Theoretical grammar of the English language

1.

THEORETICAL GRAMMAR OF
ENGLISH
PASSWORD:
grammar

2.

ПОЯСНЮВАЛЬНА ЗАПИСКА
Навчальний курс «Теоретична граматика англійської мови» входить до
циклу дисциплін нормативної підготовки. Предметом курсу є теоретичні
засади граматичної побудови англійської мови. Курс з теоретичної граматики
є спрямованим на поглиблення і систематизацію знань студентів з курсу
практичної граматики англійської мови шляхом узагальнення, наукового
осмислення і тлумачення задля формування значущих філологічних
якостей таких як уміння орієнтуватися в різноманітних лінгвістичних
концепціях, критично їх оцінювати та використовувати їхні здобутки у
власних дослідженнях; обирати та застосовувати відповідні лінгвістичні
методи для аналізу явищ і фактів у мовних системах; демонструвати навички
аналізу та інтерпретації мовних фактів і явищ. Теоретичне вивчення
граматики англійської мови передбачає: по-перше, прослуховування
студентами лекційного курсу, спрямованого окреслити основні граматичні
проблеми й підходи до їх вирішення у сучасних лінгвістичних концепціях;
по-друге, проведення семінарських занять, покликаних закріпити й
поглибити теоретичні знання шляхом аналізу та пояснення граматичних
фактів у мовленнєвій комунікації англійською мовою.

3.

ФОРМИ КОНТРОЛЮ
Кількість
балів
Робота на семінарських заняттях (14)
28
Тести на рівень знань термінів
та вміння їх 20
використовувати у відповідних контекстах (2)
Презентація результатів командного дослідницького 12
проекту. Метою проекту є прагматичний аналіз
діалогічного мовлення (діалог повинен включати 12
мовленнєвих актів) на матеріалі
сучасних
англомовних кінофільмів.
РАЗОМ ЗА СЕМЕСТР
60
Екзамен
40
ЗАГАЛЬНА КІЛЬКІСТЬ БАЛІВ
100

4.

TOPICS
WEEK 1
Approaches to the study of English grammar.
Week 2
MORPHOLOGY I
Week 3
MORPHOLOGY II.
Week 4
CATEGORIZATION.
Week 5
NOUN.
Week 6
VERB I.

5.

Week 7
VERB II.
Week 8
SYNTAX. PHRASE.
Week 9
CONSTRUCTION.
Week 10.
CLAUSES AND SENTENCES.
Week 11.
SUBJECT. PREDICATE.
Week 12.
PRAGMATICS.

6.

• Week 13.
• Complex sentences.
• Week 14
• SENTENCE IN THE TEXT. COHESION.

7.

The term “grammar”
• The term “grammar” goes back to a Greek
word that may be translated as the “art of
writing”. Macmillan English Dictionary
defines grammar as “the set of rules that
describe the structure of language and
control the way that sentences are
formed.”

8.

• In education, grammar is classified
in practical and theoretical.

9.

• The aim of practical grammar is the
description of grammar rules that are
necessary to understand and formulate
sentences. It is aimed at providing the
student with a manual of practical mastery of
the grammatical part of language.

10.

• In theoretical grammar three models of
linguistic description are distinguished
– semantic, syntactic and pragmatic – which are
related to three types of relations that lingual
units (or linguistic signs) can go into:
The relation between a lingual unit and an object
of extralingual reality, e.g. between the word
‘table’ and a definite piece of furniture. This type
of meaning is called referential and it is studied
by semantics.

11.

• The relation between lingual units themselves: no
lingual unit can be used independently; it serves as
an element in the system of other units. This kind
of meaning is called syntactic (or formal) and it is
studied by syntax.
• The relation between a unit and a person who uses it.
People use language as an instrument for their
purpose, and one and the same word or sentence may
acquire different meanings in communication. This
type of meaning is called pragmatic (or functional)
and it is studied by pragmatics.

12.

