Definition of Particle and Its Functional Varieties (with Reliance on Modern Ukrainian Discourse)

Abstract.

DEFINITION OF PARTICLE AND ITS FUNCTIONAL VARIETIES (WITH RELIANCE ON MODERN UKRAINIAN DISCOURSE)

Natalia Kushch

Department of Ukrainian Studies, Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract

Background: The article covers widely used, significant stratum of Ukrainian grammatical structure – particles. Many scientific studies are devoted to this part of the speech (analytical syntactic morpheme by another classification), however, considerable number of unsolved issues still remains. Scientific research is being carried till now, that is supported by works of A. Zahnitko, I. Vykhovanets, F. Batsevych, L. Bondarenko, G. Mukan and others, who tries to define particles, distinguish their semantic and structural types, functional abilities, lexicographic description, etc.

Purpose: the purpose of the article is to study the functional types of particles considering definitions of particle itself and its expression in the modern discourse.

Results: particle is an analytical syntax morpheme with a weak lexical meaning and a strongly expressed functional and communicative, emotional and expressive coloring, which is actively involved in the formation of discourse. According to the functions performed, it is advisable to distinguish formative and modal types of particles. Formative particles are involved in the creation of grammatical forms of verbs – conditional and imperative moods, while influencing the modality of the entire sentence. Among modal particles there should be outlined the following by semantic shades: affirmative, negatives, interrogative, restrictively-outlining, demonstrative, self-modal quantitative.

Discussion: Both formative and modal particles actively participate in the formation of contemporary discourse. Altogether, the above presented considerations prove grammatical status of particle, as particles influence the modality of expression, have a discourse nature by the performing functions. The use of particles testifies the dynamics of interaction of language and speech.

Key words: particle, functional types of particles, discourse, form-building particles, modal particles.

Vitae

Natalia Kushch is a PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Deputy Head of the Department of Ukrainian Studies at the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. Her areas of scientific interests comprise vocabulary, word formation, Ukrainian grammar.

Correspondence: 34567sergio@gmail.com

Article.

Natalia Kushch

УДК 81’367. 635

DEFINITION OF PARTICLE AND ITS FUNCTIONAL VARIETIES

(WITH RELIANCE ON MODERN UKRAINIAN DISCOURSE)

У статті запропоновано сучасне розуміння часток відповідно до виконуваних ними функцій. Йдеться про дефініцію частки в сучасному українському дискурсі, різновиди часток за роллю у слові і реченні.

Ключові слова: частка, функційні різновиди часток, дискурс, формотворчі частки, модальні частки.

The role of the Ukrainian language in the formation of a contemporary European nation, without exaggeration, is extremely big and powerful. It is impossible to build a patriotically conscious and united nation without the nation itself, without language, which is the connecting link between the past and the future and because human's attitude to language defines its social value. So now, more than ever, there are all possibilities and historical grounds that encourage studying the underlying processes of the Ukrainian language at all levels. We will try to cover particle, a small in size, but widely used and reasonably significant stratum of Ukrainian grammatical structure.

Many scientific studies have been devoted to this part of the speech (be it an analytical syntactic morpheme by another classification), however many unresolved issues still remain.

The scientific retrievals are still going on, which is particularly evidenced by the works of such prominent scientists as A. Zahnitko, I. Vykhovanets, F. Batsevych, L. Bondarenko, G. Mukan et al., who have tried to suggest definition of particles, classify their semantic types, structural types, functional capabilities, lexicographical description.

The aim of this paper is studying functional types of particles considering the definition of particle and its manifestation in the contemporary discourse. In accordance with the purpose, the following tasks were put forward: 1) to form the modern understanding of particle; 2) to group particles by their meaning and the functions they perform; 3) to identify communication basis of particles.

