System

系统

In its most general sense, the term refers to a network of patterned relationships constituting the organization of language. Language as a whole is then characterized as a system (cf. the ‘linguistic system of English’, etc.) - and often as a hierarchically ordered arrangement of systems. In one view, the ‘language system’ is constituted by the phonological, grammatical and semantic systems; the phonological system comprises the segmental and suprasegmental systems; the segmental system comprises the vowel and consonant systems; and so on.

Within this totality, the term ‘system’ may be applied to any finite set of formally or semantically connected units, where the interrelationships are mutually exclusive (i.e. two members of the same system cannot co-occur) and mutually defining (i.e. the meaning of one member is specifiable only with reference to others). Other ‘grammatical systems’ would include determiner / tense / mood / prepositional / negation, etc. The term would not normally be applied to open-class items, such as nouns, adjectives, sentences, etc., unless it meant the set of formal grammatical relationships subsumed under that heading, e.g. the ‘noun system’ would mean the set of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships which define the class of nouns.

In Hallidayan linguistics, the notion of system receives a special status. In scale-and-category grammar, it is one of the four central categories recognized by the theory (the others being unit, structure and class): ‘systems’ are finite sets of paradigmatically related items functioning in classes. In the later development of this approach, systemic grammar, the notion of system is made a central explanatory principle, the whole of language being conceived as a ‘system of systems’. Systemic grammar is concerned to establish a network of systems of relationships, in the above sense, which will account for all the semantically relevant choices in the language as a whole.

The adjective systematic is often used in linguistics in its everyday sense, but in certain contexts (usually in relation to phonetics and phonology) it receives a restricted definition. In generative grammar, it has been used to refer to two levels of representation in the phonological component of the grammar: systematic phonemic and systematic phonetic levels are distinguished, the implication being that the terms of these analyses are being seen as in systemic correspondence with other aspects of the grammar (e.g. the morphological relationships between items).

这个术语最一般的涵义是指语言组织的型式关系网络。因此语言作为一个整体就是一个系统，经常也是一个由分系统组成的层级系统。按一种观点，“语言系统”由音韵系统、语法系统、语义系统组成；音韵系统又由音段系统和超音段系统组成；音段系统又由原因系统和辅音系统组成，等等。

在这个总体框架内，“系统”又可用来指任何一组数目有限的、有形式和语义联系的单位。单位之间既是互相排斥的（即同一系统的两个成员不能共现）又是相互定义的（即一个成员的意义只有参照其他成员才能确定）。其他“语法系统”包括限定词、时、式、介词、否定等系统。“系统”一般不用来指开放类，如名词、形容词、句子等，除非是指这些名目下的一组语法形式关系，例如“名词系统”是指定义名词这个类的一组组合和聚合关系。

在韩礼德式语言学中，系统的概念有其特殊的地位。在阶与范畴语法中，“系统”是这种理论分出的四大中心范畴之一（其他三个是单位、结构、类）：“系统”是以类起作用的一组数目有限定、有聚合关系的语项。这种理论的后期发展即系统语法中，系统的概念成为一条重要的解释性原则，整个语言被视为一个“系统的系统”。系统语法旨在建立一个与上述涵义上的各关系系统的网络，能用来解释整个语言中全部相关的语义选择。

形容词systematic（系统的）在语言学中常按日常涵义使用，但在某些场合（一般与语音学和音系学相关）其定义较狭窄。如在生成语法中，它指语法的音系部分区分的两个表征层面，即系统音位层和系统语音层，其含义是这两个分析层面与语法其他层面（例如语项间的形态关系）有系统的对应关系。