Arrival of new literature

IIquarter 2014

№		Author, title	number of copies
1	Alefirenko N.F. Language theory: Introductory course(5th ed., erased) textbook. benefit 2012			25
2	Biryukov A.A. Therapeutic massage (4th ed., revised) textbook 2013			30
3	Biryukov A.A. Sports massage (3rd ed., revised and supplemented) textbook 2013			30
4	Bulgakova N.Zh. Theory and methodology of swimming / Ed. Bulgakova N.Zh. (1st ed.) textbook 2014			150
5	Vyatkin L.A. Tourism and orienteering (5th ed., revised) textbook 2013			50
6	Gladky Yu.N. Economic and social geography of Russia. In 2 t.T. 1 (1st ed.) textbook 2013			25
7	Goloshchapov B.R. History of physical culture and sports (10th ed., erased) textbook 2013			70
8	Gretsov G.V. Theory and methodology of teaching basic sports: Athletics / Ed. Gretsova G.V. (1st ed.) textbook 2013			200
9	Zheleznyak Yu.D. Methods of teaching physical culture / Ed. Zheleznyaka Yu.D. (1st ed.) textbook 2013			50
10	Kokorenko V.L. Social work with children and adolescents (1st ed.) textbook. allowance 101114694 2011			15
11	Kolesov V.V. Historical grammar of the Russian language (2nd ed., revised) textbook. benefit 2013			15
12	Kryuchek E.S. Theory and methodology of teaching basic sports: Gymnastics / Ed. Kryuchek E.S. (2nd ed., erased) textbook 2013			120
13	Kuroshev G.D. Topography (2nd ed., erased) textbook 2014			2
14	Lytaev S.A. Fundamentals of medical knowledge (2nd ed., revised) textbook. benefit 2012			30
15		Makarov Yu.M. Theory and methodology of teaching basic sports: Outdoor games / Ed. Makarova Yu.M. (2nd ed., erased) textbook 2013	50
16		Masyuk V.G. Fundamentals of state defense and military service / Ed. Chetverova B.N. (1st ed.) textbook 2013	70
17		Matyash N.V. Innovative pedagogical technologies: Project-based learning (3rd ed., ster.) Proc. benefit 2014	15
18		Mikhailov L.A. Life safety / Ed. Mikhailova L.A. (5th ed., erased) textbook 2013	20
19		Nachinskaya S.V. Sports metrology (4th ed., erased) textbook 2012	50
20		Popov G.I. Biomechanics of motor activity (3rd ed., erased) textbook 2014	50
21		Popov S.N. Therapeutic physical culture / Ed. Popova S.N. (10th ed., erased) textbook 2014	50
22		Popov S.N. Physical rehabilitation: In 2 t.T. 1 / Ed. Popova S.N. (1st ed.) textbook 2013	10
23		Popov S.N. Physical rehabilitation: In 2 t.T. 2 / Ed. Popova S.N. (1st ed.) textbook 2013	10
24		Rakovskaya E.M. Physical geography of Russia: In 2 vols. 1 (1st ed.) textbook 2013	25
25		Rakovskaya E.M. Physical geography of Russia: In 2 vols. 2 (1st ed.) textbook 2013	25
26		Sergeev G.A. Theory and methodology of teaching basic sports: Skiing / Ed. Sergeeva G.A. (3rd ed., erased) textbook 2013	100
27		Sokolnikova N.M. History of fine arts: In 2 vols. 1 (6th ed., erased) textbook 2014	20
28		Sokolnikova N.M. History of fine arts: In 2 vols. 2 (6th ed., erased) textbook 2014	20
29		Uruntaeva G.A. Psychology preschool age(3rd ed., erased) textbook 2014	15
30		Kholodov Zh.K. Theory and methodology of physical culture and sports (12th ed., revised) textbook 2014	50

for students of philological specialties of higher education educational institutions 2004, A489,, CONTENTS Introduction.................................... ........................................................ ..... Object and subject of the science of language.................................................... ........................ Language and speech................................... ........................................................ ................... Units of language and units of speech.................................. ............................... The nature and essence of language................... ........................................................ ........ Biological theory of language.................................................... ..................... Psychological approaches to the essence of language................................. ..........Language as a social phenomenon.................................... ..................... Multi-qualitative nature of language.................................... ......................... Main stages of speech production.................. ...................................Language functions...... ........................................................ ....................... The problem of the origin of language................................ ........................................ Legends and myths....... ........................................................ ........................... Ancient theories................................... ........................................................ ............ Language is a product of human nature................................. .......... Social theories of the origin of language.................................... ..... Japhetic theory................................................... ...................................Materialist theory............. ........................................................ .. Development and functioning of language.................................................... ............ Basic concepts................................... .........................................Language contacts.... ........................................................ ........................ Social conditions for the development and functioning of language.................................. ....................................... Genealogical classification of languages ​​of the world....... ................................... Phonetics and phonology............ ........................................................ ................. Phonetics......................... ........................................................ ................... Phonetic division of speech................................ ...................................Speech sounds. Acoustic properties of sounds. .................................... Prosody............ ........................................................ ......................... Phonetic processes.................. ........................................................ Alternations................................................... ......................................... Phonology........ ........................................................ ......................................... From the history of phonology...... ........................................................ ............... Phoneme and sound................................ ........................................................ ...Perception of sounds and phoneme.................................................... ...................Historical phonology. Convergence and divergence............................................................ ................................ Phonological schools................... ........................................................ .... Modern theories phonemes........................................................ .................. Letter............................... ........................................................ ......................Language and writing......................... ........................................................ .......... Historical background for the emergence of writing..................... Stages of development of writing. Types of writing........................................ Main categories of writing ........................................................ ............ Graphics and spelling................................... .................................... Lexicology............. ........................................................ .......................... Basic concepts................... ........................................................ .......... The word as a subject of lexicology.................................... ................... Lexical meaning of the word. Aspects of lexical meaning..... The problem of word identity.................................................... .......................Monosemy.................................... ........................................................ ............... Polysemy. Ways of its development......................................................... ...... Homonymy................................................... ......................................... Synonymy ........................................................ ........................................Antonymy. Functions of antonyms................................................... ..... Paronymy................................................... ........................................... Types of lexical fields ........................................................ .................. Dynamics of vocabulary and its stylistic stratification.................................. ........................................................ .......... Lexicography................................................... ........................................................ ...Basic concepts........................................................ .................................... Main types of dictionaries.................. ........................................................ ...Phraseology......................................................... ................................................... Categorical properties of a phraseological unit................... Classification phraseological units ....................... Phraseological meaning......... ........................................................ ... Sources of occurrence of phraseological units...... Etymology.................................... ........................................................ ....................... Morphemics and word formation............................ ................................... Morphemic composition of the word......... ........................................................ ....... Types of morphs............................................ ........................................... Derivational structure of the word ......................................... Derivatives and generating words ( basics)........................ Word-formation type.................. ........................................................ Word formation model................................................... ..........Derivative meaning..................................... ...................Word formation methods.................................... ...................................Grammar.............. ........................................................ ................................ Morphology...... ........................................................ ..........................Grammatical meaning.................. ......................................... Methods and means of expressing grammatical meanings.......... Grammatical form.................................... ......................................Grammatical category.......... ........................................................ ..... Historical development of morphology.................................................. .......Syntax..................................... ........................................................ ...... Basic concepts......................................................... ....................................Phrase............... ........................................................ .................... Offer............................. ........................................................ ....... Historical development of syntactic structure................................. Basic teaching aids... ........................................................ ..........List of abbreviations.................................................. ................... INTRODUCTION Language is one of the most mysterious world mysteries that people have been trying to solve for more than one millennium. Pre-scientific ideas about language are reflected in numerous myths, legends and religious writings. The emergence of a scientific picture of the world presupposed, of course, the accumulation of reliable knowledge about language. The first philological knowledge was formed in a variety of sciences about man and his world, the oldest of which was philosophy ( Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, China, Arab East, etc.). Observations and knowledge about language and family ties between individual languages ​​accumulated over many centuries approximately by the 18th century. create the basis for distinguishing linguistics into a special scientific discipline, which already has its own subject and method (comparative historical) for studying linguistic phenomena.

Linguistics (linguistics), or linguistics (from the Latin lingua language), is a science that studies human language in general and individual (living or dead) languages. In this regard, general and specific linguistics are distinguished.

General linguistics considers everything that is characteristic of any language in the world (or most languages). The most important problems of general linguistics include the problem of the nature and essence of language, issues related to its structure and organization, the system of language, patterns of its origin, development and functioning, classification of languages ​​of the world, methodology, methods and techniques of linguistic research, communication linguistics with other sciences (philosophy, logic, psychology, philology, ethnography, history, sociology, semiotics, anatomy and physiology, mathematics, statistics, cybernetics, etc.). These also include the problem of the emergence and development of writing.

Private linguistics deals with the study of individual languages ​​or a group of related languages. There are, for example, Russian, Czech, Polish, Chinese linguistics (or, respectively, Russian studies, Bohemian studies, Polish studies, Sinology). Language studies that studies Germanic languages ​​(English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, etc.) is called Germanic studies; linguistics that studies Slavic languages ​​is called Slavic studies, etc. General and specific linguistics have a special theoretical basis (cf.: theoretical foundations of Slavic studies, theoretical grammar of the English language, etc.). Along with the theoretical, there is applied linguistics, which solves both general and specific problems: teaching languages, creating writing, speech culture, creating automatic translation systems, automatic search, etc.

Depending on the goals and objectives of the study, private language studies can be either synchronic (from the Greek syn together with and chronos time), if it studies linguistic phenomena in one time plane (for example, modern English regardless of its history), or diachronic (from dia through, through), historical, if the historical development of the language is traced, affecting its different time periods (for example, the historical grammar of the Russian (Ukrainian, Belarusian) language).

Each direction has a special arsenal of linguistic methods (from the Greek methodos, the path of knowledge) with a set of research techniques for studying language associated with a specific linguistic theory and methodology.

The most important methods of synchronic linguistics are descriptive, structural (distributive, transformational, component), typological, statistical, etc.

Diachronic linguistics owes its development to the comparative-historical and historical-comparative methods.

The first is designed to compare related languages ​​in their historical development, and the second is to study linguistic phenomena of the same language at different stages of its development.

Methodology is a philosophical doctrine about the main ways and means of understanding linguistic reality. The content of the methodology is determined by the leading principles of knowledge (principles of systematicity, historicism and the relationship between theory and practice), the laws of dialectics (the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, the law of unity and struggle of opposites, the law of negation of negation) and categories (the most general concepts such as the individual and general, concrete and abstract, identity and difference). Philosophical and general scientific principles, laws and categories find a specific refraction in the actual linguistic principles, laws and categories that underlie one or another linguistic doctrine (about the sound composition of a language, about vocabulary, the doctrine about grammatical structure, etc.) .

To comprehend the principles of basic teachings about language, to reveal the patterns of formation and functioning of language units, to establish the relationship of language categories is the most important task of the Theory of Language course.

LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM The fulfillment by language of the most complex socially significant functions - thought-forming and communicative - is ensured by its exceptionally high organization, operational dynamism and the interdependence of all its elements, each of which, although it has its own special purpose(distinguish meanings, differentiate forms, designate objects, processes, signs of the surrounding reality, express a thought, communicate it), is subordinated to a single general linguistic task - to be a means of communication and mutual understanding. In accordance with this, the understanding of language as an open (constantly developing) systemic-structural formation has already become indisputable. In this case, the main categories are system and structure. The first correlates with such concepts as totality, wholeness, lintegration, synthesis (unification), and the second with the concepts of organization, structure, order, analysis (division). There are different interpretations of the nature of the relationship between these categories. However, the most recognized and accepted are the following.

The language system is an integral unity of linguistic units that are in certain interconnections and relationships with each other. The very set of regular connections and relationships between linguistic units, depending on their nature and determining the uniqueness of the language system as a whole, forms the structure of the language system. Structure is the main property of a language system. It presupposes the division of language as an integral formation into components, their interrelation, interdependence and internal organization. To name the components of a language system, the terms elements, language units, linguistic signs, parts (groups), subsystems are usually used.

Element H is the most general term for the components of any system, including a linguistic one. This is a relatively indivisible object within a certain system, and the system is a complex unity of interrelated and interdependent elements. In linguistic works, the elements of a language system are more often called units of language, or linguistic units (phoneme, morpheme, word, sentence), and elements are those components from which language units are formed (for example, the ideal elements of a linguistic unit are semes and the smallest components of its values;

The material elements of a linguistic unit are: for the morpheme Х phonemes, or sound sequence, sound complex, sound shell, and for the word Х morphemes (root, prefix, suffix, ending), for the phrase Х words, etc.).

Consequently, not all language objects can be called language units. Quantities can receive the status of a language unit if they have the following properties: 1) express a certain meaning or participate in its expression or distinction;

2) are distinguishable as some objects;

3) reproducible in finished form;

4) enter into regular connections with each other, forming a certain subsystem;

5) enter the language system through its subsystem;

6) are in hierarchical relationships to units of other subsystems of the language (such relationships can be characterized in terms of consists of... or is included in...);

7) each more complex unit has a new quality compared to its constituent elements, since units of higher levels are not a simple sum of units of lower levels.

There are predominant units of language (phonemes, morphemes), nominative (words, phrases, phraseological units) and communicative (sentences, superphrasal units, periods, texts).

Units of language are closely related to units of speech.

The latter realize (objectify) the former (phonemes are realized by sounds, or backgrounds;

morphemes - morphs, allomorphs;

words (lexemes) - word forms (lexes, allolexes);

structural diagrams of sentences and utterances). Units of speech are any units that are freely formed in the process of speech from units of language. Their main features are: productivity and free formation in the process of speech;

combinatoriality - a complex structure as a result of the free combination of language units;

the ability to enter into larger formations (words CH in phrases and sentences;

simple sentences Ch in the composition of complex;

sentences form the text).

Units of language and speech are basically sign formations, since they exhibit all the signs of a sign:

have a material plane of expression;

are carriers of some mental content (meaning);

are in a conditional connection with what they point to, i.e. designate the subject of thought not due to its natural properties, but as something socially prescribed.

