Units of language and their main characteristics.

Language levels are located in relation to each other according to the principle of ascending or descending complexity of language units. The essence of this phenomenon is the preservation of the properties and characteristics of lower-level units in a higher-level system, but in a more perfect form. Thus, the relations between the levels of the language system are not reducible to a simple hierarchy - subordination or inclusion. That's why language system fair to call system of systems.

Let's consider language units from the point of view segmentation speech flow. In this case, a unit of language is understood as something that, expressing meaning, materializes in speech segments and their features. Since the speech implementation of language units is characterized by a fairly wide range variability, then the mental one is applied to the selected speech segments identification operation, which consists in the fact that formally different speech segments are recognized as the material embodiment of the same unit of language. The basis for this is community expressed in varying units values or performed by them functions.

The beginning of segmentation of a speech stream is the identification of communicative units in it - statements, or phrases. In the language system it corresponds to syntax or syntactic model, representing the syntactic level of the language. The next stage of segmentation is the division of statements into word forms, which combine several heterogeneous functions (nominative, derivational and relative), therefore the identification operation is carried out separately in each direction.

A class of word forms, characterized by root and affixal morphemes of equal meaning, is identified as the basic unit of language - the word, or lexeme.

The vocabulary of a particular language forms a lexical level. A class of word forms that have the same word-formation meaning constitutes a word-formation type - derivative topic. The class of word forms with identical formative affixes is identified in the grammatical form - grammeme.

The next stage of speech stream segmentation is to isolate the smallest significant units - morphs. Morphs with identical lexical (roots) and grammatical (functional and affixal) meanings are combined into one language unit – morpheme. The entire set of morphemes of a given language forms a morphemic level in the language system. The segmentation of the speech stream is completed by identifying minimal speech segments in morphs - sounds. Different in their own ways physical properties sounds, or backgrounds, can perform the same meaning-distinguishing function. On this basis, sounds are identified into one linguistic unit - phoneme. Phoneme is the minimal unit of language. The system of phonemes forms the phonological level of language.

Thus, identifying a level or subsystem of a language is allowed in the case when: the subsystem has the basic properties of the language system as a whole; the subsystem meets the requirement of constructibility, that is, the units of the subsystem serve to construct the units of the subsystem of a higher organization and are isolated from them; the properties of the subsystem are qualitatively different from the properties of the units of the underlying subsystem that construct it; a subsystem is defined by a language unit that is qualitatively different from the units of adjacent subsystems.

V.P.Timofeev LANGUAGE AS A PHENOMENON. LANGUAGE UNITS

Language is not a subject, but a phenomenon - multifaceted, multidimensional, multiqualitative (in the diagram - clockwise):

3. Acoustic 4. Semantic

2. Physiological 5. Logical

6. Aesthetic

1. Mental4^

7. Social

This idea of ​​language has developed historically; it is the result of its study by individual linguists, schools and directions. In order to understand this single phenomenon of the realization of the human ability to speak, it is conventionally distinguished between language - in our scheme there are 3,4 facets and speech - 1,2,5-7 facets.

Each of the facets of language (speech) as a single phenomenon has its own discrete units, and each unit is studied by a special linguistic discipline (branch of linguistics).

The mental unit of language is the psyche, determined by the activity of thinking, will and temperament, as well as the sociology of character. The sciences about this side of language are psycholinguistics, ethnopsycholinguistics, linguodidactics.

The physiological unit of language (speech) is kinema. The science devoted to it should be independent and be called kinematics. Now kineme is reflected in terms that characterize the sound of a language at the place of formation, and as such has been the subject of phonetics since ancient times.

Acoustic units of language are all units from acousma to texteme. Thus, the materialized facet of language is the most essential: in it, in its units, all the qualities of language are fixed. Acousma and sound as units characterized by the method of formation of sound matter (voice strength, noise, tone, timbre, rhythm, meter, intonation) are studied by phonetics; the phoneme - actually the first speech-linguistic unit - is studied by phonology; morpheme - morphemics, morphonology, form and word formation as sections of morphology; lexeme - word - object of lexicology, lexicography, morphology; phrases, sentence members, sentences, texts are studied

syntax. Such an enumeration may seem banal if considered outside the context of these prolegomena.

The semantic, meaningful, ideal is embodied in linguistic units of a special kind: seme is the subject of the science of semiotics; seme - for semasiology, onomasiology, lexicology, lexicography; grammeme, manifested in two varieties, mophologeme - in morphology, syntaxeme - in syntax; expresseme - its meanings are more often considered in stylistics.

The logical unit should be called a logeme, concretized in the subject of speech - the essence of the subject; in the general predicate - the essence of the predicate; in secondary predicates - the essence of the secondary members of the sentence - definitions, additions, circumstances; and in judgment - the essence of the constructions of affirmation, negation, question and exclamation. The science of logeme should be logolinguistics.

Aesthetic units are styleme and poeteme, and in it there are tropes and figures. Their sciences are, respectively, stylistics and linguistic poetics. At the junction of facets - idiolectology, the language of the writer, the language of works of art.

A social unit is a socium. It reflects the linguistic and speech characteristics of an individual, nation, class, gender, age, profession and relations of speakers in society. The sciences about this are sociolinguistics, stylistics, rhetoric, etiquette.

Linguistic facets, individually and collectively, together with linguistic-speech units, make up the structure of language. In connection with the conditional division of a single language into language and speech, they speak, also conditionally, about units of language and about units of speech, but it is necessary to keep in mind that all units of speech are constructed on the material diversity of linguistic units and on their meanings (3.4 edges). This essence of linguistic and speech activity has not yet been satisfactorily studied by linguistics, and, for example, poetics is still in literary criticism and is not even divided into literary, artistic and linguistic.

All facets of language-speech and linguistic-speech units are in relationships and dependencies, but the determining ones are the mental and social facets: to them a person owes his exceptional destiny in the living world - to become a Man. All other facets of language-speech are specifically social and controlled by consciousness - highest form psyche. All connections and relationships of linguistic-speech facets and units in their totality determine the character of the linguistic-speech system.

Language has three essential features - form, content and function, without each of which it cannot be realized. The same features, naturally, are inherent in all its constituent units, and in each of them the form,

content and functions will be independent. In the history of linguistics, the most noticeable linguistic units, influenced by sensations and spelling, were material, perceptual data linguistic units from kinema and acousma to textema, and even those did not open all at once, but one after another and little by little. Before listing them, we must keep in mind that they, linguistic units, are specifically human in everything - both in articulation, and in sound quality, and in structure, and in function (role, purpose); and they cannot be equated with another sounding, but non-speech nature, therefore the originality of their qualities is exceptional.

