1

SEMINAR 1
FUNDAMENTALS OF THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

1. Theoretical Comment.

Definition of language. Distinction between language and speech. Language as a

semiotic system: its functions, elements and structure. Hierarchical relations between units of
different levels. Morphology and syntax - the two main branches of grammar. Grammar as a
branch of linguistics. Theoretical and practical grammar. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic
relations between lingual units; syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations in grammar. The
definition of morpheme. The word and the morpheme, their correlation. Intermediary
phenomena between the word and the morpheme. Traditional classification of morphemes:
positional criterion; semantic criterion. Other types of morphemes. The "allo-emic" theory in
morphology: morphs, allomorphs and morphemes. Distributional analysis in morphology;
three types of distribution. Grammatical meaning and the means of its expression.
Grammatical category and the principles of its organization.

2. Practice.

1.  Match the following terms to their Ukrainian equivalents. Explain their meaning.
language - morpheme -
speech - morph -
sign - allomorph -
semiotic system - distribution -
lingual unit - segmental -
hierarchical relations - supra-segmental -
the plane of content - suppletivity -
the plane of expression - analytical word-form -

план вираження суплетивізм дистрибуція аломорф

аналітична словоформа морфема супра-/ сегментний
(над-)сегментний
план змісту мовна одиниця мова знак
семіотична (знакова) ієрархічні мовлення морф
система відношення

2.  Match the terms for basic grammar notions to their definitions:
1. grammar a. …a structured set of elements related to each other by a common
function of giving expression to human thoughts.
2. grammatical system b. … a system of opposed grammatical forms with homogeneous
grammatical meaning.
3. grammatical c. …the meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of
structure different words.
4. linguistic level d. …a hierarchy of grammatical levels.
5. grammatical e. …a class of homogeneous units with the same functional and
meaning structural features, which have constituent relations with units of the
higher level.
6. grammatical form f. …a part of linguistics which studies the grammatical system and
structure of the language, excluding phonemics and lexis.
7. grammatical g. …a word form, which expresses grammatical meaning
 2

category

3
3.  Explain the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy, and synonymy in terms of
correspondence of the two planes: content and expression. Which of these phenomena are
illustrated by the following examples? Give comments.

1) likes – Tom’s – dogs; 2) I often visit them. (habitual 3) oxen – cacti – feet – wolves
He’s just left. – It was a just action) - The train leaves at 5. – sheep_;
reward. (timetable) - I see what you Are you going somewhere
mean. (present moment); tonight? - Will you go
I must leave immediately. – somewhere tonight? - Will you
She must be at home by now. be going somewhere tonight?

3. The table shows the hierarchy of the basic lingual units. Fill in the gaps in it with the
appropriate terms and speak about the organisation of the language system.

Language levels and In language system In speech

sublevels
Textual (supra-sentential) Textual pattern Textual unity
level
b) proposemic (sentential Proposeme (sentence pattern) _______________
sublevel
a) phrasemic (phrase) sublevel Phrase pattern (phraseme) Syntagma

Syntactic level
b) lexemic sublevel _____________________ Word-form

a) morphemic sublevel Morpheme _______________

Lexical level
Phonemic level _____________________ Allophone

4.  a) Identify the types of relations the underlined elements stand in:
a) a girl – girls – a girl’s – girls’
b) a traveler’s guide – a guide for travelers; cleverer – more clever;
c) some milk – a glass of milk – little milk – a lot of milk;
d) a nice dress; dent||ist;
e) you and me;
f) Time flies. 

b)  Give your own examples of various paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between
phonetic, lexical, and grammatical lingual units.
 3

5.  Complete the statements with the words from the word-bank below.
According to the positional criterion morphemes can be and . Affixes
are (or ) if they form new words and (or
) if they express different grammatical meanings.
As to their contribution to the general meaning of the word morphemes can be
, , and
.
They are if they can exist alone and if otherwise.

derivational root inflectional affixal word- word-

building changing
lexico- free grammatical lexical bound
grammatical

6.  a) Divide each word into morphemes. Identify and characterize the morphemes
(root / derivational affix / inflectional affix; lexical / lexico-grammatical / grammatical; bound /
free; discontinuous / zero / inner inflection):

Example:
dis - qual - ifi - ed
Derivational Root, Derivational Inflectional
affix lexical, affix affix
(prefix), bound (suffix), (inflection),
lexico- lexico- grammatical,
grammatical grammatical, bound
, bound bound

Appearance, playful, geese, mice, disorganized, has mentioned, boy, dog’s, more
beautiful, overreacts, less desirable, will be visiting, sit down, buildings, necessitates,
flattened, helplessly.

7.  Analyze the distribution of the indefinite article. Are forms ‘a’ and ‘an’ free variants
or is their use determined by the environment? Justify your answer.

