КАЗАХСКИЙ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ ИМЕНИ АЛЬ-ФАРАБИ T. T. Джарасова FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE THEORY Учебное пособие Алматы «Қазақ университеті» 2011 1 ББК 81.2 Д 32 Рекомендовано к изданию Ученым советом филологического факультета и РИСО КазНУ им. аль-Фараби Р е ц е н зе н т ы: доктор филологических наук, профессор Ф.Е. Исмаилова; доктор филологических наук, профессор Ш.И. Нургожина; кандидат педагогических наук, доцент А.К. Садыкова; Ph.D., ст. преподаватель Я.Ч. Тен Джарасова Т.Т. Д 32 Fundamentals of the English language theory: учебное пособие. – Алматы: Қазақ университеті, 2011. – 116 с. ISBN 9965-29-584-0 Пособие составлено на базе теоретической дисциплины «Основы теории изучаемого языка», которая предусматривает комплексное изучение следующих аспектов теории языка: лексикологии и теоретической грамматики. Пособие, включающее краткий курс лекций по теории английского языка, предназначено для студентов филологических факультетов языковых специаль- ностей: «Переводческое дело», «Иностранная филология», «Иностранный язык: два иностранных языка». Учебное пособие содержит вопросы для семинарских занятий, тесты и практический материал с упражнениями и заданиями для самостоятельной работы студентов. 4602020000-296 Д 027-10 ББК 81. 2 460-(05)-11 © Джарасова Т.Т., 2011. ISBN 9965-29-584-0 © КазНУ им. аль-Фараби, 2011. 2 PREFACE The book “Fundamentals of the English Language Theory” is intended for university students and masters of English department who have taken a practical grammar and linguistics courses. Postgraduates specializing in English and teachers of English may also find it useful. The course “Fundamentals of the English Language Theory” is read for the students of the second and third courses of Philological faculty on special departments: “Foreign Philology”, “Two Foreign Languages” and “Faculty of Translation”. This book includes the brief lectures on Modern English Lexicology and Theoretical Grammar, seminar questions, exercises for practice, materials and tasks for self-study and tests. This manual including the current materials of linguistic and grammar books has the aim to assist the students of foreign language institutes and departments in their study of the fundamentals of Modern English Lexicology and Theoretical Grammar. In preparing this work the author has tried to take into consideration the latest achievements in linguistic science concerned with the vocabulary and grammar of English as it exists and functions at the present time. 3 Part 1 LEXICOLOGY as a LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINE  The Aims and Significance of Lexicology.  The Research Methods.  Links with other Branches of Linguistics. Lexicology is a branch of linguistics – the science of language. The term “lexicology” is composed of two Greek morphemes “lexic” – word, phrase and “logos” which denotes learning, “a department of knowledge”. Thus, the literal meaning of the term “lexicology” is “the science of the word”. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research. Its basic task is the study and systematic description of the vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use. Lexicology investigates words, variable word-groups, phraseological units and morphemes which make up words. Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology. General lexicology is a part of General linguistics. It is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (Russian, German, French, etc.). Our attention will be devoted to the study of Modern English Lexicology which aim is to give a systematic description of the word-stock of Modern English. So Modern English Lexicology investigates the problems of word-structure and word- formation, the semantic structure of English words, the main principles underlying the classification of vocabulary units into various groupings. The research methods used in Lexicology have been closely connected with the general trends in Linguistics. There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material: synchronic (Greek syn — ‘together, with’ and chronos –– ‘time’) and diachronic (Greek dia — ‘through’) approaches. With regard to Special Lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for instance, at the present time. It is Special Descriptive Lexicology that deals with the vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time. The discipline Modern English Lexicology is therefore a course of Special Descriptive Lexicology which studies the functions of words and their specific structure, its morphological and semantic structures, its object of study being the English vocabulary as it exists at the present time. The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word. By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word uncomfortable the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefix un-, the root comfort and the 4 adjective forming suffix – able. All these morphemes constitute the external (morphological) structure of the word uncomfortable. The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is commonly referred to the word’s semantic structure. This is certainly the word’s main aspect because a word can serve the purposes of human communication solely due to their meanings. The diachronic approach deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is special Historical Lexicology that deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by. An English Historical Lexicology would be concerned with the origin of English vocabulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and extra linguistic factors modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language. These two approaches should not be contrasted or set one against the other. In fact, they are interconnected and interrelated because every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of constant development. Historical Lexicology is linked with Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology whose aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages, and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison. Modern English Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of linguistics:  Phonetics, for example, investigates the phonetic structure of a language and is concerned with the study of the outer sound-form of the word i.e. its system of phonemes and intonation patterns.  Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure of a language. It is concerned with various means of expressing grammatical relations between words as well as with patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and sentences.  The History of the English language covers the main events in the historical development of the language: the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system, the growth of its vocabulary.  Stylistics studies many problems treated in lexicology, which are concerned with the study of nature, functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and with the research of each style of language, on the other, i.e. with its aim, its structure, its characteristic features and the effect it produces as well as its interrelation with the other styles of language. Modern English Lexicology investigates two main parts: the treatment of the English word as a structure and the treatment of the English vocabulary as a system. The term “vocabulary” is used to denote the system formed by the sum total of all the words that language possesses. It shows the system of interdependent elements with specific peculiarities of its own, different from other lexical systems. This course of Modern English Lexicology studies the morphological and semantic patterns according to which the elements of this system are built. It points out the distinctive features with the main semantically relevant partial differences between partially similar elements of the vocabulary which can be systematized and 5 this course tries to explain how these vocabulary patterns are conditioned by the structure of the language. Lecture 1. Lexical Units  Morphological structure of English words.  The stem is part of the word.  Morphemes.  Classification of Morphemes. The main unit of the lexical system of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning is a word. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest basic language unit which can stand alone as a complete utterance. The definition of every basic notion is a very hard task; the definition of a word is one of the most difficult items in linguistics because the word has many different aspects. It has a sound form with a certain arrangement of phonemes; it has its morphological structure with a certain types of morphemes; it may occur in different word-forms and various meanings. A description of the word based on the results of research and carried out by many scientists is presented. The problem of creating a word theory based upon the real understanding of the relationship between word and thought, on the one hand, and language and society, on the other hand, has been discussed for many years. The efforts of many eminent scholars such as V.V. Vinogradov, A.I. Smirnitsky, O.S. Ahmanova, I.V. Arnold, R.S. Ginzburg deal with the problem of giving a clear exposition of the word as a basic unit of the language. The main points may be summarized as: “The word is one of the fundamental units of language. It is a dialectical unity of form and content” [25,132]. The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning and characterized by formal and semantic unity. The formal unity of the word can be best illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group comprising identical constituents. The difference between a blackbird and a black bird is best explained by their relationship with the grammatical system of the language. The word a blackbird possesses a single grammatical structure. In the word-group a black bird each part can acquire grammatical forms of its own: The blackest bird, a black night bird. According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituting a word there are different structural types of words in English: simple, derived, compound, compound-derived. Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the inflexion is zero), e.g. seldom, chairs, longer, dog. Derived words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, e.g. acceptable, unemployed, disagreeable. Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e.g. book-stores, baby-sitters, wait-and-see (policy). 6 Compound-derived words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e.g. middle-of-the-roaders, job-hopper. When speaking about the structure of words stems also should be mentioned. The stem is the part of the word which remains unchanged throughout the paradigm of the word, e.g. the stem hop can be found in the words: hop, hops, hopped, hopping. The stem hippie can be found in the words: hippie, hippies, hippie’s, hippies’. The stem job-hop can be found in the words: job-hop, job-hops, job-hopped, job-hopping. A word, however, can be divided into smaller sense units - morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. The morpheme consists of a class of variants, allomorphs, which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned. In the word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasant, pleasure the root morpheme is represented by phonemic shapes [pli:z] in please, pleasing and [pleзə] in pleasure and [plez] in pleasant. In such cases we say that the phonemic shapes of the word stand in alternation with each other. These are variants of one morpheme and they are called allomorphs. Morphemes are divided into two large groups:  lexical or root morphemes;  grammatical (functional) morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound.  Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the lexical meaning of the word they coincide with the stem of simple words, e.g. dog, book, room, house, ball etc.  Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-) disabled, (un-) unnatural, suffixes (-ish) girlish, (-ship) friendship and also blocked (unique) root morphemes, e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry.  Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes can function both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morphemes (well, half) on the one hand, they are free morphemes because they can exist separately like these: sleep well, half an hour. On the other hand, they are bound in words like well- known, half-done.  Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and prepositions (a, an, the, but, and, under, on, in).  Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), e.g. ( -s) teachers for the Plural of nouns, (-ed) added for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs,( - ing) reading for the Present Participle, (-er) hotter for the Comparative degree of adjectives. Seminar Questions: Consider your answers to the following. 