1.0 INTRODUCTION
The traditional grammarian set for himself certain methodological procedures based on his perception of the nature of language. He saw that if language is a reflection of thought, there must be correlations between the patterns in which we think and the patterns of language that express our thoughts. For example, we think of things, to which we give names and about which we then make predications or statements. Thus, the traditional grammarian began his description with complete, meaningful statements (each consisting of a subject plus a predication about this subject), and analyzed these statements into their constituent parts. Each part must in some way contribute to the meaning of the whole statement.
There is a bewildering variety of approaches to the definition and determination of ‘meaning’. Distinctions are made between ‘emotive’ and ‘cognitive’ meaning; between ‘significance’ and ‘signification’; between ‘performative’ and ‘descriptive’ meaning; between ‘sense’ and ‘reference’; between ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’; between ‘signs’ and ‘symbols’; between ‘extension’ and ‘intension’; between ‘implication’, ‘entailment’, and ‘presupposition’; between the ‘analytic’ and the ‘synthetic’, and so on. The terminology is rather confusing since it is used without any high degree of consistency and uniformity between different authors. It is inevitable therefore that the terms we shall employ here will not necessarily carry the same implications as the same terms employed by other authors.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you will be expected to know:
- how meaning is expressed in Traditional Grammar
- different kinds of relationships between words
- the types of sentences.
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3.1 Meaning in Traditional Grammar
Semantics may be defined as the study of meaning. From the earliest times down to the present day, grammarians have been interested in the meaning of words, and frequently more interested in what words mean than in their syntactic function. A practical manifestation of this interest is seen in the innumerable dictionaries that have been produced throughout the ages, not only in the West, but in all parts of the world where language has been studied. As we saw in the previous units, the categories of traditional grammar were to a large extent determined by their characteristic ‘modes of signifying’.
Meaning was seen by the traditional grammarian as either lexical or grammatical. Lexical meaning is the essential meaning of words classed as substantives (nouns and other nominals), verbs (including modals, auxiliaries, and verbals), and their modifiers (adjectives and adverbs respectively). Grammatical meaning is the property of the words (and affixes) which signal relationships between the words that have lexical meaning. Thus articles, prepositions, and conjunctions are said to have grammatical meaning. Words that have lexical meaning carry the message content while words that have grammatical meaning are essential to the grammaticality of sentences. Thus, different classes of words have different functions in the language.
Traditional grammar was founded on the assumption that the word was the basic unit of syntax and semantics. The word was a ‘sign’ composed of two parts: the form and the meaning. For them, the relationship holding between words and ‘things’ was the relationship of ‘naming’. Thus, it became customary in traditional grammar to distinguish between the meaning of a word and the ‘thing’ or ‘things’ which were ‘named’ by it. The distinction, as was formulated by the medieval grammarians, was that the form of a word signified ‘things’ by virtue of the ‘concept’ associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speakers of the language; and the ‘concept’, looked at from this point of view, was the meaning of the word (its significatio). This was the traditional view of the relationship between words and ‘things’. This view was made the basis, in principle, for the philosophical definition of the ‘parts of speech’ according to their ‘modes of signifying’.
However, the terminology employed did not entirely eliminate the possibility of confusion in the application of the term ‘signify’; the form of a word could be said to ‘signify’ both the ‘concept’ under which ‘things’ were subsumed and also the ‘things’ themselves. At this point it will be useful to introduce the modern term for ‘things’ insofar as they are ‘named’ or ‘signified’, by words. This is the term of referent. We will say that the relationship which holds between words and things (their referents) is the relationship of reference: words refer to (rather than ‘signify’ or ‘name’) things. In other words, the form (word) is related to its referent through the mediating (conceptual) meaning associated with both independently.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Explain what you understand by:
(a) Lexical meaning
(b) Grammatical meaning
3.1 Words and Word Relationships
In spite of what we have said in the previous section, it is still not easy to specify what words mean. For example, consider the word table, which has many varieties of meaning, as indicated by expressions like dining table, table of contents, water table, the teacher’s table, and so on. Even if we restrict ourselves to the most basic sense of the word table and perhaps define it as an object with a flat top and four legs, our intuitions as to what a table is will vary. Clearly, words can only be defined in terms of other words, and definitions of words are exact only to the extent that everyone understands the same thing by them and uses them in the same way.