From a number of sign units of a language, only mu background is usually excluded, since it is devoid of meaning. True, scientists of the Prague linguistic school classified the phoneme as a linguistic sign, since it is involved in distinguishing semantic content and signals one or another significant unit of language. The morpheme (root, prefix, suffix) also has a semi-sign character, since it does not independently convey information, and therefore is not an independent sign (and is recognized only as part of a word). The remaining units of the language are symbolic.

A linguistic sign is a sensory unit of language or speech that conveys information about another object (phenomenon), being in a conditional (socially and historically determined) connection with it. The definition of a sign unit of language varies depending on the scientist’s adherence to one of the existing sign theories of language: monolateral or bilateral. According to the first, only the material aspect of a language unit (sound scale, plane of expression, signifier) ​​is considered a sign.

Proponents of the second theory are convinced that a linguistic sign is a two-sided material-ideal unit of language, since for speakers of the same language the plane of expression (signifier) ​​and the plane of content (signified) of the sign represent an inextricable unity, which, in fact, characterizes a unit of language is formed. Consequently, the language of Ch is a sign system of a special kind (secondary, material-ideal, historically and socially conditioned, open, i.e. developing).

Elements, units of language and linguistic signs should be distinguished from parts and subsystems of a single language system.

Any grouping of linguistic units between which internal connections are established that differ from the connections between the groupings themselves can be considered as part of the system.

Within the system, subsystems are thus formed (in the vocabulary - lexical-semantic groups, semantic fields;

in the morphology of the subsystem of verb conjugation or declension of names, etc.).

The linguistic units that form a language system can be homogeneous or heterogeneous. Hierarchical relations between homogeneous units of language are excluded;

they are inherent only in heterogeneous units (phoneme > morpheme > lexeme (words) > phrase > sentence). Homogeneous units of language exhibit the ability to enter into: a) linear structures, chains and combinations (linear connections of linguistic units are called syntagmatic), and b) certain groups, classes and categories, thereby realizing their paradigmatic properties.

Syntagmatic connections are the relationships of linguistic units by contiguity, their juxtaposition (according to the scheme and and) and compatibility according to the laws defined for a particular language.

Thus, according to the laws of English phonetic syntagmatics, the presence of voiced consonants at the end of a word is possible, but according to the laws of Russian sound combinations it is unacceptable. Similarly, according to certain syntagmatic laws (restrictions), morphemes, word forms, sentence members, and parts of a complex sentence are combined. Syntagmatic restrictions are due to the fact that each unit of language occupies a very definite position in the linear series relative to other units. In this regard, the concept of position of a linguistic unit was introduced. Units occupying the same position in the syntagmatic series form a paradigm (class, category, block, group).

Paradigmatic connections are relationships based on internal similarity, association, or relationships of choice (according to the scheme or... or). All types of linguistic units have paradigmatic properties (paradigms of consonant and vowel phonemes, morphemes, words, etc. are distinguished). The most striking example of this kind of relationship can be lexical paradigms, synonyms, antonyms, lexical-semantic groups and fields;

in morphology the paradigms of declension and conjugation. In a paradigm, each linguistic unit is different from all others. These differences can be maximum or minimum. Thus, between the phonemes /p/ and /l/ the differences are maximum, and between /p/ and /b/ are minimal. Minimal differences are the most difficult for communication (they are easy to mix). That is why the main attention in linguistics is paid to the study of linguistic units from the point of view of their minimal differences. The opposition of units based on minimal differences is called opposition. So, two units can be in opposition if they occupy the same position and if their differences are minimal. Wed: 1) mouth Ch genus and 2) mouth Ch horn. In opposition /t/ CH /d/ are found only in the first example;

in the second, they do not form an opposition, since they occupy different positions (mouth Ch rad) or their difference is maximum (mouth Ch horn).

A set of homogeneous language units capable of entering into syntagmatic and paradigmatic connections with each other, but excluding hierarchical relationships, is called a level or tier of a language structure. Hierarchical relationships are established between the levels of the linguistic structure, but paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections are excluded. As a rule, the language level corresponds to the linguistic discipline (section of linguistics) that studies it. However, such a correspondence is not always unambiguous (see, for example, the Lexicology section).

Language levels are divided into basic and intermediate.

Each level corresponds to a basic unit of language. The main levels include: phonological/phonetic (basic unit - phoneme), morphemic (morpheme), lexeme/lexical (lexeme, or word), morphological (gramme - class of word forms) and syntactic (syntax, or syntaxeme). Intermediate levels are usually considered: phonomorphemic, or morphonological (phonomorph, or morphoneme), derivatological, or word-formative (derivateme), phraseological (phraseme, or phraseological unit, phraseological unit).

We summarize the above in Table 1.

Table Each level is independent only relatively: the levels of the language structure are in a state of constant interaction. The interaction of language levels is manifested in the fact that each unit of language and each of its elements performs its own special function, which only in unity with other functions provides speech communication.

The intermediate nature of the last three levels is due to the fact that their units arise within one level, and function as units of another level. Thus, the morphoneme is formed by units of phonology (wear/wear, friend/friendly), although it functions at the level of morphology and word formation;

phrasemes Ch result of phraseologization syntactic units(phrases and sentences), but function together with lexemes.

Since homogeneous units of language have the ability to enter into regular connections and relationships (syntagmatic and paradigmatic) with each other, each of the language levels forms a certain subsystem of language. This gives grounds to consider language as a system of systems.

Questions and tasks 1. By what criteria is a language considered a systemic education?

2. Prove that structure is the most important property of a language system.

3. Expand the concept of the lady of the tongue.

4. What is a linguistic sign? What units of language are sign?

5. Expand the content of the concept of linguistic level.

6. Why is language called a system of systems?

7. Compare our proposed classification of units of language and speech with the classification of L.A. Novikov (Taxonomy of language units.

Experience of meta-description // Philological sciences. Part 2002. Part No. 6).

Ramishvili G.V. Linguistics in the circle of human sciences // Questions of Philosophy. Part 1981. Part No. 6.

Pilkh G. Language or languages? Subject of study of a linguist // Questions of linguistics. Part 1994. Part No. 2.

Additional Introduction to Linguistics: Reader / Comp. B.Yu. Norman, N.A. Pavlenko / Ed. A.E. Supruna. Ch Minsk, 1977 (section II).

Melnichuk A.S. The concept of the system and structure of language // Questions of linguistics. Part 1970. Part No. 1. Part S. 19P32.

Solntsev V.M. Language as a systemic-structural formation. Ch M., 1977.

OBJECT AND SUBJECT OF THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE The most important condition Transformation into science of a body of knowledge about a particular area of ​​reality is, first of all, the presence of a special object and subject of knowledge, as well as special methods and means of obtaining knowledge, their organization and systematization. The famous Georgian linguist A.S. Chikobava noted that without studying an object there can be no science about it: the presence of an object necessary condition existence of science1. The object of science can be any phenomenon of reality, taken as a whole in all its complexity and multifacetedness. And as a multidimensional phenomenon, it can serve as the object of several related sciences at the same time. For example, the Earth (as a planet) is of interest to many sciences. It is the object of study of geography, geology, geodesy, geophysics, geochemistry, which is reflected in the first part of their name (geo from the Greek geo earth). However, in a single object, each of the sciences singles out only the area it studies, which serves as the subject of study: relief, natural conditions- subject of geography;

shapes and sizes of the Earth - subject of geodesy;

the structure of the earth's crust is the subject of geology;

physical properties of the Earth - subject of geophysics;

distribution and movement of chemical elements in earth's crust H subject of geochemistry.

In a similar way, the object and subject of the science of language are distinguished.

The object of study of linguistics is also a complex phenomenon called speech activity. This is a specific area of ​​human activity associated with different spheres of people’s lives (their psyche, physiology, anatomy, etc.). Therefore, speech activity is an object of study in psychology, speech therapy, physiology, as well as such hybrid sciences as psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and sociolinguistics. Each of these sciences has its own subject of study.

The subject of linguistics research is language. However, identifying and understanding the object and subject of linguistics is not an easy matter, having not only a complex history, but also the rest of A. Chikobava. Problems of language as a subject of linguistics. Ch M., 1959. Ch S. 3.

which is one of the main problems of theoretical linguistics of our time, known in science as the problem of the relationship between language and speech.

LANGUAGE AND SPEECH Most modern scientists (linguists, psycholinguists, neurolinguists) consider the most significant feature of the object of their study to be its duality. All linguists have written and are writing about it, starting with the founder of general linguistics, Wilhelm von Humboldt. Some of them affirmed the dual nature of the object of linguistics, others refuted it. Thus, W. von Humboldt was the first to most clearly distinguish in speech activity language as its finished product (Ergon) and language as an activity (Energeia). A similar distinction was also made by the head of the Kazan linguistic school I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, who distinguished language as a potential (unrealized possibility) system and its implementation. G. von der Gabelentz went even further in dividing the object of linguistic knowledge, proposing to distinguish between: 1) speech (Rede), concrete language (Einzelsprache) and 2) language ability (Sprachverm gen). Placing speech (activity, act of communication, implementation) in the first place is not accidental: this emphasizes its leading role in relation to other components of speech activity. In general, linguistics of the 19th century. distinguished between language and speech extremely inconsistently. Changes in this issue emerged only with the advent of the Course of General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure, an outstanding Swiss linguist who occupied a position in world linguistics of the 20th century. the same place that was given to science in the 19th century. philosophical theory of Immanuel Kant. The concept of F. de Saussure can either be accepted or rejected, but it is impossible to ignore it (A.S. Chikobava).

F. de Saussure's harmonious and consistent distinction between language and speech is achieved through binary (two-term) oppositions of their distinctive features, forming well-known dichotomies or antinomies1.

1. Language (langue) is a purely mental phenomenon, and speech (parole) is a psychophysical phenomenon.

2. Language is a system of signs, and speech is asystemic, since it represents a kind of superlinguistic remnant of speech activity.

3. Language Ch social phenomenon, while speech is an individual phenomenon.

Antinomy (

4. Language is form, while speech is substance, since it includes sounds and meanings (substance

substantia essence).

5. Language is an essential component ( the most important part) speech activity, speech is something more or less accidental and incidental.

In post-Saussurean linguistics, these antinomies were supplemented by others. Among them we will name the most significant:

Language is something general, but speech is specific (N.S. Trubetskoy).

Language is constant;

speech is transient, variable (N.S. Trubetskoy, Louis Elmslev).

There is also a new designation of the object of study and its components. This is apparently necessary in order to avoid ambiguous terminology, when the term speech refers to both the speech activity itself and its component - language in action. Therefore, such definitions of the relationship between language and speech arise as code and exchange of messages, means and ends, dissociation and integration, essence and phenomenon, form and content. And yet, these definitions highlight only one of the signs of the dichotomy - language - speech; they do not take into account the main sign of the opposition - procedurality. L.V. Shcherba tried to eliminate this miscalculation by proposing to distinguish between processed linguistic experience and the process of speaking, which echoes the Humboldtian understanding of language as a static phenomenon, and speech as a dynamic one.

It is advisable to consider Saussure’s dichotomies from three perspectives - epistemological1, i.e. from the point of view of the theory of knowledge, ontological2 - from the point of view of the objective properties of language and speech, and pragmatic3 - from the point of view of the scope and nature of the use of language and speech.

Epistemological definitions 1. Language and speech are related as general and particular. It is known that the individual is a form of existence of the universal, and the general exists in the individual, through the individual. As a universal language, language exists in abstraction from speech, from its individual acts. Universality is the law of the connection of things, and is comprehended by reason. In accordance with this, language is a mental phenomenon, the result of typification and generalization of private speech acts.

2. Language is considered as abstract, and speech as concrete. The abstract here is understood as mental, conceptual, and the concrete acquires the sensory-contemplative reality of speech. Abstraction is not associated with random units of epistemology (

Ontology (

Pragmatics (

facts, but with an ideal reflection of their connections and relationships in the human mind, which in turn gives rise to a specific system of a given language. Therefore, language is abstract in its concreteness.

3. Generalization and abstraction are associated with the delimitation of language (and its units) as essential from everything non-essential. However, to see only the unessential in speech means not to see the main mechanism of speech communication. It is impossible to exchange thoughts through an insignificant psychophysical device. Therefore, closer to the truth are those definitions according to which language is considered as an essence, and speech as a phenomenon.

4. Since the essence is cognized through a phenomenon, the comprehension of language is carried out through observable and generalizable speech phenomena. Essence What is it internal structure, something most important, significant and natural. Phenomenon is a form of expression of essence. This means that cognition of language begins with the perception of speech facts, then, on their basis, through abstraction, the essence is comprehended, i.e. language. Knowledge of the essence (language) allows you to study the phenomenon (speech) more deeply.

5. The relationship between language and speech as form and content is also contradictory and insufficiently defined. Form is understood as either materiality - a way of expressing grammatical meaning, or structure - a way of expressing content. The second understanding of form brings us closer to the essence of language, but is in no way related to speech, which cannot have content. Form and content characterize both language and speech.

Consequently, they cannot be used as criteria for distinguishing between language and speech.

Ontological definitions Definitions of this group are focused on the objective properties of language and speech, indicating the areas of their localization, structure and role in the implementation of speech activity.

The difference is related to the understanding of the nature of the components of speech communication - language as a mental phenomenon, and speech as a physical phenomenon. The understanding of language as a mental phenomenon has deep historical roots in linguistics and goes back to the works of G. Steinthal, A. A. Potebnya and others. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. There is a significant modification of their concept: the mental principle in language began to be considered as social. In the works of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay and F. de Saussure, language is understood as a socio-psychological formation. However, in addition to this, a number of other constructive properties of a strictly linguistic nature are revealed in the language. Therefore, the socio-psychological approach to it cannot be considered complete. The interpretation of speech in an exclusively physical (physiological) aspect is just as one-sided.

