Means of Marking the Rheme in English

When the rheme does not coincide with the predicate, the following means are used:

1. The indefinite article (or the zero article). At the same moment he became aware that a woman (rheme) was entering the room.

2. The construction ‘there + verb’. There was a sound of footsteps and June saw Soames.

3. Complex sentences with the emphatic ‘it’. It was yesterday that I saw her.

4. A three-member passive construction. The door was opened by a little girl.

5. Word order (inversion). In the middle of the room stood the head of the family.

6. Intonation. I ought to have done it.

7. Particles ‘only’, ‘just’, ‘merely’, ‘such as’, ‘at least’. Only the children appeared to belong to their surroundings.

There are also some means of showing that a word or phrase represents the theme in a sentence.

1. The use of the definite article. The girl was tall.

2. A loose parenthesis introduced by the prepositional phrase ‘as for’ or ‘as to’. As for the others, great numbers of them moved past slowly or rapidly…

3. A word as a phrase representing the theme are placed at the beginning of the sentence as a loose part of it. E.g. that laughter – how well he knew it!

Many questions concerning functional sentence perspective have not been solved yet and further investigation is required. It is not certain that every sentence can be divided into two clear-cut parts representing the theme and the rheme respectively. In many cases there are intermediate elements, not belonging to this or that part.

Transition from Simple to Composite Sentences

A sentence containing one predication is called a simple sentence (e.g. he visits his friends on Sunday) while a sentence containing more than one is called a composite sentence (e.g. when night came, we went to bed. The sun rose and we started on our way again). In a composite sentence each predication together with the words attached is called a clause.

A clause must not be mixed up with a phrase (word-group) expressed by a verbal complex or absolute construction, which contains a secondary predication. E.g. it being late we went home. This sentence is neither simple nor composite but transitional between the simple and the composite sentence (or semi-complex and semi-compound). Of these we will consider the following syntactical phenomena:

1. Sentences with homogeneous parts (sometimes also called ‘contracted sentences’).

2. Sentences with a dependent appendix (добавление, приложение).

3. Sentences with secondary predication.

These phenomena are alike as they gradually get out of the limits of the simple sentence and approach the composite sentence.

Sentences with Homogeneous Parts

By homogeneous parts of the sentence we mean parts of the same category (two or more subjects, two or more predicates, two or more objects, etc), standing in the same relation to other parts of the sentence. E.g. I met my relatives and friends.

Sentences with a dependent appendix

1. There are phrases, consisting of the conjunction ‘than’ and a noun, pronoun or phrase, following an adjective or adverb in the comparative degree: e.g. I’ve known many ladies who were prettier than you… It would always be possible to expand this appendix into a clause (than you are).

2. Very similar to these are the sentences containing an adjective or adverb, which may be preceded by the adverb ‘as’ and an additional part consisting of the conjunction ‘as’ and some other word. E.g. Your conduct must be as careful as his. Such sentences lack something that is necessary to make the sentence complex.

3. A phrase which is introduced by a subordinating conjunction; as though, though. E.g. Catherine, though a little disappointed, had too much good nature to object. Or a co-ordinating conjunction: e.g. Denis tried to escape, but in vain.