Despite the problems in specifying the meaning of a word through a definition, communication can take place because people do have some basic idea what words refer to. In this respect, words have a denotative meaning, which is akin to a definition. Table refers to an object with a flat top and four legs; this is its denotative meaning. However, words also have a connotative meaning, which includes varied aspects. The connotative meaning of a word may include shades of feeling and judgment. A full account of a word must include both its denotative and connotative meanings.
Philosophers and linguists have also long been interested in relationships among words. We are all familiar with such pairs of words as sun and son, which have different meanings and are spelled differently but are pronounced the same. In studying language usage, pronunciation is more important than spelling, so both words would be represented phonetically as [s n]. This relationship is called homophony: two words with different meanings but have the same pronunciation. The term may be extended to apply to words like bank, foul, and degree, each of which has several meanings but one pronunciation and spelling. All the meanings of bank, for example, are referred to by the single phonetic form [bæ k].
A more interesting relationship is synonymy, in which the meanings of words are supposedly alike but the pronunciations are different. It has often been argued that no two words can have exactly the same meaning. For example, such words as little and small might be interchangeable in nearly all situations, but individual speakers may insist that there are minor differences. Still, we refer to such pairs as synonyms because they seem to mean pretty much the same thing.
Antonymy is the relationship that holds between words that are opposite in meaning. Although opposites can usually be recognized easily, the exact nature of antonymy is more subtle. A great many antonyms are pairs of words that represent opposite degrees of some semantic property. For example, such pairs as warm and cool, hot and cold, and torrid and frigid each represent approximately the same distance away from some neutral point along a continuum of climate, but they lie in opposite directions. However, this property of opposites is not the only relationship subsumed by antonymy. Pairs like buy and sell exhibit a reciprocal relationship, whereas pairs like white and black exhibit a presence/absence (of color) relationship.
The fact that some meanings are ‘related’ in a way that others are not disturbs the symmetry of the simple opposition between synonyms and homonyms. The question is: How different must the meanings associated with a given form be before we decide that they are sufficiently different to justify the recognition of two or more different words?
In their attempts to demonstrate the ‘natural’ origin of language, the Greeks introduced a number of principles to account for the extension of a word’s range of meaning beyond its ‘true’ or ‘original’ meaning. The most important of these principles was metaphor (‘transfer’) based on the ‘natural’ connection between the primary referent and the secondary referent to which the word was applied. Examples of ‘metaphorical’ extension might be found in the application of such words as mouth, eye, head, foot, and leg to rivers, needles, persons in authority, mountains, and tables, respectively. In each instance, there is discernible some similarity of shape or function between the referents. Various types of ‘extension’ or ‘transference’ of meaning were recognized by the Greek grammarians. Meanings that are more or less clearly ‘related’ in accordance with such principles are not traditionally regarded as being sufficiently different to justify the recognition of distinct words. The traditional semanticist would not say that the mouth of a river and the mouth as a part of the body are homonyms; but rather that the word mouth has two related meanings. We have, therefore, in addition to synonymy and homonymy, what has come to be called more recently multiple meaning (sometimes called polysemy). The distinction between homonymy and multiple meaning is evident in the organization of the dictionaries we customarily use: what the lexicographer has classified as homonyms will be listed as different words, whereas multiple meanings will be given under one entry.
Also, some words can enter into a relationship with other words to form compounds or idioms; for example, sidewalk and kick the bucket. Some of the most common idioms involve the particles on, off, in, and out in constructions with a variety of verbs, particularly in slang expressions like tie one on, knock it off, sit in, and freak out.
The meaning of a word is inherent in it in a subtle way that is difficult to specify. However, the use of a word is a matter of record; it exists in sentences that have been uttered. Dictionaries do not give the meanings of words; they simply indicate the ways in which words are used. Modern editors of dictionaries generally do not sit down, select a word, and ask what it means. Instead, they glean sentences in which that word occurs from the literature of the language, sort the sentences into groups in which the word appears to be used the same way, and select the best paraphrase to characterize each usage. From sentences-of-record, some sort of intended meaning is inferred; and this meaning is further described through paraphrases. Thus, a good dictionary will give at least one example for each ‘meaning’ of a word; the chosen example was actually used (among many others) to establish that ‘meaning’.