Kinema (term by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay from the Greek ksheta - movement) - an article as a single action of one organ of speech for the production of acousma - a share of sound (Greek akivikov - auditory, also a term by Baudouin de Courtenay). When we indicate the place of sound formation in phonetic analysis, this is the fixation of the kineme: p - labial-labial sound, f - labial-dental, l - anterior-lingual - dental, lateral; k - posterior lingual, root... Kinemes have not yet been fully studied: their names so far only take into account the articulatory organs, although the entire speech apparatus from the thoracoventral barrier to the brain is involved in production. Laryngeal kineme is rarely taken into account as a feature of voiced consonants and all vowels.

Acousma is the sound effect of kinema as a vibrating tone in space. When we name the method of sound formation during phonetic analysis, this is an indication of acousma: p - dull, hard, short; f - voiceless, fricative, hard, short; l - sonorous, smooth, hard, short; k - dull, explosive, hard, short.

Sound is a kinemo-acoustic unit, to which are added acoustic distinguishers - voice, strength, pitch, tone, timbre, as well as speech features vowels - stressed, unstressed; and then the combination of sounds into syllables with their qualities of open-closedness, rhythm and meter - effects from the way they are followed in speech. The sound of a language, although it has speech characteristics, is not conventionally recognized as a linguistic unit due to the fact that it is supposedly not a meaning distinguisher or an expresser of meaning.

But the phoneme (Greek rIopesha - sound, also a term by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay) - it distinguishes significant units of language, morphemes and words: som - tom - com - house - scrap... This terminological transformation of sound is so strong in modern linguistic theory, it is impossible to somehow achieve unanimity on this issue today. When characterizing a phoneme as a linguistic unit, we will call its form the positional sound, how it differentiates the meaning (without expressing it!), and this is one of its functions, the other is its constructive role: phonemes independently

are not used, but, combining with each other on the basis of differential positions, create a larger linguistic unit - a morpheme. The arena of the functioning of the phoneme is, therefore, the morpheme, and it is within these limits that morphonology chooses its subject of study. This is the phoneme level, or tier of the language.

Morpheme (Greek shogIe - form, also a term by Baudouin de Courtenay) is the first linguistic unit in which the essential features of both the unit and the language are ideally represented: form, content, functions. The form of a phonemorpheme is, firstly, phoneme-na, that is, a morpheme consists of a phoneme or of phonemes: house-a. The form of a morpheme is also considered to be its position: the root is in the center of the morpheme association; before the root there is a prefix (prefix); behind the root there is a suffix or ending (inflection); infix - internal morpheme; postfix is ​​an external morpheme with its own qualities. The content of a morpheme consists of three types of meanings: lexical, grammatical, expressive-emotional. Lexical - objective, material content of the morpheme: garden#. The grammatical meaning is an abstract meaning; it accompanies the lexical meaning of another morpheme: sad-y, where Y expresses the meaning of plurality, nominativity. Morphemes expressing lexical meaning turn out to be word-formative: pilot; morphemes expressing grammatical meaning turn out to be formative, although they can also form new words: new, where inflection also turns out to be word-formative. The difference between lexical and grammatical meanings is easy to notice, for example, when declension of a noun, where the word will retain a single lexical meaning, for example, spring is the season, and will vary without affecting the lexical content: spring - spring; spring, springs, towards spring, spring, spring, about spring... Suffixes can also express the so-called expressive-emotional, subjective meanings of diminutive/increasing, endearment/derogation, disdain: little voice, neck, sock, cockerel. Morphemes express meaning without naming objects and their relationships. The first function of morphemes, like all subsequent linguistic units, is semantically expressive - it is necessary to express lexical, grammatical or expressive-emotional meanings. The second function of morphemes is constructive, that is, the creation of a larger linguistic unit - a word. Morphemes are not used independently, but only in combination with each other, in a homogeneous row, based on the harmony of their content and constancy of positions, creating a morphemic level, or tier.

The word is the central linguistic unit: it implements all the laws of existence of the smaller linguistic units included in it - phonemes and morphemes, it predetermines the essence

all subsequent larger linguistic units - phrases, sentence members, clauses and texts. Among hundreds of definitions of a word, there is one reasonable one: this is a piece of text between two spaces in a letter... First of all, it is necessary to divide the entire vocabulary of the language into four structural-semantic classes - words-names, or significant words, service words, introductory-modal words and interjections. All of them will be characterized differently from the point of view of the essence of linguistic units, and in common system their characteristics will have different exceptions. I will talk about words-names.

In terms of form, all words have a phonemic and morphemic form; the latter also applies to service words and interjections. But word-names, that is, parts of speech, in addition, have forms correlative with each other, characteristic of narrow or broad grammatical categories: the category of case, where the system of forms is called declension; category of person, where the system of forms is called conjugation, and further - non-broad forms of gender, number, degrees, aspect, tense, mood, voice, differently represented in parts of speech. Correlative systems of forms are called paradigms - this is the original form of words as linguistic units. Function words, in addition to phonemic immutability, themselves participate in the creation of forms: prepositions - in the creation of forms of names in the case paradigm; particles are similar to service affixes: some - prefix, -or, -something - suffixes, the same is characteristic of the particle -sia; conjunctions form coordinating phrases and coordinating/subordinating clauses; articles are additional indicators of gender, number and definiteness/indeterminacy; copulas are the added form of compound nominal and complex predicates. Introductory-modal constructions are a complicating sentence structure. Interjections are always predicative - this is their positional form. Adverbs are inflectionally unchangeable, this is their form, like the zero form of nouns m.r. with a solid base. Their secondary position as members of the sentence - circumstances distinguishes them, like-shape, from the same non-inflectional class of words as instatives (words of the state category).

The form of a word also includes formative prefixes and suffixes, different root formations (I - me, we - us), repetition of roots (reduplication), stress, word order.

The content of a word as a linguistic unit is equally diverse and differentiated. Firstly, the meaning is distinguished by four structural-semantic classes: parts of speech each have their own nominative meanings, called general grammatical ones: nouns name objects; adjectives - passive signs; numerals - a sign of number; pronouns - demonstrative; glogols - an active, effective sign; adverbs - attribute of attribute;

instatives - state; in function words - prepositions, word-building and formative particles (something, -something, -sya, -would); articles and connectives express grammatical and morphological meanings; conjunctions - grammatical-syntactic meanings (see meanings of phrases and sentences); input-modal constructions - modal-volitional meanings; interjections are sensual and emotional. Each of these meanings is divided into several private varieties. In nouns, the named objects can have the property of a proper name and a common noun, material and abstract, animate and inanimate; adjectives contain qualitative, relative, possessive attributes; they can also be presented in a positive, comparative, superlative, etc. degree; Numerals have quantitative, ordinal, fractional meanings...; in pronouns there are as many private meanings as are recorded in the categories; in the verb - varieties of actions, movements and states; in adverbs and instatives, the meanings in grammar textbooks are listed according to categories, where there will be meanings of adverbs and predicates (lexico-syntactic meanings).

