Introduction

The question of the mental basis of language structures and their speech realizations is considered in the modern linguistic paradigm as one of the most important. In this regard, research within the framework of the relatively recently declared itself conceptual linguistics, a field of linguistics focused on the analysis of the genesis, development and functioning of language structures in terms of their conditionality by a mental substrate, the most important component of which are discrete elements of consciousness - concepts (concepts), which are capable of being grouped into complex structures called conceptual categories. The latter have already been the subject of quite numerous studies, but have not received any uniform interpretation. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the history of the issue of conceptual categories and propose a possible taxonomy of their essential characteristics and functions.

1. Information from the history of the issue

For the first time the term “conceptual categories” was introduced into scientific use by O. Jespersen in his classical work“Philosophy of Grammar”, which was published in 1924, O. Jespersen admits that “along with syntactic categories, or besides them, or behind these categories, depending on the structure of each language, in the form in which it exists, there are also extralinguistic categories independent of more or less random facts existing languages. These categories are universal in that they apply to all languages, although they are rarely expressed in those languages ​​in a clear and unambiguous way. (…) For lack of a better term, I will call these categories conceptual categories.” Without excluding the traditional approach to the study of languages ​​- from form to content (semasiological approach), O. Jespersen, like his contemporary F. Bruno, believes important method studies of the language from the inside, from the inside, going from content to form, thus laying the foundations of onomasiology.

It is with this approach that it becomes clear that significant role which conceptual categories play in the success of linguistic research, and the question arises of defining their ontology and functions.

The term “conceptual categories”, as noted above, belongs to O. Jespersen; it would, however, be erroneous to assume that the theory of conceptual categories as the mental substratum of language began to develop only with the works of this researcher. It should be recognized that even before O. Jespersen, in linguistic literature there were assumptions about the existence of a certain mental entity that precedes linguistic (especially grammatical) constructions and underlies them.

There is reason to believe that W. von Humboldt was the first to substantiate the existence of a “universal component” of a language (or, rather, languages) from the proper linguistic positions in connection with his typological studies and the creation of a morphological classification of languages. S. D. Katsnelson summarizes the following various works Humboldt's statements on this topic: “Universal categories are for the most part thought forms of logical origin. They form a system that is the general basis of the language, but is not directly included in the structure of the language. At the same time, they cannot be called properly logical, since, being turned towards grammar, they reveal specific features. One might say that they constitute the domain of "logical grammar," which is essentially neither logic nor grammar; it is an ideal system that does not coincide with the categories of individual languages. In every separate language categories of ideal logic are transformed into specific grammatical categories. Although Humboldt's "universal categories" are not quite Jespersen's "conceptual categories" (which is quite natural: Humboldt is mostly a typologist, and Jespersen is a grammarian), nevertheless, the coincidence of the essential characteristics of both is striking.

Some time passes, and G. Paul in his work “Principles of the History of Language”, published in 1880, dwells on such categories in sufficient detail, calling them “psychological categories” in accordance with the traditions of his time and in the spirit of the neo-grammatical teaching. G. Paul believes that any grammatical category arises on the basis of psychological ones, and the first is nothing more than an external expression of the second. As soon as the effectiveness of the psychological category begins to be revealed in linguistic means, this category becomes grammatical. Note that this provision obviously echoes Humboldt's idea of ​​"transforming" the universal categories he considers into specific grammatical categories. According to Paul, with the creation of the grammatical category, the effectiveness of the psychological category is not destroyed. The psychological category is independent of language (cf. O. Jespersen's statement quoted above about the extralinguistic nature of conceptual categories and that they do not depend on more or less random facts of existing languages.); existing before the emergence of the grammatical category, it continues to function after its occurrence, due to which the harmony that originally existed between both categories can be broken over time. The grammatical category, according to Paul, being associated with a stable tradition, is to a certain extent a “frozen” form of the psychological category. The latter always remains something free, alive, taking on a different shape depending on individual perception. In addition, a change in meaning very often contributes to the fact that the grammatical category does not remain an adequate psychological category. Paul believes that if a tendency to equalization subsequently appears, then a shift in the grammatical category occurs, in which peculiar relationships may arise that do not fit into the categories that existed before. Further, the author makes an important methodological conclusion regarding the linguistic value of the analysis of the processes of interaction between “psychological” and grammatical categories: “Consideration of these processes, which we can trace in some detail, at the same time gives us the opportunity to judge the initial emergence of grammatical categories that are inaccessible to our observation.”

