LECTURE 7

SYNTAX OF THE PHRASE.

SYNTAGMATIC CONNECTIONS OF WORDS

SENTENCE: GENERAL. ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE SENTENCE.

COMMUNICATIVE TYPES OF SENTENCES.

1. The phrase as a polynominative lingual unit. The correlation of the phrase with the word, and the sentence. The problem of definition of the phrase.

2. Notional, formative and functional phrases. Equipotent and dominational connections between the phrase constituents. Categorial agreement, government, prepositional government, adjoining, enclosure.

3. The classification of phrases according to part-of-speech, functional and positional criteria.

4. The sentence as the main communicative unit of syntax.

5. Predication as a fundamental distinguishing feature of the sentence.

6. The notion of actual division of the sentence.

7. The basic communicative types of sentences. The classification of utterance types by Ch. Fries. The problem of the exclamatory sentence type.

8. Intermediary (mixed) communicative types of sentences.

9. The pragmatic communicative types of the sentence: classification of speech acts.

Key terms: - phrase, word-combination, syntagmatic groupings of words, polynominative lingual unit, polydenoteme (monodenoteme), ‘minor syntax’, ‘major syntax’, notional phrase, formative phrase, functional phrase, equipotent (paratactic) and dominational (hypotactic) connections, consecutive equipotent (coordinative proper) and cumulative equipotent connections, dominational consecutive (subordinative proper) and dominational cumulative connections, kernel (kernel element, key/head word), adjunct, monolateral/bilateral domination, agreement, government (prepositional/non-prepositional), adjoining, enclosure, regressive and progressive phrases.

- predicative lingual unit, predication (syntactic modality), the category of modality, nominalization, intonational arrangement, sentence models, utterance, nominative (syntactic, grammatical) division of the sentence.

- informative value, informative perspective, actual division (functional analysis, communicative analysis), theme (“basis”), rheme (“nucleus”, “peak” of communication), logical analysis of proposition (logical subject, logical predicate), direct (unmarked) actual division, inverted (reverse, marked) actual division, inverted word order.

- purpose of communication, declarative, interrogative and imperative communicative types, non-communicative utterances, exclamatory sentence, open rheme, basic and intermediary (mixed) communicative types, indirect questions, rhetorical questions, “theory of speech acts”, pragmatic utterance types (performatives, constatives, promissives, etc.), indirect speech acts.

1. The phrase as a polynominative lingual unit. The correlation of the phrase with the word, and the sentence. The problem of definition of the phrase.

The main object of study in syntax is the communicative unit of the language, the sentence. The phrase is the syntactic unit used as a notional part of a sentence. As a level-forming unit, it is characterized by some common and some differential features with the unit of the lower level, the word, and the unit of the upper level, the sentence. Like the word, the phrase is a nominative unit, but it provides a complex nomination of the referent, a polynomination consisting of several (at least two) nominative components, presenting the referent as a complicated phenomenon: a girl – a beautiful girl; a decision – his unexpected decision. Moreover, the regular free phrase does not enter speech as a ready-made unit like the word; it is freely formed in speech, like the sentence according to a certain grammatical pattern. As for the fixed word-combinations, idioms, they are closer to the word in the type of nomination: they are ready-made units fixed in dictionaries and studied mainly by lexicology.

The basic difference between the phrase and the sentence is as follows: the phrase cannot express full predication, even if it denotes a situation. The phrase enters speech only as a constituent of a sentence, as “a denoteme”, to be more exact, as “a polydenoteme” as contrasted with the word, which enters a sentence as “a monodenoteme”. The grammatical description of the phrase is seen as a separate part of syntax, the syntax of the phrase; it is sometimes called “minor syntax”, in distinction to “major syntax”, studying the sentence and its textual connections.

The definition of the phrase is rather a controversial issue. In Russian linguistics, the narrow approach, which was put forward by V. V. Vinogradov, traditionally prevails: only a combination of two notional words, one of which dominates the other, is considered to be a word-combination. A much broader approach was proposed by L.Bloomfield and it is shared by many modern linguists. One of the leading specialists in this field, V. V. Burlakova, defines a word-combination as any syntactically organized group of syntagmatically connected words; this includes combinations of functional and notional words, and predicative and coordinative combinations of words.

