Lectures in Theoretical Grammar

     NP                           VP                                                                   A   N

It is obvious that dividing a sentence into ICs does not provide much information. Nevertheless, it can sometimes prove useful if we want to account for the ambiguity of certain constructions. A classic example is the phrase old men and women which can be interpreted in two different ways. Ambiguity of this kind is referred to as syntactic ambiguity. By providing IC analysis we can make the two meanings clear:

old  men  and  women                            old  men  and  women

         

                                                                                                                     

3. Oppositional analysis.

The oppositional method in syntax means correlating different sentence types: they possess common features and differential features. Differential features serve the basis for analysis.

E.g. two member sentence :: one member sentence (John worked:: John! Work! Or: I speak English :: I don’t speak English.

4. Constructional analysis.

According to the constructional approach, not only the subject and the predicate but also all the necessary constituents of primary predication constitute the main parts because they are constructionally significant. Therefore, the secondary parts of the sentence are sometimes as necessary and important as the main ones. If we omit the object and the adverbial modifier in the following sentences they will become grammatically and semantically unmarked: Bill closed the door; She behaved well.

The structural sentence types are formed on the basis of kernels (basic structures). Three main types of propositional kernels may be distinguished: N V, N is A, N is N. However, if we take into account the valent properties of the verbs (their obligatory valency) the group will become larger (8 kernels), e.g. N1 V N2 N3: John gave Ann the book, N1 V N2: I see a house.

The kernel sentences form the basis for syntactic derivation. Syntactic derivation lies in producing more complex sentences

Syntactic processes may be internal and external. Internal syntactic processes involve no changes in the structure of the parts of the sentence. They occur within one and the same part of the sentence (subject, etc.). External syntactic processes are those that cause new relations within a syntactic unit and lead to appearance of a new part of the sentence.

The internal syntactic processes are:

Expansion                                                           Compression

The phone was ringing and ringing     They were laughing and singing

Complication                                                      Contamination

(a synt. unit becomes complicated) (two parts of the sentence are joined

I have seen it – I could have seen it        together – e.g. double predicate)

                                                                       The moon rose red

Replacement – the use of the words that have a generalized meaning: one, do, etc, I’d like to take this one.

Representation – a part of the syntactic unit represents the whole syntactic unit: Would you like to come along? I’d love to.

Ellipsis – Where are you going? To the movies.  

The external syntactic processes are:

Extension - a nice dress – a nice cotton dress.

Ajoinment -  the use of specifying words, most often particles: He did it – Only he did it.

Enclosure – inserting modal words and other discourse markers: after all, anyway, naturally, etc. 

4. The utterance. Informative structure of the utterance.

 

The utterance as opposed to the sentence is the unit of speech. The

main categories of the utterance from the point of view of its informative structure are considered to be the theme and the rheme. They are the main components of the Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) – actual division of the sentence (most language analysts stick to the term “sentence” but actually they mean “utterance”).

      In English, there is a “standard” word order of Subject + Verb + Object: The cat ate the rat – here we have a standard structure (N1 + V + N2).  However, there are numerous other ways in which the semantic content of the sentence can be expressed:

1. The rat was eaten by the cat.
2. It was the cat that ate the rat.
3. It was the rat that the cat ate.
4. What the cat did was ate the rat.
5. The cat, it ate the rat.

Which of these options is actually selected by the writer or the speaker will depend on the context in which the utterance occurs and the importance of the information. One important consideration is whether the information has already been introduced before or it is assumed to be known to the reader or listener. Such information is referred to as given information or the theme. It contrasts with information which is introduced for the first time and which is known as new information or the rheme.

      Informative structure of the utterance is one of the topics that still attract the attention of language analysts nowadays. It is well recognized that the rheme marking devices are:

1. Position in the sentence. As a rule new information in English generally comes last: The cat ate the rat.
2. Intonation.
3. The use of the indefinite article. However, sometimes it is impossible (as in 1): A gentleman is waiting for you.
4. The use of ‘there is’, ‘there are’. There is a cat in the room.
5. The use of special devices, like ‘as for’, ‘but for’, etc.: As for him, I don’t know.
6. Inverted word order: Here comes the sun.
7. The use of emphatic constructions: It was the cat that ate the rat.