It should be considered more reliable to consider the problem of the relationship between language and speech as virtual (what is potentially contained in the human mind) and actual (directly perceived, material). Most linguists prefer to define language as virtual (potential, competence or ability), and speech as actual (realization of linguistic ability, area of ​​natural objects).

Subgroup of oppositions: system - text, system - function, paradigmatics - syntagmatics. Apparently, none of the modern linguists doubt the understanding of language as systemic education, the units of which are in regular connections and relationships, mutually conditioning each other. More debatable are the interpretations of speech, either as a text, or as a function, or as syntagmatics. Understanding speech as text allows you to study different ways functioning of language. However, there is no reason to single out text and discourse1 as something in between language and speech, since any act of speech is embodied in the text (from a remark-interjection to the body of a book). Consequently, text and discourse are speech categories and they can be identified only for the purpose of detailing speech. Interpretations of speech from the point of view of the theory of functions either narrow its scope, or transfer it into the sphere of pragmatic linguistics (the scope of application of speech, its relationship to the speaker and the listener, etc.). Syntagmatics is not an exclusively speech property either: syntagmatic relations important aspect language system.

In modern linguistics, the interpretation of language as an invariant (stable, stable part of speech activity), and speech as variant realizations of language (changing, instantaneous), has become widespread. This opposition can only be accepted as a principle for distinguishing between language and speech. And yet, we cannot ignore the variability of linguistic means of communication and the presence of stable mechanisms for constructing specific speech acts.

Pragmatic definitions The third group of definitions clarifies the understanding of language and speech from the point of view of their functioning, purpose and purpose of existence.

The most important dichotomies in this group should be the opposition of language and speech in the following three areas Discourse (

niyam: social and individual;

Usual Ch Occasional;

code H message.

1. The social nature of language is considered generally accepted in modern linguistics (only its absolutization is disputed, excluding other factors, in particular, biological and mental). As for the individuality of speech, it turns out to be very vulnerable for many linguists. Speech is individual in the sense that it is generated by individuals in the process of communication. However, this circumstance does not allow arbitrariness in the patterns of constructing statements. Speech communication is a two-way process that ensures mutual understanding between speakers and listeners. And in this regard, speech cannot be devoid of sociality.

2. The opposition of language and speech along the lines of usuality and occasionality can only be accepted in the sense of the generally accepted and normative nature of linguistic phenomena, filtered from speech accidents, not standardized and not yet accepted by society.

3. In linguistic works of recent years, language is defined as a code, and speech as a message. They have become especially popular in the research of artificial intelligence systems. The concept of a language code includes ways of recording and expressing information using the entire system of linguistic units. Communication refers to the transfer of information.

The recognition of language as a code stimulated the emergence of new definitions of language as a generative device, and speech as its functioning. The linguopragmatic approach involves consideration of the functions of language and speech (see p. 38).

UNITS OF LANGUAGE AND UNITS OF SPEECH Before the distinction between language and speech, it was believed that the units observed in speech works were, in fact, units of language. Nowadays, some linguists consciously adhere to this point of view, thereby emphasizing the unity and indivisibility of the object of linguistic science. The same scientists who adhere to the language-speech dichotomy, subject to the logic of this approach, distinguish between the facts of language and the facts of speech. This position presupposes the distinction between units of language and units of speech in their interdependence, which is expressed in the fact that units of speech are formed from units of language, and as a consequence of this, the basic properties of units of language are manifested in units of speech. There is nothing in language that is not in speech, F. de Saus sur asserted. Units of language are the result of generalization and typification of homogeneous speech units. Thus, the fricative sound of speech and its homogeneous plosive [h] represent the same unit of language - the phoneme /r/;

the root parts of the word forms ruk-a, ruch-k-a represent the same unit of language - the morpheme ruk-. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the well-known position of F. de Saussure that the listic fact of speech always precedes language.

In modern linguistics, the following units of speech and related units of language are distinguished.

Units of speech Units of language background (sound) phoneme morph (root, suffix, etc.) morpheme lex (word form) lexeme derivative derivative gram (gram) gramme syntax (syntax) syntaxe P phrase phrase model P sentence sentence model phrase (phraseological phrase ) phraseme Basic properties of speech units 1. The result of combining language units.

2. Formation in speech acts (productivity).

Basic properties of language units 1. Invariance (stability).

2. Reproducibility in speech.

Units of language are realized in units of speech: phonemes CH in sounds, morphemes CH in morphs, etc. Units of language are extracted from speech by generalizing and typing speech units.

Questions and tasks 1. What is the object and subject of linguistics?

2. How was the language-speech dichotomy formed?

3. Comment on the epistemological, ontological and pragmatic definitions of language and speech.

4. How do language units and speech units relate to each other?

Berstnev G.I. On the new reality of linguistics // Philological sciences. Part 1997. Part No. 4.

G ak V.G. On pluralism in linguistic theories // Philological sciences. Part 1997. Part No. 6.

THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF LANGUAGE Language in everyday consciousness is an integral property of man.

This is such a common phenomenon that accompanies a person throughout his entire adult life that rarely do any of us think about its essence. Typically, language is taken for granted, like the ability to walk, breathe, or see. However, already in ancient times, the best minds of mankind, in an indomitable desire for self-knowledge, could not help but think about one of the most attractive secrets surrounding a person or constituting his essence. Human language has long been such a mystery. The ancients were unable to explain its nature, but the understanding of the enormous significance of language in people’s lives resulted in various shapes oral and poetic creativity. The imagination was amazed by the ability of sound speech to express a thought, to deeply influence feelings (to cause joy, pride, love, or to lead to anger, to give rise to fear, hatred). It is no coincidence that in numerous fairy tales different nations In the world, there are miraculous words that can save a beloved hero in moments of seemingly imminent mortal danger, punish a villain, feed him using a self-assembled tablecloth, or transport him on a magic carpet to the most inaccessible places, regions and states. By the way, even in our time, so-called magical words and expressions are used in the ritual actions of some semi-wild tribes.

Legends were created about the language... One of them tells about the wise philosopher and fabulist Aesop, who, having received an order from his master (Aesop was a slave) to bring from the market the most disgusting thing, and then the most beautiful thing, brought the language in both cases . The owner was furious, mistaking his slave's actions for an impermissible prank. However, the slave owner soon heard Aesop's wise explanation. Language is indeed the most disgusting thing - the source of evil, strife, life and slander;

he humiliates, betrays and even destroys. At the same time, there is nothing in the world more beautiful than language: thought lives in it, objects of the surrounding world are named by it, it is a means of communication, expression of goodness, sympathy and love.

In such tales and legends one should not look for the truth about the essence of language. Their value lies elsewhere in understanding the power of the word, in the sense of its enormous role in the lives of people and states. In its own way, this same idea is carried out by the creeds of the leading religions of the world. The Gospel of John, for example, states:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

Language, as one of the most mysterious world mysteries, has been the subject of scientific understanding for more than one millennium.

The main milestones on this arduous path can be the following most striking stages in the history of the science of language:

The Vedic teaching, which developed in Ancient India back in the 4th century. BC.;

- the ancient theory of naming, reflecting the debate about how things get their name, and containing the grammatical art of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, China and the Arab East (V-III centuries BC-IV centuries AD);

- general universal grammars of the 18th century, the authors of which sought to discover commonality in the grammar of different languages;

- comparative linguistics, which laid the foundations of general linguistics on the basis of descriptive and comparative studies (19th century);

Systemic-structural linguistics of the 20th century, which set itself the task of explaining the internal organization of language.

By the end of the 20th century. the following tendency is strengthening: to reveal the essence of language in the unity of its history (comparative-historical approach) and internal organization (systemic approach).

At each stage of the development of linguistic thought, original theories were created that, in the struggle of opinions, brought closer the modern understanding of the nature and essence of language. All their diversity is usually reduced to three paradigms, which respectively interpret the essence of language as a biological or mental or social phenomenon. Each of these approaches suffered from isolation, a one-sided interpretation of the essence of language and intolerance towards other teachings. This could not but cause a critical attitude towards them by subsequent generations of linguists. However, both the theories themselves and their criticism contain a lot of value for the modern understanding of the essence of language and therefore deserve special attention and study.

BIOLOGICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE The definition biological in the name of this theory indicates that language is understood in it as a primarily innate, hereditary phenomenon. The idea of ​​the innateness of language attracted the attention of both ordinary people and researchers belonging to various schools and directions. In the first case, it was reflected in tales and legends, in the second - in scientific works very famous authors.

One of the eastern legends tells about a dispute between the powerful padishah Akbar and his court sages.

He questioned the claims of the intellectuals around him about the innate nature of language. To resolve the dispute, a cruel experiment was carried out. Several babies were imprisoned in a dwelling cut off from the human world under the supervision of silent eunuchs: if after a few years the children turn out to be speaking, then the sages win, otherwise the padishah. The dispute was soon forgotten. They remembered him only a few years later. When the ruler and his retinue entered the building where the unfortunates lived, a terrible picture opened before him: the children growled, squealed, looked more like little animals than people, and none of them could utter a single word. The wise men were put to shame.

However, the idea of ​​the biological nature of language did not leave those who tried to unravel the mystery of language even in later historical times, when science had reached a very high level. This problem was discussed especially vigorously in the 17th–18th centuries. under the influence of the so-called philosophical naturalism (French naturalisme from the Latin natura nature), which affirmed the concept of a natural person, a natural society, natural morality, etc. In other words, nature acted here as the only and universal principle of explanation of all things. In accordance with this principle, the idea of ​​language as a natural organism develops. This term is widely used in the works of such linguistic authorities as the brothers August and Friedrich Schlegel, Wilhelm Humboldt, Rasmus Rask, Franz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, I.I. Sreznevsky. And yet, the most recognized theorist of the biological concept of language, the head of an entire trend in linguistics in the 19th century. traditionally considered an outstanding German linguist August Schleicher (1821-1868), known in the history of the science of language as a major representative of comparative historical linguistics, the author of genealogical and typological classifications of the world's languages, a researcher of problems of linguistic evolution and the relationship between language and thinking. His naturalistic views were formed under the influence of several factors: under the influence of naturalism in philosophy, his youthful passion for natural science and under the impression of the grand discoveries of Charles Darwin.

The teachings of A. Schleicher were created within the walls of the University of Leipzig. It was first presented in the book Languages ​​of Europe in systematic coverage (1850). Here language is likened to a natural organism. The scientist’s even more openly naturalistic views are formulated in the work The German Language (1860), where language is already recognized as an organism. The author writes: Languages, natural organisms formed from sound matter, and the highest of all, exhibit the properties of a natural organism.... The life of a language does not differ significantly from the life of all other living organisms - plants and animals. Like the latter, it has a period of growth from the simplest structures to more complex forms and the period of aging... Apparently, everything is explained not so much by the straightforward judgments of the scientist, but by their interpretation by followers and historians of linguistics.

Firstly, the likening of language to a living organism is a tribute to the linguistic tradition of resorting to analogies using metaphorical expressions. This is the style of the century. W. Humboldt called language a natural organism, for R. Rusk language is a phenomenon of nature, for I. I. Sreznevsky a natural product, a product of nature.

Secondly, there is a deeper meaning to this scientific metaphor. Its content is the natural (i.e., without the intervention of human will) origin of language, and the action in language of certain laws, similar to those that exist in nature, and the understanding of language as an integral formation in which, like an organism, all elements are in regular connections and relationships (property of the system), and the ability of language for self-development. With this approach, the naturalistic theory of language does not contradict those specific studies and discoveries that its creators left for linguists of the 20th century.

Naturalistic understanding of language at the end of the 19th century. strengthened in the works of Max Muller (1823–1900), in particular in the book The Science of Language. In the 20th century The theory of the famous American scientist Noam Chomsky (in the American version CH N. Chomsky) about the biological innateness of language gained enormous popularity. The author made an attempt to explain the irrefutable and amazing fact that a child between the ages of one and a half to two and a half years practically masters the entire variety of forms of speech utterances. And all this for such a fantastic short term! According to N. Chomsky, this situation can only be explained by the fact that the child does not master the entire infinite variety of forms of speech utterances, but only the basic grammatical structures, which serve as the necessary models, samples for mastering the entire possible variety of forms of speech communication. This assumption led him to the conclusion that in the organization of a speech utterance one should distinguish between two levels: deep grammatical structures and surface grammatical structures of the language.

The scientist considers deep grammatical structures to be innate and therefore universal. They are the essence of a person’s linguistic competence, i.e. his language ability, like other abilities to understand, the ability to think, the ability to remember, etc. At their core, deep grammatical structures are nothing more than a certain set of few rules for constructing a speech utterance, an intermediate link from thought to speech (in speech formation) and vice versa, from speech to thought (for the process of understanding the utterance). The essentially biological theory of innate language abilities has caused enormous debate and has been subject to severe criticism. However, many of her progressive ideas are still fruitfully used in psycholinguistics, in the theory of speech production and in neurolinguistics.

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE ESSENCE OF LANGUAGE An approach to language from the point of view of the psychology of speakers involves considering language as a psychological phenomenon. It was formed in the linguistics of the 19th and 20th centuries. and predetermined the emergence of several directions of linguistic psychologism - socio-psychological, individual psychological and psycholinguistic. The first two developed within the framework of historical linguistics, and the third owes its emergence to synchronic linguistics.

Proponents of the socio-psychological direction tried to explain the essence of language based on the social nature of human psychology. The basis of this approach is the thesis of the theorist of linguistic psychologism Wilhelm von Humboldt that language is an expression of the national spirit, by which he understood the spiritual and intellectual activity of the people, the originality of national consciousness. Language is a product of the instinct of the mind, an involuntary emanation of the spirit, its main creation. The scientist believed that the language is influenced by the spirit of the people from several sides. First of all, he is constantly fed with spiritual energy, on the strength and power of which his wealth and flexibility depend. Secondly, the nature of the language depends on the spiritual aspirations of the people, i.e. from its closed orientation or open to external activity. Finally, it is influenced by the degree of the spirit’s predisposition to language creation. This predisposition determines the vivid reflection in the language of a living and creative imagination, the harmony of thought and word.

