Grammatical categoryGrammatical meaning There are 2 types of grammatical meaning: • generalised => is found in word classes (part of speech) and in the English language it is implicit (there is no formal marker).(Ex. of nouns=>thingness, substance; of adj.=>quality; of verbs=>action, process; of adv.=>quality of action; of number=>quantity, order) • particular => (lexemes) characteristics of word form(Ex. play s => formal marker. Meaning and function can be in the form of flexion, internal flexion. Grammeme – all the grammatical meanings, which unite many word forms into one group. (Ex. runs, sleeps, walks=> 1 grammeme). The meanings are: Past Tense, Indicative Mood, Plural, Non-continuous aspect, Non-perfect order. Grammatical meaning is a system of expressing the grammatical meaning through the paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms-expressed by grammatical opposition, which can be of different types: private, gradual (large-larger-largest) and equipollent (am/is/are).
Grammatical category If particular grammatical meaning is regularly expressed in the language by grammatical means we can speak about the existence of grammatical category. (Ex. cat vs. cat s, fox vs. fox es, ox vs. ox en, sheep vs. sheep, goose vs. geese => category of number) Grammatical category is an expression of some general grammatical idea, is a kind of abstraction, some logical category. Gr. category may be defined as the unity of grammatical form and grammatical meaning. Grammatical category is an organized set of grammatical forms (grammemes). The set of self-exclusive form classes of the same lexemes including different in meaning inflectional morphemes. (Ex. cat – cat => the same lexemes, but different flexions) All grammatical categories are distinguished on the basis of oppositions or opposemes. Opposition – is a set of word forms (form classes) opposed to one another in one respect (показатель). (Tense oppositions=> play – played (respect here is tense)). Majority of oppositions are 2-member (binary)=> the first opposite (member) is weak, and the second is strong. Weak doesn’t have a formal marker, strong has a marker. (Ex. play vs. played => weak – strong). Binary oppositions are often privative. Privative (the strong member of the opposition has positive sign of category, and weak – negative sign). Besides binary there are ternary (троичная) and gradual => (Ex. good vs. better vs. best). 4-member of opposition is called quaternary and equipollent (равносильные). (Ex. do – did – should do – would do).
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