One major problem in lexical representation is the multiplicity of meanings of certain common words such as good and eat. Thus, in expressions like good government, good apples, good time, and good upbringing, the meaning of good varies with the meaning of the noun that it modifies. Similarly, the process of eating varies, depending on whether one is eating soup, peanuts, oranges, or steak, or whether one is ‘eating his heart out’ or ‘eating his words’. This is one of the problems that made the study of meaning seem futile to linguists for many years. Hard-core philosophers even point out that the ‘meaning’ of a given chair is different at any point in time because the actual furniture of the chair is constantly being altered. Nevertheless, most linguists feel that meaning must be described, and so they restrict basic features inherent in the meanings of words. Therefore, it may be true that a word like eat will vary in meaning according to a wide variety of conditions, but there is a basic sense of eating that is understood to involve taking matter into the mouth and swallowing it. Hence, one can isolate such basic notions as matter, mouth, and swallow as essential components of the meaning of the word eat.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
1. Explain, with the aid of examples, what you understand by
(a) lexical meaning and grammatical meaning.
(b) Explain the following terms and provide two examples of each in English:
(i) synonymy
(ii) homonymy
(iii) antonymy
(iv) polysemy
3.3 The Sentence in Traditional Grammar
(a) Definitions of the Sentence
Perhaps the most familiar definition of the sentence widely used in grammar books is this one:
"A sentence is a group of words which expresses a complete thought".
It will be seen that this depends entirely on the meaning of ‘complete thought’, and this is not as obvious as it might seem. If we take a group of words like The boy went to the store, we might all agree that the thought is complete. The group of words makes a statement sufficient to itself, not depending on any other group of words. The phrase to the store, which could occur quite naturally in answer to the question, did he go? is not regarded as a sentence because it is dependent. That is, it cannot occur except as the answer to a question.
But suppose we have an utterance like "He didn't have any," some or not? Presumably it is not, for if we were to hear it by itself, we would get no sufficient meaning from it. We should have to ask, who is he? and Any what? The utterance would be altogether dependent on other utterances preceding or following it. Yet, this stretch of words – "He didn't have any" – is undoubtedly a sentence, in the sense that writers of English would have no hesitation in writing it with a capital letter at the beginning and a period at the end.
Thus, the words "complete thought" in this definition cannot mean logically complete. For the logically complete thought will often turn out to be not the sentence but the paragraph, the essay, the chapter, or even the whole book. In the logical sense, we do not complete thought until we finish writing whatever we are writing. So, if this definition means anything at all, the words "complete thought" must mean something quite special – something like "grammatically complete thought". But of course, this begs the question, for we must still ask, "How do we know when a thought is grammatically complete?" "What are the forms that make it so?"
Another common definition attempts to approach this problem. This is the one which defines a sentence as "a group of words containing a subject and a predicate". This gives us something tangible; the only trouble is that it isn't true.
If we look at the word groups that acceptable writers of English punctuate as sentences, we find that most of them, to be sure, contain subjects and predicates. Not all, but most. Imperative sentences, of course, like "Take your shoes off your feet," have no subjects, and in dialogue writing, many sentences have neither subject nor predicate. Even in sober and conservative expository writing, you will find a considerable number of word groups without subject and predicate.
By the definition we are considering, "He didn't have any" is a sentence, for it has a subject ("He") and a predicate ("didn't have any"). So if the student knows what a subject is and what a predicate is, this definition might be of moderate service to him. The trouble is that, whereas most sentences in expository writing have subjects and predicates, most word groups with subjects and predicates aren't sentences. We have seen that "He didn't have any" is a sentence because it has a subject and a predicate. But because "he didn't have any" is not a sentence although it has the same subject and predicate. For it to be regarded as a sentence, it would ordinarily be attached to some other word group like: "I didn't borrow money from him because he didn't have any."
We have seen above the hazards involved in seeking a philosophical definition of the sentence. Like most other language features, sentences are more easily illustrated than defined. The best we can do is examine the makeup of these units, the structures that typically compose them, and then try to recognize them.
