 |
The problem of minor syntax in the English language
|
|
|
|
CONTENTS
Introduction
THE PROBLEM OF MINOR SYNTAX IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
1.1 The role of set expression in speech building
1.2 The lexical unit as minimal constituent in speech building
METHODS OF STUDY WORD COMBINATIONS
2.1 Internal structure of word combination
2. 2 Attributive word combinations in English, Russianand Kazakh
LEXICAL UNIT AS MINIMAL CONSTITUENT IN SPEECH BUILDING
Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
The topicality. Linguists and grammarians who study syntax are not necessarily prescriptivist, which means they do not attempt to tell people how to "correctly" form a sentence. Rather, they are descriptivist, in that they look at how people actually speak and then create rules that describe what a language community considers grammatical or non-grammatical. Syntax deals with a number of elements, all of which help to facilitate being understood through language. Without rules, there would be no foundation from which to discern meaning from a bunch of words strung together; whereas these rules allow for a virtually infinite number of sentences.
Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect together. Every language has rules that dictate where certain types of words can be used in a sentence, and how to interpret the resulting sentence. A new language learner has to understand how this word order is structured, which can be difficult for someone used to a different language.
In English, the basic order is "Subject-Verb-Object;" this means that in a simple sentence, the first noun phrase is the subject, and the subsequent predicate includes the verb phrase and may contain an object. This allows English speakers to understand that in the sentence "The boy kicked the ball," the "boy" is the subject, and therefore the one doing the kicking, whereas the "ball" is the object being kicked. If someone wrote the sentence, "The ball kicked the boy," the meaning would be reversed somewhat strangely, and "Kicked the ball the boy," would immediately be recognized as a violation of basic syntactical order and read as nonsense.
Not all languages follow this same order, however. In Spanish, for example, the order of the words is more flexible in most cases, and serves to shift the emphasis of a sentence rather than its meaning. Similarly, adjectives in English usually precede the word they describe, while they come after the described word in languages such as French.
Another aspect of syntax covers the various parts of speech that a language uses and separates the words of the language into these groups. Each part of speech in turn has various rules that may be applied to it, and other rules that dictate when it cannot be used. English, for example, makes use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other word types, while different languages may not have a separate class for adjectives or make use of classes not found in English. Thai, for example, doesn't distinguish between adjectives and adverbs, while Japanese has several different types of words that act as adjectives
|
|
|
Through an understanding of proper syntax, speakers and writers know how sentences should be broken up. When two or more sentences are improperly combined into a single sentence, it usually creates a "run-on." Similarly, a sentence that does not contain a full syntactic idea, such as "Swam quickly to the bank," is considered incomplete. Understanding linguistic rules allows speakers and writers to effectively communicate ideas to others.
Minor syntax – deals with word combinations – a free equivalent of a phraseological unit.
A word-combination is a compound nominative unit of speech, which is semantically both global and articulated. There are some differences in the terminology in the Russian- and the English-speaking linguistic tradition. In the Russian terminological system the term словосочетание is usedto denote the unit mentioned above, Englishmen use it to denote any combination of words, but the usual term, which corresponds to our approach to словосочетание, is collocation.
Word-combinations — are the "building material" for syntax. Syntax as a science of ordered speech deals with two basic problems:
the first one -> what are those ultimate units that constitute speech,
the second one -> how these units are organized in actual speech.
To understand the division of the sentence into the parts, it is important to first see the syntagmatic relationships between the elements. Word-combination is a unit of both, syntagmatics and syntax.
Thus, the interdependence between the syntactic and the syntagmatic analysis is the main stumbling block for understanding. To fully convey the purport of an utterance, it is necessary to penetrate into the lexical-phraseological connections between the ultimate meaningful units of the language.
The difference between the syntagmatic and the syntactic analysis of speech may be explained by means of the following example:
Simon had become to look for himself at the family foto.
If one analyses this sentence syntagmatically, it is clear that here to become to look for oneself and family foto — are word-combinations, functionally, they are equivalent to a word. From the point of view of syntax, had become is a predicate, to look for — an adverb, foto — an object, family — an attribute.
The unity of colligation and collocation which is so important for syntactic study in general, has no less importance for the study of word-combinations.
Syntactic relationships may restrict the collocability of one word with another. Thus, the word much may be used before prefer in a sentence like In international political arena Mr. Bush much prefer the position of power. But it is a mistake if the word much is used at the end of the sentence. Colligation and collocation may put intralinguistic restriction upon the freedom with which the speaker chooses the combination of words. First of all, a speaker while bringing words together should follow some grammatical rules. At the same time the process of combining words is restricted by the lexical-phraseological valences of the words.
|
|
|
The difference between a word-combination and a combination of words is the following: a combination of words presupposes the possibility of combining words together in the process of speech production; f word-combination should be regarded as a free equivalent of a phraseological unit.
The "building material" for the construction of sentences consists of
1) word,
2) phraseological unit,
3) word-combination.
The subject of the research is to understand the division of the sentence into the parts
Object of the research is word combinations in English language
The objectives of the research: to study the features of the notion of word combinations in English language, tо cоnsider variоus types оf wоrd combination and their peculiarities, to compare attributive word combinations in English, Russianand Kazakh
The aim of the research is to identify and to describe the main features of the word combination in the English language
To gain the aim of the investigation we have determined the following tasks:
- To give general characteristic of the word combination
- To mention different types of word combination
- To characterize each type of word combination from grammatical point of view
- To make a conclusion about similarities and differences
Research work consists of four parts: introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Theoretical part deals with the definition of word combination, types of word combinations in English and classification of word combinations. Practical part reveals internal structure of word combination,attributive word combinations in English, Russianand Kazakh.
Тема моей курсовой работы актуальна на любом историческом этапе, как бы ни развивался язык. Основной лексической единицей языка является слово. Но одно слово не может раскрыть всей глубины языка, поэтому оно соединяется с другими словами, конструкциями – образуя словосочетания и предложения, из которых строится текст. В английском языке множество видов словосочетаний. Все они разделены на большие группы, в которых выведены некоторые закономерности – это классификация словосочетаний. Именно о них пойдет речь. Ни один язык, в том числе английский, не может обойтись без словосочетаний, потому что они позволяют разнообразить нашу речь, более точно и красочно выражать свои мысли, обогащают язык.
В современной лингвистической литературе по-прежнему не ослабевает интерес к изучению теории словосочетания. Это связано, прежде всего, с рядом неразработанных проблем в этой области. В частности, дискуссионно само определение словосочетания. Мнения лингвистов относительно соотношения предложения со словосочетанием также расходятся. В связи с этим словосочетание смешивается с предложением с одной стороны, и со словом с другой, что приводит к неразличению этих 3 разных синтаксических единиц. Актуальность темы исследования обусловлена отсутствием устоявшейся терминологии и четкой классификации словосочетания
THE PROBLEM OF MINOR SYNTAX IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
|
|
|