2. Notional, formative and functional phrases. Equipotent and dominational connections between the phrase constituents. Categorial agreement, government, prepositional government, adjoining, enclosure.

Defining the phrase as a polynominative lingual unit helps reveal the status of notional phrases, which are semantically independent combinations of notional words, as the basic type of phrases. Besides notional phrases (phrases proper), two other structural types of syntagmatic groupings of words can be distinguished, which can be defined as phrases only in form: formative phrases and functional phrases.

- The formative phrase is a combination of a notional word with a functional word, which is contextually dependent and functionally similar to separate notional words used in various grammatical forms, e.g.: of Peter (= Peter’s); in a moment, without doubt.

- Functional phrases are combinations of functional words similar to regular functional words, e.g.: apart from, as soon as, must be able, etc.

Notional phrases are subdivided into different types, which reveal various grammatical and semantic properties of the phrase constituents and the phrase in general.

On the basis of constituent rank, the groupings of notional words are subdivided into equ`ipotent рівносильний (paratactic) and dominational (hypotactic).

The constituents of equipotent phrases are of equal syntactic rank; none of them modifies another: poor but honest;his, not Mary’s. As these examples show, the syntactic connections in equipotent phrases can be realized with the help of a coordinative conjunction or without any connecting element (the former are called “syndetic” connections, the latter “asyndetic” connections). In the above examples, the phrase constituents form logically consecutive послідовний connections, which are defined as “coordinative”. Entering the structure of the sentence, constituents of coordinative phrases function as homogeneous notional parts of the sentence, e.g.: He is mad, bad and dangerous (mad, bad and dangerous are homogeneous predicatives). Besides coordinative phrases, there are phrases in which the sequential element, although connected by a coordinative conjunction, is unequal to it in the character of nomination, e.g.: came, but late; agreed, or nearly so. Such formally equipotent phrases of a non-consecutive type are defined as “cumulative” сукупний. Cumulative connection in writing is usually signaled by some punctuation mark (comma/hyphen).

In dominational phrases, one word modifies another. The principal constituent, which dominates the other constituent syntactically, is called the kernel, the key-word, or the head word. The subordinate (dominated) constituent, which modifies the kernel, is called the adjunct. For example, in the word-combination a beautiful girl the word ‘a girl’ is the kernel, and ‘beautiful’ is the adjunct. Dominational connection, like equipotent connection, can be both consecutive and cumulative: definitely off the point (consecutive domination) – off the point, definitely (cumulative domination). Logically consecutive dominational connections are defined as “subordinative”.

Dominational connection is achieved by - different forms of the word (categorial agreement, government), - connective words (prepositions, i.e. prepositional government), or - word order (adjoining, enclosure). Agreement takes place when the subordinate word assumes a form similar to the form of the kernel: these boys; the child plays. Government takes place when a certain form of adjunct is required by its head-word, but it does not coincide with the form of the head word: to see him; to talk to him. Adjoining involves no special formal mark of dependence between constituents; words are combined by contact: to go home. Enclosure takes place in phrases in which the subordinate word is placed between two parts of an analytical head-word form: to thoroughly think over, the then government, an interesting question.

Domination achieved by the form of the word, through agreement or government, is important for inflectional languages. In English, it is the remnant of the old inflectional system as in the cases shown above.

The two basic types of dominational connections are bilateral (reciprocal, two-way) domination and monolateral (one-way) domination.

- The connections in most of the examples above are monolateral dominational - the kernel dominates the adjunct: this boy, to talk to him, a beautiful girl.

- Bilateral domination is realized in predicative connections of words, which may be either fully predicative, or semi-predicative: the pupil understands, the pupil’s understanding, the pupil understanding, for the pupil to understand. In predicative groupings of words the subject dominates the predicate, determining the person of predication; formally, domination is manifested by the reflection of the person and number properties of the subject in the form of the verb performing the function of a predicate. The predicate dominates the subject, determining the event of predication, some action, state, or quality.

Thus, there are four basic types of syntagmatic connections of words distinguished in their syntactic groupings: coordination (consecutive equipotent connection), subordination (consecutive dominational connection), predication (bilateral dominational connection) and cumulation (inner cumulation).