8. What type of distribution are the following morphs in? Do they represent…
a) different morphemes,
b) variants of the same morpheme (allo-morphs), or
c) free variants of the same morpheme?

1) started – stopped – opened;

2) stops – stopped – stopping;
3) learned – learnt;

Literature:
1. Блох М. Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. — М.: Высш. школа,
1983. – C. 6-37.
2. Rayevska N.M. Modern English Grammar. – Kyiv: Vysca Skola Publishers, 1976. –
P. 21-30, 37-45, 60-66.
3. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В.. Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика
английского языка. – М.: Высш. шк., 1981. – С. 4-20.
 4

LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL CLASSES OF WORDS

1. Theoretical comment

The notion of a part of speech as a lexico-grammatical class of words. Grammatically relevant

properties of words - criteria for differentiating the classes of words: semantic, formal and functional
criteria. The traditional classification of parts of speech. Notional and functional parts of speech in the
traditional classification. Polydifferential and monodifferential classifications. Henry Sweet’s
functional classification. Otto Jesperson’s classification. Ch. Fries’s syntactico-distributional
classification. Field theory and its application to the classification of the parts of speech.

2. Practice
1. Match the following terms to their Ukrainian equivalents. Explain their meaning.

lexico-grammatical classes of words -

notional parts of speech -
functional parts of speech -
open/closed word classes -
semantic criterion (categorial meaning) -
formal criterion -
functional criterion -
homogeneous (monodifferential) classifications -
heterogeneous (polidifferential) classifications -
field theory -

формальний відкриті/ повнозначні семантичний монодиференціальні

критерій закриті класи частини мови критерій класифікації
слів (категоріальне
значення)
функціональний теорія поля неповнозначні лексико- полідиференціальні
критерій частини мови граматичні класифікації
розряди слів

2. Traditional grammars generally provide short definitions for each part of speech. The
following are taken from the work of G. Curme “Parts of Speech and Accidence”, Boston:Heath,
1935. Read them and the answer the questions that follow:
(a) ‘A noun, or substantive, is a word used as a name of a living being or lifeless thing; Mary,
John, horse, cow, dog; hat, house, tree, London, Chicago; virtue’
(b) ‘A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun’
( c) ‘A verb is that part of speech that predicates, assists in predication, asks a question, or
expresses a command: The wind blows, He is blind, Did he do it? Hurry! ( By ‘predication’ Curme
evidently means assertion.)
(d) ‘An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun, i.e. a word that is used with a
noun or pronoun to describe or point out the living being or lifeless thing designated by the noun or
pronoun: a little boy, that boy, this boy, a little house’
(e) ‘An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb’.

Are these definitions adequate as language-particular definitions, i.e. do they provide clear criteria
that would enable one to assign words to the ‘correct’ class? The following questions can help you:
1. Instead of what nouns are the pronouns used in the following sentences:
 5

The boy said he was ill; I am ill; Nobody came; everything was destroyed; What is the new teacher
like? It was John who broke the window.
2. Do assertions, questions and the like involve verbs or whole sentences? Is Curme’s definition
of the verb helpful in defining the verb in the following sentences:
Are you ill?( Is it the verb ‘are’ that asks a question?)
If John knows her, we’re in trouble. (Does the speaker assert in the sentence that John knows
her?)
3. They destroyed the residue unnecessarily.
Their destruction of residue was unnecessary.
Is there anything in the definition of the verb as a word denoting an action or state that will enable
us to include the ‘destroyed’ into the class of verbs and to exclude the ‘destruction’?
4. How is ‘state of being’ to be interpreted in such a way as to include verbs like ‘know’ or ‘love’
while excluding adjectives like ‘knowledgeable’ and ‘fond’?
5. If an adjective is a word that ‘describes’ what is designated by a noun or pronoun, why is it that
in ‘they are fools’ the word ‘fools’ is a noun, not an adjective (like the ‘foolish’ in ‘they are
foolish’).

2. Let us see what Curme says about a few examples. (1) John’s book – John’s is not an
adjective: it has the ‘force’ of an adjective but is ‘formally’ the genitive of the noun; (2) the
great Mississippi flood (Cf. the boy actor) – Mississippi (and presumably boy) are not true
adjectives but nouns used as adjectives; (3) a Shakespearian scholar – Shakespearian is a true
adjective.
Is the adjective defined by Curme a a class or as a function? Does the strong association between
the modifier and the adjective facilitate the confusion between the two concepts?