In function words, their morphological and syntactic meanings will also vary across paradigms. There are categories of private meanings for modal words and interjections (see grammar textbooks). Now it should be said that the words-names have their own meaning, which is not equal to the sum of the meanings of the morphemes included in them: for example, in the word pod-snezh-nik, not a single morpheme even hints at a flower from the amaryllis family... This is its own, lexical the meaning of a word as a linguistic unit. A word has more than one lexical meaning, even many terms. In these meanings there is a first and all others, they are second, figurative. Lexical meanings can simply distinguish words, they can bring them closer together (these are synonyms) or contrast them on the axis general meaning(antonyms). As you can see, a word expresses many types of meanings and their varieties; it is this totality that is called polysemy.

The function of a word is again determined by two tasks: to express all the meanings it has, and for significant words, the expression of the lexical meaning is called its nominative function; and then - to construct a larger linguistic unit - a phrase. Words are not used separately from each other; they necessarily need to be combined in one row based on the harmony of their meaning and the interaction of their forms (that is, based on predetermined valence). This combination of words is realized in a phrase.

A phrase is a syntactic unit and it could be called a syntagmeme as something connected (Greek sintagma), although such a name suggests a combination of phonemes and morphemes... F.F. Fortunatov’s division of words into those with a form and those without it convinced M.N. .Peterson that a combination of words on this basis, that is, a phrase is the only subject of syntax. Next there will be more members of the sentence, sentence and texteme... The accusation of F.F. Fortunatov and his student M.M. Peterson in formalism also closed the theory of phrases. Only since 1950, after the articles of V.P. Sukhotin and V.V. Vinogradov in the collection “Questions of the syntax of the modern Russian language” (Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1950), and then after the first Soviet Academic Grammar (1952), the theory of phrases developed in its entirety breadth, and some scientists, unable to tear themselves away from the word, tilted phrases towards nominative units (V.P. Sukhotin and others), and V.V. Vinogradov, assuming a sentence, considered it possible to talk about predicative phrases, although it is clear that predicativity is a term at the level of sentence and clause members, that is, it relates as a definition to other linguistic units... And until now, in determining the characteristics of a phrase, there is no unity of opinion and each scientist’s own understanding seems true. I liked the definition of the phrase given once in the 50s at a lecture by Prof. S.E. Kryuchkov, my supervisor: “A phrase is a combination of two or more significant words, grammatically organized according to the laws of a given language, uniform in meaning and distinctly denoting objects, phenomena, their signs and relationships in objective reality.” From this definition it follows that the combination of a function word with a significant one is not a phrase and that in a phrase the multiple meaning of a word is narrowed to a specific given meaning, that is, in a phrase the words are always used in one meaning, and double-mindedness in the same case is either aphasia or a means of humor . Phraseologists of the Chelyabinsk school consider a word form with or without a preposition to be phraseologically idiomatic, which is possible, but this is a property of another process in language - lexicalization...

So, the form of a phrase as a linguistic unit is, first of all, a word-formal implementation of the connection of significant words - composition and subordination, which is why phrases are called coordinating and subordinating. In coordinating phrases, the first formal feature is the correlated, correlative forms of combining words: thunder and lightning, where words are correlated by forms singular And nominative case. In such phrases, as their formal sign, as their form, function words appear - conjunctions that separate the compositions.

noun phrases for the following formal varieties: connective without a conjunction or with a conjunction I: both sling and arrow; adversative, with the conjunction BUT or A, YES in the meaning of BUT; dividing with conjunctions OR-OR; comparative with conjunctions HOW MUCH-SO MUCH, AS-SO AND. In subordinating phrases, the form is the syntactic connections of agreement, complete and incomplete; control, direct or indirect; adjacency of a word with a zero form.

The content of phrases is precisely the meaning that is reflected by tradition in their names-terms: composition, subordination, and in composition - connection, opposition, division, comparison; in subordination - coordination, control, adjacency - this is the elusive syntactic meaning of phrases introduced into them by conjunctions and the relationship of word forms. In general, the meaning of phrases is specific, just as the meaning of a word is general.

The function of phrases is to express their own meaning as special linguistic units and only at the same time - the meanings of the smaller linguistic units included in them, and then at the same time be embodied component by component into larger linguistic units - members of the sentence. Unfortunately, no one looks at the members of a sentence from the standpoint of their form, content, and function as independent linguistic units, although, when discussing them, they list all their essential features. What are they?

Each member of the sentence has either unified in use, that is, central forms, or possible, not so advantageous, but also real: so, Im.p. nouns and personal pronouns - the subject form, although it can be a nominal part of a compound predicate or an application; conjugated verb - only a predicate, the same - comparative degree; the same goes for instatives, being always predicates; and the same adverbs, being almost always circumstances. The form of the subject is a special form in language: substantivizing, expressing the subject of an action or something known, the subject can become any element of the language system, any stroke of writing, any handwriting and, finally, any object or phenomenon named in speech by a predicate word can become the subject-subject : “Night. Street. Lantern. Pharmacy...” In nominative sentences of all types, there is a non-subject, by which the object is supposedly named, but nothing is said about it, but a predicate-predicate!.. The form of the predicate is also specific: simple verb, compound verbal, compound nominal, complex polynomial. Secondary members of a sentence are minor predicates, which also have preferential forms of parts of speech, but, most importantly, their own forms: definition - agreed, inconsistent; addition - direct, indirect; circumstance - in

dependent in meaning or form on a prepositional-case or unchangeable structure. The form of the members of a sentence should also be called their positions, which are known by the phrase “direct and reverse word order,” which is formulated incorrectly, because the order in a sentence concerns not the words-lexemes, but the words-members of the sentence. When the members of a sentence are actualized, their form becomes logical stress.

