Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine
Department of English Philology
Diploma paper
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic peculiarities of adverbs in English
Lviv - 2010
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. The adverb in English theoretical grammar
1.1 Categorial meaning of the adverb
1.2 Formal characteristics of the adverb
1.3 Syntactic functions and positional characteristics of the adverb
Chapter 2. Paradigmatics of adverbs
2.1 Semantic classification of adverbs
2.2 Lexico-grammatical subdivision of adverbs
Chapter 3. Syntagmatic valency of adverbs and its actualization in speech
3.1 Syntactic valency and combinability patterns of adverbs
3.2 Semantic and syntactic properties of adverbs of degree
3.3 The use of adverbs of degree with gradable and non-gradable adjectives
3.4 Semantic preferences of amplifiers
Conclusion
Summary
List of References
Appendix
Introduction
The diploma paper sets out to explore paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of adverbs in modern English. The work considers such branches of grammar as morphology and syntax and is concerned with the two levels of word relations.
A word as a part of the language system is considered on two levels:
1) the syntagmatic level;
2) the paradigmatic level.
On the paradigmatic level it is the relationship with other words in the vocabulary system. On the syntagmatic level the semantic structure of a word is analyzed in its linear relationships with neighbouring words.
The differentiation between paradigmatics and syntagmatics is based on recognition of the linguistic planes: 1 – the plane of language; 2 – the plane of speech. Language is a system of means of expression while speech should be understood as the manifestation of the system of language in the process of communication. Language planes are structured paradigmatically, speech planes – syntagmatically.
Paradigmatic relations are relations of contrast. They exist only in the potential and never in an instance. From the viewpoint of the text analyst, they express a contrast between the meaning (and so the form) that was chosen for use in the text and the one or more meanings (and so forms) that might have been chosen (but were not). In other words, paradigmatic relations exist only in the language that is used to produce a text-sentence and not in the sentence itself [23, 134].
Syntagmatic relations are based on the linear character of speech. They enable language to function as a means of communication. When they are brought into play, linguistic elements combine to form information-carrying utterances. They are therefore the functional relations of language [32, 60].
The present research is aimed at investigating the salient features of adverbs in English. The major research focus in the field of syntagmatics is on adverbs of degree as the most syntagmatically active class.
Most of the investigations in the field of morphology deal with other parts of speech, mainly verbs, nouns or adjectives. The adverb due to its ontological status and the categorical meaning defined as that of secondary property, has unjustly fallen out of research focus. The textbooks on theoretical grammar provide only scanty information about adverbs. However, the adverb is liable to present us with a whole bundle of problems. Firstly, there are a lot of borderline cases of transition between adverbs, on the one hand, and prepositions, particles and conjunctions, on the other. Though, a number of fairly plausible viewpoints on the issue have been expressed and the objective criteria have been suggested, they do not yield clear results and, a fully convincing solution to the problem has not been found yet [4; 5; 8; 9]. This calls for the need to consider these cases of grammatical homonymy at some length. Secondly, wrong use of adverbs and adverbial collocations appears to be one of the major errors notoriously common with the students. This determines the topicality of the research, its theoretical and practical value.
The object of investigation is the adverb, including simple, derived, compound and composite. The subject of research is the paradigmatic correlation and syntagmatic peculiarities of adverbs, their combinability patterns. Such methods of investigation, as structural-semantic, distributional and the elements of the quantitative analysis are used in this paper.
The tasks of the diploma paper are:
- to determine the categorial meaning of the adverb and its formal characteristics;
- to carry out the analysis of syntactic functions of the adverb;
- to analyze the main classes of adverbs;
- to compare paradigmatically relevant classifications of the adverb;
- to explore syntactic valency and combinability patterns of adverbs;
- to examine the use of adverbs of degree and to determine their semantic preferences.
According to the spheres of concern the work falls into an Introduction, three chapters, conclusions and the list of references which together with the appendix comprises __ pages. Chapter 1 deals with the analysis of the adverb in accord with the 3-criteria principle of the lexico-grammatical word classification. Chapter 2 is concerned with the paradigmatic relations of adverbs, providing the semantic and lexico-grammatical classifications of the adverb. In Chapter 3 semantic and syntactic valencies of adverbs and their realization in speech are described. ............
