1.0 Introduction
1.0介绍
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) has described the difficulty of grammar', claiming that "the greater part of this world's troubles are due to questions of grammar." While we will not solve any of the world's troubles in this book, we will attempt to offer explanations for some problems of English grammar. In this introductory chapter, we are to historically overview English grammars and briefly review some basic terms concerned.
米歇尔·德·蒙田(Michel de montaign1533 -1592)曾描述过语法的困难，声称“这个世界的大部分麻烦都是由于语法问题”。虽然我们不会在这本书中解决任何世界上的麻烦，但我们将试图提供一些英语语法问题的解释。在这一导论章中，我们将从历史上概述英语语法，并简要回顾一些有关的基本术语。
1.1 English grammars
The history of English grammars allegedly begins late in the sixteenth century and the honour of producing the first English grammar is claimed by William Bullokar, who in 1586 published Bref (brief) Grammar for English, being, to use his own words, "the first Grammar for English that ever was, except my Grammar at large" (Brown, 2004:133). A total of 16 new grammars based on the book were successively introduced in the late 17th century.
据称，英语语法的历史开始于16世纪晚期，而编写第一本英语语法书的荣誉是由威廉·布洛卡(William Bullokar)提出的，他在1586年出版了《简明英语语法》，用他自己的话说，“有史以来第一本英语语法书，除了我的《总体语法》(Brown, 2004:133)。”以此书为基础的16种新语法在17世纪后期陆续问世。
During the first half of the 19th century, a total of 900 books were published about the significance of grammar in the English language. In 1848, Edward Shelley wrote a book entitled "The People's Grammar: English Grammar Difficulties for the Million" in 1848. William Cobbett's "A Grammar of the English Language: In a Series of Letters" was also published in 1848. Cobbett's writings were said to intend the significance of developing grammatical skills in writing and speaking English among students, sailors, soldiers and young apprentices.
19世纪上半叶，总共出版了900本关于语法在英语语言中的重要性的书。1848年，爱德华·雪莱写了一本名为《人民的语法:百万英语语法难题》的书。威廉·科贝特的《英语语法:一系列信件》也于1848年出版。据说，科贝特的著作意在强调学生、水手、士兵和年轻学徒在英语写作和口语方面发展语法技能的重要性。
The grammars of a language are constantly changing. Accordingly, there are different types of grammar, that is, different ways of describing and analyzing the structures and functions of a language.
语言的语法是不断变化的。相应地，也就有了不同的语法类型，即描述和分析语言结构和功能的不同方法。
One basic distinction worth making is that between descriptive grammar' and prescriptive grammar'. Both are concerned with rules, but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar examine the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases", clauses', and sentences. In contrast, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) try to enforce rules about what they believe to be the correct uses of language. That is, descriptive grammar is based on analysis of text corpora and describes grammatical structures thereof, whereas prescriptive grammar attempts to use the identified rules of a given language as a tool to goverm the linguistic behaviour of speakers.This book predominantly concerns itself with descriptive grammar.
一个基本的区分是描述性语法和规定性语法之间的区别。两者都涉及规则，但方式不同。描述性语法专家研究我们使用单词、短语、从句和句子的规则或模式。相反，规定性语法学家(如大多数编辑和教师)试图强制执行他们认为正确使用语言的规则。也就是说，描述性语法以文本语料库的分析为基础，描述其语法结构，而规定性语法试图使用特定语言的确定规则作为工具，以控制说话人的语言行为。这本书主要讲描述性语法。
English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences. A text that contains more than one sentence is no longer in the realm of grammar, but is instead in the realm of discourse.
英语语法是描述英语语言表达结构的一系列规则。这包括单词、短语、从句和句子的结构。包含一个以上句子的文本不再属于语法领域，而是属于话语领域。
1.2 Terminology
The term "grammar" is used in a number of different senses-the grammar of a language may be understood to be a full description of the form and meaning of the sentences of the language or else it may cover only certain parts of a description. Here we shall use it in a narrower sense, focusing on syntax' and morphology?. Syntax is concerned with the way words combine to form sentences while morphology is related to the form of words.
1.2术语
“语法”一词有许多不同的意义——一种语言的语法可以被理解为对该语言句子的形式和意义的完整描述，否则它可能只包括描述的某些部分。在这里，我们将在狭义上使用它，侧重于语法和形态学?句法研究的是单词组合成句子的方式，而形态学则与单词的形式有关。
What is an English sentence then? Most English leamers believe that they are able to tell what it is. This confidence arises because they have been taught in writing to begin a new sentence with capitalization and to put the right punctuation at the end of each sentence (i.e. the full stop in most cases).However, this is not very helpful for us to understand or identify what a sentence is. Take for example, "It's going to rain, you'd better take an umbrella." How many sentences are there, one or two? Problems also arise with spoken English, where it is not possible to identify punctuation or capitalization.
那么什么是英语句子呢?大多数英语学习者认为他们能够说出它是什么。之所以有这种信心，是因为他们在写作中被教导要以大写开始一个新句子，并在每个句子的末尾使用正确的标点符号(即大多数情况下使用句号)。然而，这对我们理解或识别一个句子并不是很有帮助。例如，“要下雨了，你最好带把伞。”有几个句子，一个还是两个?英语口语中也会出现问题，无法识别标点符号或大小写。
In traditional grammars, a sentence is sometimes defined as the expression of a complete thought.This definition, notional as it apparently is, has too many loopholes to hold water. On the one hand, it is more often than not impracticable to tell where a complete thought begins and where it ends. On the other, it fails to account for incomplete sentences.
