Until the 17 th century the term grammar in English was applied only to the study of Latin, because Latin grammar was the only one studied in school. One of the earliest and most popular Latin grammars written in English by
William Lily was published in the first half of the 16 th century and went through many additions. W. Lily presented standards for similar arrangement of the English grammatical material proceeding from Latin paradigms and using the same terminology as in Latin grammar. Lily’s Latin grammar may be considered the precursor of the earliest English grammars. Attempts to break with Latin grammatical tradition characterise the treatment of the structure of English in B u l l o k a r ' s and Ch. B u t l e r ' s grammars but in many cases they still follow the Latin pattern.
The early prenormative grammars of English reproduced the Latin classification of the word-classes which included eight parts of speech. Substantives and adjectives were grouped together as two kinds of nouns, the participle was considered as a separate part of speech. In the earliest English grammars the parts of speech were divided dichotomically into declinable and indeclinable parts of speech or words with number and words without number (Ben Jonson), or words with number and case and words without number and case (Ch.
Butler).
Ben Johnson ’s and Charles Butler ’s English grammars pointed out two cases of the English noun, while in
Wallace ’s grammar (1653), which was written in Latin, the category of cases is said to be nonexistent, and the ‘s form is defined as a possessive adjective . This view was supported by an early 18 th century grammar, attributed to
John Brightland , who preferred also the two-case system. In J. B r i g h t l a n d ' s grammar the number of parts of speech was reduced to four. These were: names (nouns), qualities (adjectives), affirmations (verbs) and particles.
The age of prescriptive grammar began in the second half of the 18 th century. The most influential grammar at that period was R.
Lowth ’s grammar, which was called Short introduction to English grammar . It was published in
1762, and its aim was to reduce the English language to rules and to set up a standard of correct usage. The grammar settled most disputed points of usage by appealing to reason, to the laws of thought or logic, which were considered to be universal; hence another name of this grammar is Universal grammar .
The relations between the languages of the Indoeuropean family were studies systematically at the beginning of the
19 th century by Franz Bopp , Rasmus Rask , Jacob Grimm and A. Vostokov . These scholars not only made comparative and historical observations of the kindred languages, but defined the fundamental conception of linguistic kinship or relationship. In fact, they created the method.
This was the time when linguistics appeared as a science. The historical and comparative study of the Indoeuropean languages became the principal line of European linguistics for many years to come. This method was further developed in the works of such scholars of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, as Buslaev , Fortunatov and Meillet and others.
The historical comparative method is used to analyze and discover relationship between the different languages and groups of languages to reconstruct prehistoric lingual elements. By means of this method scholars collected vast material for studying general laws of language development. The actual process of language division is very complex. It is connected with repeated mixings and redivision of tribes and nationalities throughout centuries and millennia. This process is accompanied by appearances and disappearances of some languages, it deals with dialects of a language, which may grow into different languages. There are such features of resemblance between different languages that clearly prove that they have the same origin.

The end of the 19th century brought a grammar of a higher type, a descriptive grammar intended to give scientific explanation to the grammatical phenomena.
This was H. S w e e t ' s New English Grammar, Logical and Historical (1891).
Instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, Sweet's explanatory grammar aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated. Scientific grammar was thus understood to be a combination of both descriptive and explanatory grammar. Sweet describes the three main features characterising the parts of speech: meaning, form and function. The purely synchronic approach towards the description of modern languages. The idea that language is primarily what is said and only secondarily what is written, i. e. the priority of oral speech over written.
Nesfield's grammar . The author chose a system, according to which the sentence has four distinct parts: (1) the
Subject; (2) Adjuncts to the Subject (Attributive Adjuncts, sometimes called the Enlargement of the Subject); (3) the Predicate; and (4) Adjuncts of the Predicate (Adverbial Adjuncts); the object and the complement (i. e. the predicative) with their qualifying words, however, are not treated as distinct parts of the sentence.
The 19 th century method, valuable as it was for the study of languages, gave no exact definition of the object of linguistics as an independent science. Logical, psychological and sociological considerations were involved in linguistic studies, thus obscuring linguistics proper. As Lewis Hjelmslev rightly points out, the linguistics of the part has concerned itself with a physical, physiological, psychological, sociological and historical aspects of language not in the language itself. The study of numerous languages of the world was neglected, the research being limited to the group of Indo-European language (the drawback of comparative method). It was mainly the historical changes of phonological and morphological units that were studied (another drawback).
All this led to atomistic approach to language. The new method was seeking to grasp linguistic events in their mutual interconnection and interdependence, to understand and describe language as a system.