1. What is Lexicology? The aims of Lexicology. 2. Distinction of Lexicology. 3. The Modern approach of word study. 4. The Methods of Research. 5. Links with other branches of Linguistics 6. Language units. 7. Structural types of words in English. 7 8. The stem of a word. 9. Morphemes. Classification of Morphemes. Seminar Tasks: 1. Analyze the following lexical units according to their structure. Point out the function of morphemes. Speak about bound morphemes and free morphemes. Point out allomorphs in analyzed words: accompanied, computerize, expressionless, reservation, girl, quickly, management, engaging, agreement, lengthen, clannish, pleasure, pleasant, beautify, workaholic, reconstruction, counterproductive, specialize, rearrange, three-cornered, table, flower-pot, half-eaten, well-done, breadwinner. 2. Make up the new words from the root morphemes system and impress by adding affixes. For example, prove-improve-improvement. Lecture 2. Word-Building (Word-Formation)  Various Types and Ways of Forming Words.  Productive Ways of Word-building:  Affixation.  Word-composition.  Classifications of compounds. Various Types and Ways of Forming Words Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. English word- formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. The main distinction is made between two basic types of word-formation: word-derivation and word-composition. The principal ways of forming words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Words consisting of a root and an affix or several affixes are called derived words and this process of word-formation is known as affixation, e.g. establishment (from establish), faceless (from face), attractive (from attract). Conversion is the process of making new words by changing one category of parts of speech from words of another, e.g. a hand – to hand, to make – a maker. Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining two or more stems which can occur in the language as free forms, e.g. bank-manager, troublemaker, highway, market-leader. There are four main or productive ways of word-building in Modern English: Affixation, Word-Composition, Conversion, Shortening or (Abbreviation). There are also secondary or non-productive ways of word-building: Sound interchange, Stress interchange, Reduplication, Sound Imitation, Blending, Back - formation. 8 Productive Ways of Word-building. Affixation Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e.g. educate is a verb, education is a noun and music is a noun, musician is also a noun, musical is an adjective). There are different classifications of suffixes: 1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech fall into several groups: a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom), -ism (ageism), b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious); c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -fy (satisfy); d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (eastward); e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy). 2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote: a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student); b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English); c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom, kingdom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership, membership), -ati (literati); d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ette (kitchenette), -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling); e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability). 3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into: a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization); b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish); c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness). 4. Origin of suffixes. From the point of view of their etymology suffixes can be subdivided into two main classes: native and borrowed suffixes: a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly (worker, careful, sleepless, lonely). b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ent, -able, -eer (relation, absent, comfortable, career). c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize. (specialist, socialism, criticize). d) French, such as: -ance, -ence, -ment, -ess, -ous (arrogance, experiment, village, actress, curious). 9 5. Productivity of derivational suffixes. It means the ability of being used to form new, occasional or potential words. They can be the following groups: a) productive, such as : -er, -ize, -ly, -ness (teacher, realize, ugly, coldness). c) non-productive , such as : -ard (drunkard), -th (length), -hood (childhood). Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead) – (over the table), over- (overcome) – (over the door). The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. Prefixes can be classified according to different principles: Semantic classification. Semantically prefixes can be divided into monosemantic i.e. the prefix has only one meaning, e.g. ex-boxer, ex-boyfriend and polysemantic i.e. the prefix -dis has several meanings: (not) in (disadvantage); reversal or absence of an action or state in words (diseconomy, disaffirm); removal in the word (to disbranch). According to their denotational meaning prefixes fall into: a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree), dis- (disconnect), mis- (misname), il- (illegal); b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation, rewrite) etc.; c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: inter- (interplanetary), hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging). Origin of prefixes: a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- (undressed, overcome, underwear); b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re- (inhumane, decentralize, exchange, reappear); c) Greek, such as: hyper- (hyperactive, hypertension) etc. When we analyze such words as: adverb, accompany where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac- as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as: contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con- act as prefixes and -tain, -ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones. There are some prefixes which can be treated as root morphemes by some scientists, e.g. after- in the word afternoon. American lexicographers working on Webster dictionaries treat such words as compound words. British lexicographers treat such words as derived ones. 10