在传统语法中，一个句子有时被定义为表达一个完整的思想。这个定义，虽然表面上看起来只是个概念，但它有太多的漏洞，站不住脚。一方面，要说出一个完整的思想在哪里开始，在哪里结束，往往是不切实际的。另一方面，它不能解释不完整的句子。
One common approach that is adopted in many modern grammars is focused on the internal structure of a sentence. For example, they argue that the basic clause structures are SV, SVC, SVO, SVOO, SVOA, etc. (where S stands for subject', V for verb', C for complement', O for object", A for adverbial') and that all the sentences can be regarded as derived from these structures. A sentence in this sense is the largest unit to which a grammatical structure can be assigned.
许多现代语法中采用的一种常见方法是关注句子的内部结构。例如，他们认为基本的子句结构是SV、SVC、SVO、SVOO、SVOA等(其中S代表主语'、V代表动词'、C代表补语'、O代表宾语'、A代表状语')，所有的句子都可以看作是从这些结构派生出来的。这种意义上的句子是可以指定语法结构的最大单位。
A sentence is composed of smaller units: clauses, phrases, words, etc., which build up a hierarchical structure. In grammatical terms, while a sentence is the largest unit, a word is the smallest;that is, it is the lowest-rank unit to which a grammatical function can be assigned. The units of grammar can be ordered in terms of rank as:
句子由更小的单元组成:分句、短语、单词等，这些单元构成一个层次结构。在语法方面，句子是最大的单位，而单词是最小的单位，也就是说，它是语法功能的最低级别单位。语法单位的排列顺序如下:
However, a word is not the smallest meaningful element in the writing system. It can break into smaller elements which are called morphemes'. From the semantic point of view, morphemes are the minimal meaningful elements. Also, a sentence usually does not stand alone; it teams up with other sentences to form a larger linguistic unit. "It would be an error to believe that outside the sentence there are no restraints, no features that link one sentence to another." (Palmer, 1971:73) Sentences could come together to form a text so as to convey a complete message. From the macro-grammatical point of view, therefore, we come to a hierarchical structure as:
然而，单词并不是文字系统中最小的有意义的元素。它可以分解成更小的元素，称为语素。从语义的角度看，语素是最基本的有意义的元素。此外，一个句子通常不是独立存在的;它与其他句子组成一个更大的语言单位。“如果认为在句子之外没有任何限制，没有任何特征可以将一个句子与另一个句子联系起来，那就大错特错了。”(Palmer, 1971:73)为了传达完整的信息，句子可以组合成一个文本。因此，从宏观语法的角度来看，我们可以得出这样的层次结构:
We shall start at the bottom of the rank scale, focusing on morphemes in 1.3 and then ascending the scale to words in 1.4, to the phrases in 1.5, to clauses in 1.6, to sentences in 1.7, to the text in 1.8.
我们将从等级表的底部开始，重点关注1.3中的语素，然后将等级表上升到1.4中的单词，1.5中的短语，1.6中的从句，1.7中的句子，1.8中的文本。
1.3 Morphemes
Consider, for example, the word unmentionables. We can cut the word into several segments: un-mention-able-s. Each of these segments has its own form (or set of forms), its own meanings, and its own distribution. Un- has the fixed phonological form' /An/, a meaning of negation', and recurs in words like unforgettable, unreliable, unbelievable; mention has a fixed phonological form and a fixed meaning, and recurs in word-forms like mentions, mentioned, mentioning; -able sometimes occurs as -ible, has a fixed meaning, and recurs in words like comparable, advisable, comfortable; -s has a range of phonetic forms' (/S, z, Iz/) but a constant meaning of plurality, and recurs in words like chairs, desks, beds. None of these segments can be further divided into smaller segments which function in the same way as they do. They represent "morphemes", the minimal units of grammatical analysis(Bauer, 1983:13-4).
1.3词素
举个例子，想想“难以启口”这个词。我们可以把这个词分成几个部分:unmention -able。每个部分都有自己的形式(或一组形式)，自己的意义和自己的分布。Un-有固定的音系形式“/An/，否定的意思”，并在单词中反复出现，如难忘的，不可靠的，难以置信的;Mention有固定的音系形式和固定的意义，并且在单词形式中反复出现，比如Mention, Mention, Mention;-able有时以ible的形式出现，具有固定的含义，并在comparable，可取的，舒适的等词中反复出现;-s有一系列的读音形式(/S, z, Iz/)，但其复数意义不变，并在椅子、书桌、床等词中反复出现。这些段中没有一个可以被进一步分成更小的段，这些段的功能与它们的功能相同。它们代表“语素”，语法分析的最小单位(Bauer, 1983:13-4)。
A morpheme that can occur in isolation is termed a "free morpheme"'. A morpheme that can only occur in conjunction with at least one other morpheme is termed a "bound morpheme". A free morpheme can be a simple word (e.g., boy, girl, do, go) or the root' of a derivative* (e.g., un-mentionable-s, im-polite, self-ish). A bound morpheme is an "affix", either "inflectional affix (e.g., boy-s, work-ed, go-ing, strong-er) or a derivational affix' (e.g., kind-ness, in-appropriate). Free morphemes and bound morphemes are also called “content morphemes" and "grammatical morphemes" respectively (Lu, 1983:10) because, as their names suggest, free morphemes often carry the meaning and bound morphemes often show grammatical features. A free morpheme can be semantically complete and grammatically independent in its own right while a bound morpheme is affiliated to the root both in semantic and grammatical terms.
评论 (0)