INTRODUCTION
Structural grammar is generally believed to have evolved at about the same time in two places - Europe and America. Owing to this fact, each group of structuralists developed the grammar with somewhat different concerns and focus about language. But modern structural grammar is traceable to an American linguist, Leonard Bloomfield whose contributions to the study of language have helped in shaping modern linguistics. His ideas have provided a basis for the building and the development of other linguistic theories and grammatical models.
3.1 Structural Grammar
You would recall that one major weakness of Traditional grammar was its prescriptive nature. This might have led to the development of structural grammar. Two major groups are generally associated with the evolution of structural grammar. The first group began in Europe after the publication of Ferdinard de Saussure’s book entitled Cours de Linguistique Generale. This group came to be known as European structuralists. The second group started in America and was generally referred to as American structuralists.
3.1.1 European Structural Grammar
The major ideas of European structural grammar are that language consists of two aspects, langue and parole. Within this grammar is the same as the form or the expression elements in a language. For example, the speech sounds, the words, phrases and clauses in a language constitute the form of that language. Parole on the other hand, according to European structural grammarians, refers to language behaviour, that is, the manner and the use(s) to which the expression elements are put. According to Lamidi (p.8), “Langue … can be equated with form while parole is equated with substance.”
Another feature of European structural grammar is that it emphasized the inter-relationships between langue and parole, stressing that they were not autonomous aspects of language, but, that they were interrelated.
European structural grammar developed the twin notions of synchronic and diachronic linguistics. According to de Saussure in his book earlier referred to above, synchronic linguistics studies the structure of a language or languages at a particular point in time, while diachronic linguistics deals principally with the historical development or isolated elements of language(s) over a period of time.
European structural grammar specifies that language has two associated levels – an abstract relational level, and the actual utterances of language. Within this grammar it is claimed that the abstract level is “a system of underlying actual behaviour of a language” (Lyons, p.994) and that the two levels must be distinguished one from the other. Moreover, within the view of language presented by European structuralists, linguists and those interested in the study of language should focus on the abstract underlying level.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
State three major ideas about language as advanced by European structural grammar.
3.1.2 American Structural Grammar
The second group of structuralists started in America. This group was made up of scholars who had background in disciplines like anthropology, psychology and linguistics. These different backgrounds influenced their view of language and how language should be studied.
American structuralists outrightly rejected the traditional grammar approach to the study of language. Their rejection and eventual discarding of traditional grammar was as a result of the influence of the period in which they lived and worked. That period was known as the Scientific Age, and everything had to be subjected to the use of scientific methods just as would be done in the sciences. Thus, they used and recommended the use of scientific approach in studying language. This approach involved an objective and an observable analysis of linguistic data.
Structural grammarians of the American school claimed that every language is a “unique, coherent and (an) integrated system” (Lamidi, p. 8). Their methods of categorizing parts of speech and sentence function were different from those adopted by traditional grammarians. They observed from studying American-Indian languages that words in all languages could not be classified in the same way(s). For instance, they observed that the distinction between nouns and verbs in some languages does not exist in otherlanguages.
Following these observations, American structural grammarians did not support the practice found among Traditional grammarians of describing one language by analyzing it in terms of the categories derived from the analysis of other languages. Also, they found that the traditional categories of preposition, article and adverbs could not always be applied consistently.
American structuralism was greatly influenced by the American Linguist, Leonard Bloomfield who claimed that language is human behaviour and that meaning is the relationship between a stimulus and a verbal response. However, since issues about meaning in language could not be subjected to the scientific methods adopted within structural grammar, Bloomfield’s followers completely neglected meaning-related issues claiming they were vague.
Since they saw each language as a unique system, they designed structural forms by which each language may identify words and their classes. For instance English nouns possess certain characteristics which distinguish them from other word classes. Thus nouns are capable of occurring after determiners and they can take plural indicators. The following frames 1(a-d were devised for identifying nouns in English and any word that fits into the gaps provided were to be classified as nouns.
(1) (a) John bought a (b) The students met the (c ) His mother needs some
(d) Dipo brought these
The words which fit into the gaps in (2a-c) above are to be classified as verbs; moreover, they are capable of taking an appropriate past tense marker, viz: - d, - ed or zero morpheme.
(2) (a) Kufre the ball (b) Ngozi
(c) Yemi some rice.
From the data presented here it would appear that in structural grammar words are classified according to the frames in which they occur.
