This document provides an overview of grammar and its study. It discusses the definition of grammar and key grammatical concepts like categories, classes of words, and sentences. Some main points: - Grammar is the study of language structure, forms, and syntactic relations. It has two branches: morphology studies word forms/functions, and syntax studies word order/relations in sentences. - Grammatical categories include nominal categories like number/case for nouns and verbal categories like tense/aspect for verbs. - There are two classes of words: notional words with full meaning like nouns/verbs, and functional words with incomplete meaning that connect words like prepositions. - A sentence is the basic unit of

1. GRAMMAR ASPECT OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDY
LECTURE 8

3. Grammar
• (from Gr. grámma – “letter, writing”, originally meant
‘the art of writing’) is a branch of linguistics that studies
structure forms and syntactic relations in language. Grammar
means ‘language structure’ and is represented in
grammatical categories, grammatical units, grammatical
meanings, grammatical forms.
• Category is a form of thought that represents universal
features and relations of the objective reality.
Grammatical category is the most general meaning rendered
by systemic relations of word-forms.
• The universal grammatical categories:
• nominal: number, case, person, gender;
• verbal: tense, voice, aspect, mood.

4. Grammar
Grammar consists of 2 branches: morphology &
syntax.
Morphology (Gr. morph “form” + logos “study”)
studies grammatical properties of words – their
forms, functions in a sentence & grammatical
meanings.
Syntax (Gr. syn “together” + taxis “sequence,
order, arrangement”) studies relations and
patterns acc. to which words are arranged in a
sentence.

5. 1. History of Grammar Studies

6. The origin of grammar thought
• Babylonian grammatical tradition (3000 BC): bilingual (Sumerian and
Akkadian) grammatical texts included verbal, pronominal, adverbial
paradigms.
• Ancient Indian scholars: Panini (5th c. B.C.), Chandra (5th c. A.D.),
Jainendra (7th c. A.D.).
• Panini ‘s grammar had 4 000 rules (sūtras). Morphological approach:
words were divided into 2 classes: inflected (nouns, verbs) & uninflected
(prepositions, particles); 200 lists of nouns, adverbs, functional words;
analysis of compounds.
• Indian grammatical theory: morphological structure of word - root, stem, suffix;
4 parts of speech - noun, verb, preposition, particle. The noun was defined as a
word that nominates an object, the verb – as a word that nominates an action.
Particles were divided into copulative, comparative, empty (formal elements used
in poetry). Seven cases of noun: nominative, genetive, dative, accusative,
instrumental, ablative, local. Patanjali defined the sentence as a “single
utterance that expresses a single meaning”.

7. The ancient Greek-Roman grammar
school (5th c. B.C. – 6th A.D.)
• Plato’s ‘Cratylus’ – syntactic approach: 2 major
components of a sentence – nominal (onoma) & verbal
(rheme).
• Aristotle “The Categories” – 3 distinct classes of words:
noun, verb, copula (conjunction, pronoun, article); case –
for nouns & verbs, gender – for nouns.
• The Stoics – 5 classes of words: proper & common name,
verb, adverb, conjunction, member (pronoun, article);
distinguised 5 cases: direct (nominative, genetive,
dative, accusative, vocative; temporal & aspectual
meanings of tense.
• Julius Caesar, thesis “About Analogies” (54 B.C.),
grammatical description of Latin and norms of its usage.

8. • Dionysius [daə′nasəs] Thrax (Діонісій Фракійській) (2nd -1st с. BC),
1st formal grammar in Greek with rules in phonetics and
morphology, a standard for more than 1,000 years.
• Alexandrian scholars (2nd c. BC – 2nd c. AD): word was defined as a minimal
meaningful part of speech, sentence – as combination of words expressing a
finite thought.
• Lat. grammarian Varro (1st c. BC), On the Latin Language in 25 books (6
survived): inflectional abilities correlate with syntactic & semantic functions:
nouns name, verbs make statements, adverbs support, participles join.
• Aelius Donatus [dəu′neitəs] (Елій Донат) (4th c. AD) Latin grammar book Ars Grammatica
(‘Мистецтво граматики’), became the main manual in monastery schools through the
Middle Ages in Europe.
• Priscian’s [′pri∫ən] (5-6th c. AD) Grammatical Categories and esp. Institutes of Grammar
became a standard for teaching Latin phonetics, word-building, syntax till the 18th c.
• The ancient grammar tradition of language description acc. to parts
of speech and grammatical categories laid the foundation to
European linguistic studies.