In the modern Ukrainian language particle is primarily defined as an auxiliary part of speech, that provides additional shades to a word or a sentence, and serves as a means of form-building and derivation. This understanding of the particles was outlined by M. Plyushch, A. Hryshchenko, O. Ponomariv in their works. The most complete academic interpretation of particles, in our opinion, belongs to A. Hryshchenko, as he lays the foundations to modern understanding of particles as a class of constant functional words, which participate in designing communicative, modal, emotional and evaluative status of statements and their parts (Hryshchenko 424), that brings us to the interpretation of the particles, first of all, by their functional capabilities, particles as discourse words that, in fact, form the structure of discourse, and its semantic load (Batsevych 8).

A bit different point of view is shared by I. Vykhovanets, K. Horodenska who describe particles both as analytical syntactic morphemes, and synthetic morphemes, which have no lexical meaning (Vykhovanets 16), but by their performed functions are purely syntactic elements.

We understand particles as analytical syntactic morphemes with impaired lexical meaning and a clearly defined functional-communicative, emotional-expressive coloring, which are actively involved in the formation of discourse. At the same time, we treat discourse as a process associated with the actual speech building.

Along with A. Zahnitko, the following features of particle should be outlined: 1) discourse-system-building function; 2) situational discourse display (it goes about their own paradigmatic spheres): a) morphological; b) morpho-syntactic – compatibility features (for example, particles хай / нехай for creating the imperative mood of verbs); c) semantic – functional-semantic (establishment of functional-semantic contents of particles) d) derivational – includes particles in the area of all the various derivatives. This also includes text paradigm that contains all the system-usual, occasional-author and other word-forms contents (Zahnitko, p.162).

Outlined features include comprehensive study of particle structure, semantics and performed functions. Thus, traditionally in the modern Ukrainian language there are distinguished the following functional types of particles: 1) formative; 2) derivative; 3) phrasal (negative and modal) (Plyushch, 306).

In fact, the first two types of particles are united: namely, formative particles are used for creating forms of the verb: б (би) – subjunctive mood; хай (нехай) – imperative mood. Derivational particles serve for building words and are eventually converted into suffixes or prefixes, for example, не, ні, аби, де, чи, що, будь, небудь, казна et al. (Plyushch, p. 307).

At the same time, A. Hryshchenko distinguishes the following types of functional particles: 1) formative, 2) negative, 3) affirmative, 4) interrogative, 5) modal, 6) demonstrating. The author believes that “particles don’t include verbal postfix -ся (-сь) and derivational affixes де-, небудь-, будь- etc. These and other similar morphemes perform expressive word-formative function and, therefore, have the status of affixed units” (Hryshchenko, 425). Therefore, considering multi-aspect interpretation of particles, we can speak about their expression on the word-formation level (creation of new words or semantic shadings), morphology (making grammatical forms of words) and syntax, where the particles tend to value relatedness of the action, state or whole message to reality, or attitude of the speaker to the content of expression.

We share the scientific position of A. Hryshchenko, since such interpretation does not question the status of the particle не, which as a part of the verb-predicate affects the modality of the sentence as a whole, even if they are written together, changing in such a way the sentence with affirmative semantics into the general negative, cf., Старий недочував; Старий чув не так добре, як раніше; Старий погано чув.

By content, sentences are identical: they express the incompleteness of action by various means. However, by modality, relation of the expressed in the sentence to the reality, the first sentence is obviously generally negative (supplement in the accusative or genitive case) may be, for example, Старий недочував мої слова), the second sentence – partially negative, the third sentence – affirmative.

So the question now is not only the formal indicators – written together or separately (whether the particle не by itself or as part of prefix недо- ), it goes primarily about the special status of negative particles and review of functional capabilities of word-building particles in general. Compare, M. Plyushch does not relate particles не, ні to word-building,and put it in one line with obvious affixes like аби, де, казна, хтозна, etc.

Formative particles that traditionally include particles б (би) and хай (нехай) involved in making conditional forms and integral imperative verbs, at the same time affect the modality of the entire speech. So, the basic syntactic means of modal meaning of encouraging are forms of the imperative verb (3rd person verbs of indicative mood with particles of encouraging хай / нехай): Нехай здійсняться мрії і прийде знову мир.