The content of the members of a sentence is determined by their logical nature: for subjects, the meaning is the subject; for predicates - the meaning of the predicate, although the content of the main members is reflected in their terms: the subject is subject to disclosure, the predicate speaks about it, this is known and unknown, which constitutes the goal, the basis of any speech; for definitions - an indirect predicate in the form of a definition; for additions - an indirect predicate in the form of a complementary meaning; in circumstances - an indirect predicate indicating the circumstances in which the sign appears: where, when, how, to what extent, to what extent, for what... When V.V. Vinogradov spoke about predicative, semi-predicative and non-predicative phrases, and others began to talk, following this, about attributive, additional and adverbial phrases, this was a fact of mixing the level of phrases and sentence members: the components of phrases do not have such relationships, these are properties of sentence members... The content of sentence members should be called conceptual-predicative , this is determined by the nature of their purpose.

The function of the members of a sentence is to express their informational meaning and the content of all the smaller constituent units included in them, and at the same time, to unite, based on the harmony of meaning and intended positions, into a larger linguistic unit - a sentence.

The form of a sentence is, first of all, the presence of the composition of the members of the sentence: if there is one predicate (there is no one subject in a normal sentence), the sentence is one-part, and there are eight of them in descending order of the meaning of the person and the form of the predicate: definitely-personal, generalized-personal , indefinite personal, impersonal, infinitive, nominative, nominative, vocative; if there are two main members - subject and predicate, this is a two-part sentence; depending on the presence or absence of minor members of the sentence, the form of the sentence will be common or non-widespread; if a sentence consists of one predicative pair, it is simple; if of the two, it is complex; depending on the presence of unions in the form of a proposal, it can be union or non-union; The intonation of a sentence serves as a form of expression of the actual role of one or another member of the sentence or the will and emotions of the speaker. IN

In written speech, the form of the sentence will be set off by punctuation marks.

The content of a sentence as a linguistic unit is predicativity, which is specified in the affirmation or denial of the connection between the main members of the sentence; the relevance of one or another member of the proposal; modality as an expression of the will of the speaker, attitude to what is said; and, finally, emotionality, without which there can be no proposal. The content of a sentence is expressive-communicative, because it serves the function of the sentence - to express a thought and establish a connection between the speaker and the interlocutor. The semantic core of a sentence is the judgment embodied in it. The function of a proposal to express a thought and communicate it to another was considered for a long time The last, the last among the linguistic units was the sentence. That is, if you still have a thought, say another sentence. And so on. And if so, then the speaker no longer seemed to have needs for units of any higher level than the sentence, and he did not create them. It turns out that there can be no proposal to anyone alone! A second, response sentence is definitely necessary - this is the law of the existence of speech, that is, language. Speech is possible if there is an interlocutor and his verbal response. This understanding of the conditions for the existence of sentences naturally prompted researchers to search for and approve a larger linguistic unit - the text.

The texteme, therefore, is the constructive unit of language that sentences create when used side by side with each other on the basis of the need to express actual adequate content, the interaction of formal composition, united by a single intonation of a message, description or reasoning.

The three-dimensional form of textemes is indicated in the school syntax textbook, being taken outside the Russian language course, because the authors are perplexed that these are textemes: direct and indirect speech, dialogue, monologue... Previously, within the syntax, the so-called incomplete sentence, which is, in fact, part, the second sentence of the texteme, is considered as a type of sentence structure. In prose, part of the text is, of course, the paragraph; in oral speech - a long pause, a silence with which the speaker considers it necessary to divide his speech. In drama, the form of the textema looks like a stage and is fixed by the author's remarks. In a verse, textemes fit into a stanza, in a combination of stanzas, and in a small genre - throughout the entire poem. The form of the verse system is meter, rhyme, sound writing, and the structure of tropes and figures. In oral speech it is limited to that moment of the dialogue after which the speakers may disperse or both may fall silent. All these are technical forms of textema; they are determined by the genres of oral and written speech; By the way, oral/written is also a form of texteme... But texteme also has purely linguistic

formal features: the same form of tense of predicate verbs or simply predicates in sentences included in the text ( different times it could be like artistic medium images: quick change of events, etc.); the presence of anaphoric pronouns and words in the subsequent sentence; the presence of synonyms and antonyms placed in different sentences of the text; words that echo some meaning in the sentences that make up the text; intonation of message, description or reasoning; the intonation of a dialogue or monologue completes the form of the text.

The content of a texteme as a linguistic unit first corresponds to the quality of the form: message, description, reasoning, and is generally defined as informative and thematic. It is especially clearly emphasized by the words of one lexical-thematic group. The content of the text should include only its inherent semantics - pathos: triumph, pathos, despondency, humility, humor, irony, sarcasm, etc. Here is the text - the inscription on the civil war monument erected on Revolution Square in Shadrinsk: “Here lie selfless fighters for communism, victims of Kolchak’s gangs. Lenin’s cause will not die! On the bones of the best and brave, millions of calloused hands are building a world Commune.” In 1978, I heard my Komsomol youth song “When the soul sings...” performed by a choir of nuns in a broadcast from Seoul; sang humbly, sadly, subtly, pleadingly, submissively, conscientiously: “When the soul sings And the heart asks to fly, On a distant journey, the high sky calls us to the stars... Keep the lights of your soul in your heart, Let them glow, If suddenly Cloudy days will meet..." The pathos of vivacity and enthusiasm is replaced by the pathos of angelic complacency...

The function of the texteme is to create text in the genres of oral and written speech with all its expressive essence.

As you can see, all linguistic units naturally correspond to the main features of language - they have form, content and function. These features manifest themselves in the interaction of linguistic units in a homogeneous series, which is called a level or tier: phonemic level, morphemic, lexical, etc. This is a horizontal indicator of the language system. But there is also a vertical system, when linguistic units of different tiers interact: phonemes with morphemes, morphemes with words, words with subsequent linguistic units, entering each other like a matryoshka doll. The theory of all is devoted to the interaction of linguistic units horizontally and vertically. national languages. Each language has its own structure as a set of facets and linguistic units in their systemic connections and relationships.

The presented understanding of language as a phenomenon and the totality of its constituent units, located in structural and systemic connections, of course, is not equal to language, but it helps research orientation and educational practice.

We constantly use oral or written language and rarely think about the structure of the literary language. For us, it is a means, an instrument to achieve a certain goal. For linguists, language is an object of special scientific research, the results of which are summarized in the form of articles, monographs, and dictionaries. Linguistics, or linguistics (from Latin lingua - language), - is the science of language, which developed in connection with the need of people to understand such a phenomenon as language.

Linguists have found that language is not a jumble of words, sounds, rules, but an ordered system (from the Greek systema - a whole made up of parts).