(b) Classification of Sentences According to Meaning and Word Order
It is generally agreed that sentences can express four basic kinds of meaning:
(i) facts (declarative sentences)
(ii) commands (imperative sentences)
(iii) questions (interrogative sentences)
(iv) exclamations (exclamatory sentences)
There is less agreement, however, on whether we should apply these labels according to the intent behind the sentence or according to the word order. For example, the sentence "You will apologize immediately to the Secretary" would normally be felt as a command, though it has the form of a declarative sentence. In the sections that follow, the classification is chiefly formal, though some of the conflicts of form and meaning are noted.
Declarative Sentences
The declarative sentence is used chiefly to make an assertion; usually, it states a fact, but sometimes a probability, a possibility, or a necessity. Most of the sentences that we use are declarative sentences. Examples:
(i) The ball rolled into the net
(ii) We may never have a trouble-free session again
(iii) They are all in the same class
(iv) The earth is round
The normal word order of the declarative sentence is subject-verb or subject-verb-complement. This order is usually changed, however, when an adverbial modifier introduces the sentence as in: "Beyond the school lies the Aso Rock." Occasionally, the object is placed before the subject and verb as in: "Azikiwe, we may never see again."
The declarative form is often used in commands as in the following:
(v) You will kindly do what you are told (the imperative form would be: kindly do what you are told).
(vi) You must report immediately to the police
It is also used in questions:
(vii) She told you I could pay the bill?
(viii) He’s waiting in the parking lot?
Imperative Sentences
An imperative sentence expresses a command or a request:
(i) Get out of here!
(ii) Have another drink!
(iii) Be ready at noon!
These sentences illustrate the typical imperative form: the imperative mood of the verb, with the subject omitted. Sometimes, however, the subject is expressed:
(iv) You get out of here!
(v) You be ready at noon!
There is usually no formal difference between an imperative sentence with expressed subject and a declarative sentence. Thus "You sing" out of context may be either a request that you do the singing (imperative) or a remark that you know how to sing (declarative). But sentences using the verb "be" can be distinguished by the form of the verb:
(vi) You be the singer (imperative)
(vii) You are the singer (declarative)
Interrogative Sentences
The interrogative sentence usually asks a question:
(i) Have you seen Sam?
(ii) Do you know that John is sick?
(iii) Did the doctor say it will be twins?
(iv) Is the food good?
When no interrogative word is used, the typical word order is auxiliary verb – subject – principal verb as in sentences (i)-(iii) above. When the verb "be" is used, the order is verb-subject. This latter order, once popular in English, occurs now only with the verb "be" and sometimes with "have": "Have you a pen?" Even "have" commonly takes the auxiliary verb: "Do you have a pen?"
Interrogative sentences are also introduced by interrogative pronouns, adjectives, or adverbs:
(v) Who was the last to come out of the class?
(vi) What bus is this?
(vii) Where is it going?
When an interrogative adverb is used, as in the last example, positions of subject and verb are the same as those in questions without the interrogative word. When interrogative pronouns or adjectives are used as subjects or modifiers of subjects, the order is the same as in declarative sentences; but when they are used as complements or modifiers of complements, the order is complement-auxiliary verb – subject – principal verb:
(viii) What did you eat?
(ix) What food did you eat?
The interrogative form is sometimes used for exclamations:
(x) Did he run!
(xi) Did I like fresh corn!
Exclamatory Sentences
An exclamatory sentence expresses feeling or emotion. Exclamatory sentences are often introduced by "what" or "how," as a modifier of the complement:
(i) What a teacher the facilitator is!
(ii) What an impression he made!
(iii) How hot it is!
The order is thus complement-subject-verb. Note the difference between this and the interrogative sentence with "be":
(iv) How hot it is!
(v) How hot is it?
Frequently, we express feeling or emotion with the declarative form:
(vi) He is a rascal
(vii) He is a rascal!
The difference between these sentences can be indicated in writing only by punctuation, in speech only by intonation.
(c) Classification of Sentences According to Clause Structure
Sentences may be classified according to the number and kind of clauses they contain. Usually, four types are named: simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences.
