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4
The author pays tribute to his friends and colleagues — teachers of the Moscow State Pedagogical
University for encouragement and help they extended during the years of his work on the subject matter of the
book.
The author wishes to express his gratitude to the staff of the Department of Grammar and History of English
of the Moscow State Linguistic University, and in particular to the Head of the Department Prof. T.S. Sorokina,
for the careful review of the book.
The author's sincere thanks are due to Prof. O.V. Alexandrova, Prof. N.A. Kobrina, Prof. A.T. Krivonosov,
Prof. E.S. Kubryakova, Prof. F.A. Litvin, Prof. M.M. Makovsky, Prof. F.I. Mauler, Prof. S.M. Mezenin, Prof.
L.L. Nyelubin, Prof. V.Y. Plotkin, Prof. G.G. Pocheptsov, Prof. S.G. Ter-Minasova, Prof. N.N. Semenyuk,
Prof. Z.Y. Turayeva and all other specialists who shared with him their opinions and criticisms touching upon
the matters presented. Their expert suggestions have been very helpful in bringing the text to its final shape.
M. Blokh
CHAPTER I
GRAMMAR IN THE SYSTEMIC CONCEPTION OF LAN GUAGE
§ 1. Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the
process of human intercourse. Language is social by nature; it is inseparably connected with the people who are
its creators and users; it grows and develops together with the development of society.
Language incorporates the three constituent parts ("sides"), each being inherent in it by virtue of its social
nature. These parts are the phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. Only the unity of
these three elements forms a language; without any one of them there is no human language in the above sense.
The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it determines the material (phonetical)
appearance of its significative units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is,
words and stable word-groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the
combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process.
Each of the three constituent parts of language is studied by a particular linguistic discipline. These
disciplines, presenting a series of approaches to their particular objects of analysis, give the corresponding
"descriptions" of language consisting in ordered expositions of the constituent parts in question. Thus, the
phonological description of language is effected by the science of phonology; the lexical description of
language is effected by the science of lexicology, the grammatical description of language is effected by the
science of grammar.
Any linguistic description may have a practical or theoretical purpose. A practical description is aimed at
providing the student with a manual of practical mastery of the corresponding part of language (within the
limits determined by various factors of educational destination and scientific possibilities). Since the practice of
lingual intercourse, however, can only be realized by employing language as a unity of all its constituent parts,
practical linguistic manuals more often than not comprise the three types of description presented in a complex.
As for theoretical linguistic descriptions, they pursue analytical aims and therefore present the studied parts of
language in relative isolation, so as to gain insights into their inner structure and expose the intrinsic
mechanisms of their functioning. Hence, the aim of theoretical grammar of a language is to present a theoretical
description of its grammatical system, i.e. to scientifically analyse and define its grammatical categories and
study the mechanisms of grammatical formation of utterances out of words in the process of speech making.
§ 2. In earlier periods of the development of linguistic knowledge, grammatical scholars believed that the
only purpose of grammar was to give strict rules of writing and speaking correctly. The rigid regulations for the
correct ways of expression, for want of the profound understanding of the social nature of language, were often
based on purely subjective and arbitrary judgments of individual grammar compilers. The result of this
"prescriptive" approach was that alongside quite essential and useful information, non-existent "rules" were
formulated that stood in sheer contradiction with the existing language usage, i.e. lingual reality. Traces of this
arbitrary prescriptive approach to the grammatical teaching may easily be found even in to-date's school
practice.
To refer to some of the numerous examples of this kind, let us consider the well-known rule of the English
article stating that the noun which denotes an object "already known" by the listener should be used with the
definite article. Observe, however, English sentences taken from the works of distinguished authors directly
contradicting this "rule".
"I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it." - "It's not a very good book,