At about the same time as O. Jespersen, the French linguist G. Guillaume developed the theory of the conceptual basis of the language. Not received enough attention and deserved appreciation during the life of the author, now G. Guillaume's theory is the object of close study and analysis. Considering the issues of the method of language analysis, the essence of a linguistic sign, the genesis of the word and its systemic nature, and others, G. Guillaume constantly refers to the conceptual factor, strives to study the mental and linguistic in their close relationship. Before the publication in 1992 of G. Guillaume's book “Principles of Theoretical Linguistics”, his concept was known to the Russian-speaking reader primarily thanks to the works of E.A. scientific heritage Guillaume a number of works. And although these authors differ in the interpretation of some provisions of Guillaume's linguistics, both scholars note the most important place in it of the conceptual component.

At present, there is every reason to believe that G. Guillaume managed to create his own linguistic school, called “vector linguistics”, or “psychosystematics”. On its principles, descriptions of individual subsystems of the English language (for example, the name and article, as well as the verb) have already been created. Among the students and followers of G. Guillaume are R.-L. Wagner. P.Imbs, R.Lafont, B.Potier, J.Stefanini, J.Moynier, M.Mollo, J.Maillard and others. Giving an assessment to their linguistic works, L.M.Skrelina considers close attention to to specific linguistic facts, which comes from G. Guillaume, and the desire to consider them “from the inside”, from the side of the signified, starting from conceptual categories when explaining the functioning of elements in speech.

Following O. Jespersen, II Meshchaninov raises the question of the nature of conceptual categories. The first work of the scientist, which laid the foundation for the development of his theory of conceptual categories, was published in 1945. It was followed by another whole line works devoted to this problem. The impetus for these studies was the insufficient elaboration of the question of the relationship between language and thinking, especially the fact that “the establishment of a common point of view on the relationship between language and thinking was largely hampered by blind and categorical borrowing from textbooks of logic and psychology, which boils down to attempts to interpret linguistic facts. from the point of view of the provisions developed in them. The facts of the language were illuminated from the outside, instead of receiving their explanation within themselves. In addition, the typological studies conducted by I.I. Meshchaninov led the scientist to the idea that the differences between languages ​​are not absolute, but relative in nature and relate mainly to the form of content explication, while such concepts as objectivity and action, subject, predicate , object, attribute with their modal nuances, as well as relationships between words in a sentence are common to all languages. The identification of this universal mental substratum became a problematic in the works of I.I. Meshchaninov, connected with the analysis of conceptual categories.

Among other most famous domestic researchers who contributed to the development of the topic of the mental foundations of the language, one should mention S.D. Katsnelson. S. D. Katsnelson develops this topic in relation to three main areas linguistic research: general grammar and theory of parts of speech; the problem of generating an utterance and speech-thinking processes; typological comparison of languages. Let's consider all three of these areas in more detail.

Opposing formal understanding parts of speech, based on the allocation of formal features and specific categories from words, which are formed on the basis of inflectional morphology, S.D. Katsnelson, following L.V. . The taxonomy of the elements of the language, therefore, is carried out by him on an onomasiological basis - from meaning to form (compare the above points of view on this issue by O. Jespersen and F. Bruno). According to S.D. Katsnelson, “in the very meanings of words, regardless of whether they are inflectional or according to the norms of a different morphology, there are some strong points that allow us to talk about nouns, adjectives, etc.”. Conceptual and semantic categories serve as such “strongholds”.

In the theory of speech generation, S.D. Katsnelson adheres to the understanding of the process of speech generation, which is typical for representatives of generative semantics, in which the initial structure of the generative process and one of the basic concepts of the whole concept is a proposition. The latter is understood as a kind of mental content expressing a certain “state of affairs”, an event, a state as a relationship between logically equal objects. As part of the proposition, the members-bearers of the relation and the relational predicate linking them are distinguished. At the same time, each of the members of the proposition in itself is neither a subject nor a direct object, but as part of the sentences that have arisen on the basis of the proposition, it can appear in any of these syntactic functions. “The proposition contains an element of figurativeness and in this respect reflects reality more directly than a sentence. Like a picture, it depicts a holistic episode, without prescribing the direction and order of consideration of individual details. Propositions, acting as operating schemes on initial phase of the speech-generating process, although they are focused on a certain semantic content, but by themselves, without filling the “places” they open with certain meanings, they are not meaningful enough to serve as the basis for their further transformation into sentences. These structures need special units ah, supplementing propositional functions. Concepts are such units. As can be seen from these arguments of the scientist, not only the existence of a certain mental substrate, which has a non-linguistic character and serves as the basis of the speech-generating process, is allowed, but also its heterogeneity, complex structuredness is noted.