W. Humboldt's ideas about language as an expression of the national spirit, consciousness and reason found original development in the works of such outstanding linguists of the second half of the 19th century c., like Heiman Steinthal, Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya, Wilhelm Wundt.

The essence of language, in their opinion, is hidden in the psychology of the people.

At the same time, they persistently tried to prove that language is a product of the human spirit that differs from both logical and psychological categories. If the categories of logic are essentially the results of thinking, and psychological categories are a reflection of the spiritual life of a person as a whole, then language is a specific product of the history of the spiritual life of a people. According to their belief, the dynamics and evolution of linguistic phenomena reflect the mental laws of thinking. In particular, they explained the phenomena of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and word formation processes by the laws of association and analogy. Since the mental laws of thinking, manifesting themselves in an individual person, belong to a certain people, then language is the self-awareness, worldview and logic of the spirit of the people (G. Steintal). Moreover, in his opinion, the true guardian of the spirit of the people should be considered language in its original form. At later stages of its development, a language supposedly loses its pristine purity, freshness and originality in the manifestation of the spirit of a particular people.

Against the background of these judgments, the following conclusions that W. Wundt comes to in the Psychology of Nations become clear:

The spirit (psychology) of the people is most clearly manifested in the language of folklore, mythology and the most ancient forms of religion;

Folk customs are reflected in proverbs, sayings, historical monuments, and manuscripts.

This direction of psychologism in linguistics is valuable because the essence of language in it was considered from the point of view of its sociality, more precisely, social (folk) psychology, social consciousness. In the last third of the 19th century. Psychological linguistics is undergoing a reorientation in understanding the essence of language. Rejecting the thesis about the socio-psychological nature of language, the new generation of comparativists views language as a manifestation of individual spiritual activity.

The individual psychological direction received the name neogrammatism. Its theorists were the scientists of the Leipzig school of linguistics Karl Brugmann, August Leskin, Hermann Osthoff, Hermann Paul, Berthold Delbrück and others, who believed that language exists only in the minds of individual people, each speaking individual. The language of a people in general as a manifestation of its spirit is a myth. At the same time, they did not deny the common language as something average, cumulative from individual languages ​​(usus). Being a psychophysiological phenomenon, language obeys the mental laws of association and analogy in the process of change and evolution.

Despite the well-known shortcomings and erroneous ideas about the essence of language, both directions of psychologism in linguistics had a fruitful influence on the formation of modern psycholinguistics, which was formed in the middle of the 20th century. This became possible thanks to the stable orientation of the Russian science of language, primarily in the person of F.F. Fortunatov, I.A. Beaudoin de Courtenay and L.V. Shcherba, on the factor of the speaking person. The main subject of psycholinguistics is speech activity, and its ultimate goal is a description of the psychophysiological mechanisms of speech production. The components of the theory of speech activity are as follows:

- the concept of linguistic competence (ability), formulated by N. Chomsky;

Ch the concept of speech activity by A.N. Leontiev;

H concept of information;

Ch neuropsychological processes described by A.R. Luria and his students. Even a superficial acquaintance with the basic concepts of the theory of speech activity allows us to conclude that the essence of language does not fit into the framework of either social or individual psychology. Understanding the essence of language involves discussing its social nature.

LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON The proposition that language is social in nature has become a linguistic axiom. It is pronounced as a spell when they want to emphasize their belonging to materialistically-minded linguists. However, the mere recognition of the social essence of language not only does not solve all the problems associated with understanding this phenomenon, but also exacerbates some of them.

The social nature of language is most convincingly revealed in the process of critiquing the extreme manifestation of its biological and psychological understanding. At the same time, it becomes obvious that language is an exclusively human property. According to its main characteristics, it differs in principle from the so-called animal language. But it was precisely the presence of language not only in humans, but also in the animal world that was used as an argument for its biological nature.

Indeed, many of us have observed how little chicks understand the hen, how black grouse display, and what sound calls the animals make during their mating season. According to the observations of biologists, even bees and ants have unique methods of predation. However, such signals can be called language only conditionally, without in any way identifying them with human language. The fact is that the language of animals is exclusively biological in nature. First of all, it is an innate property, i.e. It is not acquired after birth, it is not learned. This is a gift from nature. Scientists conducted a simple experiment for this purpose. From under the hen they took an egg with a chick already alive, but still in the shell, and placed it on the glass.

They turned on a tape recorder to record warning signals to the riders. So what would you think? The egg rolled, as the chicken immediately reacted, it was excited by the signal of the blade!.

Such signals have a physiological purpose that is specific in nature, determined by the need to feed, reproduce, or preserve oneself and others like them in moments of threat to life. In addition, animal language is not a conscious means of transmitting information. It is a means of expressing physiological needs and associated emotional states (excitement, satisfaction, fear, etc.). In bees, the means of such expression is a kind of dancing; in ants, it is the secretion of a scented substance on the abdomen, the trace of which indicates the source of excitation (for example, food). In other words, the language of animals is associated with instinct and, as an innate property, is transmitted along with the genetic code. Human language is social by nature.

It is social in origin, since it arose due to the social need for a means of communication. Language serves society and cannot arise, exist, or develop outside of it. A language that is not used by society as a means of communication dies. This is the fate of Latin, ancient Greek and some other languages, called dead in linguistics. Outside human society, a child is not able to master a language. This is evidenced by cases when children, for various reasons who find themselves in animal packs, most often wolves, display all the habits of the animals that fed them, but do not possess a purely human property, such as language. The history of mankind knows several such cases. One of them was reported in March 1985 by the Izvestia newspaper. About nine years ago, the article says, in the jungles of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in wolf's den the child was found. Modern Mowgli, just like R. Kipling’s, ate only raw meat and walked on all fours. The people who found him gave him shelter and the human name Ramu, taught him how to dress and eat hot food. However, he never learned to speak. Having told about the fate of the wolf cub, the Reuters agency regretfully reported that he had recently died;

life in captivity was beyond his strength.

Such cases, and science knows about 14 of them, serve as irrefutable evidence that a person masters a language only in society, in the community in which he grows up and is brought up, especially in the first 3-4 years of his life. Moreover, this complex process is not influenced by either race or nationality, or the language of the parents, if the child is raised without them in a foreign language environment: on his own he will never speak English. native language. Regardless of their ethnicity, children have equal abilities to master any language. Children of representatives of the black and yellow races, born outside their continent, master the language of the corresponding people on a par with children of the white race (English in the UK, USA;

French in French-speaking countries, etc.). These and similar judgments have become textbook, and the social essence of language is now beyond doubt.

At the same time, some of the most radical, extreme interpretations of the social character of language seem dubious. Without them, it is difficult to imagine domestic educational manuals of the 20s and 70s of the 20th century. This situation is explained by the desire of some scientists (mainly ideologists of the most materialistic and predominantly Marxist new doctrine of language) to completely dissociate themselves from the bourgeois language of knowledge.

The demarcation line was the understanding of the nature and essence of language. The question of the extent to which language is a social phenomenon did not exist. According to the creator of the new doctrine of language N.Ya. Marr and his followers, language is an exclusively social phenomenon. Hence the following postulate: all linguistic tiers are socially conditioned, reflect the life of society and are entirely dependent on the processes occurring in it.

This position is formulated very clearly by N.Ya. Mar himself: Linguistic facts lead us to an explanation of the organic connections between the social system and the structure of the language ka1. The vulgar sociological thesis that everything in language is determined by social factors, in various modifications, runs like a red thread in the works of linguists of subsequent decades. In some of them, an attempt is made to soften the revelations and vices of Marrism by recognizing the presence of its internal laws in the language (F.P. Filin, R.A. Budagov, Yu.D. Desheriev, V.Z. Panfilov).

To create an adequate theory about the essence of language, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that it serves the most different areas human activity, itself is the most important type this activity. Consequently, it should reflect various aspects of human nature - biological, mental and social. In connection with this approach, the desire of scientists to reveal the multi-qualitative nature of language becomes understandable.

Marr N.Ya. Selected works. Ch L., 1935. Ch T. 1. Ch P. 189.

MULTI-QUALITATIVE NATURE OF LANGUAGE In modern linguistics, the explanation of the essence of language from the methodological positions of a single direction (biological, psychological or social) becomes clearly unsatisfactory. The nature of language, its evolutionary and functional mechanisms are as complex and diverse as the person himself, whose specific activity it is. Therefore, the essence of language can be revealed only in the process of understanding human speech ontogenesis1 (in particular, studying children’s speech), using data from genetics, psychophysiology, neuropsychology, etc. Such an understanding of the essence of language promises to bring us closer to the truth, although at present this approach is represented not so much by reliable conclusions as by heated discussions and assumptions. First of all, the discussion between N. Chomsky, J. Piaget and F. Jacob can give an idea of ​​the scope and severity of these disputes. The theoretical basis of this approach is the research of domestic neurolinguists under the leadership of A.R. Luria.

The discussion centers on N. Chomsky’s hypothesis about the innateness of deep grammatical structure as a specific structure of the human mind, serving as a mechanism for mastering a specific language. He compares the innate ability of language to the innateness of the visual system. The biological basis for this understanding is found in the anatomy and functioning of the human brain (E. Lenneberg). Language in this case appears as a means of expressing the cognitive functions of the brain, such as categorization (generalizing associations of homogeneous phenomena into large classes or categories) and processing information (information) coming from the outside.

Questions arise: how does information come from outside? What mechanisms of the human brain ensure its processing? How does this information receive linguistic expression? Science that studies the human brain—the most important component of the central nervous system, which actually perceives information coming from outside—helps answer them, or at least get closer to the truth. This happens thanks to millions of receptors2 in the human body, constantly monitoring changes in the external and internal environment. Perceived irritations are transmitted to the cells of our body. Hundreds of thousands of cells called motor neurons Ontogenesis - the individual development of an organism from the stage of fertilization to the end of individual life.

Receptors are the final formations of nerves that are capable of perceiving stimuli from the external or internal environment of the body.

us1, control muscle movements and gland secretion. And connecting them, a complex network of billions of cells called neurons2 continuously compares signals from receptors with signals in which past experience is encoded, and sends commands to motor neurons for the appropriate human response to environmental stimulation. The human brain is a collection of billions of neurons forming complexly intertwined networks. Therefore, the signal received from the receptor instantly interacts with billions of others received by the system earlier. For a clear idea of ​​the structure of a neuron and the mechanism of signal transmission, it makes sense to get acquainted with the diagram of M. Arbib, the author of the famous book Metaphorical Brain (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Structure of a neuron Excitation of receptors changes the membrane capabilities of the neuron processes, dendrites (1) and cell body (2). The results of these changes (effects) are concentrated on the axonal hillock (3), and then the impulse of a membrane nature spreads along the axon (4), the elongated fiber H and its final (thickened onion-shaped) branches (5). It is important that the bulbs are located on other neurons, which makes it possible to change the membrane potential of these (other) neurons or muscle fibers. The flow of information passes from neuron to neuron in the direction indicated by the arrows in the diagram.

The human cerebral cortex, according to experts, is a layer with a thickness of only 60-100 neurons. In order for several billion neurons to fit into the limited space of the skull, many folds are formed. They are called sulci, and the protrusion between the two sulci are Motoneurons and motor neurons.

Neuron, or neuron, Ch nerve cell with all the processes extending from it (neurites and dendrites) and their terminal branches.

fabric with convolutions. Neurophysiological studies have shown that the sulci and gyri, distributed in the left and right hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, form specialized zones responsible for certain cognitive functions. In each hemisphere of the brain there are four lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital. The area of ​​the cerebral hemispheres adjacent to the central, or Rolandic, sulcus is called sensorimotor, and the remaining areas of the cerebral cortex are associative. The sensorimotor area is responsible for auditory and visual activity, as well as sound speech, since the most sensitive, rich and subtle of all sensory influences for humans is sound and its reception by hearing (N.I. Zhinkin).

Rice. 2. Speech zones of the cerebral cortex In the process of studying speech pathology, two main speech zones were discovered: P. Broca, responsible for speech production (speaking), and K. Wernicke, responsible for the perception and understanding of someone else’s speech (Fig. 2) . This is proven by numerous facts of speech impairment and aphasia. People with lesions in Broca's area understand speech but have difficulty organizing words into phrases, which is why the disorder is called motor aphasia. In patients with damage to Wernicke's area, their own speech is not impaired, but they cannot perceive and reproduce the speech of other people.

This type of aphasia is called sensory aphasia. Since both zones are located in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex, it is generally considered dominant and main. It controls the movement of the right - main - hand and speech activity. Everything verbal, intellectual, abstract, analytical, objective, and temporal is concentrated in it. This suggests the existence in the left hemisphere of not only sensorimotor, but also other equally important speech mechanisms. Their activities are controlled by centers adjacent to Broca's and Wernicke's areas. In the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere, in front of Broca's area, there are several more speech centers that control the mechanisms of coupling of speech units, Ch realize the ability of sounds to be combined into syllables, morphemes Ch into words, words Ch into sentences, sentences Ch into coherent text. In other words, these zones activate syntagmatic mechanisms, and more anterior speech centers have the ability to a higher level of speech organization.

In the posterior part of the left hemisphere (its temporal, parietal and occipital lobes) behind Wernicke’s area there are mechanisms for combining homogeneous units into classes, categories, categories based on some common feature. The most well-known classes of this kind from the school curriculum are synonymous and antonymic relations of linguistic units, which are called paradigmatic. Thanks to the mechanism of paradigmatics, all units of language are stored in our memory in the form of blocks, fields, groups, rows.

The right hemisphere is primarily responsible for the visual perception of the outside world. He is in charge of everything visual, figurative, sensory, intuitive, concrete, synthetic and subjective. Here, associative areas of the brain predominate, the activity of which, according to neurolinguistics, is also important for the emergence, development and functioning of language. The left and right hemispheres work as a single system, and therefore there are biological (neurophysiological) reasons: the hemispheres of the brain are connected by connecting nerve threads. Through them, information is exchanged, thanks to which language becomes an intermediary between a person and the environment in which he lives. The fact is that the left hemisphere supplies speech-mental activity with information about words stored in it in the form of sound images, and the right hemisphere sends information about its arsenal of visual and sensory images and mental copies of the surrounding world.

