meaning of the category. Otherwise the category is lexico-grammatical.

Method of opposition: binary and ternary (big ÷ bigger ÷ the biggest) Types:

- Privative (1 member has a certain distinctive feature – marked, strong; the other – unmarked, weak)boy ÷ boys

- Equipollent (both members are marked)– am ÷ is

Gradual – the idea of gradation (adjectives) big ÷ bigger ÷ the biggest.

 

Notional and functional classes of words.

The four notional parts of speech form a lexical paradigm of nomination — a system of transposition of each member of the paradigm into the other members:
wide (aj) – width (n) – widen (v) –widely (av)

Both traditional & Synthectico-distributional classifications divide words into notional & functional. Originally, they reflect the former morphological division of words into changeable & unchangeable. Modern linguistics differentiates not & fun parts of speech on the basis of: the prominence of their meaning, peculiarities of their combinability, the ability to be substituted by a word of a more general meaning (hyperonims table – furniture). Notional words are characterized by complete nom force, self-dependent functions in the S. They can be used in isolation & they can be by a word of a more general meaning. Functional words possess incomplete nom force, they have very wide lexical meaning. They perform non-self-dependent mediatory (linking,specifying) functions. They are characterized by obligatory combinability. Fries specified them: 1) words with unilateral combinability (articles, auxiliaries, modals); 2) words with bilateral combinability (prepositions & conjunctions which join words & word groups, not sentences); 3) heterogeneous class which unites introductory ‘it’, ‘their’,, interrogative words,interjections.. There are also structural words which can take the position of not words. They are often called PRO-words or substitutes. They constitute a class of words that takes an intermediate position between notional and functional words.

CLOSED-SYSTEM PRO-WORDS

Pronouns — function like / instead of nouns or adjectives;

pronominal adverbs ( here, there, now, then) — deictic meaning;

numerals — function like nouns (cardinal) or adjectives (ordinal).

Notional classes of words

• Class 1 ~ N + Prn, Num (cardinal);

• Class 2 ~ Vb – Aux & Modal;

• Class 3 ~ Adj + Prn, N's, Num (ordinal);

• Class 4 ~ Adv

154 functional words (individual, unique) arranged in 15 classes. They can be distributed among the three main sets: specifiers of notional words (determiners of nouns, modal verbs, functional modifiers and intensifiers of adjectives and adverbs) interpositional elements, determining the relation of notional words to one another (prepositions and conjunctions) refer to the sentence as a whole (question words, attention-getting words, words of affirmation and negation, sentence introducers (it, there))

Criteria classification

Vinogradov –> Russian grammar

Smirnitsky, Ilyish –> English grammar

There is a unity of classification criteria:

1. Semantic (lexico-grammatical meaning);

2. Morphological (grammatical categories and derivational patterns);

3. Syntactic (combinability and function)

Typical types of combinability 1) Left-hand;prepositional connection with another noun or an adj, an adv: an enterance to the house, the turn round the corner; 2) casal combinability characterizes the noun alongside of its prepositional combinability with another noun. (E.g. the speech of the President - the president's speech.)

3)contact combinability (E.g. film festivals, a cannon ball.)

The three criteria applied to notional parts of speech:

• NOUN: 1) substance;

2) number & case; derivational suffixes;

3) combinability with A, Prp, Adj, Vb; functions of S, O, C.

• ADJ: 1) property of substance;

• 2) degrees of comparison; derivational suffixes;

3) combinability with N, Adv, Vb; functions of M_n C_s .

VERB: 1) process;

2) tense, voice, aspect, mood, person, number,order; derivational suffixes;

3) combinability with N, Adj, Adv; function of P.

ADV: 1) property of process;

2) degrees of comparison; derivational suffixes;

3) combinability with Vb, Adj, Adv; functions of M_v .

PRONOUN

• Pronouns have no referential meaning. Their lexico-grammatical meaning is deixis — indication, pointing to things and properties.

• The morphological and syntactic criteria – are different in different subgroups of pronoun.

• Noun pronouns (personal, indefinite, absolute possessive) and adjective pronouns (demonstrative, relative, conjoint possessive, indefinite).

 

THE CATEGORY OF NUMBER

Singular ^--

• the weak (unmarked) member of the opposition, both in form and in meaning;

• no positive mark;

broad and indefinite grammatical meaning

Plural ⁺

• the strong (marked) member of the opposition;

• marked by a special morpheme of plurality;

concrete and bright grammatical meaning

Morpheme of plurality:

Productive:

-(e)s:

Allomorphs

[s] [z] [iz]

books boys boxes

cats girls places

Unproductive:

• -en: children, oxen

• 0: sheep, salmon

• vowel interchange:

man – men, goose – geese, etc.