As for typological research, according to S.D. Katsnelson, the involvement of the content side in the orbit of these studies is necessary due to at least the fact that in the field of content, languages ​​also show features of both similarities and differences. Emphasizing the fundamental possibility of transition from the semantic system of one language to semantic system another language, the scientist focuses on the universal, universal thought processes that underlie speech-creative activity. On the other hand, “the transition from the logical-semantic system to the idio-semantic system of a given language does not present significant difficulties, since, remaining within the same language, we always know when the configuration of conceptual components forms a value fixed by the norm and when more than one corresponds to it, but multiple values. When we encounter a new language for us, these boundaries disappear due to a different distribution of conceptual components between meanings compared to the one with which we have become accustomed. It is the conceptual components of meanings that are the sine qua non condition for their typological (interlingual) congruence.”

It is possible to sum up S. D. Katsnelson's views on the significance of the mental pre-linguistic substrate as follows: "Thinking categories form the basis of the grammatical structure, since they help to comprehend sensory data and transform them into propositions."

Research in line with this issue has received its further development in the works of A.V. Bondarko in connection with the development by this author of the category of the functional-semantic field, as well as his analysis of the functional-semantic, semantic/structural categories. Of particular note is the article by A.V. Bondarko “ Conceptual categories and language semantic features in grammar”, which is specially devoted to the consideration of the correlation of these entities and the analysis of the linguistic semantic interpretation of conceptual categories. The article also considers the question of the universality of conceptual categories. In general, it should be emphasized that A.V. Bondarko, repeatedly noting close connection of his theoretical research with the views of O. Jespersen and I.I. Meshchaninov, expresses at the same time his own, somewhat different attitude to the problem under consideration. Relying on the theory of conceptual categories, A.V. Bondarko at the same time somewhat departs from it. The direction chosen by him is determined by the desire to consistently interpret the categories under consideration as linguistic categories that have linguistic content and linguistic expression. This is also related to the refusal of the scientist from the term “conceptual category”, since, as he believes, this term gives reason to think that they mean logical concepts, not language categories.

The status of each language category is determined by its place in the row of another category.

By nature, all language categories can be:

ontological- categories of objective reality (category of number)

Anthropocentric- categories born in the mind of a person (categories of assessment)

relational– categories expressed in language structure, to organize speech (case category)

Oppositions are:

According to the relations between the members of the opposition:

- equivalent (equal pole)

A: :B: :C: :D

R.p. ending and B

D.p. ending e C

- private(only two forms)

Ex: dog - dog s

- gradual(degrees of comparison)

Ex: æ - α: - /\

By the number of members within the opposition:

Ternary (three) - gender, time, person

Polycomponent (more than three components) - case.

39 Types of grammatical categories. Structure and types of relations between members of grammatical categories (only about oppositions)

A grammatical category is a set of homogeneous grammatical meanings represented by rows of grammatical forms opposed to each other. The grammatical category forms the core of the grammatical structure of the language. The grammatical category has a generalized meaning. Grammar categories are in close interaction with each other and show a tendency to interpenetrate (for example, the category of person connects verbs and pronouns, the category of aspect is closely related to the category of time), and this interaction is observed not only within the same part of speech (the category of person connects the name and the verb)

Morphological– are expressed by lexico-grammatical classes of words ( significant parts speech) - categories of form, pledge, time, number. Among these categories are inflectional and classificatory.

inflectional- categories whose members are represented by forms of the same word within its paradigm (in Russian, the case category of the name or the person category of the verb)

Classification- these are categories whose members cannot be represented by forms of the same word, i.e. these are categories that are inherent in the word and do not depend on its use in the sentence (animate / inanimate nouns)

Syntactic- these are categories that belong primarily to the syntactic units of the language (the category of predicativity belongs to the syntactic unit - the sentence), however, they can also be expressed by units related to other language levels (word and form that participate in the organization of the predicative basis of the sentence)

In "Prolegomena to any future metaphysics..." Kant outlines two ways of investigating categories. The first is focused on finding and systematizing actually existing in ordinary language, concepts (words), which are constantly encountered in any experimental knowledge.

The second consists in constructing, on the basis of previously developed rules, a complete speculative scheme of rational concepts, independent of any historical conditions human life, nor on the content of the processed material.

Kant himself chooses the second path, which ultimately leads to the cold heights of the Hegelian Absolute Spirit. But him main idea about the fact that the structures of being depend, even on the universally universal, but still human definitions turned out to be more fruitful precisely on the first path. This path led to the development of a linguistic interpretation of categories, which was stimulated by the research of Wilhelm Humboldt.

As already shown, the main function of categories is to introduce a certain order into some undivided or unorganized integrity. This order, one way or another, is expressed (or displayed) in the language.