When characterizing language as a system, it is necessary to determine what elements it consists of. In most languages ​​of the world the following are distinguished: units: phoneme (sound), morpheme, word, phrase and sentence. Language units are heterogeneous in their structure. There are relatively simple units, for example, phonemes, and there are also complex ones - phrases, sentences. Moreover, more complex units always consist of simpler ones.

Since a system is not a random set of elements, but an ordered collection of them, in order to understand how the language system is “structured,” all units must be grouped according to the degree of complexity of their structure.

So, the simplest unit of language is phoneme, an indivisible and in itself insignificant sound unit of language, which serves to distinguish minimal significant units (morphemes and words). For example, words sweat - bot - mot - cat differ in the sounds [p], [b], [m], [k], which are different phonemes

Minimum Significant Unit – morpheme(root, suffix, prefix, ending). Morphemes already have some meaning, but cannot yet be used independently. For example, in the word Muscovite four morphemes: moskv-, -ich-, -k-, -a. The morpheme moskv- (root) contains, as it were, an indication of the locality; -ich- (suffix) denotes a male person - a resident of Moscow; -k- (suffix) means a female person - a resident of Moscow; -a (ending) indicates that the given the word is a feminine singular nominative noun.

Has relative independence word- the next most complex and most important unit of language, which serves to name objects, processes, signs or indicates them. Words differ from morphemes in that they not only have some meaning, but are already capable of naming something, i.e. a word is the minimum nominative (nominal) unit of language. Structurally, it consists of morphemes and represents “building material” for phrases and sentences.

Collocation- a combination of two or more words between which there is a semantic and grammatical connection. It consists of a main and a dependent word: new book, stage a play, each of us (the main words are in italics).

The most complex and independent unit of language, with the help of which you can not only name an object, but also communicate something about it, is offer– a basic syntactic unit that contains a message about something, a question or an incentive. The most important formal feature of a sentence is its semantic design and completeness. Unlike a word - a nominative (nominal) unit - a sentence is a communicative unit.

Modern ideas about the language system are associated primarily with the doctrine of its levels, their units and relationships. Language levels- these are subsystems (tiers) of the general language system, each of which has a set of its own units and rules for their functioning. Traditionally, the following main levels of language are distinguished: phonemic, morphemic, lexical, syntactic.

Each of the language levels has its own, qualitatively different units that have different purpose, structure, compatibility and place in the language system: the phonemic level consists of phonemes, the morphemic level consists of morphemes, the lexical level consists of words, the syntactic level consists of phrases and sentences.

Units of language are interconnected paradigmatic, syntagmatic (combinable) and hierarchical relationships.

Paradigmatic are the relations between units of the same level, by virtue of which these units are distinguished and grouped. Units of language, being in paradigmatic relationships, are mutually opposed, interconnected and thereby interdependent.

The units of language are opposed due to their certain differences: for example, the Russian phonemes “t” and “d” are distinguished as voiceless and voiced; verb forms I’m writing – I’ve written – I’ll write distinguished as having present, past and future tenses. Units of language are interconnected because they are combined into groups according to similar characteristics: for example, the Russian phonemes “t” and “d” are combined into a pair due to the fact that both of them are consonants, front-lingual, plosive, hard; the previously mentioned three forms of the verb are combined into one category - the category of time, since they all have a temporary meaning. Syntagmatic (combinability) are the relations between units of the same level in the speech chain, by virtue of which these units are connected with each other - these are the relations between phonemes when they are connected in a syllable, between morphemes when they are connected into words, between words when they are connected into phrases. However, at the same time, units of each level are built from units of a lower level: morphemes are built from phonemes and function as part of words (i.e., they serve to construct words), words are built from morphemes and function as part of sentences. Relations between units of different levels are recognized as hierarchical.

The structure of each level, the relationships of units among themselves are the subject of study of branches of linguistics - phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexicology.

Phonetics (from the Greek phone - sound) is a branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of a language, their acoustic and articulatory properties, the laws of their formation, the rules of functioning (for example, the rules for the compatibility of sounds, the distribution of vowels and consonants, etc.).

The morphemic and syntactic levels of language are studied by two linguistic disciplines - morphology and syntax, respectively.

Traditionally, morphology and syntax are combined, making up two relatively independent sections, into a more general linguistic science - grammar (from the Greek gramma - written sign) - a section of linguistics that contains the doctrine of forms of inflection, the structure of words, types of phrases and types of sentences.

Morphology (from the Greek morphe - form, logos - word, doctrine) is one of the sections of grammar that studies the morphemic composition of a language, types of morphemes, the nature of their interaction and functioning as part of units of higher levels.

Syntax (from the Greek syntaxis - composition, construction) is a section of grammar that studies the patterns of constructing sentences and combining words in a phrase. Syntax includes two main parts: the study of phrases and the study of sentences.

Lexicology (from the Greek lexikos - verbal, vocabulary, logos - teaching) is a branch of linguistics that studies the word and the vocabulary of the language as a whole. Lexicology includes the following sections:

onomasiology(from the Greek opota - “name”, logos - teaching) - a science that studies the process of naming. Onomasiology answers the question of how naming occurs, assigning names to objects and phenomena of the external world;

semasiology(from Greek semasia - designation, logos - teaching) - a science that studies the meanings of words and phrases. Semasiology studies the semantic side of a linguistic unit, comparing it with other units of the same level. It shows how extra-linguistic reality is reflected in language units (words);

phraseology(from the Greek phrasis - expression, logos - teaching) - a science that studies the stable turns of speech of a language, the nature of phraseological units, their types, features of functioning in speech. Phraseology reveals the specifics of phraseological units, features of their meaning, and relationships with other units of language. She develops principles for identifying and describing phraseological units, explores the processes of their formation;

onomastics(from the Greek opota - name) - a science that studies proper names in the broad sense of the word: toponymy studies geographical names, names and surnames of people - anthroponymy;

etymology(from Greek etymon - truth, logos - teaching) - a science that studies the origin of words, the process of formation of the vocabulary of a language. Etymology explains when, in what language, according to what word-formation model a word arose, what its original meaning was, what historical changes it has undergone;

lexicography(from Greek lexikon - dictionary, grapho - write) - a science dealing with the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. She develops a general typology of dictionaries, principles for the selection of vocabulary, the arrangement of words and dictionary entries.

Language is a system of signs of any physical nature that performs cognitive and communicative functions in the process of human activity. People can use various sign systems: telegraph code, transcriptions, shorthand, tables, numbers, gestures, road signs, etc. In the most general terms, languages ​​are divided into natural and artificial.

Natural They call a language that arose with man and developed naturally, in the absence of conscious human influence on it.

