Grammatical category

There are ten grammatical categories: tense, voice, aspect, time correlation, mood, number, person, case, gender, degrees of comparison. Grammatical meaning is the significance of a certain relation expressed by a dependent part of a word (inflexion) or a significance of a certain arrangement of elements. E.g.: "time" is grammatical meaning of the grammatical category of tense.

Grammatical form is the form of the word which expresses the grammatical meaning,' e.g.: "-ed" is the grammatical form (marked of the grammatical category of tense. Grammatical category is a system of expressing a generalized grammatical meaning by means paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms. The paradicmatic correlations of grammatical forms in a category are expressed by the sociated "grammatical oppositions". opposition (in the linguistic sense) may be determined as generalized correlation of lingual forms by means of which a function is expressed. The correlated elements (members) of the opposition must possess two types of features: common features and differential features. Common features serve as the basis of contrast while differential features immediately express the function j question. In various contextual conditions, one member of an opposition can be used in the position of the other, counter-member This phenomenon should be treated under the heading Or "oppositional reduction" or "oppositional substitution". The first version of the term ("reduction") points out the fact that the opposition in this case is contracted, losing its formal distinctive force. The second version of the term ("substitution") shows the very process by which the opposition is reduced, namely, the use of one member instead of the other.

Paradigmatic series. The most general notions reflecting the most general properties of phenomena are referred to in logic as "categorial notions”, or "categories". The most general meanings rendered by language and expressed by systemic correlations of word-forms are interpreted in linguistics as categorial grammatical meanings. The forms themselves are identified within definite paradigmatic series. The categorial meaning (e.g. the grammatical number) unites the individual meanings of the correlated paradigmatic forms (e.g. singular -plural) and is exposed through them; hence, the meaning of the grammatical category and the meaning of the grammatical form are related to each other on the principle ot the logical relation between the categorial and generic notions.

The difference between the grammatical meaning and the grammatical form may be shown as well in the terms of: the plane of the content (meaning) and the plane of expression (form). The plane of content comprises the purely semantic elements contained in language, while the plane of expression comprises the material (formal) units of language taken by themselves, apart from the meaning rendered by them. The two planes are inseparably connected, so that no meaning can be realized without some material means of expression.

a) One form may express different meaning, e.g.: -s/-es renders the grammatical meaning of the third person singular of the verbal present tense (He speaks), the plural of the noun (cases), the possessive form the noun (Tom’s), the absolute form of the pronouns (hers).

b) One meaning may be expressed by several forms, e.g.: Future action may be expressed by Future Continuous: Now that your assistant’s gone you will be looking far someone to do this job. Present Indefinite: What time do we arrive, Present Continuous: We are waiting men to work this week, expression with modal verbs: That ought to him a beauty, expression with “going to”. I’m going to find Tommy.