Lexical composition language and the totality of categories basically coincide, and any word, insofar as it generalizes, acts as category for a certain set of things. Thanks to this coincidence, even a person who is completely unaware of the existence of theoretical schemes of categorical analysis or synthesis “sees” the world in a certain way ordered only because he uses his native language to describe it.

Language, just like categories, is not derived by each individual directly from his individual experience. Language has a pre-experimental (a priori) nature. Each individual person receives it as the legacy of a long line of past generations. But like any heritage, language, on the one hand, enriches, and on the other hand, binds a person before and independently of him by established norms and rules. Being, in relation to the knowable, subjective, the norms and rules of the language, in relation to the knower, are objective.

But if thinking can still be represented as absolutely pure (empty) thinking (Hegel and Husserl perfectly demonstrate this), then speech is unthinkable as absolutely “pure speech”, devoid of any definite content. Any conversation is a conversation about something. This "something" is the subject of speech, singled out and fixed in the word. Therefore, in words, as lexical units of language, both the primary division of being and the primary synthesis of sensory impressions are already taking place.

The history of the language does not have a clearly defined beginning. No matter how far back in time our research goes, wherever we find people, we find them already talking. But it is impossible that in the thinking of people who possess the word, those initial articulations of being and thought that already exist in language are completely absent. The notion of pure thinking, devoid of any content, working "on idle" is an abstraction that grows only on the soil of Cartesian cogito. Real thinking is never pure "thinking about nothing", it always has an intentional character, i.e. it is always directed at an object, there is always thinking about something definite.

At first glance, it seems that language, as a sign system, is completely neutral in relation to thought, which can be expressed in any arbitrarily chosen sign system: sound, graphic, color, etc. But in this case, it turns out that thought arises before language and only expressed in it. Thinking is clothed in sounding speech as a form (more precisely, as one of the possible forms) of an external expression of an already existing content of its own.

The actual relationship between thought and language is much more complex. This becomes noticeable when the question of their genesis is raised.

Phylogeny (historical development), as a rule, is reproduced in individual development- ontogeny. As studies by J. Piaget have shown, the formation of categories in the mind of a child occurs after he has mastered the corresponding language structures. First, the child masters complex syntactic turns, such as "because", "where", "after", "despite", "if", etc., which serve to express causal, spatial, temporal, conditional - t .e. categorical relations.

Categories are not derived from subject experience, but are mastered along with the acquisition of the language and are fixed, first of all, in the skills of verbal communication. They are recognized much later than they begin to be used in language practices. Apparently, and the order historical development The categories were the same. First, unconscious unconscious use, and only then (much later) comprehension.

Exists organic bond categories with certain types quite real practical issues, each of which can be formulated with the direct use of the corresponding category: Where? - In which space? When? - In which time? etc. But vice versa, each category can be expressed as a question. " What is this?" category entities; "Where when?" - categories space and time; "What?, How much?" - quality and quantity; "Why?" - category the reasons; "Why?" - goals.

We ask being about those aspects, properties and characteristics that constitute the sphere of our vital interests. In the linguistic interpretation of the category, there are lines along which fragments and relations of interest to us are separated from total mass and appear before us as objects of our close attention. Each category represents a certain perspective in which we see being from a special point of view, and all together they form a kind of functional unity, fixed in the language system. Everyone who speaks the language is involved in this system, but this does not at all mean intentionality and full awareness of its application. Man, as Sartre notes, "is not so much a speaking being as a spoken one," and the language knows the person, perhaps to a greater extent than the person knows the language.

The culture of each community, like its language, is different from the culture and language of any other community. This gives us every reason to assume that the dividing lines that language draws along the "body" of being can form worlds that have different configurations. This idea was first expressed in the well-known hypothesis of linguistic relativity, called, after its authors, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

“We dissect nature,” says Whorf, “in the direction suggested by our native language. We single out certain categories and types in the world of phenomena not at all because they (these categories and types) are self-evident ... We dissect the world, organize it into concepts and distribute meanings in this way and not otherwise, mainly because we are parties to an agreement that prescribes such a systematization ... It is impossible to determine a phenomenon, thing, object, relationship, etc., based on nature; definition always implies an appeal to the categories of a particular language.

The essence of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity is that the organization of the world of our experience depends on the categorical structure of a particular language, so even the same event can look completely different, depending on the language means used. Indeed, a world in which "The rooster calls the hens with his crow" is different from a world in which "the crow of the rooster sets the hens in motion."

By accepting this hypothesis, we transfer the categories from the spheres of Aristotelian being, Kant's pure reason, or the Hegelian Absolute Idea into the sphere human language and we say goodbye to the hope that inspired these thinkers to discover (or create) an absolutely complete and complete system of categories, which would be single and unique "for all times and peoples." By placing the categories in the structures of language, we recognize that it is not being as such or consciousness in general that finds expression in them, but the concrete life world of a person belonging to a certain culture and historical epoch.

