9. The complex sentence as a polypredicative construction. The matrix/insert sentences. The principal/subordinate clause. Semantic types of subordinators. The zero subordinator.

The complex sentence is a polypredicative construction built on the principle of subordination (hypotaxis). In paradigmatic presentation, the derivational history of the complex sentence is as follows: two or more base sentences are clausalized and joined into one construction; one of them performs the role of a matrix in relation to the others, the insert sentences. The matrix sentence becomes the principal clause of the complex sentence and the insert sentences becomes its subordinate clauses: The team arrived. + It caused a sensation. - When the team arrived, it caused a sensation.

The minimal complex sentence includes two clauses: the principal and the subordinate. This is the main type of complex sentences, first, in terms of frequency, and, second, in terms of its paradigmatic status, because a complex sentence of any volume can be analyzed into a combination of two-clause complex sentence units.

The principal clause positionally dominates the subordinate clause, which is embedded into it: even if the principal clause is incomplete and is represented by just one word, the subordinate clauses fill in the open positions, introduced by the principal clause, in the underlying simple sentence pattern: What you see is what you get - What you see (the subject) is (the predicate) what you get (the object). Semantically, the two clauses are interconnected and form a semantico-syntactic unity.

The dominant positional status of the principal clause does not mean that it expresses the central informative part of the communication: any clause of a complex sentence can render its rheme or its theme. As in a simple sentence, in a neutral context the preceding part renders the starting point of communication, the theme, and the following part, placed near the end of the sentence, renders the most important information, the rheme: What he likes most about her is her smile. - Her smile is what he likes most about her. In the first sentence the principal part is rhematic, and in the second sentence - the subordinate clause. Besides the clause-order, as with word-order in general, there are other means of expressing the correlative informative value of clauses in complex sentences, such as intonation, special constructions, emphatic particles and others.

The informative value of a principal clause may be reduced to the mere introduction of a subordinate clause; for example, the principal clause can perform the “phatic” function, i.e. the function of keeping up the conversation, of maintaining the immediate communicative connection with the listener, e.g.: I think you are a great parent; in this sentence, the basic information is rendered by the rhematic subordinate clause, while the principal clause is phatic, specifying the speaker’s attitude to the information.

Different types of complex sentences are distinguished, first of all, on the basis of their subordinate clause types. Subordinate clauses are classified on two mutually complementary bases: on the functional principle and on the categorial principle.

1) According to the functional principle, subordinate clauses are divided on the analogy of the positional parts of the complex sentence: What you see is what you get. - What you see (the subject, the subject subordinate clause) is what you get (the object, the object subordinate clause).

2) According to the categorial principle, subordinate clauses are divided by their inherent nominative properties. Subordinate clauses can be divided into three categorial-semantic groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial.

- Substantive-nominal subordinate clauses name an event as a certain fact: What you do is very important (What is very important?)

- Qualification-nominal subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is a characteristic to some substance, represented either by a word or by another clause: Where is the letter that came today? (What letter?)

- Adverbial subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is a characteristic to another event, to a process or a quality: I won’t leave until you come.

Subordinating connectors are subdivided into two basic types: pronominal words and pure conjunctions. Pronominal connective words occupy a notional position in the derived sentence; for example, some of them replace a certain antecedent (i.e. a word or phrase to which the connector refers back) in the principal clause: The man whom I met yesterday surprised me. Pure subordinate conjunctions do not occupy a notional position in the derived sentence: She said that she would come early. Some connectors are bifunctional, i.e. used both as conjunctions and as conjunctive substitutes: She said that she would come early - Where is the letter that came today?

Semantically, subordinators (both conjunctions and conjunctive substitutes) are subdivided in correspondence with the categorial type of the subordinate clauses which they introduce: there are 1) substantive-nominal and qualification-nominal clausalizers (conjunctions and pronominal words), which introduce the event-fact, and 2) adverbial clausalizers (conjunctions), showing relational characteristics of events. Some connective words can be used both as nominal connectors and as adverbial connectors: Do you know when they are coming? (What do you know?) – We’ll meet when the new house is finished (When shall we meet?).

Together with these, the zero subordinator should be named, whose polyfunctional status is similar to the status of the subordinator that: She said that she would come early. – She said Ø she would come early.

10. The classification of complex sentences on the basis of subordinate clause types. Clauses of primary nominal/secondary nominal/adverbial positions. Types of attributive clauses. The subtypes of adverbial clauses. Parallel (homogeneous and heterogeneous) and consecutive subordination.

Subordinate clauses are to be classified into three groups: first, clauses of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and object clauses; second, clauses of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive clauses; and third, clauses of adverbial positions.

