Seminar 1
Seminar 1
SEMINAR 1
FUNDAMENTALS OF THEORETICAL GRAMMAR
1. Theoretical Comment.
2. Practice.
1. Match the following terms to their Ukrainian equivalents. Explain their meaning.
language - мова morpheme - морфема
speech - мовлення morph - морф
sign - знак allomorph - аломорф
semiotic system - семіотична (знакова) distribution - дистрибуція
система
lingual unit - мовна одиниця segmental - сегментний
hierarchical relations - ієрархічні відношення supra-segmental - супра-/(над-)сегментний
the plane of content - план змісту suppletivity - суплетивізм
the plane of expression - план вираження analytical word-form - аналітична
словоформа
category b
3
3. Explain the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy, and synonymy in terms of
correspondence of the two planes: content and expression. Which of these phenomena are
illustrated by the following examples? Give comments.
1) likes – Tom’s – dogs; 2) I often visit them. (habitual 3) oxen – cacti – feet – wolves
Homonymy; the same plane action) - The train leaves at 5. – sheep_;
of expression, but different (timetable) - I see what you Are you going somewhere
plane of content. mean. (present moment); tonight? - Will you go
He’s just left. – It was a just I must leave immediately. – somewhere tonight? - Will you
reward. She must be at home by now. be going somewhere tonight?
Homonymy; different planes Polysemy. Present simple form synonymy; 1 the same plane of
of expression, different planes of the word content, but different 2 plane
of content. of expression.
3. The table shows the hierarchy of the basic lingual units. Fill in the gaps in it with the
appropriate terms and speak about the organisation of the language system.
Syntactic level
b) lexemic sublevel Lexeme Word-form
Lexical level
Phonemic level phoneme Allophone
b) Give your own examples of various paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations between
phonetic, lexical, and grammatical lingual units.
5. Complete the statements with the words from the word-bank below.
According to the positional criterion morphemes can be root and affixal. Affixes are derivational
(or inflectional) if they form new words and word-changing (or word-building) if they express
different grammatical meanings.
As to their contribution to the general meaning of the word morphemes can be lexico-
grammatical, grammatical, and lexical.
They are free if they can exist alone and bound if otherwise.
6. a) Divide each word into morphemes. Identify and characterize the morphemes
(root / derivational affix / inflectional affix; lexical / lexico-grammatical / grammatical; bound /
free; discontinuous / zero / inner inflection):
Example:
dis - qual - ifi - ed
Derivation Root, Derivation Inflectiona
al affix lexic al affix l affix
(prefix), al, (suffix), (inflexion)
lexico- boun lexico- ,
grammatic d grammatic grammatic
al, bound al, bound al, bound
7. Analyze the distribution of the indefinite article. Are forms ‘a’ and ‘an’ free variants
or is their use determined by the environment? Justify your answer.
The article is determined by the environment because they cannot exist on their own
The indefinite article is used very often because:
- we use the indefinite article together with countable nouns when we do not know
exactly about the subject of conversation or we mention a thing for the first time(There was a big
tree in her garden);
- when a person or object is one of a group of similar(She was a student at Cambridge
University);
-when we name a person's profession or occupation(He wants
to become an interpreter);
-when talking about one object, we mean all of its kind (A dog is more intelligent
than a cat.)
8. What type of distribution are the following morphs in? Do they represent…
a) different morphemes,
b) variants of the same morpheme (allomorphs), or
c) free variants of the same morpheme?