The most general scheme of such interaction is as follows. The signal from the outside world arrives at the receptors of the right hemisphere, where a certain holistic picture-image appears. If it turns out to be insufficient, then the need arises to divide the whole image into its components and name them. But these are already the functional responsibilities of the left hemisphere, which has grammar (a set of abstract words, auxiliary parts of speech, synonymous structure mi, transforms, etc.), and therefore the information is transferred to his disposal. After division and transformation into a more complex structure, the name is transferred again to the right hemisphere, where a comparison with the original picture (standard) occurs. If a person believes that the name does not correspond to this womb, then the procedure is repeated.

The question arises: what is the mechanism for receiving and transmitting information? Modern science is still in a state of searching for an answer to it, but now there is no doubt that this mechanism is of a neuropsychological nature. It underlies the emergence and functioning of language, as well as the acquisition of language by children.

The latest molecular biological research convinces us that complex genetic and physiological mechanisms underlie the functioning of the brain in the process of language emergence. It turned out that the generation of speech, the process of excitation, involves not only the speech zones (Broca, Wernicke), but also the entire neural system of the brain1 - the left and right hemispheres. Excitation of neural structures occurs as a result of an increase in blood flow and the amount of oxygen. In this way, the neuron receives its main fuel, glucose, and due to oxidation, the energy necessary for the operation of speech zones is created, the carriers of which are hydrogen nuclei. Hydrogen atoms are part of water, which is rich in brain tissue, especially its gray matter, which performs mental and speech functions. It is no coincidence that damage to brain tissue (especially the lateral parts of the left hemisphere) leads to slower speech and impaired verbal memory. Memory plays an extremely important role in ensuring normal functioning speech zones of the human brain.

In the most general definition memory is the property of the brain to store information that is necessary for human speech and thinking activity. So, information must be stored and transmitted. The function of information storage is performed by DNA (deoxyribonucleic acids), and the function of transmission is performed by successive chains of amino acids in a protein, which act as a chemical message. The brain, therefore, has two types of codes, two DNA and protein alphabets. Both types of alphabets serve, according to scientists, as a genetic human language, revealing isomorphism2 with natural language, i.e. identical (more precisely, fundamentally similar) device. Some researchers explain this iso See: Lalayants I.E., Milovanova L.S. Latest research mechanisms language function brain // Questions of linguistics. Part 1992. Part No. 2. Part P. 120.

Isomorphism (

morphism is the similarity of the functions of genetic and natural languages ​​to store and transmit information (this point of view is defended by biologist Francois Jacob);

others, for example, Roman Jakobson, are of the opinion that the similarity of these languages ​​is due to their family relationships, that the language code arose according to the model and structural principles of the genetic code.

Further study of such isomorphism promises to expand our knowledge about the patterns of accumulation, storage and processing of information associated with thinking. Thinking and language arose, according to modern science, as a result of a single evolutionary process. Sound language appeared along with the emergence of man. It was formed on the basis of the already existing vocal and hearing aids, capable of producing and receiving acoustic signals, respectively (a property also of animals). In the process of human evolution, sound signals turned into a complex system of symbols and signs, the most perfect of which are linguistic signs. Obviously, initially these signs had immediate (direct) connections with objects in the surrounding world. Then there was a replacement and complete displacement of real connections by conditional ones, as a result of which the signs became reproducible. This property is necessary not only to store and transmit information, like the genetic code, but also to perform social functions in natural language. The property of isomorphism of genetic and linguistic codes is explained, presumably, by the unity of the global evolutionary process.

And yet, the aspects of the essence of language under consideration should not create illusions about the biological nature of language. They can rather be attributed to the biological prerequisites that ensure both the emergence and functioning of human language. After all, man himself is not just a biological category, but a human living being, in which biological, mental and social factors. In other words, a person is a living, intelligent and social being.

This means that the genetic base of a person allows him to be included in the social sphere of life and acquire language as a means of forming thoughts and communication.

The biopsychic base consists of two levels. At the first anatomical and physiological stage, the genetic foundations of language are laid. Firstly, the formation of the cortical zones of the brain occurs here. Secondly, the following reflexes necessary for speech activity are developed:

- grasping novelty (the ability to concentrate attention, follow stimuli such as light, sound, touch);

H tracking of objects (its unconditional nature is beyond doubt: it also manifests itself in children who are blind from birth, although it is subsequently inhibited);

Grasping and transitional, on the basis of which various human motor (motor) systems develop, without them speech activity would be impossible.

At the second psychophysiological level, the capabilities of the first become real mechanisms of speech. These levels are not separated in time;

The organic interaction of the biological and social in the development of the psyche is evidenced by the fact that even in the first hours of a child’s life, it is the left hemisphere with its speech zones that is activated by sound language. Consequently, the dominance of the left hemisphere in speech activity is innate.

The ability to isolate acoustic signals that turn out to be universal is hereditary. Only by the end of the first year of life does the child begin to perceive only those sound features that are in the language of those around him. Pre-speech mechanisms of sound formation, such as humming and babbling, are also genetically determined. It is congenitality that explains their presence in deaf children. At the walking stage, any child wiggles his tongue as naturally as his legs and arms. It's like he's training his speech apparatus. Guling is the practical development of language as a lingual (linguistic) ability. It occurs by the type of self-teaching. The principle of imitation is excluded here. During this period, a child is not able to imitate; he rather resembles a bird that learns to fly not because it is taught aeronautics, but because it tries out its wings. Soon the humming gives way to babbling, self-imitative repetition of the same syllables, we-we-we, ma-ma-ma, dy-dy-dy, ma-ma-ma, etc. This also happens spontaneously, spontaneously, without external influence. Just as a bird sings a song without training, so a child babbles in imitation of himself, for his own pleasure and amusement. He doesn't even hear (distinguish) two sounds in a syllable. For him, babbling, syllabic gymnastics and nothing more.

Social factors come into play only when the child begins to respond to a gentle voice, melody, i.e. when communication begins. From that moment on, learning begins, imitation of the sound speech of adults, pronouncing syllables no longer for oneself, but for communicating with others. Feedback arises and is the basis of communication: the child hears himself, controls what is said, and influences others. Speech activity is increasingly acquiring a social character.

On the other hand, biological prerequisites for early communication between a child and adults have been discovered. At first, this is communication at the emotional level. The emotional state of the mother is perceived by the child in the womb. We can say that practicing communication skills begins long before verbal communication.

From the second half of the year, the foundations of speech activity are laid: internal speech is formed and the basis for sign communication is created.

Inner speech does not yet use either grammar or vocabulary. It operates with logical, semantic connections or, as defined by N.I. Zhinkin, a lunar universal subject code (UPC). UPC - these are spatial diagrams, visual representations, echoes of intonation, individual words. This is an intermediary language into which the concept is translated into a publicly accessible language. On its basis, mutual understanding between speakers occurs.

At the last stage of verbal communication, internal speech is translated into external speech. Her task is to express the thought verbally, to make it accessible to others. In this sense, verbal communication is social. However, it is not without a neuropsychological basis. The fact is that thought is a mental phenomenon, and therefore ideal. But disembodied ideas do not exist outside of a material carrier. Such material carriers are signs - pre-verbal means of communication (gestures, facial expressions, sound signals, objects), or proto-languages ​​that make the child a participant in the communicative process1, and linguistic signs - sound or graphic letters. External speech (verbal communication) uses linguistic (speech) signs. The sign function CH, the function of communicating thoughts CH in natural language, is initially established spontaneously to implement the communicative intention, later, in a developed language, CH both spontaneously and intentionally. In this process, language serves as a means of awakening in the listener ideas and ideas similar to the thoughts of the speaker. The neuropsychological mechanism of this process lies in the conditioned reflex activity of a person, the foundations of which are presented in the teaching of I.P. Pavlov about the second signaling system. Unlike the first signal system2, its signals are signed, i.e. have a socially conditioned and conscious essence. They are intended to fulfill a communicative intention and therefore have a conditional nature.

All this convinces us that the essence of language in terms of its emergence and from the point of view of functioning is determined by the close interweaving of biological, psychological and social factors. They explain many living processes. See: Gorelov I.N. Nonverbal components of communication. Ch M., 1982.

The signals of the first signaling system are unconditional, instinctive stimuli, sensory images.

sy occurring in modern language. The biological characteristics of the human body explain the tendency to save sound media. The human body resists excessive detail1. Hence, the language has a limited number of sound and grammatical means (phonemes, cases, grammatical tenses, etc.). The effect of this tendency is revealed in the desire to make pronunciation easier (assimilation, dissimilation, simplification of consonant groups, reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables, etc. See section Phonetics). Neurophysiological laws underlie the perception of the surrounding world.

The most striking manifestation of these laws is typification - the reduction of a certain set of linguistic phenomena to a small number of typical images, models (parts of speech, patterns of declension and conjugation, models of word formation, etc.). Mental laws, primarily the laws of association and analogy, are of great importance in the life of language. They manifest themselves in the semantics of the language, in the sphere of phonology, lexicology, phraseology, word formation, grammar (the concept of phoneme, meaning of linguistic units, metaphor, metonymy, etc.). And finally, the essence of a language is determined by its internal laws, which are found in various kinds of changes (phonetic, morphological, etc.), as well as in the peculiarities of its use.

MAIN STAGES OF SPEECH GENERATION Speech generation occurs in the process of speech activity aimed at verbalizing thoughts. This is the path from thought to word (see Fig. 2).

The path from thought to word consists mainly in the preparation of a speech utterance. The famous psycholinguist A.R. Luria distinguishes 4 stages on this path. It begins with a motive and a general plan (1st stage). Then it goes through the stage of inner speech, which is based on semantic recording schemes (2nd stage). This is followed by the stage of formation of a deep syntactic structure (3rd stage). The generation of speech ends with the deployment of an external speech utterance (4th stage).

There are two phases of speech production:

1) preverbal stage of speech;

it is associated with the appearance of the speaker’s intention;

2) the verbal stage, when personal meanings acquire verbal expression.

The named stages respectively affect the work of the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex in their close interaction. See: Serebrennikov B.A. On the materialistic approach to the phenomena of language. Ch M., 1983. Ch S. 48Ch49.

action. Moreover, each of the two hemispheres is responsible for its own area of ​​speech and mental activity. On the internal screen of the right hemisphere, images and pictures flash by, an imaginary situation is drawn, and on the display of the left hemisphere, not so much vague images appear as signatures under them1.

The interaction of the right and left hemispheres in the process of speech production is subject to one main goal: the translation of thoughts into speech. The transformation of thought into speech is associated with the transformation of a multidimensional mental image into a one-dimensional, linear statement.

Since there are different types of thinking and among them such preverbal ones as figurative, visual, objective, it is logical to assume that the idea is the result of preverbal thinking. At this stage, the subject of speech is comprehended with the help of non-linguistic signs - objective, figurative, situational. Thought as an objectified need becomes an internal motive, something that specifically and directly encourages communicative activity. This First stage speech activity. Psycholinguists call it the motivational incentive level. It intertwines need, object and motive. And according to L.S. Vygotsky, the motivating sphere of our consciousness... covers our attraction, needs, our interests and motivations.... This is the level of unification of the motive (as a motivating principle) and the communicative intention (CI) of the speaker, where the specific purpose of the future statement is indicated (to define, clarify, ask, call, condemn, approve, advise, demand, etc.). CN determines the role of the speaker in communication. At this level, the speaker identifies the subject and topic of the statement; he knows what to say, and not what to say.

The second stage of speech production is called formative.

Here the formation of thought occurs in: a) logical and b) linguistic aspects. At the logical, or meaning-forming, level, a general plan is formed, the semantic scheme of the statement is determined, and its semantic notation is modeled. At the level of formation of the speech-generating process, A.A. Leontiev, a famous Russian psycholinguist, distinguishes: a) internal programming and b) the formation of a grammar of thought:

spatial-conceptual scheme (scheme of the relationship of concepts) and a diagram of the temporal development of thought. A.A. Leontiev demands a strict distinction between the plan and the program. The idea is just the initial phase of internal programming. As an undifferentiated meaning of an utterance, the plan is realized in the form of an objectively pictorial code (inner speech, which, according to See: Kubryakova E.S. Nominative aspect of speech activity. Ch M., 1986. Ch P. 39.

L.S. Vygotsky, is a speech almost without words). The program is designed to reveal the plan by arranging personal meanings in a logical sequence. It answers the question: what and how (in what sequence) to say?

The internal speech production program should be distinguished from:

a) internal pronunciation and b) internal speech. This is the most profound and abstract level of speech activity.

Many elements of the internal program are verbal, i.e. are not associated with any specific language. They are most likely associated with the universal human abilities for articulate speech, division of the world, construction of statements, etc.

Based on psycholinguistic data, the essence of the internal program is determined by the following properties: a) its structure is linear;

b) program components are supra-word units such as subject, predicate, object (schematically:

someone does something aimed at something);

c) internal programming operates not with lexical meanings, but with personal meanings;

d) such programming is an act of predication (according to A.A. Shakhmatov, the operation of combining two representations). The operation of predication, in fact, distinguishes the simple word winter from the sentence Zima. The second case contains the statement that there is, there is winter. In a number of European languages, predication is expressed in a linking verb (is Х in English, ist Х in German, in Russian Х in the past tense: It was winter).

At the linguistic sublevel, the thought is formulated as follows:

1) the mechanism for syntaxing (grammatical structuring) of the future utterance is turned on. A sentence scheme is being structured, in which there is no place yet for specific words. The sentence at this phase of speech generation consists only of word forms;

2) the meaning of the statement is generated by the mechanism of nomination (choice of words). Thus, the syntactic scheme of the utterance is filled with the corresponding words. In place of the word form, a word appears. This ensures the translation of personal meanings into linguistic meanings that are understandable to all members of a given language community.

