Structural Levels of Language Lecture 1

Ferdinand de Saussure  "Language is a system sui generis “ = a system where everything holds together  The division of language into different structural levels is made only for the sake of investigation.  We have to separate one linguistic fact from another in order to analyse it thoroughly.

Which are the structural levels of language? phonologicalmorphological syntactical lexico-semantical

Each linguistic level has its own specific features  Phonological – phoneme  Morphological - morpheme  Syntactical – word  Lexico-semantical – phrase/clause

Benveniste - the hierarchical nature of language structure  A phoneme + a phoneme = a morpheme  -e + -r = -er;  -f + -u + -l = -ful;  -m + -e + -n + -t = -ment

 A morpheme + a morpheme = a word  drive- + -er = driver,  beauty- + -ful = beautiful;  refine- + -ment = refinement

 A word + a word = a phrase (a clause)  blue + sky = blue sky;  nice + song = nice song;  high + mountains = high mountains

 A sentence (clause) + a sentence (cause) = sentences of a higher order  the telephone rang + the boy woke up = The telephone rang and the boy woke up.

Phonemes, morphemes, words  It is not possible for an item of one level to combine with an item of another level  while preserving the qualities of the original level  an item of one level can pass over and be integrated into another level  it acquires the features of the level into which it has been integrated, abandoning the features it had in the previous level

Is it possible to have a morpheme made of only one phoneme?  Yes,  Yes, in English, there are morphemes consisting only of one phoneme  Example – (-s ) marker: the -s marker for the plural of the nouns; the -s marker for 3rd p. sg.; the -s marker for the genitive case

What about morphemes? Are there any words consisting of only one morpheme? , , , , , ,  ; It seems that there are many words consisting of only one morpheme.  a root morpheme + zero morpheme = word eye +0º = eye There is structural qualitative difference between a morpheme and a word

J.Molhova: There are also many points in language where the respective levels not only function together but intersect  no morphological markers for gender  However, gender exists since some nouns are substituted by the pronoun ‘he’, others by ‘she', and still others by ‘it’  Ex. , , , ,    Since it is not expressed on the morphological level then it should be part of the semantic structure of the noun

there is a similar parallel with the category of number cow bullcalf mother fatherchildren person

people, family, cattle  Their form does not point to plurality  On the syntactic level they always require a verb in the plural  The element of plurality is somewhere in the noun  If it is not in the grammatical form then it must be in its semantic structure

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit  J.Molhova: every form has its content / meaning; and every content / meaning has its form Grammatical category formmeaning

the difference between a grammatical and a lexical item  table - tables; cat - cats; girl- girls  table, cat, girl the common forms singular of the nouns  tables, cats, girls the common plural forms of the nouns.

This description refers both to the form and its meaning  The form is one and the same for the three items and the meaning accordingly  0º - a grammatical form for the singular of the noun, common case  -s – a grammatical marker with the meaning of plurality in English the morphemes 0 and -s have these meanings irrespective of the lexical meanings of the items

Hypothesis: a grammatical category as a specific form with a specific meaning independent of the lexical meaning of the item  She is a teacher. (a noun)  She is a bla. (a noun, singular)  The bla blas (a verb, 3rd p. sg.)

Words consist of strings of sounds, forming the phonological system of language  every word is phonologically motivated  a word of one language cannot consist of phonemes belonging to the system of sounds of another language  Ex. borrowings - camping - къмпинг  The former English phoneme is substituted by a Bulgarian one

a word must have a grammatical form compatible with the existing grammatical patterns in the language  It is not possible for any word to function without having a grammatical form  It is not possible for any word to follow the grammatical pattern of another language every word must be grammatically motivated

The grammatical motivation actually turns a morpheme or a group of morphemes into a word  It is impossible to add anything more to the word on the morphological level.  Ex.girl – girls girl- girl = girl girl- + -s = girls

Grammatical motivation can be considered as grammatical completeness For this reason one can discuss problems of meaning connected with the word with greater confidence than with the morpheme