The idea of ​​the connection of categories with the immediate life world of a person is being developed in modern versions phenomenological-existential philosophy. In the traditional sense, categories serve, first of all, to highlight and designate what is most important and significant for a person. But what seems important and significant from the point of view of the whole - a cultural community, for example - may be completely indifferent to a single, "this" person. For individual person the most important thing may be that which directly affects him, concerns precisely and only his individual being: his fears and hopes, aspirations and complexes, doubts and fears. Thus, in the context of philosophical research, completely non-traditional, so-called "existential categories" appear, such as, for example: "death", "fear", "abandonment", "care", etc.

Summing up our analysis, we can say the following. Regardless of the context of their interpretation, philosophical categories represent extremely broad generic definitions of being. How extreme common childbirth, they themselves do not have a higher genus standing above them and, therefore, cannot be, like concepts, defined by referring to a higher genus, with an indication of the specific difference. They are determined not through higher genera, but by establishing relationships with other categories. The concepts that are included in the semantic field of each category are subordinate to it and express one or another of its aspects, shades and specific forms of manifestation. The relationship between categories and concepts can be illustrated as follows.

Any concept has a specific subject area or volume, which includes a set of subjects covered by this concept. So, for example, the scope of the concept "table" is the set of all possible tables, and the concept of "house" is the set of all possible houses. It is clear that, since not only actually existing, but also all possible tables or houses are meant, the scope of each of these concepts is infinite set, so we cannot say which of these concepts has a larger volume, and which one has a smaller one. However, there are concepts, the relations between which are such that they make it possible to unambiguously determine which of the two compared infinities is greater. So, for example, an infinite number of birches is clearly less than an infinite number of trees, and an infinity of trees is less than an infinity of plants. We get a hierarchical series of concepts in which each subsequent one includes the previous one as its own. constituent part: birch - tree - plant - Live nature- nature - being. The concept completes this series, which exhausts the possibility of further expansion of the volume. This is the philosophical category, which acts as the broadest possible generalization, the absolute limit of further expansion of the subject area.

The concepts of the lower levels of generality outline the boundaries of the subject areas of specific sciences, and act as categories of a particular science, since they perform (within the limits of the area limited by them) the same role of limiting generalizations. For example, if the subject of philosophy is being, then nature is the subject of natural science in general, Live nature- the subject of biology, plant- Botany, and probably some kind of science is being studied at the Forestry Academy, the subject of which is only trees.

So, we found out that the role of philosophical and scientific categories in knowledge is extremely important. However, one universal system categories do not exist. On the different stages historical development, the dominant in practical and spiritual activity are becoming different types categories or, what is the same, various principles structuring of being and thinking. In general, each categorical conceptual system can be likened to a net that we throw into the ocean of being, in the hope of catching the Golden Fish of Absolute Knowledge. But each time this network brings to the surface only what the interwoven cells capture by us.

In this article, we will review the main linguistic categories Let's give examples. You will learn that in linguistics there are various associations according to which one or another unit can be classified.

What is a category

The very concept of "category" was first developed by Aristotle. In particular, he identified 10 categories. Let us list them: undergoing, action, state, position, time, place, relation, quality, quantity, essence. In many ways, their selection influenced the subsequent inventory of various predicates, predicates, sentence members and parts of speech.

Conceptual category

Before considering linguistic categories and the problems of linguistic categorization, it is necessary to clarify this term as well. It is usually understood as a certain closed system of meanings of a semantic universal attribute or a specific meaning of this attribute, regardless of the method of expression ("explicit" or "hidden") and the degree of their grammaticalization in given language. For example, we can talk about the presence of the following conceptual categories: alienability / inalienability, activity / inactivity, reasons, places, goals, etc. There are lexico-semantic linguistic categories in linguistics. They mean classes such as the names of states, professions, living beings, etc. If the derivational formal expression receives a categorizing seme, linguistic categories are called derivational. Examples are as follows: pet names(pancake-chik, smoke-ok, house-ik), the names of the figure (beg-un, cart-chik, teacher).

Linguistic categories in the broad and narrow sense

Language categories are associations that can be considered both broadly and in narrow sense. In the first case, these are any groups of elements that are distinguished on the basis of common property. In a narrow sense, language categories are certain parameters (features) that underlie the division of homogeneous units into a certain number of non-overlapping classes. Their members are characterized by some value of this or that attribute. Examples: the category of aspect, case, animation/inanimateness, deafness/voicedness, etc. However, this term often denotes one of the values ​​of this parameter (attribute). Examples: category of inanimate, accusative, state, deafness, perfect appearance.