Since the human brain is a multichannel device, many speech-cognitive mechanisms are activated simultaneously.

Therefore, the formative level of speech production, along with syntax and nomination, includes an articulatory program in its work. Her task is to control pronunciation movements. The pronunciation movements themselves represent a process of transforming units of the formative level into acoustic signals, i.e. in external speech. The process of generating speech ends with its voicing.

Language is a multi-quality formation, the essence of which cannot be fully revealed without considering its functions.

FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE In addition to its own significance, the problem of the functions of language is important for the theoretical understanding of its essence. However, despite the global nature of this problem, a unified understanding of the number and content of language functions in linguistics has not been achieved. To solve this problem, it is necessary first of all to understand what the function of language in general is. Perhaps the most profound definition of this phenomenon is found in V.A. Avrorin. The function of language as a scientific concept is a practical manifestation of the essence of language, the realization of its purpose in the system of social phenomena, a specific action of language determined by its very nature, something without which language cannot exist, just as matter does not exist without movement. So, the functions and essence of language are its interdependent aspects.

Since language, in its essence, is a means of communication, it is advisable to begin the consideration of its functions with the communicative one (for the social functions of language, see p. 82).

Almost all researchers recognize the communicative function as primary. The communicative function of language is considered as a complex integrated phenomenon in which all its basic properties are combined. However, traditionally there is not one (communicative) function of language, but several. Moreover, his functional repertoire is very varied: R.V. Pazukhin, following G.V. Kolshansky, calls one function - communicative, V.Z. Panfilov - two, V.A. Avrorin - four, A.A. Leontyev Ch is much larger.

Proponents of multifunctionality emphasize the importance of the conditions for the specific functioning of a language. The functions of language (their number and nature) in this case are determined by the conditions of its use, and therefore the following are distinguished: communicative, thought-forming, expressive, voluntary, phatic, cognitive, aesthetic (poetic), heuristic, regulating, etc.

Attempts are also made to distinguish between the functions of language and the functions of speech, and to establish a hierarchy of functions within each group.

The advantage of a monofunctional approach to language is the preservation of the unity of its system. And yet, if most functions can be integrated into the main communicative function (as its varieties), then two of them, emotive and expressive, cannot be represented in a number of variants of the communicative function: the element of communicativeness is missing.

Indeed, language names the realities of the surrounding world and expresses our thoughts and feelings, is used for educational purposes and is an ethnocultural tool, establishes contacts, etc. However, all these are only individual (albeit the most important) moments of his unified and general purpose To be a universal means of verbal and mental communication. Thus, the subject correlation of language signs (linguistic reference) is necessary for the sign coordination of people’s activities. In other words, linguistic reference and nomination are a necessary property of language as a means of communication. Its important property is expressiveness, without which it is impossible to influence the activity of the subject receiving speech and its coordination with the activity of the speaker. Therefore, linguistic expression is a communicatively conditioned ability of language. And finally, language, not being a special means of knowledge (there is a brain for this), is used in communicative cognition, in which sign coordination of people’s knowledge, their relationship to the world of emotions, etc. is carried out. The communicative purpose of language also contains its other uses as an aesthetic, deictic, cumulative and information-transforming means. Taken together, such properties and uses of language reflect its essence.

In the modern theory of linguistics, the concept of language function is used as the main criterion for identifying linguistic units and their relationship in the structure of the language. The main function of language is the function of organizing activity, realized through linguistic units. Their classification is based on two types of organizing functions: implementation and manifestation. Each unit of language is defined in a system of these two types of functions.

Since the main goal of communication is the establishment of interaction between members of the human team, language turns out to be a means of realizing this interaction, or a regulator of behavior. This function (the function of regulation) is performed by units of the highest class - units of communicative contact. Communicative contact determines the following functions of other language units: influence (a means of implementing this function - a statement), description (a means of implementing a system of elementary models), modeling (a function of a sentence - a model of a model of reality), relationships (it is realized by members of a sentence), address (nominative, implemented using words), instructions (implemented by morphemes), discrimination, implemented by phonemes.

The levels highlighted above are called semantic. They correspond to implementation functions. They are associated with the form of language realization in material units of speech. Moreover, in speech, language units are realized in their different variants and variations. Speech modification of language units is determined by two factors: one of the functions of language - the function of influence and its pragmatic nature.

If the nature of linguistic units depends solely on their place in the system, then the semantics and form of the unit are given by the system, and therefore, all units already exist before they are supposedly used.

Since the pragmatic aspect is the leading one in language, the range of variability of linguistic units in speech depends on it. The mechanism of variability of language units in speech is the combinatorial nature of the components of the unit. The combination of elementary particles of a unit occurs in speech and determines its almost unlimited acoustic variations. Therefore, there is a need to consider the correlation of speech (etic) and language (emic) units. Usually an emic unit is understood as a class of etic ones (for example, phoneme CH is a class of allophones, morpheme CH is a class of morphs, etc.).

Questions and tasks 1. Tell us about the legendary ideas about the nature and essence of language.

2. How do you feel about the biological theory of the nature and essence of language?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a psychological understanding of the essence of language?

4. Is language a social phenomenon? In what degree?

5. How do you understand the multi-quality nature of language?

6. Name and characterize the main stages of speech production.

7. What is debatable about modern ideas about the functions of language?

Serebrennikov B.A. On the materialistic approach to the phenomena of language. Ch M., 1983.

Language and thinking // Russian language: Encyclopedia. Ch M., 1979.

Additional Budagov R.A. What is the social nature of language? // Questions of linguistics. Part 1975. Part No. 3. Part S. 27P39.

Panov E.N. Signs. Symbols. Languages. Ch M., 1980.

Panfilov V.Z. On some aspects of the social nature of language // Questions of linguistics. Part 1982. Part No. 6. Part S. 28P44.

THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE The question of the origin of language is one of the fundamental problems of theoretical linguistics. Its comprehension is associated with an understanding of the nature and essence of language. The problem of its origin is not strictly linguistic. Perhaps, she is equally interested in the philosophy and theory of anthropogenesis and anthropology (Greek anthropos man, logos radiation, genesis origin, formation) and the science of the origin and evolution of man. Such a broad approach to this problem involves searching for answers to a number of questions of an interdisciplinary nature and, first of all, when, how, and as a result of what factors people developed a means of communication in the form of audible speech. Paradoxically, it was precisely because of these circumstances that some even major linguists and entire schools deliberately avoided solving this problem. Having recognized it as non-linguistic, members of the Paris Linguistic Society excluded the problem of the origin of language from their Charter (1866). For the same reasons, the famous American linguist Edward Sapir refused to consider it: l...the problem of the origin of language is not one of those problems that can be solved by linguistics alone1, and the data of archeology and psychology in this area are still insufficient. The French linguist Joseph Van Ries expressed himself even more categorically: l...the problem of the origin of language lies outside its (linguistics) competence2.

And yet, the origin of language is one of those mysteries of humanity that have always attracted and continue to attract an inquisitive mind. This problem, like an incomprehensible mystery, has already excited the mythological imagination ancient man, who created numerous myths, legends and tales about the emergence of the language. Later theories of divine revelation appear. Then they tried to connect the question of the origin of language with the creative activity of man himself, with the destinies of human society. Sapir E. Selected works on linguistics and cultural studies. Ch M., 1993. Ch S. 230.

Vandries J. Language. Ch M., 1937. Ch S. 21.

stva. Hypotheses about the cosmic origin of man and his language also appear on the pages of various publications, with the leading role given to extraterrestrial civilizations. Consequently, the question of the origin of language lives in a person, not leaving his consciousness alone and demanding its solution.

The following provisions can serve as initial guidelines in the labyrinths of common sense leading to the origins of human language.

The problem of the origin of language is exclusively theoretical, therefore the reliability of its solution is largely determined by the logic of consistent judgments and conclusions.

- In the search for the origins of language as articulate speech, it is necessary to involve data from various sciences - linguistics, philosophy, history, archeology, anthropology, psychology, etc.

It is necessary to distinguish between the question of the origin of language in general and questions about the emergence of specific languages ​​(for example, Russian, Chinese or Swahili) as chronologically incommensurable.

It is necessary to clearly distinguish between the search for the origins of human language and the identification of the structure of the proto-language through its comparative historical reconstructions based on currently known related languages.

LEGENDS AND MYTHS The legendary ideas of the ancients about the origin of language, although essentially fictitious, still allow us to get closer to some of the origins of widely known theories. First of all, they are united by the desire to explain the origin of articulate speech through imitation of natural sounds and in the process of learning. So, according to the Papuan legend, the creator demos once fired from still raw bamboo - the material from which the people themselves were formed. Because of the heat, the bamboo cracked, splinters stretched out in different directions, which is why the first people had arms and legs, and eyes, ears, and nostrils on their heads. And suddenly there was a loud crash: Wa-a-ah! It was the first people who opened their mouths and found the gift of speech.

Often in such legends the central figure is a sage who teaches people the language. It was just such a gray-haired old man who, according to Estonian legend, gathered the leaders of tribes scattered across the earth who could not speak. While waiting for them, he lit a fire and placed a cauldron of water on it. People who came listened to the sounds of boiling water and learned to pronounce them. Therefore, some languages ​​have many hissing sounds, while others have whistling sounds. The sage taught the Estonians the language he himself spoke. This is why Estonian is supposedly the most harmonious language.

Such legends, as we see, suffer from the naivety of a simple plot and the strong subjectivity of assessments. They reflect the main features of the primitive mythical worldview and worldview.

Firstly, people, animals, objects, trees, insects, and everything that can be named have language. In many legends, the walls of houses have their own voice, lazy people talk in the stove, tree leaves whisper to each other, the wind sings...

Secondly, speech is an indispensable sign of an emerging person. The objects surrounding him may not speak or communicate in a special language, but they all understand human.

Thirdly, there is a natural connection between the subject and its name. Therefore, objects do not receive names by chance. The names of H are the essence of things. Having learned the name, you can penetrate into the secret of the objective world, into the soul of each named object.

Fourthly, a name can exist independently of the subject and even precede it.

But the most important thing here is that the emerging language in all cases is closely connected with thinking, reason, and wisdom.

Further philosophical understanding of primitive ideas about the origin of language leads to the emergence of various theories - onomatopoeic, onomatopoeic, the theory of naming in ancient philosophy, etc. However, before moving on to their consideration, we should point out the theory of divine revelation, which is entirely based on biblical legends and parables, the main meaning of which: language was revealed (hence revelation) by God in paradise to the legendary Adam and Eve. The parable of the Tower of Babel (pandemonium of Babel), which tells about the causes of multilingualism, has become widely known.

ANCIENT THEORIES Perhaps the most deeply mythological ideas about the origin of language were perceived and reinterpreted by ancient Greek philosophers. Having built mythological ideas into a system, they, firstly, developed entire theories (teachings) of the emergence and formation of language;

secondly, the question of the origin of language was considered in unity with the understanding of its nature and essence. A distinctive feature of ancient theories should be considered the combination in them of two seemingly incompatible aspects of the study of the idea of ​​​​divine revelation and etymologization.

The first direction is presented in a simplified mythological version: language is a gift from God, or more precisely, given to people by the Greek god Hermes. The second direction is associated with the search for the internal form of the word CH, the source of naming things.

As a result of this scientific search, Greek scientists were divided into two opposing camps. Proponents of the theory of fuses (by nature), led by Heraclitus, believed that names (words) are shadows and reflections of things. This idea was most consistently developed by the Stoics, representatives of a widespread movement in ancient Greek philosophy, founded 300 years BC. They directly connected the perception of things with the sound of their names: the name of a thing encodes its essence;

words are created together with objects and exist together with them.

Proponents of the theory of theses (or theses) opposed the natural theory of the origin of language, or more precisely, the origin of names. Democritus, who stood at the head of this trend, argued that names exist by establishment (agreement), that between a word and a named object there is not a natural, but a conditional, accidental, involuntary connection. The following four arguments were cited as the main evidence:

Homonymy (designation of different objects by one name);

Synonymy (designation of the same object by different names);

- the possibility of transferring the names of some objects to others;

There is a lack of universal word-formation models (cf.:

thought - think, but justice, from which it is impossible to form the word fair).

The dispute between two ancient Greek schools about the origin and nature of language is reflected by Plato in the dialogue Cratylus. In this work he tries to find a compromise between the two theories by distinguishing between primary and derived words. Later, the Fusey theory was continued in the works of Augustine, Epicurus, Diogenes and Lucretius, where there was also a desire to distinguish two stages in the development of language: at the first stage, mechanisms predominate by nature, at the second - by agreement. The theory of theses was developed by Aristotle, and Empedocles and Anaxagoras adhered to its provisions. It served as the basis for the creation of a whole series of doctrines about the origin of language, united under the single name theory of invention, which was opposed to the theory of divine revelation. Fusey theory served as an incentive for the creation of doctrines about the origin of language as a product of human nature.

LANGUAGE IS A PRODUCT OF HUMAN NATURE The origins of this trend should be sought in the teachings of the Stoics.

The main idea is that the emergence of language is due to human nature. It became the basic position of two complementary theories - interjection and onomatopoeic, according to which the source of sound speech are natural sounds that accompanied human feelings, or sounds that people sought to imitate. As the Stoics (Chrysippus, Augustine, etc.) believed, emotional impressions of things (softness, roughness, hardness) evoke corresponding sounds in people. Often, the impact of an object (or creature) gave rise to one or another feeling in a person - joy at the sight of tasty fruits, fear when meeting a dangerous animal, etc. Such feelings were expressed in involuntary cries (interjections). Repeating themselves, they began to be associated with the realities that gave rise to them, and became their symbols, i.e. turned into words. According to the definition of Charles de Brosse (second half of the 18th century), the first words of primitive man - interjections - are the voices of sadness, joy, disgust, doubt. In ancient Greek philosophy, the interjection theory was especially fruitfully developed by the Epicureans (followers of the famous Epicurus), in the 18th century. I. Herder, A. Turgot, C. de Brosses and others turned to her.

