Grammatical category

LECTURE 2.

Part 1.

MAIN NOTIONS OF GRAMMAR

Plan:

Grammatical meaning.

Grammatical form, grammatical element.

Grammatical category.

Grammatical meaning.

The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning is the individual meaning of the word (e.g. table).

The grammatical meaning is a general, abstract meaning which includes classes of words. It depends on the lexical meaning and is connected with objective reality indirectly, through the lexical meaning. The grammatical meaning is relative, it is revealed in relations of word forms:

For ex. Speak – speaks.

The grammatical meaning is obligatory. It must be expressed if the speaker wants to be understood. The grammatical meaning must have a grammatical form of expression (inflexions, analytical forms, word-order, etc).

For ex.: walks – is writing

Both forms denote process, but only the second form expresses it grammatically.

There are some classes of words that are devoid of any lexical meaning and possess the grammatical meaning only. This can be explained by the fact that they have no referents in the objective reality. All function words belong to this group – articles, particles, prepositions, etc.

Grammatical form, grammatical element.

The term form may be used in a wide sense to denote all means of expressing grammatical meanings. It may be also used in a narrow sense to denote means of expressing a particular grammatical meaning.

Grammatical elements are unities of meaning and form, content and expression. In the language system there is no direct correspondence of meaning and form.

Two or more units of the plane of content may correspond to one unit of the plane of expression (polysemy; homonymy).

Two or more units of the plane of expression may correspond to one unit of the plane of content (synonymy).

In the system of language grammatical elements are connected on the basis of similarity and contrast. Partially similar elements (elements having common and distinctive features) constitute oppositions:

For ex.: table – tables

Members of the opposition differ in form and have different grammatical meanings (singular and plural). At the same time they express the same general meaning – number.

Grammatical category.

The unity of the general meaning and its particular manifestations which is revealed through the opposition of forms is a grammatical category. The category exists only if there is an opposition of at least two forms. If there is one form, there is no category.

The minimal (two-member) opposition is called binary. Oppositions may be of three main types:

For ex .: good – better – best.

Most grammatical oppositions are privative.

Grammatical forms express meanings of different categories.

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