9. The European grammatical tradition
4 main stages:
• 6-12th c., grammar was considered as a
supplementary discipline;
• 13-14th c., grammar existed in opposition –
philosophical grammar versus practical one;
• 15-16th c., interest to the structure of national
languages originated, and 1st grammar books of
national languages were created;
• 17-18th c., “rational period” of grammar science
and study of natural speech came to life.

10. English theoretical & practical grammar
• English grammarians:
• William Bullokar, Pamphlet for Grammar (1586), “a
reformed spelling system”;
• Robert Lowth, A Short Introduction to English Grammar
(1762), a standard for teaching accuracy with examples and
analysis of mistakes in footnotes;
• Henry Sweet, A new English grammar: logical and historical
in 2 parts: Phonology and Accidence (1892) and Syntax (1896)
based on morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria;
• John C. Nesfield, English grammar: Past and Present (1900),
A Manual of English Grammar and Composition (1898), a
success both in Britain and British colonies.
• Harold E. Palmer’s Grammar of Spoken English (1924) written
for teaching English as a foreign language with full
description of intonation patterns.

11. 2. The Grammatical Categories
• Category is a form of thought that represents
universal features and relations of the objective
reality, general regularities of development of all
material, natural and spiritual phenomena.
• Aristotle’s 10 objective categories:
• substance, quantity, quality, relations, place, time,
location, state, action, subjection to action.

12. • Logical or conceptual category is the general
notion reflecting the most general properties in
logic:
• subject (cуб’єкт), object (об’єкт), predicate
(предикат), temporality (темпоральність),
aspectuality (аспектуальність), quantitiveness
(квонтитивність), etc.
• Grammatical category is the most general meaning
rendered by systemic relations of word-forms.
• The universal grammatical categories:
• nominal: number, case, person, gender;
• verbal: tense, voice, aspect, mood.

13. • Due to dialectical unity of language and thought, the
nature of linguistic categories can be conceived in
their correlation with conceptual and objective ones
– in a form of the triad: “objective – conceptual –
lingual” realities.

14. Referential categories
• The grammatical categories that correlate with
objective ones are called referential. They are
tense, aspect, number.

15. • 3. The Grammatical Classes of Words
• Grammatical sets, classes or parts of speech.
• The notional parts of speech are words with
complete nominative meaning: nouns, adjectives,
numbers, pronouns, verbs, adverbs.
• The functional parts of speech are words with
incomplete nominative meaning which establish
relations b/w words in a sentence: prepositions,
conjunctions, articles, particles, modal words,
interjections.
• Let’s consider each part of speech in the triad:
“meaning – form – function”.

16. noun: (substantive)
• - categorial meaning of substance;
• - changeable forms of number and case,
prepositional connection, modification by
adjective & article;
• - substantive function in a sentence (subject,
object, predicative).

17. • Adjective:
• - categorial meaning of property (qualitative &
relative);
• - forms of the degrees of comparison (for
qualitative A);
• - attributive function in a sentence.

18. • verb:
• - categorial meaning of process and state;
• forms of tense, mood, voice, aspect; opposition
of finite and non-finite forms;
• function of predicate.

19. 4. The Sentence: General Notions (1)
• Sentence is the informative unit built up of
words acc. to a particular syntactic pattern,
functionally burdened and intonationally
organised.
• Sentence is a predicative unit that presents a
certain situation (event) and reflects relations
b/w the objects of the reality.
•

20. 4. The Sentence: General Notions (2)
• Night. Night and the boundless sea under the eternal
stars.
• Night? Oh, no. No night for me.
• Night. It pays all the day’s debts.
• The 1st one-member sentence Night reflects
reminiscences; the 2nd presents a question in
argument; the 3rd is reasoning.

21. 4. The Sentence: General Notions (3)
• The basic predicative meaning of a sentence is
expressed by a finite verb which is connected
with the subject.
• The predicative connection is referred to as a
“predicative line”.
• A sentence may have one or several predicative
lines, i.e. it may be monopredicative or
polypredicative.
• A simple sentence is a syntactic unit with one
predicative line, e.g.: Opinions differ.

22. 4.The Sentence: General Notions (4)
• Sentence possesses the categories of predication, communicativity,
modality, sentence perspective.
• Predication is the relations b/w the subject & predicate.
• Communicativity as the main informative unit in speech / writing
acc. to the communicative purpose (declaration – interrogation – inducement).
• Modality is the relations b/w the content of a sentence and the
reality from the viewpoint of speaker:
• objective modality is subdivided into modality of reality (real /
unreal, expressed by moods): duty (must, should, ought to),
possibility (may, probably), ability (can, be able to);
• subjective (emotional) modality shows the speaker’s attitude to the
content of a sentence and is expressed by modal words fortunately,
hopefully.
• Sentence perspective is a reference to certain event in present, past
or future.

