3.Lexical words as grammatical words. Their semasiological, formal and functional differentiation.

The differences between lexical and grammatical meanings can be summarized according to the following 5 points: the degree of abstraction, the degree of autonomy, the degree of openness, obligatory/non-obligatory character.

Generally grammatical meanings are more abstract than lexical meanings. (Ex. He fell down and broke his leg-yesterday, a year ago, 20 years ago-the lexical meaning is more concrete). The analysis of grammatical meaning reveals that they reflect not the fragments of reality which is done by lexical meaning, but rather the structure of such fragments. However there are cases in the language, when lexical meaning may be as wide as grammatical meaning. This is the case with words that we use to describe grammatical meanings. Such words are substance, action, number and so on are called “metalexical units”.

Grammatical and lexical meanings differ in their functions and consequently in their degree autonomy. Lexical meanings are more autonomous, and grammatical meanings are not and they find expression only in combination with lexical meaning. The lexicon of the language presents an open system. The number of lexical meanings is unlimited. Any concept can be expressed lexically. Whereas the number of concepts which find a grammatical expression is very limited. Such concepts as time and number find a grammatical expression in most languages. Such concepts as colour or size are expressed only lexically.

There are cases when the same concept is expressed both lexically and grammatically. In such cases the grammatical representation is always more general and lexical is more concrete. The grammatical category of number differentiates between singular and plural, whereas the concrete meaning is presented in numerals. Grammatical meanings have a regular and obligatory character in the language. Whereas the expression of lexical meanings is necessitated by the speaker’s means (Ex. It has been raining for hours.-present perfect continuos, number, person, indicative mood and voice). However grammatical meanings are not always explicity expressed. They may be implicit. (Ex. We have three more questions to discus). 

There are 2 phenomena in the l-ge that are directly the results of interaction between grammatical & lexical meanings. 

Lexicalization of the grammatical meaning – the process of acquiring a new lexical meaning by grammatical means. custom (звичай) - customs (таможня).  Grammaticalization – a process when word loses its lexical meaning & becomes auxiliary word that carries only a grammatical function. to be going to – loses the lexical meaning of intention & expresses pure futurity. 

4. The Adjective. The category of intensity and comparison. Substantiation of adjectives. The noun. The category of case in Modern English. The category of number. Divergent views on different kinds of cases.

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives. (the tall professor; a six-year-old child).

Adjectives are the third major class of words in English, after nouns and verbs. Adjectives are words expressing properties of objects e.g. large, blue, simple, clever, economic, progressive, productive, etc and, hence, qualifying nouns. Adjectives in English do not change for number or case. The only grammatical category they have is the degrees of comparison.

All the adjectives are traditionally divided into 2 large subclasses: qualitative and relative.

Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance (e.g. wood – a wooden hut, history – a historical event).

E.g. a wooden hut – a hut made of wood; a historical event – an event referring to a certain period of history.

Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their correlative quantitative measure. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive (e.g. a difficult task – a very difficult task).

!!! Substances can possess such qualities as are incompatible with the idea of degrees of comparison а adjectives denoting these qualities, while belonging to the qualitative subclasses, are in the ordinary use incapable of forming degrees of comparison (e.g. extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed).

The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes (long – longer – longest) showing qualitative distinctions of qualities. More exactly it shows whether the adjective denotes the property of some substance absolutely, or relatively as a higher or the highest amount of the property in comparison with that of some other substances.

-> ‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ degrees.

Some authors treat more beautiful and the most beautiful not as analytical forms, but as free syntactical combinations of adverbs and adjectives. One of the arguments is that less and least form combinations with adjectives similar to those with more and most: e.g. more beautiful – less beautiful, the most beautiful – the least beautiful.  

In order to prove that more beautiful is an analytical form of the comparative degree, we have to prove that more is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme –er.

Those adjectives which have comparative opposites with suffix –er have usually no parallel opposites with more and vice versa.

e.g. beautiful – more beautiful (not beautifuller),nice – nicer (not more nice)

This is not the case with less:

Less and –er have different, even opposite meanings: prettier – less pretty, safer – less safe.

These facts show that more in more beautiful is a grammatical word-morpheme identical with the morpheme –er of the comparative degree, so а more beautiful is an analytical form.

The noun is expression that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality or idea. It serve as the subject or object of a verb, and the object of a preposition.

English has three genders for nouns and pronouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Examples: Masculine- man, father, uncle, boy, husband; Feminine- woman, mother, aunt, girl, wife.

Some nouns can be used for either a masculine or a feminine subject. Examples: teenager, teacher, doctor, student, parent, friend, partner, leader.

In some cases nouns describing things are given gender. Examples: love my car. She (the car) is my greatest passion.

Some nouns in English may have the singular and the plural forms (room-rooms, worker-workers). Other nouns are used either only in the singular (freedom, progress, milk) or only on the plural (spectacles, goods).

The plural of most nouns is built up by means of the suffix -s or -es.

Nouns ending in -y preceded by a consonant change the -y into -ies (story-stories). But if a noun ends in -y preceded by a vowel, only -s is added (boy-boys,day-days)

The Category of Case

The category of case of nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl–girl's in English, кіт-кота-коту-кіт-котом- на котові in Ukr.) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other substances, actions, states, etc.

In the sentence ‘I took John's hat by mistake’ the case of the noun ‘John's’ shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection of the relations between John and his hat in reality.

Case is one of those categories which show the close connection:

(a) between language and speech,

(b) between morphology and syntax.

(a) A case opposite is, like any other opposite, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of a case opposite is in their combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russian with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the nominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in the combinability of each oblique case: одобрять поступок, не одобрять поступка, удивляться поступку, восхищаться поступком, etc.

We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability.

(b) Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfill a number of syntactical functions not typical of possessive case grammemes, among them the functions of subject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute. All case opposites are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings, of 'common' case and 'possessive' case, united by the general meaning of the category, that of 'case'. There is not much variety in the form of case opposites either, which distinguishes English from Russian.

An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposites at most (man – man's, men – men's). Some lexemes have but one opposite (England – England's, cattle – cattle's). Many lexemes have no case opposites at all (book, news). In the opposite dog – dog's, men – men's, the 'common' case is not marked, i.e. dog and men have zero morphemes of 'common case'. The 'possessive' case is marked by the suffix -'s /-s. In the opposite dogs – dogs.' the difference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the two opposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are-not marked.

Thus, -'s is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. The whole category' depends on this morpheme.

As already mentioned, with regard to the category of case English nouns fall under two lexicon-grammatical subclasses: declinable, having case opposites, and indeclinable, having no case opposites.

The subclass of declinable is comparatively limited, including mostly nouns denoting living beings, also time and distance.

Indeclinable like book, iron, care have, as a norm, only the potential (or oblique, or lexicon-grammatical) meaning of the common case.

As usual, variants of one lexeme may belong to different subclasses. Youth meaning 'the state of being young' belongs to the indeclinable. Its variant youth meaning 'a young man' has a case opposite (The youth's candid smile - belongs to the declinable.