II. The semantic interpretation of the sentence.

It’s important to point out that all verb predicates are not identical, as there are different types of verbs, denoting them. We can distinguish between transitive (to raise) and intransitive ( to rise) verbs, between verbs, denoting action (to make), state (to be), or relation (to have, to belong), between causative (to cause, to force, to order) and noncausative (to look) verbs. Different types of verbs open different positions for actants or, in other words, different types of verbs have different valency. The semantic meaning of the verb determines its ability (or inability) to combine with different types of actants. This can be described from the point of view of semantic interpretation of the sentence.

The semantic interpretation of the sentence and its structure is now commonly given in terms of semantic cases or semantic functions of actants. This type of semantic description, called “case grammar” (падежная грамматика) (“role grammar” – ролевая грамматика) has been first employed by Ch. Fillmore in his book “The case for case” («Дело о падеже»). According to his viewpoint the semantic case is the type of semantic relations, occurring between the verb predicate and its actants: Agentive, Dative, Instrumental, Factitive (фактитив), Locative (местный падеж), Objective (объектный, косвенный падеж), etc.

Agentive is the case of the typically animate instigator of the action identified by the verb, e.g.: He broke the window. The window was broken by him.

Instrumental is the case of the inanimate force or object causally involved in the action or state identified by the verb, e.g.: The hammer broke the widow. He broke the window with the hammer.

Dative is the case of the animate being affected by the state or action identified by the verb or nominative part of the predicative, e.g.: He believed that he was right. We encouraged him to go there. The failure was obvious to him.

Factitive is the case of the object or result from the action or state identified by the verb, or understood as a part of the meaning of the verb, e.g.: I waved a salute. I thought up a plan. I Xeroxed up three copies of his letter.

Locative is the case which identifies the location or spatial orientation of the state or action identified by the verb or nominative part of the predicative, e.g.: Here is noisy. It is noisy here.

Objective, the semantically most neutral case, the case of anything representable by a noun. It represents a thing which is affected by the action or state identified by the verb, e.g.: I Xeroxed his letter. His letter was Xeroxed by me.

Thus, the semantic interpretation of the sentence is given in terms of semantic cases or semantic functions of actants and is conditioned by the semantic meaning of the verb.

III. The cognitive aspects of the simple sentence.

Traditional grammar holds that a simple sentence normally consists of 3 key elements: a subject, a verb element(or predicate) and a complement (an object or an adverbial). This standard pattern can be illustrated in the following examples:

1. Susan resembles my sister.

2. Susan is peeling a banana.

3. Susan loves bananas.

4. The hammer breaks the glass.

5. Susan has a large library.

6. Susan received the present.

7. Susan swam the Channel.

8. The garden is swarming with bees.

9. There was a loud bang (R.Langacker’s examples).

Though all these examples contain the said elements, they are in fact rather divergent. The subjects refer to persons, things, places or they are empty (as “there”-subject in the last example). Persons, things and places are also eligible as complements. In one case (sent.1) the subject and the object can be exchanged, while this is not possible with the other sentences, and the transformation into passive sentences is also restricted.

Both traditional grammarians and modern linguistic schools have recognized these differences and have tried to cope with them by proposing different verb classes or case frames (Ch. Fillmore) or explaining some of them in terms of transformations of other patterns (N. Chomsky : e.g. “She swam the Channel.” –derived from “She swam across the Channel.”).

In cognitive linguistics the semantic diversity of subjects and objects is viewed within the main cognitive principles: the prototypical principle of category structure, the principle of figure-ground segregation and “windowing of attention”.

According to the prototypical principle of category structure the categories are based on the principle of relative similarity but not absolute identity (like it was in traditional grammar). Any category has the list of properties typical for its members. The more properties a category member realizes the more prototypical (or typical for this category) it is and vice versa. Real members of categories are evaluated as possessing this or that degree of prototypicalness which depends on their closeness to the prototype.

American linguists P. Hopper and S. Thompson suggested the notion of the prototypical transitive construction, associating the interpretation of the sentence with the idea of transitivity. The scientists suggested 10 semantic criteria, possession of which makes concrete syntactic construction (sentence) perfectly transitive, i.e. prototypical from the point of transitivity. The less characteristic features it realizes the less transitive and so the less prototypical it is.

Criteria Degree of prototypicalness