GRAMMATICAL MEANING OF THE WORD

1. The problem of word definition.
2. The notion of the word-form.
3. The notion of "grammatical meaning".
4. Types of grammatical meaning.
5. The notion of "grammatical category".
6. The notion of "opposition".

1.The Problem of Word Definition
The word is considered to be the central (though not the only) linguistic unit of language.

The Problem of Word Definition
In the written language words are clearly identified by spaces between them.

The Problem of Word Definition
In the spoken language the problem cannot be solved this way.
↓
If we listen to an unfamiliar language, we find it difficult to divide up the speech into single words.

The Problem of Word Definition
Approaches
to the problem of word definition: the word is a semantic unit, a unit of meaning;
the word is a marked phonological unit;
the word is an indivisible unit.

The Problem of Word Definition
Semantic definition of the word:
“…a unit of a particular meaning with a particular complex of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment".
↓
The word is a linguistic unit that has a single meaning.

The Problem of Word Definition
BUT:
heavy smoker ≠ heavy and
smoker
criminal lawyer;
the King of England's hat.

The Problem of Word Definition
The problem:
the word is not always a single unit.

The Problem of Word Definition
A phonological criterion
that stuff that’s tough
a nice cake an ice cake
grey day Grade A
↓

The Problem of Word Definition
It is hard to distinguish the real meaning without a proper context.

The Problem of Word Definition
The word as an indivisible unit
“The word is a minimum free form“
(L. Bloomfield)
↓
The word is the smallest unit of speech that can occur in isolation.

The Problem of Word Definition
BUT:
a or the

The Problem of Word Definition
Thus,
the word is a linguistic unit larger than a morpheme but smaller than a phrase.

The Problem of Word Definition
In this case the word can be defined as:
• An orthographic word (something written with white spaces at both ends but no white space in the middle).

The Problem of Word Definition
• A phonological word (something pronounced as a single unit).

The Problem of Word Definition
• A lexical item, or lexeme, (a dictionary word).

The Problem of Word Definition
• A grammatical word-form (GWF) (or morphosyntactic word) (any one of the several forms which a lexical item may assume for grammatical purposes).

The Problem of Word Definition
The item ice cream is:
two orthographic words,
but
- a single phonological word (it is pronounced as a unit),
- a single lexical item (it has its own entry in a dictionary),
- a single GWF (indeed, it hardly has another form unless you think the plural ice cream is good English).

The Problem of Word Definition
The singular dog and the plural dogs:
- a single orthographic word,
- a single phonological word,
a single GWF,
but they both
- represent the same lexical item (only one entry in the dictionary).

The Problem of Word Definition
???
take, takes, took, taken, is taking:

The Problem of Word Definition
take, takes, took, taken and is taking:
- five orthographic words,
- five phonological words,
five GWFs (at least),
but only
- one lexical item.

The Problem of Word Definition
???
the contraction hasn't

The Problem of Word Definition
The contraction hasn't is:
- a single orthographic word,
a single phonological word,
- two lexical items (have and not),
- two GWFs (has and not).

The Problem of Word Definition
???
The phrasal verb make up (as in She made up her face)

The Problem of Word Definition
The phrasal verb make up (as in She made up her face):
- two orthographic words,
- two phonological words,
- one lexical item (because of its unpredictable meaning, it must be entered separately in the dictionary).
- has several GWFs (make up, makes up, made up, making up).

The Problem of Word Definition
???
make up
(She made up a story)

The Problem of Word Definition
make up (She made up a story):
- a different lexical item from the preceding one (a separate dictionary entry is required),
but
- this lexical item exhibits the same orthographic, phonological and grammatical forms as the first.

The Problem of Word Definition
So,
the word is not a clearly definable linguistic unit.

The Problem of Word Definition
For the sake of linguistic description, we will proceed from the following statements:
- the word is a meaningful unit differentiating word-groups at the upper level and integrating morphemes at the lower level;

The Problem of Word Definition
- the word is the main expressive unit of human language, which ensures the thought-forming function of language;

The Problem of Word Definition
the word It is also the basic nominative unit of language with the help of which the naming function of language is realized;

The Problem of Word Definition
in the structure of language the word belongs to the upper stage of the morphological level;

The Problem of Word Definition
the word is a unit of the sphere of "language" and it exists only through its speech actualization;

The Problem of Word Definition
one of the most characteristic features of the word is its indivisibility.