• Greek & Latin endings:

a – ae, um – a, us – i,

Countable

• Singular — «oneness»

• Plural — «more-than-oneness»

Uncountable

• Singularia Tantum

(cream, advice, money)

• Pluralia Tantum

(scissors, goods, cattle)

NUMBER OF THE NOUN

Discrete

Count uncount

Sg & Pl Pl

Indiscrete

Uncountable

Sg ( milk, butter, news.)

 

CASE

Common ^--

student —

students —

• unmarked (vague, indefinite) meaning

Possessive / Genitive ⁺

— student’s

— students’

* marked Plurals:

children’s, men’s, women’s

• marked meaning (limitation of the noun reference)

Meanings of the Genitive Case:

• Possession: the boy’s toy the boy has a toy;

• origin: Shaw’s plays Shaw wrote the plays;

• social relations: Judy’s friends;

• part of a whole: the girl’s eyes;

• subjective Genitive:

the student’s reply the student replied;

• objective Genitive:

Napoleon’s defeat X defeated Napoleon / Napoleon was defeated by X;

• quantitative Genitive: three miles’ walk;

• qualitative / descriptive Genitive:

angel’s smile, sheep’s eyes

• Lexicalization of the Genitive case morpheme (locative meaning):

baker’s, florist’s, St Paul’s

The Genitive Case is used with the following groups of nouns:

• names of persons (the boy's shirt, George Washington's statue);

• collective nouns (the government's statement, the nation's social security);

• higher animals (the horse's hoof, the lion's tail);

• locative nouns (Europe's future, the school's history);

• temporal nouns (a moment's thought);

The Theory of Prepositional / Analytical Cases (G. Curme):

Counterarguments:

• Prepositions preserve their lexical meaning;

• The number of “prepositional” cases is not definite;

• some prepositional constructions are synonymous with the synthetic case forms:

my dog's toys = the toys of my dog

Relations between words in the sentence can be expressed:

• Morphologically (by means of case forms);

• Syntactically (by means of prepositions and word order).

The category of case of the English noun has not disappeared but has radically transformed:

• The grammatical meaning of the opposition is limitation / non-limitation of the noun reference.

• The case inflection has acquired mobility within the noun phrase.

• The semantic and syntactic capacity of the category has narrowed.

• The present category of case is subsidiary to the syntactic expression of the relations of the noun.

 

Full

• Sg & Pl number: a native – natives

• case: native – native’s

• definite, indefinite a native – the native

Partial

• the definite article;

• one number:

Sg: the unknown (abstract)

Pl: the brave (collective)

The nature of the Article?

• a word (a separate part of speech)

A+N is a phrase

• an auxiliary element, a word morpheme

A+N is an analytical form of the noun

Article as a Determiner

Definite

• definite article

• demonstrative prn

• possessive prn

• N’s

Indefinite

• indefinite article

• pronouns some, any, no, every, each

• absence of any determiner

The category of aspect.

• a major semantic category denoting the character of the action.

• aspective meanings: repetition, duration, completion, beginning, result, etc.

• Aspective meanings can be expressed both lexically (begin / continue / finish, etc. + Infinitive or Gerund) and grammatically.

• Aspective meaning of result or completion characteristic ofof terminative verbs in perfect forms is lexical, so perfect forms do not belong to the category of aspect.

The grammatical category of Aspect is represented by the opposition of non-continuous and continuous forms:

writes^-- – is writing⁺

Continuous (marked) forms are not tenses:

• two tense meanings in one form are impossible;

• in writes – is writing⁺ tense is the same – Present.

• analytical: auxiliary verb to be + - ing form.

• The discontinuous morpheme: be…ing( These morphemes don’t include the root of the notional verb)

• meaning: an action in progress, in its continuity;

• The category of Aspect covers both finite and non-finite forms of the verb (Infinitive)

to write — to be writing

to have written — to have been writing

Aspect denotes the character of the action, the manner of its development.

Durative verbs

the difference between Common and Continuous forms is purely grammatical and can be neutralized: He is working on some kind of invention. -- He works on some kind of invention.