23. 5.The Functional Perspective / Actual
Division of a Sentence
• The functional perspective (FP) / actual division (AD) is
based on informative role of sentence members.
• The main components are theme and rheme.
• The theme expresses the staring point of communication
(already known information).
• The rheme expresses the basic informative part (new
information).
• Between the theme and the rheme there are intermediary,
transitional elements of various informative value.
• The functional purpose of the FP is to reveal a meaningful
center in the utterance (its rheme) in distinction to the

24. 5.The Functional Perspective / Actual Division
of a Sentence
• The theme may or may not coincide with the
subject and the rheme may or may not coincide
with the predicate of a sentence.
• E.g.: Again Charlie is being too clever!
• (tr.el.) (theme) (tr.el.) (rheme)
• The FP in which the rheme is expressed by the
subject is called “inverted”.
• E.g.: Mary is fond of poetry, not Tim.
• (rheme) (theme) (tr. el.)
•

25. 5.The Functional Perspective / Actual Division
of a Sentence
• Formal means of expressing distinction b/w the theme
and the rheme:
• word-order,
• syntactic patterns,
• introductory constructions (introductory there, anticipatory it),
• contrastive units,
• emphatic constuctions,
• intensifying particles,
• articles (with additional loading),
• logical stress.

26. 5.The Functional Perspective / Actual Division
of a Sentence
• Different word-order :
• The girl stood near the gate. → Near the gate stood the
girl.
• In the base sentence the rheme is expressed by the
adverbial modifier; in its transform the rheme is
expressed by the object. In both cases the rheme is
placed at the end of the sentence, the theme is
positioned at the beginning.
• This kind of positioning corresponds to the natural
development of thought – from the starting point of
communication to its semantic center or from the
known data to the new ones.

27. 5.The Functional Perspective / Actual Division
of a Sentence
• 1) There came a loud cry. (__);
• 2) It was Laura who joined them at the moment. (__);
• 3) The boy was standing at the gate :: A boy was standing at
the gate (__);
• 4) The vegetables, not flowers, are sold here. (__);
• 5) The one who didn’t notice the newcomer was Molly. (__);
• 6) Even younger children participated in the performance. He
was so impressed by the meeting. (__);
• 7) “I can’t bring along someone who is not invited”. – “But I
am invited!” (__).
• 8) Susan should be the 1st to receive the price. → The 1st to
receive the price should be Susan. (__)
• 9) How well you look! (__)

28. 6.The composite sentence
• The composite sentence is formed by two or
more predicative lines, reflects two or more
events viewed as a unity. Each predicative unit
makes up a clause, e.g.:
• When I walked down the steps I saw that the evening
was not quite over; fifty feet from the door in the
ditch beside the road, rested a new coupé which has
left Gatsby’s drive two minutes before. (F.S.Fitzgerald)

29. • 6.The composite sentence
• 5 clauses :
• 1) I walked down the steps
• 2) I saw
• 3) that the evening was not quite over
• 4) fifty feet from the door in the ditch beside the road,
rested a new coupé
• 5) which has left Gatsby’s drive two minutes before

30. 6.The composite sentence
• Logical sequence of events:
• 1) A new coupé left Gatsby’s drive two minutes ago.
• 2) I walked down the steps.
• 3) I saw the car fifty feet from the door in the ditch beside
the road.
• 4) I realized that the evening was not quite over.
Difference b/w the composite sentence and logical
presentation of events is the following. The purpose
of the composite sentence is to inform about smth
from the viewpoint of the speaker; the logical
sequence of events represents the situation in its
natural temporal succession.

31. 6.The composite sentence
• Composite sentences display two principal types of organisation:
parataxis (coordination) and hypotaxis (subordination).
• Parataxis is the relations of units of syntactically equal rank
(copulative conj. and, comparative conj. or, adversative conj. but).
• hypotaxis means relations of units of syntactically unequal rank,
one being categorally dominated by the other (subclause is
supplementary to the principal clause).
• Compound sentences are based on the relations of
coordination, complex sentences are based on the relations
subordination.
• Sentences are syndetic (conjunctional) and asyndetic (non-
conjunctional).