(i) Simple Sentences
A simple sentence is a sentence containing one main clause and no subordinate clause:
(i) He hit the referee with the ball
(ii) Students do assignments
When a sentence contains two or more verbs joined by a coordinating conjunction, we still describe it as a simple sentence:
(iii) The man got up and slowly walked away
(iv) The student raced the car, shot out of the driveway, and hurtled down the road
It is a simple sentence also if there are two coordinate subjects:
(v) Richard and Rose kissed and made up
Here the verbs share the subjects, and the subjects share the verbs. Only when each verb has its separate subject do we have more than one clause and hence a compound or complex sentence.
(ii) Compound Sentences
A compound sentence consists of two or more main clauses:
(i) John opened the gate and the dog ran out
(ii) The player got up but he was unable to continue
(iii) Give me the knife and then help me to hold the chicken
(iv) Jane swept the room, Mary dusted the furniture, and Alice mopped the floor
Two main clauses in compound sentences are most often connected by coordinating conjunctions as above, but there are several other possibilities:
(v) He kept pressing the bell for several minutes; however, there was no answer (with conjunctive adverb)
(vi) The class ended at five, and consequently, we had to hurry to catch the bus (coordinating conjunction plus conjunctive adverb)
(vii) I turned on the cold water; it was most refreshing (a semicolon standing between the two clauses).
In the last sentence, it is punctuation alone that indicates that we have one compound sentence rather than two simple sentences. The choice between a compound sentence and two simple sentences is unraveled purely by the demands of rhetoric and style.
(iii) Complex Sentences
A complex sentence is a sentence containing at least one subordinate clause:
(i) She handed the letter to James, who chuckled as he read it.
(ii) The businessman, who had much goods to clear, caused all his consignments to be conveyed by trucks as there is no railway
There are three kinds of subordinate clauses: Noun clause, Adjectival clause, and Adverbial clause. A noun clause is one which does the work of a noun in relation to some word in some other clause; an adjective clause does the work of an adjectival in relation to some word in some other clause, and an adverbial clause does the work of an adverb in relation to some word in some other clause. Consider these examples:
(iii) Where Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi was buried is still unknown (Noun clause, subject to the verb "is")
(iv) No one has seen the place where Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi was buried (Adjectival clause qualifying the noun "place")
(v) Without knowing it, the footballers camped where the battle was fought (Adverb clause qualifying the verb "camped")
(iv) Compound-Complex Sentences
A sentence containing two or more main clauses and at least one subordinate clause is called a compound-complex sentence:
(i) Lawrence licked the envelope, which cut his tongue, and he bled profusely.
(ii) While Jane swept the room, Mary dusted the furniture, and Alice mopped the floor.
(iii) The girl he loved couldn’t be bothered with him; he therefore contemplated suicide.
(iv) I knew that Don was ill, but I didn’t know that he suffered from measles.
4.0 CONCLUSION
We have tried in this unit to show how traditional grammarians handled the meanings of words, how they treated words and word relationships, and the way they categorized sentences. Words have both denotative and connotative meaning. Relationships among words include homophony, synonymy, antonymy, and polysemy. Sentences could be classified according to meaning and word-order, or according to clause structure.
5.0 SUMMARY
You have learned in this unit,
• what semantics is,
• what homophony, synonymy, polysemy, and antonymy mean, and
• the types of sentences
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Indicate in the space provided:
(a) whether the following sentences are declarative, interrogative, or imperative, and
(b) whether they are simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex:
(i) - Many believe that our survival depends upon our capacity to think independently and logically.
(ii) - She looked as if she was going to be ill; I became suspicious.
(iii) - You approve, don’t you?
(iv) - Will you close the doors, please?
(v) - Everything she cooks smells like curry powder.
(vi) - Thanks for letting me share the day with you.
(vii) - To state the problem clearly is imperative.
(viii) - The means must be justified by the end.
(ix) - I wondered why he did that.
(x) - The class began to discuss ideas that were fairly profound.
(xi) - Continue from where you are and set an intermediate goal that you can reasonably expect to reach.
(xii) - Death always comes as the best possible solution in classical tragedy
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Friend, A. J. (1974). Traditional Grammar. Revised Edition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.
Lyons, John. (1968). Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics Cambridge; C.U.P.
Nesfield, J. C. (1957). Outline of English Grammar. London: Macmillan.
Roberts, P. (1954). Understanding Grammar. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers.
Whitehall, H. (1951). Structural Essentials of English. London: Longman.
Pearson, B. L. (1977). Introduction to Linguistic Concepts. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
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