1) Clauses of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and object clauses, are interchangeable with each other: What you see is what you get; What you get is what you see. The subject clause regularly expresses the theme of a complex sentence, and the predicative clause regularly expresses its rheme. The subject clause may express the rheme of the sentence, if it is introduced by the anticipatory ‘it’: It is true that he stole the jewels. The subject clause in such complex sentences is at the same time appositive. The status of the object clause is most obvious in its prepositional introduction. Sometimes it is mixed with other functional semantics, in particular, with adverbial relational meanings: Do you know when they are coming? A separate group of object clauses are traditionally discussed under the heading “the rules of reported speech”: She said she would come early.

2) Clauses of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive clauses, fall into two major groups: “descriptive” attributive clauses and “restrictive” (“limiting”) attributive clauses. The descriptive attributive clause exposes some characteristic of the antecedent, while the restrictive attributive clause performs a purely identifying role, singling out the referent of the antecedent in the situation: I know a man who can help us (descriptive attributive clause); This is the man whom I met yesterday (restrictive attributive clause). Appositive clauses, a subtype of attributive clauses, define the meaning of the substantive antecedent of abstract semantics, represented by such nouns as ability, advice, attempt, decision, desire, impulse, promise, etc, or by an indefinite or demonstrative pronoun, or by an anticipatory ‘it’: I had the impression that she was badly ill; It is true that he stole the jewels. The unique role of the subjective anticipatory appositive construction consists in the fact that it is used as a universal means of rheme identification in the actual division of the sentence.

3) Clauses of adverbial positions make up the most numerous and the most complicated group of subordinate clauses, reflecting various relations between events. The following big groups of adverbial clauses can be distinguished.

- First, clauses of time and clauses of place render the semantics of temporal and spatial localization. Local identification is primarily determined by subordinators: it may be general, expressed by the conjunctions when and where, or particularizing, expressed by such conjunctions as while, since, before, no sooner than, from where, etc.: I jumped up when she called; Sit where you like.

- Second, clauses of manner and comparison give a qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal clause: Profits are higher than they were last year. The syntactic semantics of manner is expressed by subordinate appositive clauses introduced by phrases with the broad-meaning words way and manner: George writes the way his father did.

- Third, the most numerous group, adverbial clauses of different circumstantial semantics includes “classical” subordinate clauses of attendant event, condition, cause (reason), result (consequence), concession, and purpose: I am tired because I have worked all day etc. Cases of various ‘transferred’ and mixed syntactic semantics are also common in this group of clauses: Whatever happens, she won’t have it her own way. The subordinate clause expresses circumstantial (concessive) semantics mixed with non-circumstantial (substantive-nominal) semantics.

- Fourth, a separate group of adverbial clauses is formed by subordinate clauses which function as parenthetical enclosures, inserted into composite syntactic constructions by a loose connection. Parenthetical predicative insertions can be either subordinative or coordinative, exposed by either a subordinating connector or a coordinative connector (inner cumulative connections in equipotent and dominational phrases): As far as I remember, the man was surprised to see me there; They used to be, and this is no longer a secret, very close friends. Semantically, parenthetical clauses may be of two types: “introductory”, expressing different modal meanings (as in the first example above), and “deviational”, expressing insertions of varied semantic character (the second example above).

As the classification shows, the only notional position the subordinate clause can not occupy is the position of the predicate; this fact stresses once again the unique function of the predicate as the organizing centre of the sentence.

More than two clauses may be combined in one complex sentence. Subordinate clauses may be arranged by parallel or consecutive subordination.

- Subordinate clauses immediately referring to one principal clause are subordinated “in parallel’ or “co-subordinated”. Parallel subordination may be both homogeneous and heterogeneous: in homogeneous parallel constructions, the subordinate clauses perform similar functions, they are connected with each other coordinatively and depend on the same element in the principal clause: He said that it was his business and that I’d better stay off it; in heterogeneous parallel constructions, the subordinate clauses mostly refer to different elements in the principal clause: The man whom I saw yesterday said that it was his business.

- Consecutive subordinative constructions are formed when one clause is subordinated to another in a string of clauses: I don’t know why she said that she couldn’t come at the time that I suggested. There are three consecutively subordinated clauses in this sentence; they form a hierarchy of three levels of subordination. This figure shows the so-called depth of subordination perspective, one of the essential syntactic characteristics of the complex sentence.

11. The compound sentence as a polypredicative construction. The leading/the sequential clause. Syndetic/asyndetic connections. The types of coordinative connectors. Marked/unmarked coordinative connections. Open and closed coordinative constructions.

