The difference between `NvV and `NvVN', for instance, reflects the different combinability of a non-transitive and a transitive verb (He is sleeping: He is writing letters. Cf. to sleep, to write letters). The difference between those two patterns and `N is A' reflects the difference in the combinability of notional verbs and link verbs, etc.

A similar list of patterns is recommended to language teachers under the heading These are the basic patterns for all English sentences:

1. Birds fly.

2. Birds eat worms.

3. Birds are happy.

4. Birds are animals.

5. Birds give me happiness.

6. They made me president.

7. They made me happy.

The heading is certainly rather pretentious. The list does not include sentences with zero predications or with partially implied predicativity while it displays the combinability of various verb classes.

S. Potter reduces the number of kernel sentences to three: «All simple sentences belong to one of three types:

A. The sun warms the earth;

B. The sun is a star; and

C. The sun is bright.»

And as a kind of argument he adds: «Word order is changeless in A and B, but not in C. Even in sober prose a man may say Bright is the sun.»

The foregoing analysis of kernel sentences, from which most English sentences can be obtained, shows that «every sentence can be analysed into a centre, plus zero or more constructions… The centre is thus an elementary sentence; adjoined constructions are in general modifiers». S In other words, the essential structure constituting a sentence is the predication; all other words are added to it in accordance with their combinability. This is the case in an overwhelming majority of English sentences. Here are some figures based on the investigation of modern American non-fiction.

Some analogy can be drawn between the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence.

The morphemes of a word are formally united by stress. The words of a sentence are formally united by intonation.

The centre of a word is the root. The centre of a sentence is the predication.

Some words have no other morphemes but the root (ink, too, but). Some sentences have no other words but those of the predication (Birds fly. It rains. Begin.).

Words may have some morphemes besides the root (unbearable). Sentences may have some words besides the predication (Yesterday it rained heavily.).

Sometimes a word is made of a morpheme that is usually not a root (ism). Sometimes sentences are made of words that are usually not predications (Heavy rain).

Words may have two or more roots (blue-eyed, merry-go-round). Sentences may have two or more predications (He asked me if I knew where she lived.).

The roots may be co-ordinated or subordinated (Anglo-Saxon, blue-bell). The predications may be co-ordinated and subordinated (She spoke and he listened. He saw Sam did not believe).

The roots may be connected directly (footpath) or indirectly, with the help of some morpheme salesman. The predications may be connected directly (7 think he knows) or indirectly, with the help of some word (The day passed as others had-passed.).

The demarcation line between a word with more than one root and a combination of words is often very vague (cf. blackboard and black board, brother-in-law and brother in arms). The demarcation line between a sentence with more than one predication and a combination of sentences is often very vague.

Cf. She'd only to cross the pavement. But still she waited. (Mansfield).

As we know, a predication in English is usually a combination of two words (or word-morphemes) united by predicativity, or, in other words, a predicative combination of words. Apart from that the words of a predication do not differ from other' words in conforming to the general rules of. Combinability. The rules of grammatical combinability do not admit of *boys speaks or *he am. The combination *the fish barked is strange as far as lexical combinability is concerned, etc.

All the other words of a sentence are added to those of the predication in accordance with their combinability to make the communication as complete as the speaker wishes. The predication Boys play can make a sentence by itself. But the sentence can be extended by realizing the combinability of the noun boys and the verb play into the three noisy boys play boisterously upstairs. We can develop the sentence into a still more extended one. But however extended the sentence is it does not lose its integrity. Every word in it is not just a word, it becomes part of the sentence and must be evaluated in its relation to other parts and to the whole sentence much in the same way as a morpheme in a word is not just a morpheme, but the root of a word or a prefix, or a suffix, or an inflection.

Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups - the group of the subject and the group of the predicate.

Sometimes there is a third group, of parenthetical words, which mostly belongs to the sentence as a whole. In the sentence below the subject group is separated from the predicate group by the parenthetical group.

That last thing of yours, dear Flora, was really remarkable.

As already mentioned, the distribution and the function of a word-combination in a sentence are usually determined by its head-word: by the noun in noun word-combinations, by the verb in verb word-combinations, etc.

The adjuncts of word-combinations in the sentence are added to their head-words in accordance with their combinability, to develop the sentence, to form its secondary parts which may be classified with regard to their head-words.

All the adjuncts of noun word-combinations in the sentence can be united under one name, attributes. All the adjuncts of verb (finite or non-finite) word-combinations may be termed complements. In the sentence below, the attributes are spaced out and the complements are in heavy type.

He often took Inene to the theatre. Instinctively choosing the modern Society plays with the modern Society conjugal problems. (Galsworthy).

The adjuncts of all other word-combinations in the sentence may be called extensions. In the sentences below the extensions are spaced out.

You will never be free from dozing and dreams. (Shaw).

She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse. (Gals-worthy).

The distribution of semi-notional words in the sentence is determined by their functions - to connect notional words or to specify them. Accordingly they will be called connectives or specifies. Conjunctions and prepositions are typical connectives. Particles are typical specifies.

3. Parts of the Sentence

Traditionally the subject and the predicate are regarded as the primary or principal parts of the sentence and the attribute, the object and the adverbial modifier - as the secondary parts of the sentence. This opposition primary - secondary is justified by the difference in function. While the subject and the predicate make the predication and thus constitute the sentence, the secondary parts serve to expand it by being added to the words of the predication in accordance with their combinability as words. Thus the sentence combines syntactical and morphological relations, which, in our opinion, it is necessary to discriminate more rigorously than it is usually done.

The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.

The name attribute really shows the subordinate nature of the part of the sentence it denotes. The double term adverbial modifier shows not only the secondary character of the corresponding part of the sentence (modifier), but also refers to a certain part of speech (adverbial). The term object does not indicate subordination, it only refers to the content.

Many words of a sentence, such as prepositions, conjunctions, articles, particles, parenthetical words, are traditionally - not considered as parts of the sentence, even as tertiary ones But as we know, the parts of a unit are units of the next lower level, in our case words. The function of each word in the sentence is its relation to the other words and to the sentence as a whole. So each word is as much a part of the sentence as each morpheme is a part of the word (its root, prefix, inflexion, etc.)

The infinitive to find in the sentence Your task is to find it is regarded as a part of the predicate and is named predicative. The same infinitive in the sentence Jane is to find it is also considered as a part of the predicate, but it is not called 'predicative'. It has no name at all, as well as the infinitives in We ought to find it., We cannot find it, etc.

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