Types of categories according to various criteria

Depending on the nature of the corresponding attribute and the set allocated according to it, as well as on its relation to partition classes, different types of categories can be distinguished. A set may include phonemes that are homogeneous units. In this case, various phonological linguistic categories are distinguished. This is, for example, a distinction in deafness / sonority. Another example is the category of stop consonants. By differential phonetic feature classification is made in this case.

A set divisible into categories may include two-sided units. Usually they are sentences, phrases and words. In this case, word-building, lexico-semantic, syntactic, grammatical and other categories are distinguished. According to a certain semantic or syntactic feature classification is carried out. It can be both proper syntactic, semantic, and general categorical (this word is often understood as "referring to parts of speech").

Classifying and modifying features

There are other signs as well. In relation to partition classes, they are divided into classifying (selective, integral) and modifying (flexion, differential). An attribute for some object is modifying when it corresponds to an element of some other partition class, which differs from it only in the value of this attribute. This correspondence is called opposition. If this is not observed, the sign is classifying for the corresponding element. In what case can we talk about varieties of some more common unit, changing according to given feature? Let's answer this question too. When the elements differ from each other only by the values ​​of one or another modifying attribute. As for the classifier, its value is constant, fixed for a given unit.

Modifying and classifying categories

In a number of cases, for most elements of the set, the attribute is modifying. Then the category as a whole is also called modifying. For example, these are inflectional (inflectional) categories. These include the case and number of the noun, case, number, gender of the adjective, mood, tense, person, number of the gender of the verb. If for a sufficient number of elements the categorical attribute is classifying, then the category as a whole will be the same. For example, these are lexico-semantic categories. Examples: animacy, gender and parts of speech of a noun, transitivity/intransitivity, nominal classes of a verb, etc.

"Rules" and "Exceptions"

Which type a particular category should be assigned to depends on what the classification was originally, as well as on what is the "rule" for this or that class, and what can be called the "exception". For example, we can assume that in Russian for some classes of the form it is inflectional (modifying), and for its other classes it is word-forming (classifying). Or you can make one of these decisions for a whole class of verbal lexemes. Note that all of them are presented in Russian.

Offer categories

Studying the paradigmatic relations existing in syntax, many researchers use the concepts of "communicative-grammatical categories" or "categories of a sentence". They mean semantic differential signs certain sentences (syntactic modality, affirmation / negation, goal setting of the statement). Less often, we can talk about individual values ​​of these features (for example, the category of negation). A number of researchers, in particular, N. Yu. Shvedova, offers a different concept. They talk about phrase-changing categories. There are other concepts as well.

Grammar categories

Grammatical linguistic categories and their types are among the most studied and most important. Them character traits- the modifying type of the attribute taken as the basis, its involvement in syntax, the presence of a regular way in which it is expressed, as well as the "mandatory" choice for (word) forms belonging to a given set, one of its meanings. The grammatical categories are closed systems values ​​that are mutually exclusive. They define a division into non-intersecting classes of a vast set of word forms. For example, such grammatical meanings, as plural or singular, form in their totality the category of number.

Text concept

Before considering the linguistic categories of the text, let's define key concept. The text is an object of multidimensional study in linguistics, however, in the specialized literature there are still this concept interpreted differently. There is also no generally accepted definition. Therefore, consider the one that is the most common.

Text in general view characterized as a product of the specific activity of people (speech-thinking). The latter can arise both in the process of indirect and direct communication, and in the process of human cognition of the surrounding reality.

Text as a linguistic category

Its units form components ( structural elements), being expanded into a separate sentence or a group of them. A sentence (texteme, phrase, statement) is the main element of the text. It is recognized and perceived as related to other sentences. That is, it is a component of the text, part of the whole. The sentence is its smallest communicative unit.

SSC (SFE)

At the same time, proposals are sometimes combined into groups that have received from various researchers different names. V. A. Bukhbinder, for example, calls them phrasal ensembles and phrasal units. N. S. Pospelov, A. P. Peshkovsky, S. G. Ilyenko, L. M. Loseva consider them complex syntactic integers (CTS). (SFU) call them T. M. Nikolaeva, O. I. Moskalskaya, I. R. Galperin. To designate a group of sentences related in meaning, SFU and STS are most often used. These are very complex structural units, which consist of at least two independent sentences that have semantic integrity in the context of coherent speech, and also act as part of a complete communication.

Free and strong offers

Note that in the structure of the text, not all sentences are combined into groups. Free ones are also distinguished, which are not included in them, but are connected by semantic relations with a particular group. They contain comments, author's digressions. Such proposals act as a link between the SCS, are the means by which a new micro-theme is designated.