READINGS
Rochelle Lieber “Introducing Morphology” (Cambridge Introductions to Language
and Linguistics), 2009.
Geert Booij “The Grammar of Words. An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology “
(OXFORD TEXTBOOKS IN LINGUISTICS), 2005.
Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language (General Grammar): Longman; 1 edition, 1989.
Huddleston Rodney, Pullum Geoffrey K. The Cambridge Grammar of the English
Language. Beccles: William Clowes Ltd, 2002.
G. Yule, H. G. Widdowson Pragmatics (Oxford Introductions to Language Study)
Oxford University Press, USA; 1St Edition, June 6, 1996.
Halliday M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. - Ldn., 1985.
Halliday M., Hasan R. Cohesion in English. - Ldn., 1976.
Chomsky N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.- Cambr., Mass., 1965.
Chomsky N. Language and Mind.- N.Y., 1972.
Jespersen 0. Essentials of English Grammar. - Ldn., 1946.
Lyons J. Language, Meaning and Context. - Bungay, 1981.
Matthews P.H. Syntax. - Cambr., 1981

13.

APPROACHES TO THE STUDY
OF GRAMMAR

14.

• Traditional
• In the development of traditional grammar
two periods are distinguished:
prescriptive (pre-scientific) and descriptive
(scientific).

15.

• The aim of prescriptive grammar was to
reduce the English language to rules and set
up a standard of correct usage.

16.

• The essence of the descriptive method
runs down to making inventories of
linguistic units and explaining their
structural and functional characteristics at
a certain stage of the development of the
language, i.e. synchronically.

17.

• Structuralism is an approach to
the study of language which
views a language as a structured
system.

18.

Striving to be maximally objective, structural
grammarians
used formal methods
of
analyzing
language:
distributional,
transformational, oppositional and immediate
constituents analyses.

19.

• The distribution of a linguistic element is
the set of its environments, or the sum total
of all the positions of the element relative to
the positions of other elements, within
sentences in which the element can appear.

20.

• The aim of a transformational operation was
to reveal similarities and differences in the
structure of the units under scrutiny or to
reveal their structural potential.

21.

• Oppositional analysis is based on the
principle of binary oppositions. It is equally
effective on different linguistic levels –
phonological, lexical, grammatical.
For instance, the category of number of nouns
is based on the opposition of the marked
member (the plural form) to the unmarked
member (the singular one).

22.

• Componential analysis (CA) is used in
lexicology (semantics), word-building,
and syntax. It aims to reveal how
linguistic units of higher levels are made
up of the units of lower levels. In syntax
this method is known under the name of
Immediate Constituents (IC) analysis.

23.

24.

Generative Grammar
• Generative /ˈdʒɛn(ə)rətɪv/
• Unlike the structural grammarian, the
generative scholar is not concerned
with describing what he/she finds in a
corpus of sentences collected from
native speakers. He/she is interested in
all possible sentences, i.e. the speaker’shearer’s knowledge of a language
(competence), rather than in his/her
actual use of it (performance).

25.

• Noam Chomsky
• According to this model, in a language there is
a finite number of kernel sentences (i.e.
structurally the simplest ones) and their
transforms (i.e. structures derived from them).

26.

• Deep structure (also known as deep
grammar or D-structure) is the underlying
syntactic structure. In contrast to surface
structure (the outward form of a sentence),
deep structure is an abstract representation that
identifies the ways a sentence can be analyzed
and interpreted.

27.

• “I know a man who flies planes” can be
considered the surface form of a deep structure
approximately like “I know a man. The man
flies airplanes.”

28.

Functionalist
• Systemic Linguistics, developed by Michael
Halliday
Systemic Linguistics
is interested
in
examining the structure of a large
linguistic unit – a text or a discourse – and
it attempts to integrate a great deal of
structural information with other information
(social information, for example) in the hope
of constructing a coherent account of what
speakers are doing.

29.

• Halliday distinguishes among three
distinctive functions of language.

30.

• The ideational (or experiential) function
is the conveying of semantic content
representing information about our
experience of the external world
(including our own minds).

31.

• The textual function is the linking of
linguistic elements to other linguistic
elements, so that the various parts of a
text can be integrated into a coherent and
cohesive whole and related to the wider
context of our speech or writing.

32.

• The interpersonal function is the
establishment and maintenance of social
relations, including persuading other
people to do things or to believe things.

33.

Cognitive Grammar
• The theoretical framework of cognitive
grammar is associated with Ronald Langacker
which has been underdevelopment since the
mid-1970s and is best represented in his two
Foundations of Cognitive Grammar volumes
published in 1987 and 1991 respectively.

34.

• For Langacker, knowledge of language
(the mental grammar) is represented in
the mind of the speaker as an inventory of
symbolic assemblies.