However, sometimes the most important information is not expressed formally: The cat ate the rat after all. The rheme here is ‘the rat’. At the same time there is very important information which is hidden or implicit: the cat was not supposed to do it, or – it was hard for the cat to catch the rat, or – the cat is a vegetarian (this hidden information will depend on the context or situation). In other words, we may say that this sentence contains two informative centres, or two rhemes – explicit and implicit. 

5. Functional typology of utterances.

Actional utterance: N + Vact. + Complement – actional predicate

Performative utterance: I + Vperf./Vsay – performative predicate

Characterizing utterance: N + Vbe + A/Q – characterizing predicate

(See the book by E.Morokhovskaya ‘Fundamentals of Theoretical English Grammar’, pp.254-268)

 

                       LECTURE 10: THE TEXT, TEXTLINGUISTICS 

1. Text as a syntactic unit. 

      Text is the unit of the highest (supersyntactic) level. It can be defined as a sequence of sentences connected logically and semantically which convey a complete message. The text is a language unit and it manifests itself in speech as discourse. Textlinguistics is concerned with the analysis of formal and structural features of the text. Textual basic integrative properties can be described with the help of the notions of coherence (цілісність), cohesion (формальна складність) and deixis. 

2. The notion of coherence.

   Coherence is a semantic or topical unity of the spoken or written text – that is, the sentences within the text are usually connected by the same general topic. Generally speaking, a coherent text is the text that ‘sticks together’ as a whole unit. Coherence is usually achieved by means of the theme and rheme progression. There exist various types of the theme and rheme progression, e.g.

a) T1                R1        Once there lived an old man.

               

                         T2             R2   The old man lived in a hut.                                                                                                                                                         

  

                                           T3                R3 The hut was near a wood.

 

b) T1           R1   Michael is a student.

    T1            R2  He lives in Boston.

    T1            R3  He has a cheap car. 

c)                 T                        The general topic is Ukraine. Subtopics are its

                                                climate, industry, population, etc. 
 

T1       R1  T2       R2   T3       R3 

Naturally, in the process of text development different types of theme and rheme progression are combined.   

3. The notion of cohesion. Text connecting devices. 

   Cohesion is a succession of spoken or written sentences. Sometimes the sentences may even not coincide topically. The connection we want to draw between various parts of the text may be achieved by textual and lexical cohesion. Textual cohesion may be achieved by formal markers which express conjunctive relations and serve as text connectors. Text connectors may be of four different types:

1. additive – and, furthermore, similarly, in addition, etc.
2. adversative – but, however, on the other hand, in fact, anyway, after all, nevertheless, etc.
3. causal – so, consequently, for this reason, thus, etc.
4. temporal – then, after that, finally, at last, in the long run, etc.

The full list of text connectors is very long. Some of them do not possess direct equivalents in the Ukrainian language. At the same time it is impossible to speak and write English naturally without knowing for sure when and how to use text connectors of the English language.

Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in the text are semantically related in the same way – in other words, they are related in terms of their meaning. Two major categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation. Reiteration includes repetition, synonym or near synonym use and the use of general words. E.g. (1) You could try driving the car up the slope. The incline isn’t at all that steep. (2) Pneumonia arrives with the cold and wet conditions. The illness can strike everyone from infants to the elderly.

Collocation includes all those items in text that are semantically related. The items may be related in one text and not related in other. For instance, the words ‘neighbour’ and ‘scoundrel’ are not related at all. However, in the following text they are collocated: My neighbour has just let one of his trees fall into my garden. And the scoundrel refuses to pay for the damage he has caused.

Cohesive ties within the text are also formed by endophoric relations. Endophoric relations are of two kinds – those that look back in the text for their interpretation are called anaphoric relations; those that look forward in the text are called cataphoric relations:

Look at the sun. It is going down quickly. ‘It’ refers back to ‘the sun’.

