The Analysis of Grammatical Constituents

Abstract

1. The principle of descriptive analysis of constructions on the basis of immediate constituents has been recognized by most descriptive linguists, and most of them have employed immediate constituents in analytical procedures, though in some instances not directly so. Linguists have also recognized that there are certain significant features about such constituent elements of constructions. Bloomfield formally treated some of these features and called them taxemes.' But not all the significant features of constructions were presented by Bloomfield, and not all the interrelationships of these features have been adequately handled. For example, Bloomfield's four taxemes are not of coordinate value in the description and classification of constituent units. There has been a further need of showing the parallelism of treatment for all constituent units, whether on a morphological or on a syntactic level. This matter was introduced by Pike,2 but was not developed systematically. It is true that the analytical description of constructions on the basis of immediate constituents frequently involves an overlapping of so-called morphological and syntactic levels, and that for some languages the morphology-syntax dichotomy may not be useful. Nevertheless, this does not justify rejecting a descriptive analysis which recognizes the sets of immediate constituents and attempts to describe constructions in terms of the significant features found in these units. A description of distributional characteristics following Harris' treatment3 is excellent but not adequate. In arriving at his functional units, Harris recognizes the principle of immediate constituents, at least in part; but the technique of analysis is based upon a principle of substitutability, which is only one of the principles which should be employed in determining sets of immediate constituents.