Another branch of structural grammar was developed by Bloomfield (p. 161). This was referred to as the Immediate Constituent Analysis. This approach to sentence analysis adopts a “top-to-bottom” procedure. It involves breaking down sentences into their immediate constituents until the smallest units of grammar known as ultimate constituents are reached. The Bloomfieldian structuralism evolved the tree structure technique as a way of representing the way that words in sentences are grouped together into a structure. This technique was initially referred to as “cutting”. In Fig.1 below, the diagram shows the relationship and the arrangement of the words which make up the sentence: “Some persons are honest” .
The central idea of the Immediate Constituent analysis is to show that sentences in natural languages do not consist simply of an unordered sequence o words; but, that the words which are (structured) into successively larger structural units known as constituents. A constituent may therefore be thought of as a structural unit or segment of a sentence which may comprise a word or more than one word. Let us look at the diagram in Fig 1 .The sentence: ’Some persons are honest’ would be seen to be made up of four words but the words but the words can be grouped into two large units referred to as phrases : anoun phrase ‘some persons’; and another phrase ‘are honest’ which serves as the predicate. Each of the two smaller groups of words which make the sentence ‘Some persons are honest’ are said to be immediate constituents of the sentence. Also, each of the phrases can be broken down into its immediate constituents which are the individual words which make them up.
In Unit 1, it was emphasized that words and groups of words in sentences must be related one to another, that is, they must ‘hang together’ sentences to be meaningful. As Fig.1 indicates the words ‘some’ and ‘persons’ ‘go together’ that is why they can form a constituent within the same sentence. These facts show that sentences have a hierarchical structure. These facts show that sentences have a hierarchical structure. These facts show that sentences have a hierarchical structure. This is represented by the branching.
Some persons are honest
3.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of Structural Grammar
3.2.1 Strengths of Structural Grammar
Unlike Traditional grammar, Structural grammar considers the spoken language to be superior and therefore primary to the written form of language. Also, its concern for explicitness, precision and generality were welcome alternatives to the arbitrary traditional ways of studying language.
One of the strengths of Structural grammar consists in its contribution to the development of Generative grammar. It laid the foundation for the latter grammatical model to build on, particularly in such aspects as the concept of the Immediate Constituent Analysis and the Tree structure technique of phrase structure representation.
3.2.2 Weaknesses of Structural Grammar
Despite the strong points which structural grammar has been shown to possess, it has been faulted for the following characteristics: First its inability to explain the underlying meaning of sentences as well as its inability to explain other phenomena like synonymy, paraphrase and recursion. Second, structural grammar can not handle ambiguity in larger sentences e.g. “They called him lawyer”, which could mean:
(1) Some persons engaged the services of a lawyer on behalf of another. OR
(2) Somebody is often referred to as “lawyer” (probably on account of his eloquent defence of other persons when they get into trouble).
This is considered to be a significant weakness because the problem of ambiguity is a serious problem in language use and cannot be neglected in language studies. Third, structuralists emphasised that a certain order be followed when analysing language. For example, they insisted on beginning analysis with the sounds and sound system of a language before going on to see how the sounds combine into words, words into phrases, and so on. This procedure is generally described as separation of levels. Other linguists said this insistence on a strict order is unnecessary since a scholar may decide to begin the analysis of a language at any level.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The structural approach characterised a second phase in the development of grammatical models in general. Its descriptive and objective approach distinguished it from traditional grammar which was prescriptive.
5.0 SUMMARY
The following are the main points made in this unit:
•There are two groups of scholars who started structural grammar.
•Language has abehaviour that is different from the way it is used even though both are related.
•Structuralists did not consider meaning to be apart of the study of language.
•Structuralists used purely objective and scientific procedures in
studying language.
•Structuralists first identified an abstract level as a basis for sentences in language.
•They evolved some of the key techniques of linguistic analysis used by later linguists and language scholars up to date.
ANSWER SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
The three major ideas about language advanced by European structural grammar include the following:
1. The interrelationships of language form and language behaviour
2. There is an underlying system of actual behaviour to every actual utterance.
3. Language can be studied at a particular point in time and can also be studied in terms of the historical development of its elements.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Compare and contrast Traditional grammar with Structural grammar and show how one is an improvement upon the other.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Lamidi, M. T. (2000). Aspects of Chomskyan Grammar. Ibadan: Emman Publications.
Lyons, J. (1981). Linguistics. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol..10, 15th Edition.
Malmkjcer, K. (1991). Immediate Constituent Analysis. In Kirsten Malmkjaer and James M. Anderson (Eds.) The Linguistics Encyclopedia, London: Routledge.
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