Terminative verbs

Common and Continuous forms are not interchangeable because of the important semantic difference: He broke three cups. — He was breaking cups. The bus stopped. — The bus was stopping.

 

 

The category of Voice

• Morphological expression of the relations between the action, its subject and object.

• grammatical Subject and Object (подлежащее и дополнение);

• semantic subject and object (субъект и объект);

• The form of the verb shows what semantic roles the grammatical Subject and Object perform in the sentence.

ACTIVE -The action issues from the grammatical Subject coinciding with the semantic subject – the doer of the action): He wrote the letter.

S_gr/sem O_gr/sem

PASSIVE -The action is experienced by the grammatical Subject (the semantic object), the Subject is acted upon: The letter was written (by him)

S_gr= O_sem O_gr= S_sem

VOICE opposition

• Covers both finite and non-finite forms of the verb: writes^-- – is written⁺ to write^-- – to be written⁺ writing^-- – being written⁺

• The Passive form (marked / strong member of the opposition) — analytical: to be + Participle II

• discontinuous morpheme: be…en

• meaning of the marked member: the grammatical Subject is acted upon, it receives the action from the outside.

ACTIVE (weak member)

• presents the action as originating in the grammatical Subject, the Subject is not acted upon:

Lexically active (Kill, beat, break, etc.) and passive (suffer, see, hear, etc) (lexically passive in the active voice) verbs

The Middle / Neuter Voice?

The door opened; The paper burned; The water boiled.

• the form of the verb is active;

• the grammatical meaning: the process is going on in the Subject Є the grammatical meaning of the Active Voice: the Subject is NOT acted upon from the outside.

• Lexically passive verbs in the active voice.

The Active construction

• for objective transitive verbs) – three obligatory elements: Subject, Predicate, Object: They cooked a slap-up supper.

• for subjective intransitive verbs – Subject, Predicate (no Object): He smiled. The door opened.

The Passive construction

• Essentially two-member: has only two obligatory members – the Subject ( Semantic object) and the Predicate (the Object = the semantic subject – is optional) – short Passive: I was much interviewed and much photographed.

• the semantic subject may be expressed by the grammatical prepositional object (by-object) – long Passive: He was surrounded [by a ring of men].

MOOD and MODALITY

• Mood – grammatical category of the verb expressing modality (a morphological expression of modality);

• Modality – a broad linguistic conceptual category denoting the speaker's evaluation of reality.

• Means of expressing modality:

- phonetic (intonation, prosody);

- lexical (modal verbs, modal words, words with a modal meaning);

- grammatical (moods).

Modality

• Linguistic o bjective modality – the relation of the action to reality as stated by the speaker (the speaker presents the action as a real or imaginary, problematic fact).

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

• expressed morphologically by the category of Mood.

• Linguistic subjective (secondary) modality – the subjective evaluation of the event by the speaker or the doer of the action.

• expressed lexically:

(a) modal verbs or verbs with a modal meaning: I must apologize to you. He wanted to leave;

(b) modal words: Unfortunately, he fell ill.

Category of Mood

• the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.

• Mood is characteristic only of finite forms of the verb: a predicative category.

Mood meanings

• the Indicative (читаю – читал – буду читать), represents an action as a real fact in the present, past or future;

• the Imperative (читай – читайте), represents an action as a direct urge in the form of a command, request, etc.;

• the Subjunctive (читал бы), represents an action as a non-fact – imaginary, problematic, contrary to reality.

The category of Mood in English (established facts):

• There IS a category of Mood in English;

• There are at least two Moods in English;

• There is the Indicative Mood in English.

disputable number of moods in English:

• 2 moods: indicative and imperative ( L.S.Barkhudarov);

• 3 moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive (B.A.Ilyish, I.P.Ivanova –the tradit. point of view);

• 6 moods: indicative, imperative and 4 oblique (A.I.Smirnitsky);

• 7 moods: indicative, optative (imperative, desiderative), speculative (G.N. Vorontsova);

• 15-16 moods (M. Deutschbein, E. Nida)

• V.Ya. Plotkin denies the existence of the category of Mood in English altogether.

Subjunctive Mood forms

• be/go – subordinate nominal and adverbial clauses of purpose and concession He suggested that he come for her.

• were/went – object clauses after the verb to wish, after it's high time, in adverbial clauses with the conjunctions if, as if, even if: He looked at me as if he were enjoying a good joke at my expense.

