The problem of the language-etalon for comparison (tertium comparationis)
The effectiveness of the contrastive analysis depends on the well-chosen etalon (the basis for comparison, the common denominator), on the basis of which the realization of certain characteristic feature is defined. That is why researchers dealing with contrastive studies believe that for this a special meta-language is necessary. Meta-language as a rule does not resemble any real language system but embodies a certain ideal type, serving as an instrument for comparison of real language systems. Such a meta-language should possess the names of all units and characteristics of languages – the objects of research (it should possess the universal characteristics of all languages), and be suitable for comparison of all languages. Ideally the meta-language should be universal to compare the systems of different languages (known and unknown). The concrete existing languages are viewed as the outcome of the language-etalon. The characteristic of a certain language lies in pointing to the way of transferring to it from the language-etalon. The comparison of languages with the unique language-etalon would positively influence the research results – it would give the possibility to achieve homogeneous results, which would easily undergo the contrastive analysis. In such a case a set of differences from the language-etalon would make a specific characteristic of a researched language. Nevertheless, such a language has not been constructed yet. For example, by contrasting English and Ukrainian languages one can take as a basis either of them. Contrastive description will vary greatly at this. If one takes the English language as a basic one, then it is important to clarify what means are used in the Ukrainian language to render the meaning of English articles. If one relies on the Ukrainian language, then it is necessary to find out in what way the English language renders the meanings of Ukrainian aspect verb forms. Therefore, comparison with some language, which is conventionally taken as a language-etalon, does not have an absolute character and yields relative results, which not always become the reliable basis for conclusions. Though, exactly by using the native language as a basis for comparison (that is the language-etalon) with a foreign language one can easily and fully reveal contrasts (allomorphic features), but in such a way one cannot build the dialectics of the common, different and unique as well as one cannot build a similar description of the language under research. In many cases such a language-etalon will not have names for the characteristic features of the language under study (the category of definiteness/indefiniteness of the English language cannot be described via the system of the Ukrainian language, in its turn, the category of aspect of the Ukrainian language – via the system of the English language [11; 81–82]. A synonymic term tertium comparationis (“мова-еталон” - “третій член порівняння” або основа зіставлення) is often used in the meaning of the “language-etalon”. The terms mentioned are broader since they comprise not only a natural or an artificially constructed language, but also narrower, more concrete objects as a basis for comparison, for example, some notional category (causality, possessivity, modality, definiteness, etc.). Very often and not quite correctly they are called the language-etalon, nevertheless they are not a language, but only the basis for comparison, the third member, the notion on the basis of which ways of its expression in the contrasted languages are revealed. In such cases one should use the terms the basis for comparison or tertium comparationis. As a tertium comparationis in language contrasting one can use separate concepts (such research is widely practised), propositions (semantic invariants common for all the members of modal and communicative paradigms of sentences and their derivative constructions), models of situations and coherent texts, taking into account the ethnic-cultural peculiarities of contrasted languages, social, age, situational correlation of the participants of a communicative act. Therefore, as a basis for comparison one can use various means: a specifically constructed artificial language, or a symbolic language, consisting of general artificial rule; a certain separate language with a well-developed system; a certain system; linguistic (grammatical, semantic, etc.) category; certain differential characteristics; a certain grammatical rule; a certain semantic field; phonetic, morphological, syntactic and other models; a certain method; the interlingua by translation; the typological category, etc [11; 84–85].
12. Parts of speech classification in English The grammatical structure of the English and Ukrainian languages has naturally a lot of differences. The Ukrainian language, as well as other eastern Slavonic languages (Russian and Byelorussian) has the typical flexional (флективний)/ synthetic (синтетичний) grammatical structure. It means that grammatical functions of words and their relation with other words in a sentence are expressed by the way of changing the word itself, that is by adding suffixes, with the help of the inner flexion (inner flexion – is differentiating of certain word forms with the help of vowel alternation (чергування голосних), e.g.: лягти – ліг), consonant alternation and others. The English language vice versa has mainly analytical structure, at which the grammatical function of a word and its connection with other words are expressed with the help of special formal, or functional words (службове слово) (prepositions, auxiliary words etc) and the word order. It is worth mentioning that the flexional structure of modern Ukrainian possesses a lot of phenomena which have distinct analytical character, for example, the future tense of verbs of the type буду читати, the conditional mood (читав би), building of the comparative degrees of adjective and adverbs (більш визначний, найбільш вдало) etc. Though these analytical features are not dominating ones, they are not frequent enough to determine general character of the language grammatical structure. It is quite obvious that the general difference of the grammar structure of both compared languages causes quite a number of particular differences in certain grammatical categories, as well as in features of some parts of speech. The grammatical expression (граматичне оформлення) of a word in Ukrainian is fulfilled mainly with the help of morphological means. That is why a word does not need so much the outer means of expression of its lexical and grammatical meaning. In the English language those parts of speech, that have to a larger degree preserved their flexions (for example, the verb), depend less on the outer means, than those parts of speech that have not preserved or almost have not preserved their flexions (for example, the noun) and that is why they constantly have to interact with the outer means of expression of their meaning. This is the reason why the boundaries between separate parts of speech in Ukrainian are more distinct and stable than in English. Possibilities of a word to change one part of speech into another are far less common in Ukrainian than in English. Such a conversion happens mainly in the sphere of names (substantivation of adjectives) (compare: вартовий, хворий). Strengthening of the word in the function of the new part of speech is carried out very gradually, as a consequence of long-time/ durable usage. In the English language morphological