The first scholars, who were Baudouin de Courtenay , academician Fortunatov (1849-1914), the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). The work that came to be the most widely-know is Saussure’s A course in general linguistics , which was posthumously compiled and published from his lectures between 1906 and 1911.
Saussure’s main ideas:
1.
Language is a system of signals or linguistic signs interconnected and interdeveloped. Linguistic is an object, an independent science.
2.
Language as a system may be compared to other systems of signals such as road signs, language of deaf and dumb. Language is an object of a more general science – semiology, which studies different systems of signals used in human society.
3.
Language has 2 aspects: the system of language and its manifestation in social intercourse, that is speech
(langue and parole).
4.
Linguistic sign is bilateral, it has both form and meaning .
5.
The language sign is “absolutely arbitrary” (if we take a word absolutely disregarding its connections with other linguistic units, we shall find nothing obligatory in the relation of its phonological form to the object it denotes), and “relatively motivated” (the linguistic sign taken in the system of language reveals connections with other linguistic signs both in form and meaning.
6.
Language is to be studied as a system in a synchronic plane (at a given moment of its existence), in the plane of simultaneous coexistence of elements. Linear and vertical relations.
7.
The system of language is to be studied on the basis of the oppositions of the concrete units. The linguistic units can be found by means of segmenting the flow of speech and comparing the isolated segments.
main linguistic schools:
1.
The Prague School was founded in 1929 uniting Check and Russian linguists (Matiescous, Trnka,
Trubetskoy, Jacobson, etc)

The main contribution to modern linguistics is the technique for determining the limits of phonological structure. The basic method is that of oppositions of speech sounds that change the meaning of the words in which they occur. Binary oppositions. This principle is especially suitable for describing morphological category.
Professor Hlebnikova: “Binary relations penetrate any plane of language: phonological, morphological, syntactical, but are especially evident on a morphological level.
Jacobson used this method for describing morphological categories of Russian language.
2.
The Copenhagen School was founded in 1933 by Lewis Hjelmsliev. In the early 30’s the conception of this school was given the name of Glossematics (Greek “glos” - language) In 1943 Hjelmsliev published
“Principles of linguistics”.
Glossematics sought to give a more exact definition of the subject of linguistics, that 2 sides of the linguistic sign recognized by Saussure are considered to have both form and substance: recognition of bilateral character of the plane of content and the plane of expression.
3.
The Descriptive Linguistics (USA) from the necessity of studing half-known and unknown languages of the Indian tribes. At the beginning of the 20 th century these languages were rapidly dying out. They had no writing and no history. As a result the historical-comparative method was of little use here, they belong to a type that has little in common with the indo-European languages. They are devoid of morphological forms of separate word and of corresponding grammar meanings. The DL had to give up analyzing sentences in terms of traditional parts of speech. It was more convenient to describe linguistic forms according to their position in sentences.
The DL began with the work of Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield. Sapir’s main work is “Language and
Introductory to the study of speech” (1921).
L. Bloomfield’s book is of the same title. It is a complete methodology of language study approaching the language as if it were unknown to the linguist. These ideas were later developed by S. Herros and Charles Fries.
Bloomfield showed a new approach to classes of words later developed by Ch. Fries.
According to O. Jespersen descriptive grammar instead of serving as a guide to what should be said or written, aims at finding out what is actually said and written by the speakers of the language investigated, and thus may lead to a scientific understanding of the rules followed instinctively by speakers and writers. Such a grammar should also be explanatory, giving the reasons why the usage is such and such. These reasons may, according to circumstances, be phonetic or psychological, or in some cases both combined. One of the most important contributions to linguistic study in the first half of the 20th century was O. Jespersen's The
Philosophy of Grammar first published in 1924 where he presented his theory of three ranks ( primaries, adjuncts, subjuncts ) intended to provide a basis for understanding the hierarchy of syntactic relations hidden behind linear representation of elements in language structures. O. Jespersen's morphological system differs essentially from the traditional concepts. He recognises only the following word-classes grammatically distinct enough to recognise them as separate "parts of speech", viz.:
(1) Substantive (including proper names).
(2) Adjectives.
In some respects (1) and (2) may be classed together as "Nouns".
(3) Pronouns (including numerals and pronominal adverbs).
(4) Verbs (with doubts as to the inclusion of "Verbids").
Particles (comprising what are generally called adverbs, prepo sitions, conjunctions — coordinating and subordinating and interjections).
The peculiar views on accidence, e. g. the four -case system in G. Curme's grammar, are reflected in syntax. Curme discusses accusative objects, dative objects, etc.
Most grammarians retain the threefold classification of sentences into simple, compound and complex, as given in the prescriptive grammars of the mid-19th century. H. Poutsma introduces the term "composite sentence" as common for compound and complex sentences.