The Problem of Word Definition
the word is a bilateral entity
concept
WORD = ---------------------
sound image

2. The Notion of the Word -Form
The term "word-form“ shows that the word is a carrier of grammatical information.
E.g.: speaks - the present tense third
person singular
speak, spoke, is speaking
↓
Here the relational property of grammatical meaning is revealed.

The Notion of the Word -Form
Grammatical meanings of a word-form are very abstract and general.
They are peculiar of a whole class of words, unite it so that each word of the class expresses the corresponding grammatical meaning together with its individual, concrete semantics.

The Notion of the Word -Form
E.g.:
the meaning of the plural is rendered by the regular plural suffix –(e)s, phonemic interchange and a few lexeme-bound suffixes.

The Notion of the Word -Form
Due to the generalized character of the plural, we say that different groups of nouns "take" this form with strictly defined variations in the mode of expression.
The variations can be of more systemic (phonological conditioning) and less systemic (etymological conditioning) nature.

The Notion of the Word -Form
Cf.: faces, branches, matches, judges; books, rockets, boats, chiefs, proofs;
dogs, beads, films, stones, hens;
lives, wives, thieves, leaves;
oxen, children, brethren;
swine, sheep, deer;
men, women, feet, teeth, geese, mice, lice;
formulae, antennae;
data, errata, strata, addenda, memoranda;
radii, genii, nuclei;
crises, bases, analyses, axes;
phenomena, criteria.

The Notion of the Word -Form
The lexical meaning of the word is irrelevant for the detection of the type of the word-form.

The Notion of the Word -Form
A word-form may be analytical by structure. In this case it is equivalent to one word as it expresses one unified content of a word, both from the point of view of grammatical and lexical meaning.
E.g.: has spoken

The Notion of the Word -Form
Words (as well as morphemes) are directly observable units by nature as they are characterized by a definite material structure of their own.
They can be registered and enumerated in any language.

The Notion of the Word -Form
The system of morphological units is a closed system. It means that all its items are on the surface and can be embraced in an inventory of forms.

The Notion of the Word -Form
Every word is a unit of grammar as a part of speech.

The Notion of the Word -Form
Parts of speech are usually considered a lexico-grammatical categories since:
they show lexical groupings of words;
these groupings present generalized classes, each with a unified, abstract meaning of its own.

3. The Notion of Grammatical Meaning
Notional words combine two meanings in their semantic structure:
lexical;
grammatical.

The Notion of Grammatical Meaning
Lexical meaning is the individual meaning of the word
E.g.: table - a definite piece of furniture with a flat top supported by one or more upright legs,
speak – to express thoughts aloud, using the voice.

The Notion of Grammatical Meaning
Grammatical (morphological) meaning is not individual.
↓
It is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass
E.g.: table (grammatical meaning of the class of nouns (thingness / substance) and the grammatical meaning of a subclass – countableness).

?
What are grammatical meanings of:
- verbs;
adjectives;
adverbs?

The Notion of Grammatical Meaning
There are some classes of words that are devoid of any lexical meaning and possess the grammatical meaning only.

???
What are they?

The Notion of Grammatical Meaning
Function words

4.Types of Grammatical Meaning
The grammatical meaning may be:
explicit;
implicit.

Types of Grammatical Meaning
The implicit grammatical meaning is not expressed formally
E.g.: table (the meaning of inanimate object)

Types of Grammatical Meaning
The explicit grammatical meaning is always marked morphologically
E.g.: -s in cats (the grammatical meaning of plurality);
's in cat's (the grammatical meaning of possessiveness);
is …ed in is asked (the grammatical meaning of passiveness)

Types of Grammatical Meaning
Types of the implicit grammatical meaning:
general
dependent

Types of Grammatical Meaning
general (the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part of speech)
E.g.: thingness of nouns

Types of Grammatical Meaning
dependent (the meaning of a subclass within the same part of speech)
E.g.: the verb (transitivity/ intransitivity,
terminativeness / non-terminativeness,
stativeness / non-stativeness);
the noun (countableness / uncountableness,
animateness / inanimateness)

Types of Grammatical Meaning
The dependent grammatical meaning influences the realization of grammatical categories restricting them to a subclass.
E.g.: the number category for the subclass of countable nouns;
the category of case for the subclass of animated nouns;
the category of voice for transitive verbs, etc.

