The Classification of Words

§ 4 As we are often obliged to use the terms language and speech, we must have a working definition of these terms, however imperfect and incomplete. We shall assume then that the structure of various units and the classes they form (paradigmatic relations) are the sphere of language, while the combinations the same units form in the process of communication (syntagmatic relations) are the sphere of speech. *
It goes without saying that language and speech are inter­dependent and interpenetrating The combinabihty of every unit depends upon its properties as an element of the system
¹ See numerous other definitions in Тезисы докладов Межвузов­ской конференции на тему «Язык и речь». М., 1962.
of a language (see §§ 34, 35). On the other hand, the properties of every unit develop in the. process of speech. Combinations of units may become stable and develop into new units, as , in the case of motor-bicycle, has written, at last, etc.
§ 5. The structure, classification and combinability of phonemes is studied by a branch of linguistics called phonology. The structure, classification and combinability of words is the object of morphology.
Syntax deals with the structure, classification and combina­
bility of sentences. **
Note. The structure, classification and com­binability of morphemes have not yet been studied properly. This accounts for the fact that so far there exists no special branch of linguistics dealing with the morpheme ^l, and all the information available is usually included in morphology.
¹ Some authors recognize only two sets of language units: phonemes and morphemes. The branch of linguibtics studying morphemes — mor-phemics — is then understood to cover both morphology and syntax. Morphemic** then is another word for grammar. See, for instance, the following: "Morphemics, which includes everything in language (nar­rowly defined) from the smallest unit of meaning to the construction of the sentence, takes its name from a useful tool, the morpheme. The first stages of morphemics, up to syntax, are called tnorpholcgy". (Readings in Applied English Linguistics, ed. by Harold B. Allen, New York, 1958, p. 75.)