The compound sentence is a polypredicative construction built on the principle of coordination (parataxis). The clauses of a compound sentence are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank, equipotently. Paradigmatically, the compound sentence is derived from two or more base sentences, joined as coordinate clauses. One of them becomes the leading clause (the “leader” clause), and the other clauses, which may or may not include the coordinative connector, occupy the dependent sentential position and may be called sequential clauses. Though the dependence between the clauses of a compound sentence is not subordinative (the sequential clause is not inserted into the position of a nominative part in the matrix sentence), the dependence is manifested positionally: by means of differences in syntactic distribution of predicative units, different distributions of the expressed ideas are achieved: They quarreled and then they made up again; They made up, and then they quarreled again (the sequence of events in time is shown as different).

Coordination, just like subordination, can be expressed either syndetically (by means of coordinative connectors) or asyndetically. Coordinative connectors, or coordinators, are divided into conjunctions proper: and, but, or, for, either…or, neither… nor, etc., and semi-functional connectors of adverbial character: nevertheless, besides, however, yet, thus, so, etc. The coordinate clauses can be combined asyndetically (by the zero coordinator): The quarrel was over, the friendship was resumed.

The intensity of cohesion between coordinate clauses can become loose, and in this case the construction is changed into a cumulative one: I wasn’t going to leave; I’d only just arrived (cf.: I’d only just arrived and I wasn’t going to leave). Cumulative constructions have an intermediary status between the composite sentence and the sequence of independent sentences.

Semantically, connections between coordinated clauses can be subdivided into two types: marked coordinative connection and unmarked coordinative connection.

- A marked coordination is expressed by conjunctions and adverbial connectors rendering adversative relations (but, however, yet), disjunctive relations (or, either… or), causal-consequential relations (so, for, therefore, thus), and positive/negative copulative relations of events (both... and, neither… nor).

- Unmarked coordination is expressed syndetically by the pure conjunction and, or asyndetically, by the zero coordinator. Relations rendered by unmarked connections are not specified in any way: they are either pure copulative relations, or enumerative relations, or broader connective meanings, which can be diagnosed by equivalent substitution with marked connections: We started to sing and he started to sing along (unmarked coordination, copulative relations); They were sitting on the beach, the seagulls were flying above, the waves were rolling (unmarked coordination, relations of enumeration).

Both unmarked and marked coordinative connections can be additionally specified when coordinators are used with an accompanying functional particle-like or adverb-like word: and yet, but instead, but also, or else.

The basic type of the compound sentence, as with the complex sentence, is a two-clause construction. If more than two or more sequential clauses are combined with one leading clause, from the point of view of semantic correlation between the clauses, such constructions are divided into “open” and “closed”.

- “Open” constructions may be further expanded by additional clauses (as in various enumerations or descriptions): They were sitting on the beach, the seagulls were flying above, the waves were rolling...

- In “closed” coordinative constructions the final part is joined on an unequal basis with the previous ones and the end of the chain of ideas is achieved: He joked, he made faces, but the child did not smile.

12. The semi-composite sentence as a polypredicative construction of fused composition. The leading (fully predicative) semi-clause and the semi-predicative expansion (the complicator). The two types of semi-composite sentences: semi-complex and semi-compound sentences.

Both composite and semi-composite sentences are polypredicative syntactic constructions: they have two or more predicative lines. The difference between the two is in the degree of independence of predicative lines: in a composite sentence the predicative lines are expressed separately, they are fully predicative, each with a subject and a predicate of its own; in a semi-composite sentence the predicative lines are fused, blended, with at least one predicative line being semi-predicative (partially predicative). In other words, in a semi-composite sentence, one predicative line can be identified as the leading, or dominant one, and the others are semi-predicative expansions.

Paradigmatically, the semi-composite sentence is derived from two base sentences: I saw her entering the room. - I saw her. + She was entering the room. The second kernel sentence has been phrasalized, transformed into a participial phrase (her entering the room), and combined with the first sentence. The two predicative lines overlap around the common element, her, which performs the function of the object of the leading predicative part.

Thus, the semi-composite sentence can be defined as a syntactic construction of an intermediary type between the composite sentence and the simple sentence: in its “surface” syntactic structure, it is similar to a simple sentence, because it contains only one fully predicative line; in its “deep” semantic structure the semi-composite sentence is similar to a composite sentence, because it is derived from two base sentences and reflects two dynamic situations.

Semantically, the semi-composite sentence reflects the speaker’s presentation of two situationally connected events as being more closely united than the events described in the clauses of a composite sentence: one of the events (in the semi-predicative semi-clause) is presented as a by-event, as a background situation in relation to the other, dominant event (in the fully predicative semi-clause).

Semi-composite sentences are further subdivided into semi-compound sentences, built on the principle of coordination (parataxis) and semi-complex built on the principle of subordination (hypotaxis).