Comparative Typology - info for students
Dear fifth-year students,
Lecture 5
Typology of syntactical systems. Typology of the phrasemic level.
Plan
1. Typological constants in the syntactic system
2. Typology of phrases in English and Russian
1. Typological constants in the syntactic system
The syntax of a language is a level of the language dealing with units more complicated than the word. These are the phrase and the sentence.
The phrase is a combination of two or more notional words syntactically related to each other and having a nominative function. Phrases, like words, denote objects, phenomena, action or process. However, unlike words, they represent them as complicated phenomena.
The sentence is an integral unit of speech having a communicative purpose; it expresses a statement, a question or inducement (побуждение). The sentence expresses predication, i.e. shows whether the event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as truth or asked about, etc. The sentence can consist of one or several notional words.
Phrases and sentences are universal linguistic phenomena. Their structure can be used as a basis for typological comparison.
For identifying the type of a phrase, the following criteria have been established:
a) The type of syntactical connection in a phrase
b) The means of expressing the syntactical connection
c) The position of the elements of the phrase
a) The elements of a phrase can be syntactically equal or unequal. In the former case, neither of the elements modifies the other. We can change their position without any change of meaning. Such combinations are called e[i:]qui’potent.
e.g. father and son; son and father.
If the elements are syntactically unequal, one of them modifies the other. The principal element is called the “kernel” or “head word”. The subordinate element is called “the adjunct”. Their respective positions are different for different types of phrases and different languages. Such phrases are called dominational.
The connections between the elements of a dominational phrase can be further grouped into
· predicative (the combination of the subject and the predicate of a sentence)
e.g. the train arrived
· attributive (the combination of a noun with its attribute expressed by an adjective or a noun)
e.g. an emerald ring; a woman of strong character
· objective (the combination of a verb with a subordinate element expressed by a noun, pronoun or a verbal)
e.g. to read the book; to read it; to decide to stay
· adverbial (the combination of a verb and an adverbial modifier or the combination of an adjective or an adverb and the subordinate element expressed by an adverb)
e.g. to talk quickly; extremely quick; extremely quickly
a) these syntactical connections can be formally expressed in different ways:
· government. The form of the adjunct is influenced by the head-word. (e.g. позвала брата; сказать брату)
· agreement. The kernel and the adjunct have the same number, gender, case, person. (e.g. большая комната, в большой комнате)
· contact. The elements are combined with one another by sheer contact, without the help of any grammatical forms.(e.g. бежать быстро)
с) The adjunct can be in preposition or in postposition to the head-word.
e.g. a health certificate; справка о здоровье
The typology of the sentence has been investigated nearly as closely as the typology of the morphological structure. The first scholar who made a considerable contribution to this part of typology was Ivan Ivanovitch Mestchaninov. He created a new typological classification of languages based on their syntactical structure, mainly on the typology of sentences.
His classification of languages into nominative, ergative and passive is considered too general. For example, according to his classification, isolating, agglutinating and inflexional languages all belong to the nominative type. No subtypes, which would characterize the syntactical structure of these groups of languages, were given.
Such characteristics were supplied by Vladimir Skalicka. According to him, fixed word order is characteristic of agglutinating and isolating types. The former has the Subject - Object - Predicate word order, and the latter has the Subject - Predicate - Object word order. In inflexional languages, word order is not fixed, but the most common variant is Subject - Predicate - Object.
Skalicka’s typology is more detailed but it has also been criticized. Linguists have pointed out that some of inflexional languages have fixed word order (e.g. Persian, Armenian) and it is similar to the word order of agglutinating languages.
Another typology of the sentence was set up by Joseph Greenberg. He based it on three criteria:
1. the existence of prepositions or postpositions
2. the word order of declarative sentences
3. the position of attributes expressed by adjectives
Greenberg classified about 30 languages. He found only three variants of word order: S+P+O, S+O+P, P+S+O.
According to Greenberg’s classification, the English and Russian languages belong to the group having prepositions, adjectives in preposition to nouns and SPO word order. At the same time, the facts of the languages show that these two languages are not identical in their syntactical structure. There is evidently need for more subtle syntactical classifications.
2. Typology of phrases in English and Russian
a) The types of syntactical connection coincide in English and Russian phrases. Both languages have combinations of a noun with its attribute, a verb with an object, an adverb with the headword expressed by a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. At the same time, there are some differences in the structure of attributive phrases.
In Russian, the adjunct of the attributive phrase is frequently expressed by an adjective. In the same cases, many English phrases are made up of two nouns.
One of the reasons for that is the fact that there are fewer relative adjectives in English. Therefore, when the kernel and the adjunct denote two connected objects (e.g. the thing and the material it is made from; the factory and the product made by it, etc) the English-speaking person uses a noun as an attribute.
e.g. silver spoon =серебряная ложка
sugar industry=сахарная промышленность
Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the adjunct in such phrases is a noun or an adjective. Lack of grammatical markers of the parts of speech makes English similar to the isolating languages. Sometimes it is difficult to say whether such combinations are phrases or compound words.
e.g. schoolboy, school-teacher, school building
In these cases, English has some features of incorporating languages, which don’t have a borderline between the word and the phrase.