Types of Grammatical Meaning

5. The Notion of Grammatical Category
A grammatical category is a linguistic category which has the effect of modifying the forms of some class of words in a language.

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Its structure displays two or more forms applied to a definite class of words and used in somewhat different grammatical circumstances.
↓↓

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Grammatical categories are made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the same form and meaning
E.g. singular : plural

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Due to dialectal unity of language and thought, grammatical categories correlate, on the one hand, with the conceptual categories and, on the other hand, with the objective reality:

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Thus,
grammatical categories are references of the corresponding objective categories.
E.g.: the objective category of time →
the grammatical category of tense,
the objective category of quantity → the grammatical category of number.

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Grammatical categories that have references in the objective reality are referential.
Objective correlate
↓
Lingual correlate

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Grammatical categories that do not correspond to anything in the objective reality and correlate only with conceptual matters are significational. They are few (e.g. the categories of mood and degree).
Conceptual correlate
↓
Lingual correlate

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Classifications of Gr. Categories
According to the referent relation:
immanent;
- reflective.

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Immanent gr. categories are:
1) innate for a given lexemic class, organically connected with its functional nature
E.g.: the number category of nouns,
the substantive-pronominal person
2) closed within a word-class
E.g.: the tense category of verbs,
the comparison of adjectives and adverbs

The Notion of Grammatical Category
Reflective gr. categories are of a secondary, derivative semantic value
E.g.: the number category of verbs,
the verbal person

The Notion of Grammatical Category
2. According to the changeability of the exposed feature
- unchangeable / derivational (constant feature categories)
E.g.: the gender category of nouns represented by the system of the 3rd person pronouns
- changeable / demutative (variable feature categories)
E.g.: the number category of nouns,
the degrees of comparison

The Notion of Grammatical Category
NB:
1. The notion of grammatical category applies to the plane of content of morphological paradigmatic units;

The Notion of Grammatical Category
2. It refers to grammatical meaning as a general notion;

The Notion of Grammatical Category
3. It does not nominate things but expresses relations, that is why it has to be studied in terms of oppositions;

The Notion of Grammatical Category
4. Grammatical categories of language represent a realization of universal categories produced by human thinking in a set of interrelated forms organized as oppositions;

The Notion of Grammatical Category
5. Grammatical categories are not uniform, they vary in accordance with the part of speech they belong to and the meaning they express;

The Notion of Grammatical Category
6. The expression of grammatical categories in language is based upon close interrelation between their forms and the meaning they convey.

6. The Notion of Opposition
The concept of opposition is that it distinguishes something.
↓

The Notion of Opposition
One thing can be distinguished from another only if it can be contrasted with something else or opposed to it.

The Notion of Opposition
Any grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical forms
E.g. the grammatical category of number: singular and plural forms.

The Notion of Opposition
Thus,
the relation between two grammatical forms that differ in meaning and external signs is called opposition.

The Notion of Opposition
The most widely known opposition is the binary "privative" opposition.
In it one member of the contrastive pair is characterized by the presence of a certain feature which the other member lacks

The Notion of Opposition
E.g. table::tables
↓ ↓
“unmarked” “marked”
(weak) member (strong) member
↓ ↓
non-plural plural
↓ ↓
more general and abstract more particular and
concrete
(used in a wider range of contexts)

The Notion of Opposition
FYI:
Some scholars, however, hold the opinion that oppositions can be
gradual (different degree of a feature)
E.g.: big — bigger — biggest
equipollent (different positive features)
E.g.: am — is — are.

The Notion of Opposition
NB:
A grammatical category is definable only on the basis of oppositions.

The Notion of Opposition
Means of realization of grammatical categories:
synthetic (near — nearer);
analytical (beautiful — more beautiful).