4. Types of syntactic relations (linkage)

The Greek word syntaxis means ‘order’, ‘combination’, ‘building’, ‘arrangement’. Syntax as part of grammar has to do with syntactic units - phrases and sentences - that consist of words related to each other in a certain way. Thus the notion of relation and the way it is expressed are basic for syntactic description [Левицкий 2002: 17]. Relations of words are called syntactic relations (or linkage).

The weakest kind of linkage exists in those combinations in which they depend only on the form-class of words, where there are no formal signs of linkage.

E.g. black cat – the first element is the attribute to the second because we know beforehand that if an adjective is placed before a noun, the adjective is an attribute. This is called linkage by selection because certain forms select other forms. The same refers to to run quickly. Very often this kind of linkage produces ambiguity, e.g. yellow clothes may be (1) yellow, adj. → attribute to clothes, (2) yellow, verb → clothes is an object to yellow. A larger context is required to avoid ambiguity: She likes yellow clothes. Strong soup will yellow clothes. The answer to the question lies outside the two-element construction, the ambiguity is removed by context. This type is called linkage by context. Still a stronger linkage is expressed by markers (e.g. conjunctions), e.g. men and women.

A further type of linkage is expressed by inflexion. Here agreement and government are involved though they are not typical of English as an analytical language. By agreement we mean a method of expressing a syntactic relationship that consists in making the subordinate word take a form similar to that of the word to which it is subordinate. In other words, by agreement linguists mean those cases when two words are marked for the same grammatical category [Dixon 2009: 331]. In Modern English this can refer to the category of number; a subordinate word agrees in number with its head word if it has different number forms at all.

E.g. this (that) book – these (those) books.

The sphere of agreement in Modern English is extremely small. It is restricted to two pronouns – this and that which agree with their head word in number when they are used in front of it as the first components of a phrase of which the noun is the center.

B.A. Ilyish points out that the problem of agreement of the verb with the noun or pronoun denoting the subject of the action (a child plays, children play) is controversial. Usually it is treated as agreement of the predicate with the subject, i.e. as a phenomenon of sentence structure. However if we assume that agreement and government belong to the phrase level rather than to the sentence level, and that phrases of the pattern ‘noun + verb’ do exist, we have to treat this problem in a bit different way.

The controversy is this: does the verb stand in the plural number because the noun denoting the subject of the action is plural, so that the verb is in the full sense of the word subordinate to the noun? Or does the verb in its right express by its category of number the singularity or plurality of the doer (doers)?

There are some phenomena in Modern English that would seem to show that the verb does not always follow the noun in the category of number. Such examples as My family are early risers or, on the one hand, and The United Nations is an international organization, on the other, prove that the verb can be independent of the noun in this respect: though the noun is in the singular, the verb may be in the plural if the doer is understood to be plural. Though the noun is plural the verb may be singular if the doer is understood to be singular. Examples of such usage are arguments in favor of the view that there is no agreement in number of the verb with the noun expressing the doer of the action.

The fact that sentences like My family is small and My family are early risers exist side by side proves that there is no agreement of the verb with the noun in this case: the verb shows whether the subject of the action is thought of as singular or plural, no matter what the category of number of the noun may be.

By government we understand the use of a certain form of a subordinate word required by its head word but not coinciding with the form of the head word itself – that is the difference between agreement and government. The role of government in Modern English is almost as insignificant as that of agreement. The only thing that may be termed ‘government’ in Modern English is the use of the Objective Case of personal pronouns and of the pronoun who where they are subordinate to a verb or follow a preposition, e.g. find him, invite him, whom did you see?.

There may be another approach to the interpretation and classification of syntactic relations. Traditional grammar distinguishes between coordinate, subordinate and predicative relations [Бархударов 1966: 45, Левицкий 2005: 101]. Needless to say that the recognition of predicative relations depends on the way the problem of a predicative phrase is solved. If the existence of a predicative phrase is denied, then predicative relations should be recognized as typical only of sentences. Coordinate relations presuppose loose connection of elements. Forms of subordinate relations are more specific. There are three basic types of subordinate relations: adjoinment, agreement and government [Левицкий 2005: 102]. In English, grammarians also single out relations of enclosure (e.g. a big book) when an element or some elements of the phrase are inserted between other elements.