expression of a word is much poorer, that is why syntactic expression of words gains a considerable weight in it. This is the reason why conversion – transferring of a word from one part of speech into the other as the morphologic-syntactic way of word-formation belongs here to one of the most productive means of vocabulary enrichment. As a consequence, separate parts of speech do not have in English such distinct boundaries as in Ukrainian [5; 36–37]. Parts of speech. The English and Ukrainian languages basically have a similar system of parts of speech. In both languages we can find the following parts of speech: 1) noun (іменник); The distinctive feature of the English language in comparison with the Ukrainian language is the availability of such a part of speech as article that is the 12-th part of speech. Though according to Different is not only the number of parts of speech but also the value attached to them in different languages. For example, in the book “Modern Ukrainian Language” edited by a well-known Ukrainian linguist Olexandr Danylovych Ponomariv [15; 113] it is stated that the central place in the grammar structure of Ukrainian is taken by a noun with a verb (a view shared by I.R.Vykhovanets’). An adjective and an adverb are considered to be peripheral parts of speech, and a pronoun and a numera l are taken beyond the notion of parts of speech. Although all these word classes are named conventionally as parts of speech or notional words (повнозначні слова) by modern linguistics. Prepositions, conjunctions, particles and link-words (зв’язки) are devoid of features possessed by parts of speech. They are called function words or particles of speech (службові слова або частки мови) whose purpose of existing is purely syntactical and which function as analytical syntactic morphemes. They are deprived of the independent naming function. They do not differentiate between lexical and grammatical meanings. Any relations can be expressed by particles of speech not on their own but only in combination with notional parts of speech or syntactic structures: брат і сестра, хоч би не запізнитися, були задоволені. An interjection is considered separately: it belongs neither to parts of speech, nor to morphemes, but is related to the whole sentence. So the classification of words into parts of speech, particles of speech and interjections is treated on the basis of a morpheme, a notional word and a sentence. Besides modal words (considered, for example, by Yu.O. Zhluktenko as a part of speech also in Ukrainian) as well as link-words are studied within the boundaries of syntax, and the category of state or stative is studied as a separate group within an adverb as a part of speech. Many linguists point out the difference between such parts of speech as nouns or verbs, on the one hand, and prepositions or conjunctions, on the other. For instance, B. Ilyish in his book “The structure of modern English” [8; 35] comes up with the idea that only prepositions and conjunctions can be treated as functional parts of speech. V.V. Vinogradov thinks that only the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the adverb and the category of state in the Russian language may be considered parts of speech, since these words “can fulfill the naming function”. Besides parts of speech he distinguishes 4 particles of speech: 1) particles proper, 2) linking particles, 3) prepositions, 4) conjunctions. Other Russian linguists V. Zhigadlo, I. Ivanova, L.Iofic name prepositions, conjunctions, particles and articles as functional parts of speech distinct from notional parts of speech. Charles Fries (“The Structure of English”) points out 4 classes of words called parts of speech and 15 groups of words called function words [24; 39]. According to B. Khaimovich and B. Rogovskaya function words can be called semi-notional. The difference between notional and semi-notional parts of speech is to some extent reflected in the phenomenon of substitution. Notional words usually have substitutes – other words with much more general meanings which are used to replace them in certain environments, e.g. nouns can be replaced by pronouns etc. The lexical meaning of semi-notional words is usually so weak and general that these words can hardly be replaced. Thus, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and particles may be regarded as semi-notional parts of speech when contrasted with notional parts of speech [24; 38–41]. So, as it is obvious from the mentioned above, the question, what parts of speech should be treated as functional or function and whether they are parts or only particles of speech, is still a controversial point in the theory of grammar.
Discussion questions and exercise tasks: I. Consider your answers to the following: 1. State the difference between the notions “language” and “speech”. 2. Name the basic units of language and speech. Give their definitions. 3. Determine the difference between “paradigmatic” and “syntagmatic relations”. 4. Define the term “grammar”. What are considered to be the subfields of grammar? What types of grammar can be mentioned? 5. What is meant by a word structure as a basic language unit? 6. In what way do the morphemes table- and -s as constituent parts of the word tables differ? What is the difference between “grammatical” and “lexical” morphemes? Are there any other types of morphemes? 7. Name the difference between the “analytical” and “synthetic” forms of a word? Provide examples. 8. What is the stem of a word? What types of stems can be distinguished according to their structure? Provide examples. 9. Exemplify the difference between such notions as “grammeme” and “lexeme”. 10. Define the term “grammatical opposition”. What are considered to be the “members of the opposition”? 11. What is “grammatical category”? Provide examples of grammatical categories in English and Ukrainian languages. 12. What is the “combinability” of a word? What types of combinability can be mentioned? Provide examples. 13. Define the term “part of speech”. Name the features characterizing a part of speech as a class of lexemes. 14. Mention linguistic disciplines which deal with the contrastive study of a language. State the difference between them. 15. Specify the difference between the contrastive typology and contrastive linguistics. 16. What are language universals? Provide examples. 17. What is the difference between “isomorphic” and “allomorphic features”? Provide examples considering English and Ukrainian languages. 18. How was contrastive linguistics shaped as a linguistic discipline? Mention the subject matter and main tasks of contrastive linguistics. 19. Mention the linguists who contributed to the development of contrastive linguistics as a linguistic research direction. 20. Specify the subject matter and the tasks of contrastive grammar as a subfield of contrastive linguistics. 21. According to what aspects can grammatical phenomena of different languages be contrasted? 22. Describe the methods used in contrastive language studies. 23. Specify the nature of “contrastive analysis” method. 24. What is meant by the term “tertium comparationis” in contrastive linguistics? 25. Dwell upon the issue of the parts of speech differentiation in different languages. 26. State the difference between “notional” and “functional” parts of speech. 27. Enumerate the parts of speech in the English and Ukrainian languages; point out towards similarities and differences. Provide examples of each part of speech in Ukrainian and in English.
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