Some researchers, in addition, highlight strong sentences in the text. They can be understood without knowing the content of others. Such proposals are not included in the SSC.

Communication blocks and larger associations

What other language categories of the text can be distinguished? Groups of sentences are combined into blocks of even larger parts. They are called in various studies either fragments or predicative-relative complexes. Another common name is communication blocks.

Associations are even larger. They are associated with the following segments of the text: chapter, part, paragraph, paragraph.

So, sentences and their groups are the main communicative elements of the text. All the rest perform, as a rule, a text-forming function. They are usually means of interfacial communication. Let's define this concept.

Interfacial communication

It is a connection between STS, sentences, chapters, paragraphs and other parts of the text, which organizes its structural and semantic unity. At the same time, the semantic connection between individual sentences is provided with the help of lexical and grammatical means. It's about most often about parallel or chain link. The latter is implemented by repeating a member of the previous sentence in one form or another, deploying in the subsequent part of its structure. Proposals with parallel communication are not linked, but compared. In this construction, it allows for opposition or comparison, depending on the corresponding lexical content.

Means of implementing various types of communication

With the help of language tools, each of them is implemented. For example, particles, conjunctions, introductory words, etc. are used to connect parts of the text. parallel communication, for its implementation, parallelism is appropriate in the construction of sentences. It is expressed in the use of verbs that have a common tense plan, anaphoric elements, same order words, etc.

Linguistic categories of creolized texts

They are characterized by the same categories as the so-called classical verbal homogeneous texts. It is necessary to clarify the concept of "creolization". It's a combination various means sign systems in a complex that meets the condition of texturality. Figurative components refer to the means by which the creolization of verbal texts is carried out. They have a significant impact on their interpretation and on all technical aspects related to the design of the text that affect their meaning. The following stand out among them: background, color and font of the text, means of punctuation, spelling, word formation, graphic design (in a column, in the form of a figure), printed (ideograms, pictograms), etc.

The text is thus a definite structure where parts and individual sentences are interconnected. Linguistic and logical categories is a topic that can be covered for a very long time. We tried to highlight the most important, what every philologist needs to know.

There is still no generally accepted definition of the text, and answering this question, different authors point to different sides of this phenomenon: D.N. Likhachev - on the existence of its creator, who implements a certain plan in the text; O. L. Kamenskaya - on the fundamental role of the text as a means verbal communication; A. A. Leontiev - on the functional completeness of this speech work. Some scholars recognize the text only in writing, others find it possible to exist oral texts, but only in monologue speech. Some recognize the existence of the text in dialogical speech, understanding by it the implementation of any speech plan, which can be just a desire to communicate. Thus, according to M. Bakhtin, “a text as a semiotic complex refers to utterances and has the same features as a utterance. It is this point of view of the scientist that is accepted in linguistics and psycholinguistics, and the text is considered as thematically coherent, unified in semantic relation and a speech work that is holistic in relation to the idea. [Bakhtin M.M. 1996, p. 310]

I. R. Galperin argues that “A text is a work of a speech-creative process that has completeness, a work objectified in the form of a written document, consisting of a name (heading) and a number of special units (superphrasal units) combined different types lexical, grammatical, logical, stylistic connection, having a certain purposefulness and pragmatic attitude. "[Galperin, I.R. 1981]

Thus, I. R. Galperin understands the text as not fixed on paper oral speech, always spontaneous, disorganized, inconsistent, but special kind speech creation, which has its own parameters, different from the parameters of oral speech.

The appearance of the term "Text category" is due to the desire of modern linguistics and stylistics to identify the structure of the text, which cannot be done relying only on elementary units analysis - words and speech techniques. Each text category embodies a separate semantic line of the text, expressed by a group of linguistic means, organized in a special way into a relative intra-text integrity. Text categories (meaningful, structural, structural, functional, communicative), being essentially different, do not add up to each other, but are superimposed on each other, giving rise to a kind of single formation, qualitatively different from the sum of the components. Cohesion and integrity as text properties can be considered autonomously only for the convenience of analysis, somewhat abstractly, since both of these qualities exist in unity within the framework of a real text and presuppose each other: a single content, the meaning of the text is expressed precisely language means(explicit or implicit).

The basis of the universal categories of the text is integrity (plan of content) and coherence (plan of expression), which enter into relations of complementarity, diarchy with each other.

The largest researcher of the linguistic organization of the text, I. R. Galperin, argued that “one cannot speak about any object of study, in this case about the text, without naming its categories” [Galperin, 1981, p. 4].