Of course, the meaning of encouraging is conveyed not only by particles хай / нехай, however they express encouraging most clearly. Modal meaning of willing is expressed by the formal means of willing – the subjunctive verb – infinitive + particle б (би). Particle б can be located after the verb (generally, separate study is needed to determine not only the status of particles, but also their position in the sentence, the use of composite particles within the expression), before it, or separated from the verb by a few words, can be combined with some subordinate conjunctions – аби, щоб, якби, ніби, мовбито (Plyushch, 307), in this case we have to speak again about word-building status of particles which primarily perform formative and modal functions at the same time, for example, Хотілося б зробити краще; Може, пішли б додому; Могло бути по-іншому, якби не війна.

The detailed functional division of particles suggested by A. Hryshchenko can be somewhat simplified by uniting negative, affirmative, interrogative, modal and demonstrating particles by a joint name “modal”, followed by a classification into subtypes, as by the performed, first of all, syntax functions; these particles influence the modality of expression in general and are actively involved in the formation of discourse.

So, among modal particles there should be distinguished: 1) the affirmative (так, авжеж, еге, аякже et al.): Авжеж, слід викреслити останній пункт; 2) the negative (не, ні, ані): Отже, навіть не варто про це говорити (І. Karрa); 3) the interrogative (чи, хіба, невже with variants – чи ж, чи не, хіба ж, та хіба, невже ж, та невже): Хіба тобі важко, наприклад, ніколи не їздити зі Львова у Бердичів? (Yu. Pokalchuk); 4) demonstrating (це, оце, ось, от, онде, ген, and other.): Ось і зараз він звернувся до когось, хто стояв у черзі, – чи бува не знає, де краще зняти квартиру… (Yu. Pokalchuk); 5) restrictively-eliminative (тільки, лише, якраз, саме, etc.): –…Перекриють геть нашим фермерам кисень, будемо тільки генномодифіковане г… їсти (І. Kаrpа); 6) self-modal comprisingthe most important functional type among all the modal particles: Ні тобі кордонів, ні назв населених пунктів чи бодай якихось географічних точок (І. Kаrpа).

They are characterized by modal words functions, as self-modal particles also express meaning of subjective attitude to the reported, provide words or a statement with generally different emotional evaluation: confidence, uncertainty, possibility, probability, doubt, etc., indicate the speaker’s immediate reaction caused by the respective situational communicative conditions.

Particularly A. Hryshchenko suggests distinguishing the following shades of meaning of the self-modal particles: a) assumption, doubt, uncertainty of veracity of the reported: мов, немов, нібито, неначебто, мовляв, ледве не, неначе, ніби et al., for instance, Від їхнього смороду Редька ледве не вклякла (І. Kаrpа); b) reinforcing, categoricalexpression, a special highlight of the whole message or parts of it (so-called reinforcing particles): і (й), та, так, аж, таки, уже саме, десь, якось, собі, тобі, воно etc., for instance, Старий високий горіх за вікном барабанив у шибку важкими зелепугами, і – бігмебоже – його було значно корисніше слухати, ніж саун-трек із залишеного бабцею ток-шоу в телевізорі (І. Kаrpа); c) will expression, a call to action: давай, годі, ну, ж (же) etc., for instance, Ну чого ти сумуєш! Все ще попереду! (Yu. Pokalchuk); d) retelling, establishing communication with its source, withother events and facts (мов, мовляв): Оксана зайшла знову, мовляв, справа якась є (Hryshchenko 426).

It is worth outlining separately particles (both simple and compound by the structure) acting as independent expressions, so called sentence equivalents, that include functionally different particles, for example, – Та дідчу маму! Чи ви, бабо, здуріли? – Редька зціпила кулачки і стала в грізну стійку бойового пацюка. – От я вам зара дам (І. Kаrpа); –Неправда! Я тобі набридаю… – Аж так? Ти пересаджуєш… (Yu. Pokalchuk); –…Ти навчився літати? – Та де! Мені от приснилось одного разу в метро, що я полетів, і я тепер знаю, як це літати… (Yu. Pokalchuk); – Можливо, і сьогодні прийдеш? – Ні! Точно ні!

