The grammatical system of language

The Development of the English Grammatical Theory.

The first attempts to describe the English language were made by Alfrie (955-1020). He wrote colloquy which was a series of dialogues of daily speech of boys at the monastic schools. It was just designed to instruct the scholars in the daily speech or monastery. Besides he wrote a Latin Grammar with some comments written in OE in it. He translated Latin terms by means of loans. We don't know whether there were any other important attempts we find some commentaries, some glossaries, but we don't find any comprehensive book, any comprehensive work which can be considered a grammar.
Prenormative grammars (16-18 centuries). Grammars in the true sense of the word began to appear in the 16"century we refer to them as pronomative grammars, because their aim was just to describe, to
register the grammatical system of the language of that time.

The scientifically sustained and consistent principles of systemic approach to language and its grammar were essentially developed in the linguistics of the twentieth century, namely, after the publication of the works by the Russian scholar Beaudoin de Courtenay and the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure. These two great men demonstrated the difference between lingual synchrony (coexistence of lingual elements) and diachrony (different time periods in the development of lingual elements, as well as language as a whole) and defined language as a synchronic system of meaningful elements at any stage of its historical evolution.

Language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way: a study of the way children learn language (Oxford Dictionary). Language is the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other (Merriam Webster Dictionary).Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as re-flections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human intercourse. Language incorporates the three constituent parts ("sides"), each being inherent in it by virtue of its social nature. These parts are the phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process. The aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to present a theoretical description of its grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyze and define its grammatical categories and study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making. The grammatical system of a language helps arrange lexical units into coherent utterance (членораздельное высказывание): it expresses a certain complete thought and is marked at all the lingual levels: phonetic, lexical, the level of combinability, grammatical level. The grammatical system is a set of devices (grammatical affixes or grammatical morphemes (markers such as the past participle 'ed, the present participle 'ing', or third person singular 's'), form words (article, preposition and etc.), and word order) and their application rules which are employed to produce a coherent utterance. The main unit of the grammatical system is the grammatical category. The grammatical category is an opposition of at least two forms of one and the same lexical unit based on a certain general meaning which is more abstract than the meaning of the members of the opposition. Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means of paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. The set of grammatical forms constitutes a paradigm.

Paradigm is a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model: society’s paradigm of the ‘ideal woman’ (Oxford Dictionary). Paradigm isa theory or a group of ideas about how something should be done, made, or thought about(Merriam Webster Dictionary).

Opposition is a generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a certain functions is expressed. The correlated elements of the opposition must possess two types of features: common and differential features. Common serve as a bases of contrast. Differential features express the function in question. The oppositional theory was originally formulated as a phonological theory. There are three main qualitative types of opposition: privative, gradual, equipollent. The binary privative opposition is formed by contrastive pair of members in which one member is characterized by the presence of a certain differential feature while the other member is characterized by the absence of this feature. The member in which the feature is present is called marked or strong or positive member. The member in which the feature is absent is called unmarked or weak or negative member.

The gradual opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members in which the members are distinguished not only by presence or the absence of the feature but by the degree of it.

The equipollent opposition is formed by a contrastive group of members in which the members are distinguished by positive features.

The privative morphological opposition is based on morphological differential feature which is present in its strong member and absent in its weak member (work – negative, worked – positive; cat – unmarked, cats – marked; see – weak, saw – strong).

Equipollent oppositions in the system of English morphology constitute a minor type and are mostly confined to formal relations (am, is, are; the correlation of the case forms of personal pronouns she // her, he // him, the tense forms of the irregular verbs go//went, etc.).

Gradual oppositions are not generally recognized and can be identified as a minor type at the semantic level (strong-stronger-strongest; high-higher-highest; clean-cleaner-cleanest). In various contextual conditions, one member of an opposition can be used in the position of the other. This phenomenon should be treated under the heading of oppositional reduction or substitution: Tonight we start for London (the weak member present, replaces the strong one, future), Man (used in the singular to denote people in general) conquers nature. Sometimes reductional use of the opposition is stylistically marked: That man is constantly complaining of something.