According to the classification of I.R. Galperin, the text has such categories as:

1. Integrity (or wholeness) of the text

2. Connectivity

3. Completeness

4. Absolute anthropocentricity

5. Sociological

6. Dialogical

7. Deployment and sequence (illogic)

8. Static and dynamic

10. Aesthetic text

11. Imagery

12. Interpretability

In terms of the topic under consideration, the most important category to consider is dialogue.

Dialogic artistic text like a party literary work studied in a series of monographic works by M.M. Bakhtin. And it is connected, in his opinion, with another quality of a literary text - with the infinity, openness, multi-layeredness of its content, which does not allow an unambiguous interpretation of the text, as a result of which highly artistic literary works do not lose their relevance for many decades and centuries. In addition, the dialogical nature of the text, according to M.M. Bakhtin, is also manifested in the fact that any text is a response to other texts, since any understanding of a text is its correlation with other texts.

As you know, M.M. Bakhtin distinguished linguistics as the science of language and metalinguistics as the science of dialogical speech. In this regard, he noted that "linguistics studies the "language" itself with its specific logic in its generality, as a factor that makes dialogic communication possible, while linguistics consistently abstracts itself from the dialogical relations themselves" [Bakhtin, 1979: p.212]. This statement of Bakhtin should be perceived, first of all, as an expanded interpretation of the traditional term "dialogue", in connection with which, quite reasonably, a new broad understanding dialogue that has fundamental properties universality [Zotov, 2000: p.56]. The basis of this understanding is the recognition of the fact that a statement, if considered not in isolation, but in relation to other statements, turns out to be an exceptionally complex phenomenon. “Each individual utterance is a link in the chain speech communication, on the one hand, absorbing the previous links of this chain, and on the other, being a reaction to them. At the same time, the utterance is connected not only with the previous, but also with the subsequent links of verbal communication. As for the second case, the connection of statements is manifested here in the fact that any statement is constructed taking into account possible responses” [Bakhtin, 1979: p. 248]. On the basis of this proposition, Bakhtin argues that dialogic relations of this kind cannot be reduced to either purely logical or purely linguistic ones, they presuppose language, but they do not exist in the system of language [Ibid: p. 296].

MM. Bakhtin noted that the specificity of dialogical relations in their extended interpretation needs a special philological study, since dialogic relations are a phenomenon much more capacious than the relations between the replicas of a compositionally expressed dialogue [Bakhtin, 1979: 296]. At the same time, one cannot but admit that traditional dialogue and dialogue in Bakhtin's understanding have the same basis and represent certain kind speech activity, the description of the nature of which can be used as the basis for further linguistic research, ultimately focused on the typology of the dialogue. One of latest developments undertaken in line with the Bakhtinian dialogue, formulates the problem in the form of a theory of dialogue and introduces special term"dialogistics", thus giving even more weight and significance to the ideas of dialogic communication. Its authors trace the origins of this problem in the works of Bakhtin's older contemporaries, such as, for example, A.A. Meie, M.M. Prishvin, A.A. Ukhtomsky, some of whom used their own terminology, in fact, identifying dialogue with conversation.

As is known, based on the ideas of M.M. Bakhtin in modern linguistics a direction arose, defined as intertextuality and aimed at identifying relationships between statements within the boundaries of a certain macrotext, understood in this case as a textual space not limited by any spatio-temporal framework. Such an interaction of statements, following Bakhtin, is usually called dialogic [Zotov Yu.P., 2000: 5].

The essence of the dialogic interaction of statements within the boundaries of literary communication can be considered from various points point of view, and first of all from the point of view of the purpose of this or that statement to one or another specific or non-specific person. The "predestination" of the text to a specific addressee, which the author has in mind when writing this or that literary work, seems to be the very factor that ultimately determines the laws of text construction. The way the author imagines the future recipient turns out to be the decisive moment in the end, setting a peculiar tone for the entire text structure. Despite the importance of this text element, it has not yet been singled out as such and has not been traced in various parts of the macro text, under which in this case study refers to the English-language poetic text of certain chronological periods in its entirety of existing works without special emphasis on idiolect features. Meanwhile, it is already a priori quite obvious that individual genre text samples, such as epitaphs, dedications, or, for example, poems for children, have such a high degree of textual purpose (or even addressing) that it completely determines the laws of their construction. [Solovyeva E.A. 2006, p.17]

Thus, the problem of text dialogics (or in the newest formulation, dialogistics), as far as the scope of research within the competence of text linguistics, is to consider special dialogic relations that determine the position of the author in text construction and depend on the destination of the literary text he creates to that or to another addressee. Of no small importance is the establishment of the nature of such dialogic relations within the boundaries of a single macrotext, which is recognized as an indispensable condition for its genre and style originality.