According to the Stoics, man is involved in the universal mind and world soul, the Logos, which predetermined his abilities and needs to communicate with his own kind. Human nature, his soul, created a language for communication, the first words of which resembled the sound of the designated object (cf.: lat. hinnitus neighing (horses), stridor creaking (chains), balatus bleating (sheep), etc.). Such words are a product of imitation. There is an internal similarity between the sound form of a word and the named object. If objects do not sound, then the vocalization of the words denoting them expresses the impressions a person receives from these objects. The views of the Stoics on the methods of naming sounding and non-sounding objects (cf. quack-quack and honey) were the basis for two related theories of the origin of language - onomatopoeic and onomatopoeic.

According to the first of them, words arose due to a spontaneous, instinctive imitation of the sounds that living beings made (the cries of animals, birdsong) or accompanied natural phenomena (the rumble of thunder, the rustling of grass or tree leaves, the sound of a waterfall). Reproductions of these sounds were fixed in the minds of people with the objects that produced them, and turned into verbal signs to designate the corresponding objects.

This theory attracted particular attention in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Thus, the famous German philosopher and scientist Gottfried Leibnitz, distinguishing between strong and noisy, soft and quiet sounds, believed that their combinations allowed primitive man to express corresponding impressions and ideas about the world around him. In this variant, the onomatopoeic theory of the origin of language turns into an onomatopoeic one (Greek entanglement, poesis figurative expression). Unlike the previous one, this theory emphasizes the active language-creating role of man. Matopeia is understood broadly: it is not only the reproduction of sounds from the surrounding world, but also the formation of words to denote a poeticized idea of ​​objects. Such words arise according to the principle of sound symbolism, when emotional images are expressed in the corresponding sounds and sound combinations. Even in the Middle Ages, developing the teachings of the Stoics, Augustine (d. 730) tried to substantiate a similar understanding of the origin of language. He believed that the Latin word mel is euphonious because it denotes honey that tastes good. And on the contrary, the harsh word acre creates a sound image of an unpleasant taste quality: acre is bitter. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. this theory was supported by such outstanding linguists as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Heiman Steinthal in Germany and A.A. Potebnya in Russia. Their judgments indicate previously unnoticed points of interaction between the onomatopoeic and onomatopoeic theories of the origin of language, and outline new directions for understanding the structure of a linguistic sign and the connection between sound and mental images. Thus, W. von Humboldt considers it necessary to distinguish between the following three methods of verbalization (linguistic expression) of concepts:

- imitation in a word of sounds made by objects (pictorial recreation of its auditory image), - meow-meow, tick-tock;

- imitation not directly of a sound or an object, but not of some internal property inherent in both of them (a symbolic way of expressing concepts): means immobility (German stehen stand, stеtig constant, starr motionless), instability, restlessness, movement are indicated by words with initial [ w]: (der) Wind wind, (die) Wolke cloud, wirren entangle, Wunsch desire;

H is a similar designation of concepts when similar meanings are expressed in words that are similar in sound composition. In this case, complete harmony of conceptual and sound relatedness is achieved.

According to G. Steinthal, language is a product of the spirit of the people;

sound speech is determined by the spiritual principle. The spirit of the people, as the basis of its social consciousness, is the source of spiritual life, the most important component of which should be considered speech and thinking activity. Linguistic thinking, according to Steinthal, is associated with the expression of ideas about ideas isolated from the sphere of objective thinking. He called the resulting representation internal linguistic form. The means of its expression is the external linguistic, or sound, form.

According to the concept of A.A. Potebnya, the origins of language lie in the reflexive feelings of a person, which he expresses either with the help of interjections or words themselves. The scientist believed that words originated from interjections as a result of complex speech and mental processes. At first it is a simple reflection of feeling in sound:

feeling pain, the child involuntarily makes wa-wa sounds;

then, not without the participation of adults, their awareness occurs and, having heard the sound combination of vava, he associates it with pain and the object that caused it;

finally, the semantic content becomes inseparable from the corresponding sound combination. The final step in the formation of the dual unity of thought and sound is its understanding by other people. In contrast to W. von Humboldt, A.A. Potebnya argued that sound words reproduce not impressions of objects, but those associative connections that are established between the sound image of the word and the image of the named object.

The first direction, which explains the origin of language from human nature, also includes the biological theory, according to which speech activity is determined by purely biological functions of the body. The child, as the creators of this theory believe, begins to speak as naturally as, having reached a certain age, he stands on his feet and begins to walk. Manifestations of the biological mechanisms of the emergence of language usually include baby babbling, humming, and children's words (doubling the syllable Ch ma-ma, pa-pa, ba-ba). It was on their basis that real words supposedly arose. In fact, such words exist in every language, but their meanings do not always coincide. Compare: in Russians uncle is the brother of the mother or father, in the English daddy is daddy, while in Russian dialects the word dad was called bread, and father was called daddy. Among Russians, Baba is the mother of parents; among Turkic-speaking peoples, Baba is a venerable old man. Such discrepancies reject the truth of the biological theory of the origin of language. It is not confirmed by cases of children being fed by wolves: in isolation from human society, they are deprived of a vertical gait, they move like an animal, on all fours, but their main disadvantage is that they could not master the language. It is enough to recall at least Mowgli - the hero of Kipling's book. The biological theory of the origin of language has recently been enlivened by ideas of cosmic intelligence and the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Assumptions arise that man and his language are the work of the universal mind, that people are in an invisible connection with other living worlds. The news that a five-year-old animal child was discovered in a Hungarian village near the city of Ozd was absolutely sensational. The girl's name is Mikla Vira. It became the object of research by a group of prominent scientists, biologists, geneticists from several European countries, the USA, Brazil, and Russia. This is the first such creature in the history of science. Mikla feels great in the company of people, surrounded by rural children. At the same time, animals are also drawn to her. She understands their language and translates it into the language of people.

Her mental abilities are almost twice as high as those of her peers. However, in appearance she looks more like the shaggy hair of that light poodle than a human cub. Mikla was born in a mountain village. When the peasants first saw the strange newborn, they decided that it was a demon. There were even attempts to kill her. Her parents had to hide her in a barn with their pets until she became a scientific sensation. Mikla’s abilities are amazing, Hungarian professor Sandor Hauptmann notes. We hope with her help to penetrate the world sound signals animals, which turns out to be much richer than we think. Studies of Mikla's body show that it combines features of both humans and animals. It is suggested that the child is a mutant who appeared as a result of an experiment by cosmic intelligence. Mikla’s fellow villagers recall that five years ago a UFO repeatedly appeared in the vicinity of Ozd.

SOCIAL THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE In contrast to hypotheses based on the biological essence of man, social theories exclude the individual expression of human nature (the desire to express one’s self, to know oneself or to imitate the surrounding world of sounds) as a decisive stimulus for glottogenesis. The main factor in the emergence of human language is, according to their creators, social human needs. This idea permeates social contract theory and labor cry theory.

The contractual theory of the origin of language first arose in the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. He explains the emergence of language by the way of life and needs of primitive people. At first, the philosopher argued, the life of primitive people was not much different from that of animals. They ate herbs and tree fruits, in search of which they dispersed over a vast territory. But fear of predators forced them to unite, use mutual assistance, and resort to coordinating their actions. Initially, their voice was inarticulate and meaningless. However, gradually separate speech was established, surrounding objects and phenomena received symbolic designation. This is how the first words were born. And since sign designation was accidental, not by the nature of things, different communities of people created different languages. Despite the undoubted merits in the reasoning of Democritus, there remained, of course, blind spots. Among them is the mechanism for transforming an inarticulate sound chain into a meaningful, articulate one.

One of the first attempts to eliminate this gap was made by Epicurus (342-271 BC). He associated the transition to articulate speech with the development of a special method of exhaling air. The Epicurians Diogenes and Lucretius strengthened the communicative and inventive aspects in the teachings of their predecessors. Lucretius, for example, emphasized that people were motivated to express the names of objects by the need for communication.

Human speech in its development went through two stages - emotional sound production and the conscious invention of words to express the impressions that objects made on them. Great advocates of the theory of social contract in the XVII–XVIII centuries. were Thomas Hobbes, Louis Maupertuis, Etienne Condillac, Jean Jacques Rousseau and others. The focus of their attention was on such issues as the role of thinking in the emergence of language, the continuity of sign and sound communication, the primacy of proper names in relation to common names and etc.

The theory of labor cries was developed by the German scientist Ludwig Noiret by modifying the hypothesis of natural sound formation. The first words, Noiret argued, were those natural sounds that accompanied or imitated the labor processes of primitive man, as well as various reflexive cries as a result of physical effort. Some of them were pronounced to rhythmize the work. Later, this kind of shouting was assigned to certain labor processes and became their symbols, i.e. turned into words.

JAPHETIC THEORY The creator of this theory was one of the theorists of Caucasian studies, N.Ya.Marr, the author of a number of fundamental works on the history, archeology and ethnography of the peoples of the Caucasus and individual Caucasian languages, which he called Japhetic (hence the names Laphetic theory, Laphetic linguistics) . The strange definition Laphetic in these combinations was formed by analogy with the names of the Semitic and Hamitic languages.

According to biblical tradition, a pious and righteous man named Noah1 (the builder of the ark, whom God and his good family saved from the global flood) had three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth (Japhet). Having settled after the flood in different parts of the earth, they became the ancestors of entire ethnic groups and, accordingly, linguistic communities. The descendants of Shem settled in Western Asia and Africa north of the Sahara. Therefore, the languages ​​spoken by these peoples are called Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, Mehri, Tigrinya, Amharic, etc.). Neighboring them are Hamitic languages ​​(ancient Egyptian, Cushitic, Berber, Chadian, etc.). Both groups are united into a single Semitic-Hamitic family of languages. To the north of the Semitic-Hamitic territories, according to legends, live the Japhetids, the descendants of Japhet, who were later identified with the Indo-European peoples.

The phrase Laphetic languages ​​was originally invented by N.Ya. Marr to denote the relationship of the Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan, Chan languages2 with the Semitic-Hamitic languages. Then this term spread to all the dead languages ​​of the Mediterranean and Western Asia, as well as Iberian-Caucasian, Basque (Pyrenean), Burish (Pamir).

An important place in the Japhetic theory of N.Ya. Marr is occupied by the problem of the origin of language, the presentation of which, like all Japhetic theory, cannot be subordinated to the logic of common sense. The scientist focused on the fact that the developing person initially developed a kinetic3 (linear) language, facial expressions and gestures.

He saw the remnants of manual speech (gesturing) in communication North American Indians. Sound speech, in his opinion, appears in people later, when the necessary production, ideological and social conditions for this have been created.

Language supposedly arose at a fairly high level of human civilization simultaneously with writing and initially had a religious purpose. Language satisfied the productive and magical needs of man (labor and magic, according to N.Ya. Marr, existed in an inextricable dual unity).

Noah is the savior of animals and birds (according to the biblical narrative), the founder of all post-Flood humanity, a descendant of Adam in the ninth generation, the ancestor of Abraham and Moses.

Let us remind you: the remains of Noah’s Ark have been sought for a long time in the Caucasus Mountains. According to the hypothesis of some scientists, having landed at Mount Ararat, he remained in one of its crevices. Other researchers call the Urartian Mountains the resting place of the ark.

Greek kinetikos Ch setting in motion, relating to movement.

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This textbook outlines the main issues of the course “Introduction to Linguistics” in accordance with the program. Such sections of the course as “Language and Thinking”, “The Nature and Essence of Language”, “Classifications of the World’s Languages”, “Phonological and Grammatical Theories”, “Semasiology” are considered taking into account the latest achievements of linguistics - socio- and psycholinguistics, synchronic and diachronic, cognitive linguistics.
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A489 Theory of language. Introductory course: Textbook. aid for students Philol. specialist. higher textbook establishments. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2004. - 368 p.

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The manual examines the main issues of the course “Introduction to Linguistics” in accordance with the current program. Many traditional sections of the course (“Language and Thinking”, “Nature and Essence of Language”, “Classifications of the World’s Languages”, “Phonological and Grammatical Theories”, “Semasiology”) are revealed taking into account the latest achievements of linguistics (socio- and psycholinguistics, synchronic and diachronic , cognitive linguistics).

For students of philological specialties of higher educational institutions; can also be recommended for students of pedagogical colleges, teachers of gymnasiums, lyceums.

© Alefirenko N.F., 2004

© Educational and publishing Center "Academy", 2004

ISBN 5-7695-1448-5 © Design. Publishing center "Academy", 2004

Introduction........................................................ ...................................................
Language as a system................................................... ....................................
Object and subject of the science of language...............................................................
Language and speech................................................................... ...............................................
Units of language and units of speech.................................................... ............
The nature and essence of language.........................................................................
“Biological” theory of language.................................................. ...............
Psychological approaches to the essence of language....................................................
Language as a social phenomenon................................................................. ..........
The multi-qualitative nature of language................................................................... ......
The main stages of speech production.................................................................... .......
Language functions................................................... ......................................
The problem of the origin of language................................................................
Legends and myths................................................... ....................................
Ancient theories........................................................ ...................................
Language is a product of human nature....................................................
Social theories of the origin of language...................................................
Japhetic theory......................................................... ...........................
Materialistic theory................................................... .............
Development and functioning of language........................................................
Language contacts................................................... ...........................
Social conditions of development
and the functioning of language......................................................... ............
Genealogical classification of world languages..........................................
Phonetics and phonology...............................................................................
Phonetics................................................. ........................................................ ..
Phonetic division of speech................................................................... ................
Speech sounds. Acoustic properties of sounds...................................................
Prosody......................................................... ...........................................
Phonetic processes........................................................ ....................
Alternations........................................................ ........................................