1. Fill in the table with the missing information from the resource box:
APPROACHES TO MAIN CONS PROS
CLASSIFICATIONS RESULTS
Traditional Consistent application of all the three
(polydifferential) criteria ensures the most scientifically
reliable results.
Functional (Henry For the first time in English grammar
Sweet) an attempt was made to take
polydifferential approach (in
opposition to Latin grammars).
Syntactic-
distributional
(Charles Fries)
Complex (M. Blokh) There are still
intermediary
phenomena left
outside.
Resource box:
a) Two groups – nominative and b) Although the syntactic basis is c) The meaning of words is
particles. Among nominative: consistent, the division is very ignored. The position and
noun-words (noun, noun- complicated and confusing (the combinability in sentences are
pronoun, noun-numeral, same words appear in different enough to classify them into
infinitive, gerund), adjective- classes). The criteria for singling word-classes. No traditional
words (adjective, adjective- out form-classes are vague; terminology. 4 classes of words
pronoun, adjective-numeral, sometimes (in description of (whose functions coincide with
participles), verb (finite verb, form-classes) semantic criterion those of nouns, verbs, adjectives
verbals – gerund, infinitive, is used. and adverbs in traditional
participles). Among particles: classification) and 15 form-
 6

adverb, preposition, conjunction classes. Three test frames formed

and interjection. the basis for analysis.
d) For the first time, some e) No consistency. Although f) Wisely combines the findings
peculiarities of functional words functional criterion was claimed of traditional and structural
were observed and described. as basic, the primary division is approaches to achieve a better
The frequency characteristics of fulfilled on the formal principle result.
notional and functional classes (the ability to decline). Formal
and their proportion in the principle doesn’t work for
language were determined. analytical languages.
g)  Two groups – notional and h) The three criteria are relevant i) 3 layers (supra-classes) are
functional. Notional (nouns, only for the subdivision of distinguished as to the role of
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, notional words, but not words in the process of
pronouns and numerals) have functional. The status of the nomination. 1) “Names”
complete nominative value, pronouns and numerals is (substance names = nouns,
changeable, fulfill self-dependent questionable, since they do not process names = verbs, primary /
syntactic function. Functional have any syntactic functions of secondary property names =
(conjunctions, prepositions, their own. It is very difficult to adjectives / adverbs) – open
articles, interjections, particles, draw rigorous borderlines class, possess full nominative
modal words) have incomplete between different classes of value. 2) “Pro-names” (pro-
nominative value, unchangeable, words: there are always nouns, pro-adjectives, etc., broad
fulfill mediatory, constructional phenomena that are meaning notional words) –
syntactic functions. indistinguishable in their status. closed set, substitutional
function. 3) “Specifiers of
names” – closed, functional
words.

2. Comment on the intermediary status of the following groups of words (using field theory).

1) sentence adverbs (however, nevertheless, moreover);

2) relative pronouns and adverbs (who, that, which, where, why);
3) substantivized adjectives (the poor, the blind, the eternal);
4) phrasal conjunctions and prepositions (as well as, provided that, on condition that);
5) articles (a, the), infinitive particle (to).

3. The features of what lexico-grammatical classes do underlined words combine in the

following sentences?

1) Loving colors, I bought for myself beautiful reds and oranges, and greens and pinks, and teals
and turquoises (Angelou).
2) I altered my path to pass his table, at which he immersed himself deep in conversation with the
trollop, glancing up as I walked past and giving me a confident smile as if to say ‘business meeting’. I
gave him a look which said, ‘Don’t you business meeting me,’ and strutted on (Fielding, H.).
3) Susan glanced at Jack – a what’s-this? look (Primary Colors).

Literature:

1. Алєксєєва І. О. Курс теоретичної граматики сучасної англійської мови: навчальний

посібник. – Вінниця: Нова Книга. 2007. – С. 16-32.
2. Блох, М.Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка / М.Я. Блох. - М.: Высшая
школа, 2003. – С. 42-54.
 7

3. Блох, М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики / М.Я. Блох. - М.: Высшая школа, 2004.
– С. 92-119.
4. Блох, М.Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка / М.Я. Блох,
Т.Н. Семенова, С.В. Тимофеева. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 79-108.
5. Иванова, И.П. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка / И.П.
Иванова, В.В. Бурлакова, Г.Г. Почепцов. - М.: Высшая школа, 1981. – С. 14-20.
6. Ильиш, Б.А. Строй современного английского языка: учебник / Б.А. Ильиш. –
Ленинград: Просвещение, 1971. – С. 27-35.
7. Кубрякова, Е.С. Язык и знание: На пути получения знаний о языке: Части речи с
когнитивной точки зрения / Е.С. Кубрякова. – М.: Языки славянской культуры, 2004. –
560 с.
8. Левицкий, Ю.А. Основы теории синтаксиса: учебное пособие / Ю.А. Левицкий. - 3-е
изд., испр. и доп. – М.: КомКнига, 2005. – С. 93-96.
9. Смирницкий, А.И. Морфология английского языка / А.И. Смирницкий. - М.: Изд-во
лит-ры на иностранных языках, 1959. – С. 100-107.