Noun+noun phrases are also used in English if the adjunct denotes a period of time
e.g. a two hours’ trip=двухчасовая поездка
and a quality of the person denoted by the headword.
e.g. a woman of sense=разумная женщина
Some types of phrases can be found only in one of the languages.
In English, the adjunct of an attributive phrase can be expressed by a passive infinitive.
e.g. a letter to be sent.
This type of phrase in non-existent in Russian. The idea is rendered by a subordinate clause.
e.g. письмо, которое нужно отослать
In Russian, the adjunct of an attributive phrase can be expressed by an adverb
e.g. взгляд исподлобья; шапка набекрень
This type of phrase in non-existent in English. The idea is rendered by lexical semantics.
e.g. a scowl at somebody; with one’s hat on one side
b) The English and the Russian languages differ significantly in the means of expressing syntactical connections in a phrase. In Russian all the three ways of connection are used. In English, the use of government and agreement is restricted to the phrases with pronouns.
e.g. to see him; these books
In most cases the elements of the phrase are combined by contact.
b) the position of the elements is by far more important in English than in Russian because of the lack of grammar markers. In Russian, a change of position can signal of a change of style.
e.g. зеленый дуб - у лукоморья дуб зеленый
In English, the kernel and the adjunct of the phrase are identified by their position.
e.g. Glass window = стеклянное окно; Window glass= оконное стекло
In some types of phrase, the position of the elements differs in Russian and English.
In English attributive phrases, the adjunct expressed by a noun in the possessive case is always in preposition to the headword.
e.g. my father’s house
In the corresponding Russian phrases, the adjunct expressed by a noun in the genitive is usually in postposition.
e.g. дом отца
In English attributive phrases denoting objects in numerical order, the adjunct expressed by a cardinal numeral is in postposition to the kernel expressed by a noun.
e.g. room 15
In the corresponding Russian phrases, the adjunct expressed by an ordinal numeral is in preposition to the headword.
e.g. пятнадцатая комната
In adverbial phrases, the adjunct expressed by an adverb is in postposition to the verb in English and in preposition to the verb in Russian.
e.g. отлично работать = to work hard
Lecture 5
Typology of syntactical systems. Typology of the phrasemic level.
Plan
1. Typological constants in the syntactic system
2. Typology of phrases in English and Russian
1. Typological constants in the syntactic system
The syntax of a language is a level of the language dealing with units more complicated than the word. These are the phrase and the sentence.
The phrase is a combination of two or more notional words syntactically related to each other and having a nominative function. Phrases, like words, denote objects, phenomena, action or process. However, unlike words, they represent them as complicated phenomena.
The sentence is an integral unit of speech having a communicative purpose; it expresses a statement, a question or inducement (побуждение). The sentence expresses predication, i.e. shows whether the event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as truth or asked about, etc. The sentence can consist of one or several notional words.
Phrases and sentences are universal linguistic phenomena. Their structure can be used as a basis for typological comparison.
For identifying the type of a phrase, the following criteria have been established:
a) The type of syntactical connection in a phrase
b) The means of expressing the syntactical connection
c) The position of the elements of the phrase
a) The elements of a phrase can be syntactically equal or unequal. In the former case, neither of the elements modifies the other. We can change their position without any change of meaning. Such combinations are called e[i:]qui’potent.
e.g. father and son; son and father.
If the elements are syntactically unequal, one of them modifies the other. The principal element is called the “kernel” or “head word”. The subordinate element is called “the adjunct”. Their respective positions are different for different types of phrases and different languages. Such phrases are called dominational.
The connections between the elements of a dominational phrase can be further grouped into
· predicative (the combination of the subject and the predicate of a sentence)
e.g. the train arrived
· attributive (the combination of a noun with its attribute expressed by an adjective or a noun)
e.g. an emerald ring; a woman of strong character
· objective (the combination of a verb with a subordinate element expressed by a noun, pronoun or a verbal)
e.g. to read the book; to read it; to decide to stay
· adverbial (the combination of a verb and an adverbial modifier or the combination of an adjective or an adverb and the subordinate element expressed by an adverb)
e.g. to talk quickly; extremely quick; extremely quickly
a) these syntactical connections can be formally expressed in different ways:
· government. The form of the adjunct is influenced by the head-word. (e.g. позвала брата; сказать брату)
· agreement. The kernel and the adjunct have the same number, gender, case, person. (e.g. большая комната, в большой комнате)
· contact. The elements are combined with one another by sheer contact, without the help of any grammatical forms.(e.g. бежать быстро)
с) The adjunct can be in preposition or in postposition to the head-word.
e.g. a health certificate; справка о здоровье
The typology of the sentence has been investigated nearly as closely as the typology of the morphological structure. The first scholar who made a considerable contribution to this part of typology was Ivan Ivanovitch Mestchaninov. He created a new typological classification of languages based on their syntactical structure, mainly on the typology of sentences.