Phonology ..................................................... ........................................................
From the history of phonology........................................................ ........................
Phoneme and sound................................................... ......................................
Sound perception and phoneme.................................................................... ...............
Historical phonology. Convergence
and divergence................................................... ................................
Phonological schools........................................................ ....................
Modern phoneme theories...................................................................
Letter ................................................. ........................................................ ....
Language and writing......................................................... ......................................
Historical background for the emergence of writing......................
Stages of writing development. Types of letter.........................................................
Graphics and spelling................................................................... ........................
Lexicology .................................................... ............................................
Basic concepts........................................................ ...........................
The word as a subject of lexicology.................................................... ........
Lexical meaning of the word. Aspects of lexical meaning.....
The problem of “word identity” .................................................... .............
Monosemy......................................................... ...........................................
Polysemy. Ways of its development......................................................... ......
Homonymy......................................................... ...........................................
Synonymy................................................. .........................................
Antonymy. Functions of antonyms................................................... .....
Paronymy........................................................ ...........................................
Types of lexical fields................................................... ....................
Dynamics of vocabulary and its stylistic
delamination........................................................ ....................................
Lexicography .................................................... ...........................................
Basic concepts........................................................ ...........................
Main types of dictionaries......................................................... ....................
Phraseology ..................................................... ........................................................
Classification of phraseological units...................................................
Phraseological meaning................................................... ...............
Sources of occurrence of phraseological units......
Etymology......................................................... ...............................................
Morphemics and word formation..............................................................
Morphemic composition of the word................................................... ....................
Types of morphs................................................... .......................................
Derivational structure of the word..................................................
Derivatives and generating words (stems).................................
Word-formation type................................................... ................

Word formation model................................................... ..........
Word-formation meaning................................................... ........
Methods of word formation......................................................... ................
Grammar ..................................................... ...............................................
Morphology................................................. ...................................................
Grammatical meaning................................................... ...............
Ways and means of expressing grammatical meanings...........
Grammatical form................................................... .......................
Historical development of morphology.................................................... ..
Syntax................................................. ...................................................
Basic concepts........................................................ ...........................
Phrases......................................................... ........................................
Offer................................................. .......................................
Historical development of syntactic structure....................................
Basic teaching aids........................................................ ................
List of abbreviations................................................................... ............

INTRODUCTION

Language is one of the most mysterious world mysteries that people have been trying to solve for more than one millennium. Pre-scientific ideas about language are reflected in numerous myths, legends and religious writings. The emergence of a scientific picture of the world presupposed, of course, the accumulation of reliable knowledge about language. The first philological knowledge was formed in a variety of sciences about man and his world, the oldest of which was philosophy (Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, China, the Arab East, etc.). Observations and knowledge about language and family ties between individual languages ​​accumulated over many centuries approximately by the 18th century. create the basis for distinguishing linguistics into a special scientific discipline, which already has “its own” subject and method (comparative historical) of studying linguistic phenomena.

Language (linguistics), or linguistics (from the Latin lingua “language”), is a science that studies human language in general and individual (living or dead) ) languages. In this regard, general and specific linguistics are distinguished.

General linguistics considers everything that is characteristic of any language in the world (or most languages). The most important problems of general linguistics include the problem of the nature and essence of language, issues related to its structure and organization, the system of language, patterns of its origin, development and functioning, classification of languages ​​of the world, methodology, methods and techniques of linguistic research, the connection of linguistics with other sciences ( philosophy, logic, psychology, philology, ethnography, history, sociology, semiotics, anatomy and physiology, mathematics, statistics, cybernetics, etc.). These also include the problem of the emergence and development of writing.

Particular linguistics deals with the study of individual languages ​​or a group of related languages. There are, for example, Russian, Czech, Polish, Chinese linguistics (or, accordingly, Russian studies, Bohemian studies, Polish studies, Chinese studies). Linguistics studying Germanic languages ​​(English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic

And etc.), called Germanistics, linguistics, the study Slavic languages, - Slavic studies, etc. General and specific linguistics have a special theoretical basis (cf.: theoretical basis Slavic studies, theoretical grammar of the English language

And etc.). Along with theoretical, there is applied linguistics, which solves both general and specific problems: teaching languages, creating writing, speech culture, creating automatic translation systems, automatic search, etc.

IN Depending on the goals and objectives of the study, private linguistics can be either synchronic (from the Greek syn “together with” and chronos “time”), if it studies linguistic phenomena in one time plane (for example, modern English regardless of its history), or diachronic (from dia “through, through”), historical, if the historical development of the language is traced, affecting its different time periods (for example, the historical grammar of the Russian (Ukrainian, Belarusian) language).

Each direction has a special arsenal of linguistic methods (from the Greek methodos “path of knowledge”) - a set of research techniques for studying language associated with a specific linguistic theory and methodology.

The most important methods of synchronic linguistics are descriptive, structural (distributive, transformational, component), typological, statistical, etc. Diachronic linguistics owes its development to comparative-historical and historical-comparative methods. The first is designed to compare related languages ​​in their historical development, and the second is to study linguistic phenomena of the same language at different stages of its development.

Methodology is a philosophical doctrine about the main ways and means of understanding linguistic reality. The content of the methodology is determined by the leading principles of cognition (principles of systematicity, historicism and the relationship between theory and practice), the laws of dialectics (the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative ones, the law of unity and struggle of opposites, the law of negation of negation) and categories (the most general concepts such as individual and general, concrete and abstract, identity and difference). Philosophical and general scientific principles, laws and categories find a specific refraction in the actual linguistic principles, laws and categories that underlie one or another linguistic doctrine (about the sound composition of a language, about vocabulary, the doctrine about grammatical structure, etc.).

To comprehend the principles of basic teachings about language, to reveal the patterns of formation and functioning of linguistic units, to establish the relationship of linguistic categories is the most important task of the “Theory of Language” course.

LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM

The fulfillment by language of the most complex socially significant functions - thought-forming and communicative - is ensured by its exceptionally high organization, operational dynamism and interdependence of all its elements, each of which, although it has its own special purpose (to distinguish meanings, differentiate forms, designate objects, processes, signs of the surrounding reality, express a thought, communicate it), is subordinated to a single general linguistic task - to be a means of communication and mutual understanding. In accordance with this, the understanding of language as an open (constantly developing) systemic-structural formation has already become indisputable. In this case, the main categories are “system” and “structure”. The first correlates with such concepts as “totality”, “whole”, “integration”, “synthesis” (unification), and the second with the concepts of “organization”, “structure”, “orderliness”, “analysis” (dismemberment). There are different interpretations of the nature of the relationship between these categories. However, the most recognized and acceptable are the following.

The language system is an integral unity of linguistic units that are in certain interconnections and relationships with each other. The very set of regular connections and relationships between linguistic units, depending on their nature and determining the uniqueness of the language system as a whole, forms the structure of the language system. Structure is the main property of a language system. It presupposes the division of language as an integral formation into components, their interconnection, interdependence and internal organization. The terms elements are usually used to name the components of a language system.

language units, linguistic signs, parts (groups), subsystems . “Element” is the most general term for components

com of any system, including language. This is a relatively indivisible object within a certain system, and a system is a complex unity of interconnected and interdependent elements. In linguistic works, the elements of a language system are more often called units of language, or linguistic units (phoneme, morpheme, word, sentence), and elements are those

the constituent parts from which language units are formed (for example, the ideal elements of a linguistic unit are semes - the smallest components of its meaning; the material elements of a linguistic unit are: for a morpheme - phonemes, or a sound sequence, sound complex, sound shell, and for a word - morphemes (root, prefix, suffix, ending), for a phrase - words, etc.).

Consequently, not all language objects can be called language units. Quantities can receive the status of a language unit if they have the following properties: 1) express a certain meaning or participate in its expression or differentiation; 2) are distinguishable as some objects; 3) reproducible

V finished form; 4) enter into regular connections with each other, forming a certain subsystem; 5) enter the language system through its subsystem; 6) are in hierarchical relationships to units of other subsystems of the language (such relationships can be characterized in terms of “consists of...” or “included in...”); 7) each more complex unit has a new quality compared to its constituent elements, since units of higher levels are not a simple sum of units of lower levels.

There are predominant units of language (phonemes, morphemes), nominative (words, phrases, phraseological units) and communicative (sentences, superphrasal units, periods, texts).

Units of language are closely related to units of speech. The latter realize (objectify) the former (phonemes are realized by sounds, or backgrounds; morphemes - by morphs, allomorphs; words (lexemes) - by word forms (lexes, allolexes); block diagrams sentences - statements). Units of speech are any units that are freely formed in the process of speech from units of language. Their main features are: productivity - free formation in the process of speech; combinatoriality- complex structure as a result of free combination of language units; ability to enter larger formations (words -

V composition of phrases and sentences; simple sentences -

V composition of complex; sentences form the text).

Units of language and speech are basically sign formations, since they exhibit all the signs of a sign: they have a material plane of expression; are carriers of some mental content (meaning); are in a conditional connection with what they point to, i.e. designate the subject of thought not by virtue of its “natural” properties, but as something socially prescribed.

From a number of sign units of a language, only the phoneme is usually excluded, since it is devoid of meaning. True, scientists of the Prague linguistic school considered the phoneme to be one of the linguistic signs,

since it participates in distinguishing semantic content and signals one or another significant unit of language. The morpheme (root, prefix, suffix) also has a semi-sign character, since it does not independently convey information, and therefore is not an independent sign (and is recognized only as part of a word). The remaining units of the language are symbolic.

A linguistic sign is a sensually perceived unit of language or speech that conveys information about another object (phenomenon), being in a conditional (socially and historically conditioned) connection with it. The definition of a sign unit of language varies depending on the scientist’s adherence to one of the existing sign theories of language: monolateral or bilateral. According to the first, only the material aspect of a language unit (sound scale, plane of expression, signifier) ​​is considered a sign. Proponents of the second theory are convinced that a linguistic sign is a two-sided material-ideal unit of language, since for speakers of the same language the plane of expression (signifier) ​​and the plane of content (signified) of the sign represent an inextricable unity, which, in fact, characterizes the unit of language. Consequently, language is a sign system of a special kind (secondary, material-ideal, historically and socially conditioned, open, i.e. developing).

Elements, units of language and linguistic signs should be distinguished from parts and subsystems of a single language system.

Any grouping of linguistic units between which internal connections are established that differ from the connections between the groupings themselves can be considered as part of the system. Within the system, subsystems are thus formed (in vocabulary - lexical-semantic groups, semantic fields; in morphology - subsystems of verb conjugation or declension of names, etc.).

The linguistic units that form a language system can be homogeneous or heterogeneous. Hierarchical relationships between homogeneous units of language are excluded; they are inherent only in heterogeneous units (phoneme > morpheme > lexeme (words) > phrase > sentence). Homogeneous units of language exhibit the ability to enter into: a) linear structures, chains and combinations (linear connections of language units are called syntagmatic), and b) certain groups, classes and categories, thereby realizing their paradigmatic properties.

Syntagmatic connections are the relations of linguistic units by contiguity, their juxtaposition (according to the scheme and ¾i) and compatibility according to the laws defined for a particular language. Thus, according to the laws of English phonetic syntagmatics, the presence of voiced consonants at the end of a word is possible, but according to the laws of Russian sound combinations it is unacceptable. Similarly by definition

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(1 Voted)

Alefirenko N.F.

Theory of language. Introductory course

Especially for the site www.superlinguist.com

Alefirenko N.F. Theory of language. Introductory course. - M.: Academy, 2004. - 384 p.EBook. Linguistics. General linguistics

Abstract (description)

This textbook outlines the main issues of the course “Introduction to Linguistics” in accordance with the program. Such sections of the course as “Language and Thinking”, “The Nature and Essence of Language”, “Classifications of the World’s Languages”, “Phonological and Grammatical Theories”, “Semasiology” are considered taking into account the latest achievements of linguistics - socio- and psycholinguistics, synchronic and diachronic, cognitive linguistics.
The book is intended for students of philological specialties of higher educational institutions.

Contents (table of contents)

Introduction 3
Language as a system 5
Object and subject of the science of language 11
Language and speech 12
Language Units and Speech Units 16
The nature and essence of language 18
“Biological” theory of language 19
Psychological approaches to the essence of language 22
Language as a social phenomenon 24
The multi-qualitative nature of language 27
Main stages of speech production 35
Language functions 38
The problem of the origin of language 41
Legends and myths 42
Ancient theories 43
Language is a product of human nature 45
Social theories of the origin of language 48
Japhetic theory 49
Materialistic theory 52
Development and functioning of language 57
Basic concepts 57
Language contacts 63
Social conditions for the development and functioning of language 69
Genealogical classification of languages ​​of the world 86
Phonetics and phonology 94
Phonetics 94
Phonetic division of speech 94
Speech sounds. Acoustic properties of sounds 100
Prosody 104
Phonetic Processes 111
Alternations 121
Phonology 123
From the history of phonology 123
Phoneme and sound 128
Sound perception and phoneme 130
Historical phonology. Convergence and divergence 133
Phonological schools 139
Modern phoneme theories 146
Letter 161
Language and writing 161
Historical background for the emergence of writing 163
Stages of writing development. Types of writing 164
Basic categories of writing 179
Graphics and spelling 181
Lexicology 191
Basic concepts 191
Word as a subject of lexicology 196
Lexical meaning of the word. Aspects of lexical meaning 198
The problem of “word identity” -. 203
Monosemy 205
Polysemy. Ways to develop it 207
Homonymy 211
Synonymy 217
Antonymy. Antonym functions 221
Paronymy 228
Types of lexical fields 231
Dynamics of vocabulary and its stylistic stratification 239
Lexicography 246
Basic concepts 246
Basic types of dictionaries 248
Phraseology 251
Categorical properties of phraseological units 252
Classification of phraseological units 256
Phraseological meaning 259
Sources of occurrence of phraseological units 264
Etymology 267
Morphemics and word formation 272
Morphemic composition of the word 273
Morph types 276
Derivational structure of the word 278
Derivatives and generating words (stems) 278
Word-formation type 280
Word formation model 281
Word-formation meaning 281
Methods of word formation 283
Grammar 287
Morphology 288
Grammatical meaning 288
Ways and means of expressing grammatical meanings 292
Grammatical form 313
Grammatical category 316
Historical development of morphology 322
Syntax 332
Basic concepts 332
Collocation 335
Proposition 341
Historical development of syntactic structure 355
Basic Tutorials 363
List of abbreviations 364