E. Kruisinga's Handbook of Present-day English (1932) presents a new viewpoint on some parts of
English structure suggesting interesting approaches to various disputable points in the treatment of phrase-structure, setting up two major types of syntactic structures: close and loose syntactic groups.
Structural grammarians have abandoned many of the commonly held views of grammar. Structural grammatical studies deal primarily with the "gram mar of structure", and offer an approach to the problems of
"sentence analysis" that differs in point of view and in emphasis from the usual treatment of syntax.
According to Ch. Fries , the new approach — the application of two of the methods of structural linguistics, distributional analysis and substitution makes it possible to dispense with the usual eight parts of speech.
He classifies words into four "form-classes", designated by numbers, and fifteen groups of "function words", designated by letters. The four major parts of speech (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb) set up by the process of substitution in Ch. Fries recorded material are thus given no names except numbers: class 1, class 2, class 3, class
4. Then come fifteen groups of so-called function-words which have certain characteristics in common.
Some scholars consider the term “part of speech” not a very happy one. Part of speech is a type of word, different from other types in some grammatical point or points. All the three criteria (form, meaning, function), are too vague to define them.
Henry Sweet in his book A NEW ENGLISH GRAMMAR wrote that, as regards their function in the sentence, words fall under certain classes, called parts of speech, all the members of each of these classes having certain formal characteristics in common, which distinguish them from the members of other classes. Each of these classes has a name of its own: noun, adjective, verb, etc. If we compare nouns such as snow , tree , man with adjectives, such as green , big , wide and verbs, such as melt , grow , speak , we shall find, that all nouns agree in having plural inflexions, generally formed by adding -s, that adjectives in English have no plural inflexions, but have degrees of comparison, which nouns and verbs have not, etc. So they are also united by means of form.
If we examine the meanings of the words belonging to the different parts of speech, we shall find, that such words as tree , snow , man , are all substance words, while adjectives and verbs are both attributes, the adjectives expressing permanent attributes, and the verbs changing attributes and phenomena.
We can easily see, that there’s a natural connection between the functions and meanings of these parts of speech.
Hentry Sweet also considered that parts of speech are divided into two main groups: declinable (capable of inflexion) and indeclinable (incapable of inflexion).
Declinable, according to him, are nouns, adjectives and verbs. He considers pronouns as a special class of nouns and adjectives, and therefore they are also distinguished as noun-pronouns (they, she, I) and adjective-pronouns
(my, her, that). Numerals are another special class of nouns and adjectives, also divided into noun-numerals ( three of us ) and adjective-numerals ( three people ). Verbals are a class of words, intermediate between verbs on the one hand and nouns and adjectives on the other.
Indeclinable words comprise adverbs, prepositions, particles and interjections. The main function of adverbs, according to Sweet, is to serve as an adjunct word to verbs. Prepositions, such as of , are joined to nouns to make them into adjunct words (e.g. man of honor ). Conjunctions, such as if , are usually used to show the connection between sentences. Interjections, such as ah , oh , alas , are sentence words, expressing various emotions.

Otto Jesperson expressed his point of view on the problem of parts of speech, writing that it is customary to begin teaching grammar by dividing words into certain classes and by giving definitions to these classes. Some scholars, he writes, feeling the failure of such definitions, have been trying to solve the difficulty by the methods of examining the meaning of words, belonging to various classes, and coming to the conclusion that the only criterion should be the form of words. If form in the strictest sense were taken as the only test, we should arrive at the absurd result that must in English, being indeclinable, belonged to the same class as enough , for , then , the . Our only criterion justification for classing the verb must is that we recognize its usage in combinations like “I must go”, which is parralel to “I shall go” (in modern English it would be “will” of course), in other words, we take into consideration its meaning and function in the sentence.
He distinguishes the following parts of speech:
1.
substances (including proper names),
2.
adjectives (then he adds that these classes can perhaps be put under the definitions of nouns),
3.
pronouns,
4.
verbids (he doubts whether to include verbals or not, he calls them verbids),
5.
particles (constituted of all those classes which haven’t been included in the first four).
THE THREE-RANK THEORY
In any composite denomination of a thing or person we always find that there is one word of supreme importance to which the others are joined as subordinates. This chief word is defined (qualified, modified) by another word, which in its turn may be defined (qualified, modified) by a third word, etc. Distinction is thus made between different "ranks" of words according to their mutual relations as defined or defining. In the combination extremely hot weather the last word weather, which is evidently the chief idea, may be called primary; hot, which defines weather, secondary, and extremely, which defines hot, tertiary. Though a tertiary word may be further defined by a
(quarternary) word, and this again by a (quinary) word, and so forth, it is needless to distinguish more than three ranks, as there are no formal or other traits that distinguish words of these lower orders from tertiary words.