A comprehensive study of syntactic relations within a phrase was undertaken by V.V. Burlakova [Бурлакова 1975, 1984]. First she singled out three major types of syntactic relations: coordination, subordination and interdependence. She came up with the latter term by analogy to L. Hjelmslev’s types of relations between linguistic elements. She believed that this was a better term than ‘predicative relations’ as it mad it possible to get rid of the notion of predication, typical of the sentence structure and reflecting the subsequent relations between the subject and the predicate. The terms ‘coordination – subordination - interdependence’ are homogeneous as they point to the mutual status of the elements constituting a phrase [Иванова, Бурлакова, Почепцов 1981: 114-115]. Then V.V. Burlakova added a fourth type of syntactic relation, i.e. accumulation. This type of relations is not marked and may be identified against a background of a larger syntactic structure, e.g. these important (decisions), some old (cards). Thus in Burlakova’s opinion, there are four types of syntactic relations: interdependence – coordination – subordination – accumulation [Иванова, Бурлакова, Почепцов 1981: 116-118].

Thus the inventory of types of syntactic relations and their overall number vary quite considerably. This is a good proof of an insightful remark made by B.L. Whorf. He wrote, “Every language is a vast pattern-system”⁶⁵. Understanding and describing this pattern requires a considerable effort on the part of linguists.

• Recommended literature:

1. Бархударов Л.С. Структура простого предложения современного английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1966. – С. 12-13, 44-140.

2. Блох М.Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка / М.Я. Блох, Т.Н. Семенова, С.В. Тимофеева. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 245-266.

3. Блох М.Я. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 2008. – С. 247-254.

4. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981. – С. 100-163.

5. Ильиш Б.А. Строй современного английского языка. – Л.: Просвещение, 1971. – С. 171-181.

6. Иофик Л.Л., Чахоян Л.П., Поспелова А.Г. Хрестоматия по теоретической грамматике английского языка. – Л.: Изд-во «Просвещение», 1981. – С. 106-116.

7. Кобрина Н.А. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка: Учебное пособие / Н.А. Кобрина, Н.Н. Болдырев, А.А. Худяков. – М.: Высшая школа, 2007. – С. 170-183.

8. Хаймович Б.С., Роговская Б.И. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1967. – С. 220.

9. Худяков А.А. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Издат. центр «Академия», 2005. – С. 75.

• Supplementary literature:

1. Аракин В.Д. Сравнительная типология английского и русского языков. – М.: ФИЗМАТЛИТ, 2000. – С. 139-174.

2. Блох М.Я. Теоретические основы грамматики. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 43-47.

3. Бурлакова В.В. Основы структуры словосочетания в современном английском языке. – Л.: Изд-во Ленинградского университета, 1975. – С. 3-121.

4. Бурлакова В.В. Синтаксические структуры современного английского языка. – М.: Просвещение, 1984. – С. 4-96.

5. Гак В.Г. Теоретическая грамматика французского языка. – М.: Добросвет, 2000. – С. 468-473, 507-530.

6. Гуревич В.В. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. Сравнительная типология английского и русского языков. – М.: Флинта: Наука, 2003. – С. 64-67, 160-161.

7. Левицкий Ю.А. Основы теории синтаксиса. – М.: КомКнига, 2005. – С. 97-103.

8. Смирницкий А.И. Синтаксис английского языка. – М.: Изд-во литературы на иностранных языках, 1957. – С. 48-99.

9. Современный русский язык / В.А. Белошапкова, Е.А. Брызгунова, Е.А. Земскова и др.; Под ред. В.А. Белошапковой. – М.: Азбуковник, 1999. – С. 606-656, 667-681.

10. Хлебникова И.Б. Основы английской морфологии. – М.: «ЧеРо», 2001. – С. 7-17.