Main subdivision

Given the hierarchy of complexity levels in grammar:

then the semasiological description works in a bottom-up fashion with respect to these levels. This is true both of the main chapters of the semasiological description: The order is:

Particle - adjectival - nominal - adpositional - adverbial - verbal - clause - sentence.

And it is true inside each of these chapters. Here the order is:

stem formation - inflection - complements - modifiers - negation - coordination.

Hierarchical subdivision

There is a regular alternation between grammatical category and grammatical function, in the following sense:

The main subdivision is by syntactic categories like ‘nominal construction’, ‘verbal construction’ etc.

Inside each of these construction types, subtypes are generated by their internal composition. E.g. inside nominal constructions, there are ones with an attribute and ones with determiner. These components are identified on the basis of their syntactic function.

Each of these specific syntactic constructions consists of a head and a dependent. The head is the item that determines the syntactic category at the highest hierarchical level. The dependent may be formed by elements of different syntactic categories. For instance, an attribute may be constituted by an adjective or by an adpositional phrase. These are criteria for further subdivision.

By the last principle, one first has a component that functions as adjunct. At a lower level, adjuncts are subdivided by the category of the item forming them, like adverbials, adpositional phrases, gerunds etc. Down to this point of the subdivision, no semantic criteria are involved. For instance, if there is a section on temporal adverbials, it is below the level of adjuncts constituted by an adverbial and, expectably, at the lowest level of subdivision of the semasiological grammar.

Structure of each section

Each section is devoted to a particular construction. This has a binary structure, consisting of an operand and an operator. The operator contracts syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. Its syntagmatic relations – principally, the relation to its operand – are visualized in the form of a construction schema. Its paradigmatic relations – i.e., the set of items of the same class as the operator – are visualized in the form of a table.

Within each subsection devoted to a syntagma of category C, the description is goal-oriented. This is to say: The question is: Which are the ways of forming a syntagma of C? Conversely, the question is not: What are the possible uses of a syntagma of category C? Instead, these latter are enumerated at the end of the subsection, with references to the sections of the next-higher level devoted to the target construction.

The approach “we have a little word here; let's see what we can do with it” is familiar from school-teaching and hundreds of philological dissertations of past centuries.¹ It is necessary for lexicography; but it does not correspond to any known linguistic reality, in particular not to the point of view of the speaker/hearer or the learner; and it is inappropriate in grammar. A systematic structural description is not item-focused. It first presents the syntagmatic and paradigmatic structure and only then arrives at a given position in the syntagma and in the paradigm, occupied by a particular item.

Basic meaning

The semantic and functional analysis of items and constructions of a language the analyst does not speak well must, of course, proceed with caution. The first task is not to look for a translation equivalent in more familiar languages, but to bring out the peculiarities of the phenomenon in this particular language by a sober semasiological analysis.

Once this is done, however, the reader has a right to know what the closest translation equivalents in more familiar languages are. Semantics relies strongly on the hermeneutic method, and the understanding the reader may achieve after working through a page of detached structural analysis can often be reached much more readily by a single translation equivalent in his native language. American structuralists have typically shunned away from this kind of linguistic explanation. However, as long as it is not used to replace an analysis, but just offered the reader as a crib, there is nothing against it. On the contrary, withholding this kind of understanding from the reader may mislead him, as it violates Grice's maxims of manner #6 and #8. Consequently, if the author keeps silent about what appears to be the most straightforward way of conceiving the matter, the reader may infer that the expression does not have the meaning that he thinks he has understood.

Doctorandus, Iustus 1865, “De functionibus coniunctionis ut in operibus C. Iulii Caesaris”. Institutum Philologicum Collegii Oxfordiensis.