As regards terminology, the words primary , secondary, and tertiary are applicable to nexus as well as to junction, but it will be useful to have special names adjunct for a secondary word in a junction, and adnex for a secondary word in a nexus. For tertiary we may use the term subjunct, and quarternary words, in the rare cases in which a special ' name is needed, may be termed sub-subjuncts.
Charles Fries wrote famous book STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH. He belonged to American structural school. For him the form and the function are the main criteria. He criticized the contemporary theories and claimed that unfortunately one could not use the traditional definitions of the parts of speech as the starting point. A noun is a name of person, place or thing, but blue is a name of colour, yet in the expression “a blue flower”, “a yellow rose” we don’t regard blue or yellow as nouns. We can call red a noun in the sentence “This red is the shade I want”. On the other hand, run is the name of an action, up is the name of a direction, but, despite the fact that these words are all names and thus fit the definition of a noun, they are not called nouns in such expression as “We ran home” or
“They were looking up into the sky” or any other similar. Thus the definition “a noun is a name” does not furnish all the necessary criteria. Our problem, according to Fries, is to discover the criteria there are in the language to identify the various form classes.
E.g. we need to define the sentences:
1) Woggls ugged diggles.

2) Uggs woggled diggs.
3) Woggs diggled uggs.
We assume that these utterances are using the structural signals of English and we immediately understand a great deal of these sequences. We understand that * woggles , *uggs and *diggs are “thing-words” by the position they occupy in utterances and the forms they have, in contrast with other positions and forms. Then we know that
*ugged , *woggled and *diggled are “action-words” by the form they have and the positions.
Fries concluded that a part of speech in English is a functioning pattern. All the instances of one part of speech are the same only in the sense that in the structural patterns of English each of them has the same functional significance. All the words that can occupy the same position in the patterns of English belong to the same part of speech.
Then Fries took minimum free utterances as test frames and put all the words of the real language into these frames. There are three frames:
A.
The concert[1] was[2] good[3] (always[4]).
B.
The clerk[1] remembered[2] the tax[3] (suddenly[4]).
C.
The team[1] went[2] there[3].
He didn’t call these words subjects, objects, etc., just classes (class 1, class 2, etc.). These ideas of transformational grammar were extremely popular in the west in the 50s-60s of the 20 th century. Later they were especially fruitful for the development of mathematical linguistics.
THE SYSTEM OF PARTS OF SPEECH
1.
Noun, or substantive.
Meaning: thingness. Form. Nouns have the category of number (singular and plural), though some individual nouns may lack either a singular or a plural form. They also, in the accepted view, have the category of case (common and genitive). Function. (a) Combining with words to form phrases. A noun combines with a preceding adjective (large room), or occasionally with a following adjective (times immemorial), with a preceding noun in either the common case (iron bar) or the genitive case (father's room), with a verb following it (children play) or preceding it (play games). Occasionally a noun may combine with a following or a preceding adverb (the man there; the then president). It also combines with prepositions (in a house; house of rest). It is typical of a noun to be preceded by the definite or indefinite article (the room, a room). (b) Function in the sentence. A noun may be the subject or the predicative of a sentence, or an object, an attri bute, and an adverbial modifier. It can also make part of each of these when preceded by a preposition.
2. adjective.
Meaning. The adjective expresses property. Form. Adjectives in Modern English are invariable. Some adjectives form degrees of comparison (long, longer, longest).
Function. (a) Adjectives combine with nouns both preceding and (occasionally) following them (large room, times immemorial). They also combine with a preceding adverb (very large). Adjectives can be followed by the phrase "preposition + noun" (free from danger). Occasionally they combine with a preceding verb (married young). (b) In the sentence, an adjective can be either an at tribute (large room) or a predicative (is large). It can also be an objective predicative (painted the door green).
3. The pronoun.
The meaning is difficult to define: pronouns point to the things and properties without naming them. Form.
Some have the category of number (singular and plural), e. g. this, while others have no such category, e. g. somebody. Again, some pronouns have the category of case (he — him, somebody — somebody's), while others have none (something).
Function. (a) Some pronouns combine with verbs (he speaks, find him), while others can also combine with a following noun (this room). (b) In the sentence, some pronouns may be the subject (he, what) or the object, while others are the attribute (my). Pronouns can be predicatives.
4. Numerals . The treatment of numerals presents some difficulties, too. The so-called cardinal numerals
(one, two) are somewhat different from the so-called ordinal numerals (first, second).
