Английского

partment of the Dobrolyubov State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign 
Languages (Gorky) and to Prof. L. L. Nelyubin for the trouble they 
took in reviewing the manuscript. Their valuable advice and criti-
cisms were carefully taken into consideration for the final prepara-
tion of the text. 
M. Blokh 

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6
CHAPTER I
 
GRAMMAR IN THE SYSTEMIC CONCEPTION OF 
LANGUAGE 
§ 1. Language is a means of forming and storing ideas as reflec-
tions of reality and exchanging them in the process of human inter-
course. Language is social by nature; it is inseparably connected 
with the people who are its creators and users; it grows and devel-
ops together with the development of society.* 
Language incorporates the three constituent parts ("sides"), each 
being inherent in it by virtue of its social nature. These parts are the 
phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. 
Only the unity of these three elements forms a language; without 
any one of them there is no human language in the above sense. 
The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it de-
termines the material (phonetical) appearance of its significative 
units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of lan-
guage, that is, words and stable word-groups. The grammatical sys-
tem is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of 
naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of 
thinking process. 
Each of the three constituent parts of language is studied by a par-
ticular linguistic discipline. These disciplines, presenting a series of 
approaches to their particular objects of analysis, give the corre-
sponding "descriptions" of language consisting in ordered exposi-
tions of the constituent parts in question. Thus, the phonological 
description of language is effected by the science of phonology; the 
lexical description of language is effected by the science of lexi-
cology; the 
* See: Общее языкознание. Формы существования, функции, история язы-
ка/Отв. ред. Серебренников Б. А. — М., 1970, с. 9 и cл.

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7
grammatical description of language is effected by the science of 
grammar. 
Any linguistic description may have a practical or theoretical pur-
pose. A practical description is aimed at providing the student with 
a manual of practical mastery of the corresponding part of lan-
guage (within the limits determined by various factors of educa-
tional destination and scientific possibilities). Since the practice of 
lingual intercourse, however, can only be realised by employing 
language as a unity of all its constituent parts, practical linguistic 
manuals more often than not comprise the three types of descrip-
tion presented in a complex. As for theoretical linguistic descrip-
tions, they pursue analytical aims and therefore present the studied