(e) The level of the sentence, the so-called “proposematic” level, will include smaller levels going upward from the “phrasematic” level through the nomination and predication levels. According to Ch.Fries, the level analysis should also go down to the lexemic level (or rather the level of the parts of speech). The details of this type of analysis were considered in the section dealing with modern methods of grammatical analysis.
(f) The structural scheme of an English sentence is rather simple and fixed. It consists of the principal parts (subject and predicate) and the secondary parts (object, attribute, adverbial modifier). This scheme may be elementary (a simple sentence) or sophisticated (a composite sentence) but its syntactic characteristics are generally the same. Two-member sentences and one-member sentences are vivid examples of purely syntactical opposition, though some scholars treat them as examples of ellipsis.
(g) In a sentence we distinguish the principal parts, secondary parts and independent elements. The principal parts of a sentence are the subject and the predicate. The independent elements are interjections, direct address and parenthesis.
The subject is the principal part of the sentence which is grammatically independent of the other parts of the sentence. The subject can denote a living being, a lifeless thing or an idea. It can be expressed by:
A noun in the common (nominative) case.
A pronoun - personal, demonstrative, defining, indefinite, negative, possessive, interrogative.
A substantivized adjective or participle.
A numeral.
An infinitive, an infinitive phrase or construction.
A gerund, a gerundial phrase or construction.
Any part of speech used as a quotation, or a quotation group.
A group of words which is one part of the sentence, i.e. a syntactically indivisible group.
The predicate is the principal part of the sentence which expresses an action, state, or quality of the person, thing, or idea denoted by the subject. It is grammatically dependent upon the subject.
As a rule the predicate contains a finite verb which may express tense, mood, voice, aspect, and sometimes person and number. According to the structure and the meaning of the predicate we distinguish two main types: the simple predicate and the compound predicate.
The simple predicate is expressed by a finite verb in a simple or a compound tense form. It generally denotes an action; sometimes, however, it denotes a state which is represented as an action. There is a special kind of predicate expressed by a phraseological unit, the so-called phraseological predicate.
The compound predicate consists of two parts: (a) a finite verb and (b) some other part of speech: a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, a verbal, etc. The second component is the significant part of the predicate. The first part expresses the verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect, mood and voice; besides it has a certain lexical meaning of its own. The compound predicate may be nominal or verbal.
The compound nominal predicate consists of a link verb and a predicative (the latter is also called the nominal part of the predicate).
The compound verbal predicate consists of a modal verb (modal expression) or a verb expressing the beginning, repetition, duration or cessation of the action, and an infinitive or a gerund.
There are also mixed types of predicates.
The object is a secondary part of the sentence which completes or restricts the meaning of a verb or sometimes an adjective, a word denoting state, or a noun. There are three kinds of object in English: the direct object, the indirect object, and the cognate object (e.g. to live a happy life).
The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which qualifies a noun, a pronoun, or any other part of speech that has a nominal character. There is a special kind of attribute called apposition which may be close or loose (detached).
The adverbial modifier is a secondary part of the sentence which modifies a verb, an adjective or an adverb. There exist adverbial modifiers of time, frequency, place and direction, attendant circumstances, degree and measure, cause, result (consequence), comparison, concession and purpose.
The complicating elements of the sentence are homogeneous members (two or more subjects, predicates, etc.), specifying parts of the sentence (objects, attributes, adverbial modifiers) and detached, or loose, parts of the sentence, i.e. those which assume a certain grammatical and semantic independence. In spoken language they are marked by intonation, pauses, and special stress; in written language they are generally separated by commas or dashes.
Theme 8. THE SENTENCE (continued)
Point 1.2. Models of the sentence. The notion of the syntactic paradigm. The word order in the sentence. Semantic and syntactic characteristics of the sentence. The notion of predicative and non-predicative symbols. Types of predicates. The notion of inclusive and included predicates. The role semantics of the sentence. The notion of presupposition.
