English Sentence
Can you define the sentence as a language unit? Why is it difficult?
What aspects of the sentence should be mentioned in the definition? Can you say shortly what stands behind each of these aspects?
What makes the meaning of the sentence different from the meanings of the words used in it?
Do all sentences name situations?
What else does the sentence express, besides naming a situation?
What does the notion of predicativity comprise? Could you represents it schematically?
Are mood and tense expressed in all sentences? If not, does it mean there is no predicativity?
What sort of modality is expressed in all sentences?
Do we call a sentence ‘a predicative unit’ because we can find a subject and a predicate in it?
What is structure in general? How can you define the structure of the sentence? What structure can we consider as a sentence structure?
What should we take into consideration when we speak about the structure of the sentence? What’s a predicative centre? Are you sure it’s always Subject + Predicate?
Can we speak about sentence structure if there is only one component? What components can be used alone in an English sentence?
What sentence can be called incomplete? What makes elliptical and one-member sentences different
How do we divide sentences into simple and composite? Complex and compound? Are there any borderline cases?
How many sentence structures exist in English? What can be called the minimal structure of the sentence? Are there any rules of extending it?
What happens to the meaning of the sentence if we change the structure? Could you illustrate it with examples?
If we say that a sentence is a communicative unit, what does it communicate? How do people know what exactly their interlocutor is saying? What branch of linguistics studies the communicative behaviour of sentences?
What is a classification? What is any classification based on? What can the classification of sentences be based on?
According to what criteria are types of sentences distinguished in a pragmatic classification?
According to what criteria are types of sentences distinguished in a structural classification?
What does the traditional pragmatic classification of sentences look like? Can you draw the scheme without looking into your notes?
How many communicative types of sentences does modern pragmatics name? Why are there many more than in the traditional classification?
What do scholars mean when they speak about direct and indirect communicative usage of sentences?
What method do we use when we divide a sentence into parts? Can you show how it is applied?
What do we divide a sentence into parts for? What aspects of the sentence can we concentrate on while doing it?
Is the result of dividing a sentence into parts a model or a structure?
If we pay attention to the types of words combined into a sentence, what model can we draw after the division? What are its merits and drawbacks?
How do we look for traditional sentence parts? What sentence parts do you know? Is it easy to define each of them? Which are the most difficult for definition?
Can we easily refer all the components which we find in a real sentence to one of the traditional sentence parts?
Why should we divide a sentence into parts from the communicative point of view? What’s wrong about the term “actual division”?
What parts are there in the sentence from the communicative point of view?
What methods of communicative division can we apply if we can’t easily divide a sentence just into a theme and a rheme?
What means of marking the rheme do you know?
Why is it easier to indicate the rheme in oral speech?
What types of words point to the rheme? Can the structure of the sentence help in distinguishing the rheme?