Also, there are distinguished quantitative particles that indicate the approximate quantity, discrepancy insomething (майже, ледве не, трохи не, etc.). In contrast to the congruent restrictively-outlining particles, these particles coexist after the verb-predicate, not before it, cf. Вистава тривала ледве не три години (quantitative particle); А привіт вона мені хоч передала? (І. Kаrpа) (restrictively-outlining particle).

However, the position of particles in the sentence requires a separate study, especially compound particles (multi-compound, analytical unity (according to A. Hryshchenko)) that can express one meaning and thus occupy a remote position, but not all of them and not always, for example, А що стара додавала про якісь там сім і вісім, Редька і не намагалася второпати… (І. Kаrpа); Поки Редька міркувала, почула вона ці слова насправді чи то було лише тільки бурчання в животі від голоду, геть з іншого кінця прокаркало: – А краще, тікай, тікай, небого! Там вже видно буде… (І. Kаrpа). In the first sentence rearrangement of components of the complex particles is possible, while in the second one it is not possible.

So, the mentioned considerations regarding the status of particles in the system of parts of speech, their definition as a unit of discourse, functional abilities, can suggest the following conclusions.

Firstly, the particle is an analytical syntactic morpheme with weak lexical meaning and a strong functional and communicative, emotional and expressive coloring that is actively involved in the formation of discourse. The discourse should be understood as a process associated with the creation of real speech.

Secondly, according to the performed functions it is advisable to distinguish two types of particles – formative and modal. Formative ones are primarily involved in the creation of grammatical forms of verbs – conditional and imperative, while influencing the modality of the entire sentence. Among modal particles the following should be distinguished by their semantic shadings: affirmative, negative, interrogative, restrictively-eliminative, demonstrating, self-modal and quantitative

Thirdly, both formative and modal particles actively participate in the formation of contemporary discourse.

In our opinion, multi-aspect study of particles is prospective, in particular, referring the definition of classifying and qualifying features of particles in the system of other auxiliary units, semantic, syntactic and discourse-communicative expression of particles, etc.

References.

Batsevych, Floriy. Chastky Ukrayinskoyi Movy yak Dyskursyvni Slova (Particles of the Ukrainian Language asDiscourse Words). Lviv: PАІS, 2014. Print.

Bondarenko, Lyudmyla. Sklad ta Komunikatyvni Funktsiyi Vtorynnykh Chastok (Structure and Communication Functions of Secondary Particles). Diss. Кіrovograd, 2005. Abstract. Print.

Vykhovanets, Ivan. Chastyny Movy v Semantyko-Hramatychnomu Aspekti (Parts of Speech in Semantic and Grammatical Aspect). Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1988. Print.

Zahnitko, Аnatoliy. Teoriya Hramatyky i Textu (Theory of Grammar and Text). Donetsk: Publisher “Knowledge” (Donetsk branch), 2014. Print.

Мukan, Halyna. “Perekhidni Yavyshcha v Systemi Chastyn Movy (Transition Effects in the Parts of Speech System)”. Ukrayinska Filolohiya: Teoretychni ta Metodychni Aspekty (Ukrainian Philology: Theoretical andMethodological Aspects). Cherkasy: Cherkasy National University named after Bohdan Khmelnytsky, 2014. 89-100. Print.

Suchasna Ukrayinska Literaturna Mova (Modern Ukrainian Literary Language). Ed. A. P. Hryshchenko. K.: Vyshcha Shkola, 2002. Print.

Suchasna Ukrayinska Literaturna Mova (Modern Ukrainian Literary Language). Ed. O. D. Ponomariv. K.: Lybid, 2001. Print.

Suchasna Ukrayinska Literaturna Mova (Modern Ukrainian Literary Language). Ed. M. Plyushch. K.: Vyshcha Shkola, 2001. Print.

Надійшла до редакції 19 жовтня 2016 року.