His classification of languages into nominative, ergative and passive is considered too general. For example, according to his classification, isolating, agglutinating and inflexional languages all belong to the nominative type. No subtypes, which would characterize the syntactical structure of these groups of languages, were given.
Such characteristics were supplied by Vladimir Skalicka. According to him, fixed word order is characteristic of agglutinating and isolating types. The former has the Subject - Object - Predicate word order, and the latter has the Subject - Predicate - Object word order. In inflexional languages, word order is not fixed, but the most common variant is Subject - Predicate - Object.
Skalicka’s typology is more detailed but it has also been criticized. Linguists have pointed out that some of inflexional languages have fixed word order (e.g. Persian, Armenian) and it is similar to the word order of agglutinating languages.
Another typology of the sentence was set up by Joseph Greenberg. He based it on three criteria:
1. the existence of prepositions or postpositions
2. the word order of declarative sentences
3. the position of attributes expressed by adjectives
Greenberg classified about 30 languages. He found only three variants of word order: S+P+O, S+O+P, P+S+O.
According to Greenberg’s classification, the English and Russian languages belong to the group having prepositions, adjectives in preposition to nouns and SPO word order. At the same time, the facts of the languages show that these two languages are not identical in their syntactical structure. There is evidently need for more subtle syntactical classifications.
2. Typology of phrases in English and Russian
a) The types of syntactical connection coincide in English and Russian phrases. Both languages have combinations of a noun with its attribute, a verb with an object, an adverb with the headword expressed by a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. At the same time, there are some differences in the structure of attributive phrases.
In Russian, the adjunct of the attributive phrase is frequently expressed by an adjective. In the same cases, many English phrases are made up of two nouns.
One of the reasons for that is the fact that there are fewer relative adjectives in English. Therefore, when the kernel and the adjunct denote two connected objects (e.g. the thing and the material it is made from; the factory and the product made by it, etc) the English-speaking person uses a noun as an attribute.
e.g. silver spoon =серебряная ложка
sugar industry=сахарная промышленность
Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the adjunct in such phrases is a noun or an adjective. Lack of grammatical markers of the parts of speech makes English similar to the isolating languages. Sometimes it is difficult to say whether such combinations are phrases or compound words.
e.g. schoolboy, school-teacher, school building
In these cases, English has some features of incorporating languages, which don’t have a borderline between the word and the phrase.
Noun+noun phrases are also used in English if the adjunct denotes a period of time
e.g. a two hours’ trip=двухчасовая поездка
and a quality of the person denoted by the headword.
e.g. a woman of sense=разумная женщина
Some types of phrases can be found only in one of the languages.
In English, the adjunct of an attributive phrase can be expressed by a passive infinitive.
e.g. a letter to be sent.
This type of phrase in non-existent in Russian. The idea is rendered by a subordinate clause.
e.g. письмо, которое нужно отослать
In Russian, the adjunct of an attributive phrase can be expressed by an adverb
e.g. взгляд исподлобья; шапка набекрень
This type of phrase in non-existent in English. The idea is rendered by lexical semantics.
e.g. a scowl at somebody; with one’s hat on one side
b) The English and the Russian languages differ significantly in the means of expressing syntactical connections in a phrase. In Russian all the three ways of connection are used. In English, the use of government and agreement is restricted to the phrases with pronouns.
e.g. to see him; these books
In most cases the elements of the phrase are combined by contact.
b) the position of the elements is by far more important in English than in Russian because of the lack of grammar markers. In Russian, a change of position can signal of a change of style.
e.g. зеленый дуб - у лукоморья дуб зеленый
In English, the kernel and the adjunct of the phrase are identified by their position.
e.g. Glass window = стеклянное окно; Window glass= оконное стекло
In some types of phrase, the position of the elements differs in Russian and English.
In English attributive phrases, the adjunct expressed by a noun in the possessive case is always in preposition to the headword.
e.g. my father’s house
In the corresponding Russian phrases, the adjunct expressed by a noun in the genitive is usually in postposition.
e.g. дом отца
In English attributive phrases denoting objects in numerical order, the adjunct expressed by a cardinal numeral is in postposition to the kernel expressed by a noun.
e.g. room 15
In the corresponding Russian phrases, the adjunct expressed by an ordinal numeral is in preposition to the headword.
e.g. пятнадцатая комната
In adverbial phrases, the adjunct expressed by an adverb is in postposition to the verb in English and in preposition to the verb in Russian.
e.g. отлично работать = to work hard