Definition of the word combination – Part 2 It must be borne in mind that a word combination as such (just like a word) has no intonation. Intonation is one of the most important features of any sentence, which distinguish it from any word combination. Thus, despite disagreements concerning the nature of the word combi­nation, […]

Saussure’s Course of general linguistics published in 1916 has become the basis for a number of other syntactic theories, besides descriptive lin­guistics and glossematics. These theories cannot be grouped into a particu­lar school, since they represent independent syntactic systems. However, they share similar views on the subject and tasks of syntactic research, based on Saussure’s […]

Post-Saussurean syntactic theories – Part 1 Analyzing syntactic theories, worked out on the basis of Saussurean work, one cannot but mention works by the leaders of the Prague Linguis­tic Circle founded in 1926. The Circle became known around the world as the Prague School. It has had significant continuing influence on linguistics and semiotics. After the World […]

Glossematics is a rigorous study of language at the level of its most basic unit or component which carries meaning, the glosseme. The term was coined by the Danish linguists, Louis Hjelmslev and Hans Jorgen Uldall, as a neologism combining glossary with mathematics to indicate a formal­ized system of study. The scientists’ ideas formed the […]

Glossematics – Part 1 Hjelmslev distinguishes three types of relations in human language: 1) interdependence; 2) determination, i.e. one-side dependence; 3) constellation, i.e. weak dependence or even no dependence. Thus, traditional linguistics that divides grammar into morphology and syntax and treats relations between words in word combinations and rela­tions between parts of speech as different […]

The term syntax, originating from the Greek words syn, meaning “co-” or “together”, and taxis, meaning “sequence, order, arrangement”, is the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words are arranged to show connections of meaning within a sentence. It concerns how different words (which, going back to Dionysius Thrax, are categorized into […]

The theory of the word combination is traced back to works by Russian scientists as early as the 18th century. The first remarks on the word combi­nation referred to cases of rather practical language use. It was at the close of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th centuries that a truly scientific theory […]

Absence of set terminology is typical of Western syntactic research. The most frequent term for “word combination” (Ukr. словосполучення) used by Western scholars is “phrase”. Still, some scientists choose some other term. Thus, “phrase” was quite popular in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries but at the beginning of the 20th century Henry Sweet condemned […]

Descriptive linguistics – Part 1 The differentiation between endocentric and exocentric constructions is based on the properties of a phrase that come to the fore in a larger syntactic structure. In other words, this approach ignores the inner structure of a word combination. Thus, for instance, despite differences in their inner structure, such word combinations […]

Descriptive linguistics – Part 1 Descriptive linguistics – Part 2 Thus, if we compare John worked and The king of England opened the par­liamentary session, then The king of England may be the extension of John, while opened the parliamentary session is the extension of worked. The notion of extension is extremely important for Wells, […]