Classification of Sentences

Sentences are classified 1) according to the types of communication and 2) according to their structure.

In accordance with the types of communication sentences are divided into:

1. Declarative (giving information). E.g. the book is interesting (statement).

2. Interrogative (asking for information). E.g. is the book interesting? (question).

3. Imperative (asking for action). E.g. give me the book! (command, request).

Each of these 3 kinds of sentences may be in the affirmative and negative form, exclamatory and non- exclamatory.

Types of Sentences According to Structure

I a) Simple sentences containing one predication (subject-predicate relationship)

b) Composite sentences containing one or more predications Composite sentences are divided into compound and complex sentences.

II. Simple sentences and main clauses may be two-member and one-member sentences.

The two-member sentence pattern is typical of the vast majority of sentences in English. It is a sentence with full predication. (The Sun shines. She walks fast).

If a simple sentence contains the subject and the predicate only, it is called unextended. E.g. spring came.

If a sentence comprises secondary parts besides the main parts, it is called extended. E.g. Dick came home late.

The one-member sentence contains only one principle part, which is neither the subject nor the predicate. E.g. Thieves! Fire! A cup of tea, please! A one-member sentence sometimes resembles a two-member sentence. E.g. No birds singing in the dawn. It may be complex in structure: e.g. And what if he had seen them embracing in the moonlight?

Imperative sentences with no subject also belong here: Get away from me!

If the main part is expressed by an infinitive, such a one-member sentence is called an infinitive sentence: Oh, to be in England!

The exclamatory character is a necessary feature of these sentences. Infinitive sentences are very common in represented speech.

Types of One-member Sentences in English

1. Nominative (substantive) E.g. Another day of fog.

2. Verbal

1. Imperative: Don’t believe him!

2. Infinitive: Only to think of it!

3. Gerundial: No playing with fire!

3. Adjectival one-member sentences: Splendid! How romantic!

Types of Sentences According to their Completeness

1. Complete (non-elliptical) sentences.

2. Incomplete (elliptical) sentences.

Elliptical sentences are such sentences in which one or several parts are missing as compared with analogous sentences where there is no ellipsis. Elliptical sentences may freely be changed into complete sentences, the missing part of the sentence being supplied from the preceding or following context, by means of intonation: e.g. I sat near the window, he – near the door (= he sat near the door). Playing, children? (= are you playing, children?) Cf. A small but cosy room (a one-member sentence); in the background stands/ is a little writing table (an elliptical two-member sentence). The main sphere of elliptical sentences is of course dialogue.

Parts of the Sentence

It is common in grammatical theory to distinguish between main and the secondary parts of the sentence. There are two generally recognized main parts of the sentence – the subject and the predicate, which make predication. As to the secondary parts which expand predication, their numbers varies slightly. The traditional classification of parts of the sentence is open to criticism, because there are many inconsistencies in it: no part of the sentence is properly defined, and many words of a sentence, such as prepositions, conjunctions, parenthetical words are not considered as parts of the sentence.

Nowadays many scholars classify parts of the sentence according to the combinability of words in the phrase. They divide them into the head-words and their adjuncts, the latter into attributes, complements and extensions. Thus the subject and the predicate are head-words, while words attached to them on depending on them are their adjuncts (attributes, adverbial modifiers, extensions, predicatives).

The seminotional words connecting words and clauses are connectives (prepositions, conjunctions). The seminotional words used to specify words and their combinations are called specifiers (articles, particles).

Main Parts of the Sentence

The vast majority of sentences in the English contain both a subject and a predicate (two-member sentences). [Where are you? – I am coming.]

The subject and the predicate make predication, they are tied by correspondence of forms, i.e. the form of number and person of the verb-predicate corresponds to the form of number and person of the subject. [Two families live in their apartment].

There are some nouns in English, which are always followed by the verb-predicate in the plural: cattle, clergy, gentry, militia, police, poultry, etc.

Alongside of the form of the predicate, word order is used as an important means of expressing the connection between the subject and the predicate. The subject precedes the predicate in a declarative sentence and it follows the predicate in an interrogative sentence.

The Subject

The subject is defined in traditional grammar as the thing we speak about. But it’s a logical definition rather than a grammatical one.

Syntactically the subject is the independent member of a two-member predication containing the person component of predicativity. It can be expressed by a word or a group of words.

When it is expressed by a notional word, it combines the notional and the structural subjects, but when the structural and the notional subjects are separated, which occurs often in M.E. , the former is expressed by a syntactical word-morpheme (it, there) and the latter, by a complex or a group of words: e.g. it is necessary for him to come. There is somebody in the room. It is awfully hard work doing nothing.

English impersonal sentences contain the structural subject only. [It is cold].In impersonal subject neither denotes nor points to any person or thing. It serves only as a structural element of the sentence. The impersonal subject is always expressed by ‘it’.

The semantic classification of the subject is as follows:

1. definite personal (The sun is down)

2. indefinite personal (They say that… One must be careful, you never know…)

3. impersonal (It is cold).