It is going down quickly, the sun. ‘It’ refers forwards to ‘the sun’. 

4. Textual deictic markers.

  

    As a linguistic term deixis means ‘identification by pointing’.

Much of the textual meaning can be understood by looking at linguistic markers that have a pointing function in a given context. For example, consider the following note pinned on a professor’s door: “Sorry, I missed you. I’m in my other office. Back in an hour.” Without knowing who the addressee is, what time the note was written, or the location of the other office, it is really hard to make a precise information of the message. Those terms that we cannot interpret without an immediate context are called deixis. Deictic terms are used to refer to ourselves, to others, and to objects in our environment. They are also used to locate actions in a time frame relative to the present. Deictic terms can show social relationship – the social location of individuals in relation to others. They may be used to locate parts of a text in relation to other parts.

Deictic expressions are typically pronouns, certain time and place adverbs (here, now, etc.), some verbs of motion (come/go), and even tenses. In fact all languages have expressions that link a sentence to a time and space context and that help to determine reference.

We can identify five major types of deictic markers – person, place, time, textual and social.

Person deixis refers to grammatical markers of communicant roles in a speech event. The first person is the speaker’s reference to self; the second person is the speaker’s reference to addressee(s) and the third person is reference to others who are neither speaker nor addressee.

Place deixis refers to how languages show the relationship between space and the location of the participants in the text: this, that, here, there, in front of, at our place, etc.

Temporal deixis refers to the time relative to the time of speaking: now, then, today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc.

Textual deixis has to do with keeping track of reference in the unfolding text: in the following chapter, but, first, I’d like to discuss, etc. Most of the text connectors discussed above belong to this group.

Social deixis is used to code social relationships between speakers and addressee or audience. Here belong honorifics, titles of addresses and pronouns. There are two kinds of social deixis: relational and absolute. Absolute deictic markers are forms attached to a social role: Your Honor, Mr.President, Your Grace, Madam, etc. Relational deictic markers locate persons in relation to the speaker rather than by their roles in the society: my cousin, you, her, etc. In English, social deixis is not heavily coded in the pronoun system. ‘You’ refers to both – singular and plural. As well as in the Ukrainian language, English possesses ‘a powerful we’: We are happy to inform…, In this article we… 
 

LECTURE 11: PRAGMATICS. SPEECH ACT THEORY 

1. Basic notions of pragmatic linguistics.

 

      The term ‘pragmatics’ was first introduced by Charles Morris, a philosopher. He contrasts pragmatics with semantics and syntax. He claims that syntax is the study of the grammatical relations of linguistic units to one another and the grammatical structures of phrases and sentences that result from these grammatical relation, semantics is the study of the relation of linguistic units to the objects they denote, and pragmatics is the study of the relation of linguistic units to people who communicate.

      This view of pragmatics is too broad because according to it, pragmatics may have as its domain any human activity involving language, and this includes almost all human activities, from baseball to the stock market. We will proceed from the statement that linguistic pragmatics is the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context in which they would be appropriate. What do we mean by ‘appropriate context’?

      In our everyday life we as a rule perform or play quite a lot of different roles – a student, a friend, a daughter, a son, a client, etc. When playing different roles our language means are not the same – we choose different words and expressions suitable and appropriate for the situation. We use the language as an instrument for our purposes. For instance,

(a) What are you doing here? We’re talking

(b) What the hell are you doing here? We’re chewing the rag

have the same referential meaning but their pragmatic meaning is different, they are used in different contexts. Similarly, each utterance combines a propositional base (objective part) with the pragmatic component (subjective part). It follows that an utterance with the same propositional content may have different pragmatic components:

                               just mentioning of the fact

                               explanation

It’s hot                  excuse

                                            inducement to do something about it

                               menace 

To put it in other words, they are different speech acts. That is, speech acts are simply things people do through language – for example, apologizing, instructing, menacing, explaining something, etc. The term ‘speech act’ was coined by the philosopher John Austin and developed by another philosopher John Searle.