Artificial e languages ​​are sign systems created by man as auxiliary means for various communicative purposes in areas where the use of natural language is difficult, impossible or ineffective. Among artificial languages, one can distinguish planned languages, which are auxiliary means of international communication (Esperanto, Ido, Volapuk, Interlingua); symbolic languages ​​of science, for example, the languages ​​of mathematics, chemistry, physics, logic; languages ​​of human-machine communication, for example programming languages, information retrieval languages.

Natural language is fundamentally different from the systems of symbolic notations created in the natural sciences, mathematics, and technology. Thus, under certain circumstances, we can replace the notation system in science, the system of telephone numbers, and road signs with a more convenient one. It must be remembered that these sign systems are created artificially and serve as a means of communication only in a narrow circle of specialists.

The study of sign systems is the subject of a special science - semiotics, which studies the emergence, structure and functioning of various sign systems that store and transmit information. Semiotics studies natural and artificial languages, as well as the general principles that form the basis of the structure of all signs.

A sign is a material object (in the broad sense of the word), acting in the process of cognition and communication as a representative or substitute of some other object, phenomenon and used to transmit information.

In semiotics, two types of signs are distinguished: natural (signs-attributes) and artificial (conventional). Natural signs (signs-signs) contain some information about an object (phenomenon) due to a natural connection with them: smoke in the forest can inform about a lit fire, a frosty pattern on a window glass - about low air temperature outside, etc. Unlike signs , which exist separately from objects and phenomena, signs are part of those objects or phenomena that people perceive and study (for example, we see snow and imagine winter). Artificial(conventional) signs are specifically designed for the formation, storage and transmission of information, for the representation and replacement of objects and phenomena, concepts and judgments.

A sign is not a part (or an essential part) of what it represents, stands for, conveys. In this sense, it is artificial and conventional. Conventional signs serve as a means of communication and transmission of information, therefore they are also called communicative or informative signs (informant signs). There are many informative signs and their systems, differing in purpose, structure and organization. The main types of informative signs are signal, symbol, linguistic sign.

Signs-signals carry information according to condition, agreement and do not have any natural connection with the objects (phenomena) about which they inform. A signal is an audio, visual or other conventional sign that conveys information. The signal itself does not contain information - the information is contained by the sign situation. For example, a green rocket could mean the start of an attack or the start of some kind of celebration; a school bell means the end or beginning of a lesson, and a bell in an apartment is a signal inviting you to open the door, etc. The content of the signal is like symbol Thus, it varies depending on the situation, on the number of signals (for example, three bells in a theater mean the start of the performance).

Signs-symbols carry information about an object (phenomenon) based on the abstraction of some properties and characteristics from it. A symbol differs from a signal in that its content is visual and in that it is free from situational conditions. For example, an image of hands joined in a mutual shake is a symbol of friendship, an image of a dove is a symbol of peace, a coat of arms is an image of an object as a sign of belonging to a certain state, city, etc.

Linguistic signs are signs of human language, basic informative signs.

The main features of a sign: two-sidedness (the presence of material form and content), opposition in the system, conventionality/motivation.

There are two sides to a sign - the signified (the concept, content, meaning of the sign, its internal side, what is perceived by our consciousness) and the signifier (the external expression of the sign, its formal side, what is perceived by the organs of hearing or vision).

As a rule, the signs in the system are opposed, which implies a difference in their content. For example, long and short beeps in a telephone handset mean “the line is free” and “the line is busy,” respectively. The opposition of signs is clearly manifested in the case of a zero signifier. Let's consider the situation. In order for some object (or sound, gesture, etc.) to become a conventional sign, it must be opposed to some other object (or sound, gesture, etc.), in other words, it must enter the sign system.

For example, a vase placed on a windowsill can only signal danger if it is not usually there. If it always stands on the windowsill, it cannot mean anything, then it is just a vase. In order to acquire the ability to designate something, it must be contrasted with another sign, in this case, a zero sign (i.e., the significant absence of a materially expressed sign).

The conditional connection between the signifier and the signified is based on a (conscious) agreement (red light - “the path is closed”). A conditional connection, for example, is the fixation of the duration or shortness of the sound of a dial tone in a telephone receiver with the busy or unoccupied telephone line. A motivated (internally justified) connection is based on the similarity of the signifier with the signified. A sign of motivation is obvious when a road sign depicts a turn, children running, etc.

A linguistic sign, like any two-sided linguistic unit, has a form (the signifier of the sign) and content (the signified of the sign). Like all other signs, they are always material and mean something besides themselves. Linguistic signs are always conventional, that is, the connection between the signified and the signifier is arbitrary (but at the same time, once established, it becomes mandatory for all speakers of a given language). Like all conventional signs, they are always members of a sign system, and therefore have not only meaning, but also significance.

In addition to the properties common to all signs, linguistic signs also have special features that are unique to them. These include linearity: linguistic signs always follow each other, never combining in space (in writing) or in time (in speech). One can imagine a non-linguistic sign (say, a signal) in the form of a chord of three sounds sounding at a certain moment, each of which has its own meaning. But there are no linguistic signs in which several units would be combined in space or time. They always follow each other, forming a linear chain.

Another feature of linguistic signs is associated with the diachronic aspect of their existence: a linguistic sign is characterized by variability and at the same time a desire for immutability. This contradiction is explained by the fact that language is used by a society that, on the one hand, needs a constantly changing language to express its changing knowledge about the world, and on the other hand, a constant, stable system of communication, since any changes in language initially cause difficulties in communication. Therefore, linguistic signs are constantly acted upon by two differently directed forces, one of which pushes them to change, and the other strives to keep them unchanged. Linguistic signs include significant units of language - morphemes, words, sentences.

However, the iconicity of morphemes is very limited, since morphemes are components of words and have meanings only as part of words. Words are the most significant signs in language. They represent concepts, are their symbols or signs; words can be part of a sentence and, if necessary, formulate a sentence. A full-fledged communicative sign is a sentence. In the sentence, as the highest sign unit, all the signs and signals of the language are put into action, and the sentences themselves form a connection with each other, with the context and situation of speech. A sentence provides language with the ability to convey any specific thought, any information.

Language as the most important sign system differs from all other auxiliary (specialized) sign systems.

The linguistic sign system is a comprehensive means of transmitting and storing information, as well as designing the thought itself, expressing emotions, evaluating and expressing will, while specialized sign systems serve to transmit limited information and recode what is already known.

The scope of language use is universal. It is used in all areas of human activity, while specialized sign systems have a limited scope of use. Language as a sign system is created gradually and develops in the process of its functioning, and specialized means of communication, transmission and storage of information are the result of a one-time agreement between people and are thoughtful and artificial in nature.