FINITE FORMS

• Pure process

• Verbal representation

NON-FINITE FORMS

• nominalized process (process as substance or quality)

• Nominal representation

Substantival Adjectival

Gerund Infinitive Participle I & II

1. Lexico-grammatical meaning:

FINITE FORMS – pure process

NON-FINITE FORMS - combination of the meaning of the verb and the noun (Gerund and Infinitive) – process as substance; the verb and the adjective (Participle) – process as quality.

2. Stem-building patterns of the verb (both finite and non-finite):

• suffixes: -ize, -en, -ify, -ate, etc.

• prefixes: re-, under-, out-, sub-, mis-, etc.

• conversion: N V: master – to master, cloud – to cloud, house – house, etc.

• composition: V+postpositive adverb: go on, stand up, give in, pay off, etc.

• (only verbals): grammatical group suffixes: -ing, -ed, -en, to.

3. Morphological categories:

FINITE FORMS

• aspect, order, voice

• mood, tense, (posteriority), person (purely verbal syntactic, predicative categories);

• number – nominal categoriy reflected in the verb

NON-FINITE FORMS

• aspect, order, voice (all-verbal categories)

4. Syntactic functions:

FINITE FORMS - predicate

NON-FINITE FORMS

• those of the noun, the adjective or adverb

• «predicate» of secondary predicative groups:

23. Complex Sentence.Structural classification.

The Complex Sentence is a polypredicative construction built up on the principle of subordination. The Complex Sentence of minimal composition includes two clauses - a principal one and a subordinate one. Although the principal clause positionally dominates the subordinate clause, the two form a semantico-syntactic unity, in which they are interconnected.The subordinate clause is joined to the principal one either by a subordinating connector (subordinator) or asyndetically.

SYNTACTIC UNITS

Word group (phrase)

• naming unit;

• non-predicative: to read a book, reading a book

• has no intonation

clause (sentence)

• unit of communication;

• predicative: I read a book.

• intonation is inseparable from the syntactic structure: To be or not to be? Silence!

PHRASE – a group of words joined syntagmatically

• Free phrases – syntactic units;

• analytical forms – morphological units;

• Set phrases – lexical (phraseological) units: to play the goat VS to play the piano;to have a sweet tooth VS to have a small dog; odds and ends VS cards and books

• structurally equivalent to free phrases;

• semantically equivalent to words;

• not constructed in speech, ready-made

Phrases can consist of

• notional words: cold but clear, a windy day, etc.

• notional and formal words: in the street, at home, etc.

• formal words: up to, so that, such as, etc.

The average length of a word group in speech ranges from 3 to 5 words.

Phrases

endocentric (headed) exocentric (non-headed)

Endocentric structure: the headword can replace the whole structure and have the same syntactic function as the whole group.big house - Noun phrase (NP)

sing songs - Verb phrase (VP)

very long - Adjective phrase (AP)

EXOCENTRIC word groups consist of two elements neither of which is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole:

prepositional phrases: round the corner, in the street

predicative phrases – combinations of nouns with finite or non-finite verbs: the boy runs, the boy to run, the boy running

 

4. Means of form-building.

There are two principal types of form-building means: synthetic and analytical. The synthetic form-building means is the expression of the relation of words in the sentence by means of a change in the word itself. There are three types of the synthetic form-building means: affixation, sound interchange (morphological alteration), suppletivety (suppletive means). Affixation is the most productive means of expressing a grammatical meaning. The number of grammatical suffixes is small (8). They are:-s, -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -en, -m (him, them, whom), zero. Sound interchange is a change of a sound in the root of the word. There exist two kinds of sound interchange – vowel and consonant ones (spend – spent). This type of form-building means is non-productive. In suppletive forms there is a complete change of the phonetic shape of the root. Suppletive forms belonging to the paradigm of a certain word were borrowed from different sources. Suppletive forms are found in the paradigm of such words as TO BE, TO GO, degrees of comparison of the adjectives GOOD, BAD and in case-forms of some pronouns. Блох notes that suppletivety can be recognized in the paradigm of some modal verbs too: CAN – BE ABLE, MUST – HAVE TO, MAY – BE ALLOWED. Moreover, he says that it can be observed in pronouns (ONE – SOME), NOUNS (INFORMATION – PIECES OF INFORMATION, MAN – PEOPLE). Suppletive forms are few in number, non-productive, but very important, for they are frequently used

Analytical forms were described as a combination of an auxiliary and a notional word.