(a) The sentence as a unit of information in the speech succession sets off its own generalized model, a typical construction which stands behind the concrete lexico-semantic composition of the utterance bound to its context. This model is a combination of two essential signemic functions of the sentence: the nominative and the predicative. However, different types of sentences have their own characteristic models that are observed in most cases. Thus we may speak of a specific model of a declarative sentence (a fixed word order, a falling intonation), an interrogative sentence (structural or structural and morphological changes, a rising or/and falling intonation), a complex sentence, etc.
There are some general principles of constructing syntactic paradigms of predicative functions, with a differentiation between syntactic paradigms of the `normal' type and the `actual' type.
The normal paradigm of a sentence should include all forms of its changing, e.g. This is true. - This isn't true. - Is this true? - This is true, isn't it?, etc.
The actual paradigm should be based upon a real sentence of the text, e.g. She couldn't hear it. - Couldn't she hear it? - She couldn't have heard it. - It couldn't be heard by her., etc.
Arrangement, or order of words is of especially great importance in such languages as English whose inflexion is comparatively scarce and syntactic relations are chiefly expressed by analytical means. Words have to be arranged in a definite order, in a definite succession to express such syntactic relations as, say, attributive, predicative, subject-object relations. It is preferable to distinguish between two sets of phenomena within a sentence:
(1)normal order, which may be either the order “subject-predicate”, as in most declarative sentences, or “predicate-subject”, as in most interrogative and in some declarative sentences (There are many people in the room. There came a thunderstorm.)
(2)inverted order, or inversion, which may be the order “predicate-subject” in a special type of a declarative sentence (Only at sunset did I leave the house.) or “subject-predicate” in a special type of a sentence characterized in general by the order “predicate-subject” (the latter is a very rare phenomenon indeed).
Taking into consideration the two-aspective character of the sentence as a signemic unit of language, predication should be interpreted not simply as referring the content of the sentence to reality, but as referring the nominative content of the sentence to reality. It is this interpretation of the semantico-functional nature of predication that discloses, in one and the same generalized presentation, both the unity of the two identified aspects of the sentence, and also their different, though mutually complementary meaningful roles.
The predicate expresses two variants of structural meanings:
- the meaning inherent in the predicate as a definite part of the sentence, i.e. the meaning of the predicative signal;
- the meanings connected with the grammatical categories of a finite verb ( the meanings of mood and tense, voice, person and number), i.e. the meanings of non-predicative signals.
There are two basic types of predicates: the verbal predicate and the nominal predicate. Some linguists set off a third type of predicates - the phraseological predicate. All the three types have been mentioned and described in detail earlier, in the lecture dealing with the predicate.
Besides simple predicates consisting of only finite verbs, there may be inclusive and included predicates.
Inclusive predicates are such structures which contain a finite verb and some other parts of speech, e.g. We are sitting. - She had breakfast. - He is supposed to have arrived.
Included predicates are parts of larger structures, e.g. There appeared a young girl in the doorway.
Semantic units that represent language identification of the participants of a situation are called semantic roles. The main bearers of role meanings are nominal groups. Semantic roles, or rather a definite set of them, together with the action expressed by a verb, reflect the language semantic model of a non-language situation. A set of semantic roles which is implied by the lexico-semantic contents of a verb, and which allows for an adequate reflection of the situation, comprises the role structure of the verb. For instance, in the sentence `They showed him the jewels' the role structure of the verb `to show' includes the agent, the object of the action, and the object to which the action is directed. Thus role structures reflect the nature of objective relations between things (or persons) in reality.
Presupposition is a judgement drawn from the sentence where it is present in a covert form (cf. He came late. - Even he came late./here the word `even' reflects the presupposition which may be worded as `it is unexpected'/).
Some scholars are of the opinion that presupposition is a condition (or conditions) that should be fulfilled before the sentence can be used in any communicative function (cf. Please, open the door./there must be some door, and it must be closed/).
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