Unit of language- an element of the language system, indecomposable within a certain level of text division and opposed to other units in the language subsystem corresponding to this level. Can be decomposed into lower level units.

In terms of decomposability, there are simple And complex units: simple absolutely indivisible (morpheme as a significant unit, phoneme); complex divisibles, but division necessarily reveals units of a lower linguistic level.

Sets of basic linguistic units form the levels of the language system.

Unit classification

Based on the presence of a sound shell, the following types of language units are distinguished:

• material- have a constant sound shell (phoneme, morpheme, word, sentence);
• relatively material- have a variable sound shell (models of the structure of words, phrases, sentences that have a generalized constructive meaning, reproduced in all units constructed according to them);
• units of value- do not exist outside the material or relatively material, constituting their semantic side (sema, seme).

Among the material units, based on the presence of value, the following are distinguished:

"Emic" and "ethical" units

Material units of language are characterized by simultaneous existence in the form of a set options- sound segments used in speech - and in the form of abstract invariant- lots of all options. To designate variants of units there are so-called "ethical"(from English phon etic ) terms (allophone, background; allomorph, morph), to denote invariants - "emic"(from English phon emic ) terms (phoneme, morpheme, lexeme, etc.). Both terms belong to the American linguist C. L. Pike. In most areas of linguistics, “ethical” and corresponding “emic” units belong to the same level of language.

Units of speech

Characteristics of units

Despite significant differences in the interpretation of language units within different scientific directions, we can identify universal properties of units found in all languages. So, phoneme represents a class of phonetically similar sounds (however, many linguists do not consider this condition satisfactory; for example, L.V. Shcherba believed that “the unity of shades of one phoneme is due not to their phonetic similarity, but to the inability to distinguish words and forms of words in a given language”; R. I. Avanesov and V. N. Sidorov noted that “different sounds that are mutually exclusive in the same position are varieties of the same phoneme, no matter how much they differ from each other in formation and quality” ), united by the identity of functions, morpheme is a syntactically dependent bilateral unit, word syntactically independently, offer- a unit of speech consisting of words. Thus, different languages ​​can be described using the same terms.

Unit ratios

Units of language enter into three types of relationships with each other:

• hierarchical(less complex units of lower levels are included in units of higher ones).

Relations of the first two types are possible only between units belonging to the same level.

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Notes

1. Bulygina T.V. Units of language // Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. - 3rd ed. - M. : Soviet encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
2. Units of language // Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary / Ed. V. N. Yartseva. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990. - 685 p. - ISBN 5-85270-031-2.
3. Akhmanova O. S. Units of language // Dictionary of linguistic terms. - Ed. 4th, stereotypical. - M.: KomKniga, 2007. - 576 p. - 2500 copies. - ISBN 978-5-484-00932-9.
4. Zinder L. R., Matusevich M. I. .
5. Avanesov R.I., Sidorov V.N. Essay on the grammar of the Russian literary language. Part I: phonetics and morphology. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1945.

Excerpt characterizing a unit of language

- From Eloise? - asked the prince, showing his still strong and yellowish teeth with a cold smile.
“Yes, from Julie,” said the princess, looking timidly and smiling timidly.
“I’ll miss two more letters, and I’ll read the third,” the prince said sternly, “I’m afraid you’re writing a lot of nonsense.” I'll read the third one.
“At least read this, mon pere, [father,],” answered the princess, blushing even more and handing him the letter.
“Third, I said, third,” the prince shouted briefly, pushing away the letter, and, leaning his elbows on the table, pulled up a notebook with geometry drawings.
“Well, madam,” the old man began, bending close to his daughter over the notebook and placing one hand on the back of the chair on which the princess was sitting, so that the princess felt surrounded on all sides by that tobacco and senile pungent smell of her father, which she had known for so long. . - Well, madam, these triangles are similar; would you like to see, angle abc...
The princess looked fearfully at her father’s sparkling eyes close to her; red spots shimmered across her face, and it was clear that she did not understand anything and was so afraid that fear would prevent her from understanding all her father’s further interpretations, no matter how clear they were. Whether the teacher was to blame or the student was to blame, the same thing was repeated every day: the princess’s eyes grew dim, she saw nothing, heard nothing, she only felt the dry face of her stern father close to her, felt his breath and smell and only thought about how she could quickly leave the office and understand the problem in her own open space.
The old man would lose his temper: he would noisily move and move the chair on which he was sitting, make efforts on himself so as not to get excited, and almost every time he would get excited, curse, and sometimes throw his notebook.
The princess made a mistake in her answer.
- Well, why not be a fool! - the prince shouted, pushing away the notebook and quickly turning away, but immediately stood up, walked around, touched the princess’s hair with his hands and sat down again.
He moved closer and continued his interpretation.
“It’s impossible, princess, it’s impossible,” he said, when the princess, having taken and closed the notebook with the assigned lessons, was already preparing to leave, “mathematics is a great thing, my madam.” And I don’t want you to be like our stupid ladies. Will endure and fall in love. “He patted her cheek with his hand. - The nonsense will jump out of your head.
She wanted to go out, he stopped her with a gesture and took out a new uncut book from the high table.
- Here’s another Key of the Sacrament your Eloise sends you. Religious. And I don’t interfere with anyone’s faith... I looked through it. Take it. Well, go, go!
He patted her on the shoulder and locked the door behind her.
Princess Marya returned to her room with a sad, frightened expression that rarely left her and made her ugly, sickly face even more ugly, and sat down at her desk, lined with miniature portraits and littered with notebooks and books. The princess was as disorderly as her father was decent. She put down her geometry notebook and impatiently opened the letter. The letter was from the princess’s closest friend since childhood; This friend was the same Julie Karagina who was at the Rostovs’ name day:
Julie wrote:
"Chere et excellente amie, quelle chose terrible et effrayante que l"absence! J"ai beau me dire que la moitie de mon existence et de mon bonheur est en vous, que malgre la distance qui nous separe, nos coeurs sont unis par des liens indissolubles; le mien se revolte contre la destinee, et je ne puis, malgre les plaisirs et les distractions qui m"entourent, vaincre une certaine tristesse cachee que je ressens au fond du coeur depuis notre separation. Pourquoi ne sommes nous pas reunies, comme cet ete dans votre grand cabinet sur le canape bleu, le canape a confidences? Pourquoi ne puis je, comme il y a trois mois, puiser de nouvelles forces morales dans votre regard si doux, si calme et si penetrant, regard que j"aimais tant et que “je crois voir devant moi, quand je vous ecris.”
[Dear and priceless friend, what a terrible and terrible thing is separation! No matter how much I tell myself that half of my existence and my happiness lies in you, that, despite the distance that separates us, our hearts are united by inextricable bonds, my heart rebels against fate, and, despite the pleasures and distractions that surround me, I I cannot suppress some hidden sadness that I have been experiencing in the depths of my heart since our separation. Why aren’t we together, like last summer, in your big office, on the blue sofa, on the sofa of “confessions”? Why can’t I, like three months ago, draw new moral forces in your gaze, meek, calm and penetrating, which I loved so much and which I see before me at the moment I write to you?]
Having read up to this point, Princess Marya sighed and looked back at the dressing table, which stood to her right. The mirror reflected an ugly, weak body and a thin face. The eyes, always sad, now looked at themselves in the mirror especially hopelessly. “She flatters me,” thought the princess, turned away and continued reading. Julie, however, did not flatter her friend: indeed, the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant (as if rays of warm light sometimes came out of them in sheaves), were so beautiful that very often, despite the ugliness of her whole face, these eyes became more attractive than beauty. But the princess had never seen a good expression in her eyes, the expression they took on in those moments when she was not thinking about herself. Like all people, her face took on a tense, unnatural, bad expression as soon as she looked in the mirror. She continued reading: 211