This definition is not precise enough and due to its ambiguity such word-combinations as TO THE CHILD, MORE INTERESTING were treated as analytical forms. To define a true analytical form the theory of splitting of functions should be taken into account. There must be a splitting of functions between the elements of an analytical form. The first (auxiliary) element is the bearer of a grammatical meaning only. It is completely devoid of lexical meaning, and it is the second (notional) element that is the bearer of lexical meaning. This process can be complete (perfect form) or incomplete (continuous form). The idiomaticity of an analytical form is a characteristic of a true analytical form. An analytical form functions as a grammatical form of a word. Бархударов notices that “analytical forms have a specific feature, a specific morpheme which is called a discontinuous morpheme which comprises an auxiliary word and a form-building signal of a notional word. The root of a notional word is not included in the discontinuous morpheme (HAVE + -en; BE + -ing).

Syntactic links

1) Agreement – expressing syntactic relationship by the modifier copying the form of the headword.

• In English – between demonstrative pronouns and nouns (this day – these days, that day – those days)

• between the Subject and the Predicate (agreement in Number). English agreement is an agreement of notions rather than agreement of forms. My family are early risers. The United Nations is located in New York.

• The predicates agree not with the grammatical subjects but with their references.

2) Government – the use of a certain form of the adjunct as required by the headword, but not coinciding with it.

3) Adjoinment – expressing syntactic connections without a change of forms, by mere juxtaposition.

• In English, is very widely spread: happy life, give advice, widely known

• The combination of words by adjoinment is limited

(a) grammatically: *Adv+N, *Adj+V

(b) lexically (semantic compatibility): * to read a chair, * long snow

4) Enclosure (замыкание) – some element of a phrase is enclosed between two parts of another element: the then government, an on-the-spot investigation, have never seen, to be always searching

5) Connection (коннекция) – using formal words (prepositions, conjunctions) a book of poetry, rain or snow

 

 

 

 

 

Morphology and syntax as parts of grammar. Main units of grammar and types of relations between grammatical units in language and speech.

GRAMMAR: a structural element of language along with phonetics and vocabulary (lexis).

LANGUAGE: a system of means employed to reflect reality in the ideal form and exchange ideas in the process of communication.

SPEECH: the use of language by a speaking community in the process of communication.

Language and speech are inseparable:

• speech is impossible without language;

• language exists only in speech, is manifested in speech and is deduced from speech for the purposes of research.

Three structural parts of language:

• Phonetic system: the material, substance of language (sounds and prosody).

• Lexical system: the naming units of language (words and set phrases).

• Grammatical system: means of connecting naming units into utterances (word-changing, combinability, word order, prosodic means).

Two components of grammar:

1 Morphology is concerned with the structure of words (word-building and form-building).

• Morphemes and words/word-forms

• Paradigmatic relations of units.

2 Syntax studies combinations of words in sentences, organization of utterances.

• Phrases/word-groups and sentences/clauses

• Syntagmatic relations of units.

MORPHOLOGICAL UNITS

• The word is the smallest naming unit characterized by the unity of form and content/meaning.

• morphemes – the smallest /minimal meaningful units:

over-care-ful-ness dis-agree-d

MORPHEMES

• lexical (free morphemes – roots);

• lexico-grammatical (stem-building, or derivational affixes – prefixes and suffixes);

• grammatical (form-building suffixes – endings/inflexions).

• Morphs – speech/textual representations of the morpheme.

• Allomorphs – different variants of the same morpheme.

• Positive vs zero morphemes.

TYPES OF DISTRIBUTION

• complementary (allomorphs) – the same meaning in different environments:

books, dogs, children

• contrastive – different meaning in the same environment: played – playing

• non-contrastive – the same meaning in the same environment): learned– learnt

SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS

• linear relations of dissimilar units in a speech chain;

• unite linguistic elements which can combine, but not replace each other;

The elements connected syntagmatically produce a unit of a higher rank

Between phonemes

t - ea - ch vs ch - ea - t (* t - ch - ea)

Between morphemes

teach - er (* er - teach)

Between words

teachers and students

(* and teachers students)

PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS

• systemic relations observed in language;

• associative relations of partially similar units;

• unite elements which cannot combine but can replace each other in a speech chain.

A paradigm is a set of units related to each other by association with some distinctive feature, or category.

• LEXEME (common lexical meaning — different grammatical meanings)

(play plays played playing)

• GRAMMEME (common grammatical meaning — different lexical meanings)

(Played, smiled,brought, spoke)