73. Word-combination (wc) and their basic types.

The word 'syntax' is derived from the Greek 'syntaxis' which literally means 'composition', or 'order'. It is a part of grammar which studies ways of arranging words into phrases and sentences in order to produce speech. We communicate only with the help of sentences and it brings many linguists to a conclusion that syntax is the core, or the heart of grammar and morphology is subordinated to it as it serves the needs of syntax. The main units of the syntactic level of the language are: 1) the word in its syntactic position in the sentence (a part of the sentence); 2) the phrase which is a combination of two or more notional words arranged according to the rules of a particular language; 3) the simple sentence as the minimum unit of communication; 4) the composite sentence which is a combination of two or more clauses based either on coordinate (a compound sentence) or subordinate (a complex sentence) relations; 5) the text as the highest unit of language.

The type ‘noun+noun’ is a most usual type of WC in modern English. The type ‘noun in the common case+noun’ may be used to denote 1 idea as modified by another, in the widest sense (silver watch, army unit). The type ‘noun in the genitive case+noun’ has a more restricted meaning and use. The type ‘adj+noun’ is used to express all possible kinds of things with their properties. The type ‘verb+noun’ may correspond to 2 different types of relation between an action and a thing. There are also types, such as ‘verb+adv’, ‘adv+adj’, ‘adv+adv’, ‘noun+prep_noun’, ‘adj+prep+noun’, verb+prep+noun. WC consisting of 2 components may be enlarged by addition of a third component, and so forth: adj+noun (high houses) may be enlarged by the addition of the adj in front – adj+adj+noun (new high houses). The limit of the possible growth of a WC is hard to define.

74. Syntax as part of Grammar. Main Units of English syntax.

There’s a debate about the precise (точный, определенный) status of syntax as a part of grammar.

1) Some linguists state that it should deal with the function and the formation of word-groups within the sent-s. This approach is characteristic of early English syntax (18-19th cent.), which was concerned only with analysis of word-groups, their structure and relations between their elements.

2) Other linguists think that syntax should study only the structure of sent-s.

3) There’s also a group of scholars who think that syntax should deal with the structure of both word-groups and sent-s. It is the most reasonable one and has actually prevailed in modern linguistics.

Смирницкий: The analysis of the sentence structure must be regarded as the main problem of syntax; while the word-groups’ is secondary.

• Joining the words into word-groups is only the 1st step which precedes the formation of a sentence.

• A word-group is not complete either structurally or semantically => it can’t be used as a unit of communication.

• A sent. can function as an independent utterance, but a word-group functions only as an element of a sent.

Therefore, sent-s are units of speech, while word-groups are bricks in a sentence structure.

The fundamental feature that distinguishes a sent. from a word-group is that sent. is always associated with a certain intonation pattern (it’s either a statement, or request, etc.) A sent. without intonation can’t function as a unit of speech; it remains a mere combination of words.

Basic English sentence patterns contain a verb in its finite form. The presence of a verb in a sent. is characteristic not only of English, but also of all other European lang-s. Sent-s without verbs are short and convey only fragmentary information, the thought can’t be developed and elaborated unless there’s a verb in the sent.

When the noun and the verb in the finite form follow each other in the sent., they become the subject and the predicate – the 2 main parts of which basic sent-s are built. They can accompanied by other words, and usually are, but this doesn’t change their status as the main parts of the sent. For this reason the combination of subject & predicate is excluded by many linguists from the domain of word-groups. Some linguists suggested calling this combination a clause(элемент.предложение) to distinguish it from a word-group.

In most general terms, a word-group is a logical and grammatical combination of 2 or more notional words which do not form a sent.

A sentence may be defined as the basic unit of communication, grammatically organized and expressing a complete thought. It is characterized by predication (correlation between the utterance & reality). The most universal means of expressing predication is intonation; under certain circumstances (a broader context) any word-gr. may become a sent. But in most cases predication is conveyed through the finite form of the verb (which expresses person, number, mood, tense, aspect, time correlation, voice).

Narrative analysis studies lexical & grammatical means which help to organize the structure of a text. The part of narrative analysis, which is concerned with gram. means, is called text grammar.

So, these successive syntactic units form an hierarchy in the following order:

Word-groups => sentences => paragraphs