Language units are elements of a language system that have different functions and meanings. The basic units of language include speech sounds, morphemes (parts of a word), words, and sentences.

Language units form the corresponding levels of the language system: speech sounds - phonetic level, morphemes - morphemic level, words and phraseological units - lexical level, phrases and sentences - syntactic level.

Each of the language levels is also complex system or subsystem, and their totality forms the overall language system.

Language is a system that naturally arose in human society and is developing a system of sign units expressed in sound form, capable of expressing the entire set of human concepts and thoughts and intended primarily for the purposes of communication. Language is at the same time a condition of development and a product of human culture. (N.D. Arutyunova.)

The lowest level of the language system is phonetic, it consists of the simplest units - speech sounds; units of the next morphemic level - morphemes - consist of units of the previous level - speech sounds; units of the lexical (lexical-semantic) level - words - consist of morphemes; and the units of the next syntactic level - syntactic constructions - consist of words.

Units of different levels differ not only in their place in the general system of language, but also in purpose (function, role), as well as structure. Thus, the shortest unit of language - the sound of speech - serves to recognize and distinguish morphemes and words. The sound of speech itself has no meaning; it is only indirectly connected with the distinction of meaning: combining with other sounds of speech and forming morphemes, it contributes to the perception and differentiation of morphemes and words formed with their help.

A sound unit is also a syllable - a segment of speech in which one sound stands out with the greatest sonority in comparison with its neighbors. But syllables do not correspond to morphemes or any other meaningful units; In addition, the identification of syllable boundaries does not have sufficient grounds, so some scientists do not include it among the basic units of language.

A morpheme (part of a word) is the shortest unit of language that has meaning. The central morpheme of a word is the root, which contains the main lexical meaning of the word. The root is present in every word and can completely coincide with its stem. The suffix, prefix and ending introduce additional lexical or grammatical meanings.

There are derivational morphemes (forming words) and grammatical (forming forms of words).

In the word reddish, for example, there are three morphemes: the root edge has a characteristic (color) meaning, as in the words red, blush, redness; suffix - ovat - denotes a weak degree of manifestation of the characteristic (as in the words blackish, rude, boring); the ending - й has the grammatical meaning of masculine, singular, nominative case (as in the words black, rude, boring). None of these morphemes can be divided into smaller meaningful parts.

Morphemes can change over time in their form and in the composition of speech sounds. Thus, in the words porch, capital, beef, finger, the once prominent suffixes merged with the root, simplification occurred: derived stems turned into non-derivative ones. The meaning of the morpheme can also change. Morphemes do not have syntactic independence.

The word is the main significant, syntactically independent unit of language, which serves to name objects, processes, properties. A word is the material for a sentence, and a sentence can consist of one word. Unlike a sentence, a word outside the speech context and speech situation does not express a message.

A word combines phonetic (its sound shell), morphological (the set of its constituent morphemes) and semantic (the set of its meanings) characteristics. Grammatical meanings words exist materially in its grammatical form.

Most words are ambiguous: for example, the word table in a particular speech stream can denote a type of furniture, a type of food, a set of dishes, or an item of medical equipment. The word can have variants: zero and zero, dry and dry, song and song.

Words form certain systems and groups in a language: based on grammatical features - a system of parts of speech; based on word-formation connections - word nests; based on semantic relations - a system of synonyms, antonyms, thematic groups; from a historical perspective - archaisms, historicisms, neologisms; by area of ​​use - dialectisms, professionalisms, jargons, terms.

Phraseologisms, as well as compound terms (boiling point, plug-in construction) and compound names (White Sea, Ivan Vasilyevich) are equated to the word according to its function in speech.

Word combinations are formed from words - syntactic constructions consisting of two or more significant words connected according to the type of subordinating connection (coordination, control, adjacency).

A phrase, along with a word, is an element in the construction of a simple sentence.

Sentences and phrases form the syntactic level of the language system. The sentence is one of the main categories of syntax. It is contrasted with words and phrases in terms of formal organization, linguistic meaning and functions. A sentence is characterized by an intonation structure - the intonation of the end of the sentence, completeness or incompleteness; intonation of message, question, motivation. A special emotional connotation, which is conveyed by intonation, can turn any sentence into an exclamation.

Sentences can be simple or complex.

A simple sentence can be two-part, having a subject group and a predicate group, and one-part, having only a predicate group or only a subject group; may be common or uncommon; may be complicated, containing homogeneous members, circulation, introductory, plug-in construction, separate turnover.

A simple two-part unextended sentence is divided into a subject and a predicate, an extended one into a subject group and a predicate group; but in speech, oral and written, there is a semantic division of the sentence, which in most cases does not coincide with the syntactic division. The proposal is divided into the initial part of the message - the “given” and what is stated in it, the “new” - the core of the message. The core of a message or statement is highlighted by logical stress, word order, and ends the sentence. For example, in the sentence The hailstorm predicted the day before broke out in the morning, the initial part (“given”) is the hailstorm predicted the day before broke out, and the core of the message (“new”) appears in the morning, the logical emphasis falls on it.

A complex sentence combines two or more simple ones. Depending on the means by which the parts of a complex sentence are connected, compound, complex and non-conjunct complex sentences are distinguished.