Meaning. Numerals denote either number or place in a series. Form. Numerals are invariable. Function. (a)
As far as phrases go, both cardinal and ordinal numerals combine with a following noun (three rooms, third room); occasionally a numeral follows a noun (soldiers three, George the Third). (b) In a sentence, a numeral most usually is an attribute (three rooms, the third room), but it can also be subject, predicative, and object: Three of them came in time; "We Are Seven" (the title of a poem by Wordsworth); I found only four.

5. The stative.
Such words as asleep, ablaze, afraid, etc. have been often named adjectives, though they cannot (apart from a few special cases) be attributes in a sentence, and though their meaning does not seem to be that of property. Meaning. The meaning of the words of this type is that of a passing state a person or thing happens to be in. Form. Statives are invariable. Function. (a) Statives most usually follow a link verb (was asleep, fell asleep). Occasionally they can follow a noun (man olive). They can also sometimes be preceded by an adverb (fast asleep). ( b) In the sentence, a stative is most usually a predicative (he fell asleep). They can also be objective predicatives (I found him asleep) and attributes, almost always following the noun they modify (a man asleep in his chair).
6. The verb.
Meaning. The verb as a part of speech expresses a process. Form: tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number. Function. (a) Verbs are connected with a preceding noun (children play) and with a following noun
(play games). They are also connected with adverbs (write quickly). Occasionally a verb may combine with an adjective (married young). ( b) In a sentence a verb (in its finite forms) is always the predicate or part of it (link verb). The functions of the verbals (infinitive, participle, and gerund) must be dealt with separately.
7. The adverb.
The meaning, some adverbs indicate time or place of an action (yesterday, here), while others indicate its property (quickly) and others again the degree of a property (very). "property of an action or of a property".
Form. Adverbs are invariable. Some of them, however, have degrees of comparison (fast, faster, fastest).
Function. (a) An adverb combines with a verb (run quickly), with an adjective (very long), occasionally with a noun (the then president) and with a phrase (so out of things). (b) An adverb can sometimes follow a preposition (from there). (c) In a sentence an adverb is almost always an adverbial modifier, or part of it
(from there), but it may occasionally be an attribute.
8. Prepositions.
The meaning of prepositions is obviously that of relations between things and phenomena. Form.
Prepositions are invariable. Function. (a) Prepositions enter into phrases in which they are preceded by a noun, adjective, numeral, stative, verb or adverb, and followed by a noun, adjective, numeral or pronoun.
(b) In a sentence a preposition never is a separate part of it. It goes together with the following word to form an object, adverbial modifier, predicative or attribute, and in extremely rare cases a subject (There were about a hundred people in the hall).
9. Conjunctions .
Meaning. Conjunctions express connections between things and phenomena. Form. Conjunctions are invariable. Function. (a) They connect any two words, phrases or clauses. (b) In a sentence, conjunctions are never a special part of it. They either connect homogeneous parts of a sentence or homogeneous clauses (the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions), or they join a subordinate clause to its head clause (the so -called subordinating conjunctions).
10. Particles.
Meaning. The meaning of particles is very hard to define. We might say, approximately, that they denote subjective shades of meaning introduced by the speaker or writer and serving to emphasise or limit some point in what he says. Form. Particles are invariable. Function. (a) Particles may combine with practically every part of speech, more usually preceding it (only three), but occasionally following it (for advanced students only). ( b) Particles never are a separate part of a sentence. They enter the part of the sentence formed by the word (or phrase) to which they refer. (It might also be argued that particles do not belong to any part of a sentence.)
11. Modal words, such as perhaps, possibly, certainly.
Meaning. Modal words express the speaker's evaluation of the relation between an action and reality. Form.
Modal words are invariable. Function. (a) Modal words usually do not enter any phrases but stand outside them. In a few cases, however, they may enter into a phrase with a noun, adjective, etc. (he will arrive soon, possibly to-night). ( b) The function of modal words in a sentence is a matter of controversy. We will discuss this question at some length in Chapter XXI and meanwhile we will assume that modal words perform the function of a parenthesis. Modal words may also be a sentence in themselves.
12. Interjections.
Meaning. Interjections express feelings (ah, alas). They are not names of feelings but the immediate expression of them. Some interjections represent noises, etc., with a strong emotional colouring (bang!).
Form. Interjections are invariable.
Function. (a) Interjections usually do not enter into phrases. Only in a few cases do they combine with a preposition and noun or pronoun, e.g. alas for him! (b) In a sentence an interjection forms a kind of parenthesis. An interjection may also be a sentence in itself, e. g. Alas! as an answer to a question.