Синтаксис английского языка от слова к тексту = A Students’ Guide to English Syntax from Word to Discourse. Учебное пособие

Chapter I. Simple sentence as a monopredicative construction

In each of the above mentioned pairs the first term indicates the structural feature of the sentence, while the second term demonstrates its communicative intention.

Declarative-interrogative sentences have direct word order, but they are informationally open because this type of sentence expresses an inquiry about information which the speaker does not possess. They are uttered with a rising tone and graphically marked with a question mark. Functionally they are close to disjunctive questions, though they lack a tag part and thus are considered a feature of colloquial style. They bear the name of indirect questions or suggestive questions:

e.g. You know this man? He is my brother, Derek.

I wonder if you are going with me to street racing tonight? – Oh, yes! It would be fun!

An answer is expected, as with a regular question; the response proves a mixed communicative nature of such sentences.

Declarative-imperative sentences are commonly used in the English language due to the variety of lingual means applied to build them up. Modal verbs of obligation – must, should, ought, need, have, be, can, may, will – constitute the core element of such sentences expressing various grades of inducement.

e.g. You should wrap yourself up; it is cold outside. One ought to be polite to their seniors.

“You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply.” (Doyle)

You may freely get out of here now!

Other lexical means of inducement are used for this purpose as well:

a)such modalised expressions as one had better do smth, I would rather you did smth;

b)complex object after causative verbs expressing volition, instruction or inducement: let, allow, permit, prohibit, want, wish, would like, implore, beg, advise, recommend, etc.

e.g. Iʼd like to know what you think of her.

I beg you to do what you can to solve the case, Mr. Holmes (Doyle) You’d better stay away of my daughter, you scoundrel!

“I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible.” (Wilde)

I wish you to come there with me by the next train.

21

Ю. М. СЕРГЕЕВА, И. О. СЫРЕСИНА. СИНТАКСИС АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА: ОТ СЛОВА К ТЕКСТУ

YULIA SERGEEVA, IRINA SYRESINA. A STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO ENGLISH SYNTAX: FROM WORD TO DISCOURSE

Verbal responses to such sentences are expressions of agreement or disagreement to perform an action, non-verbal responses are actions themselves.

Interrogative-declarative sentences are widely known under the name of rhetorical questions: they have indirect word order, but express a declarative functional meaning of high intensity. Emotional markers – interjections, modal words, emotional should – are quite common in such sentences which support their intermediary character.

e.g. Can a leopard change his spots or an Ethiopian his skin? How the hell should I know such things?!

Is there anything in the house you are not sticking your nose in?

No answer is expected and the responses elicited by rhetorical questions correspond to responses elicited by statements (signals of attention, appraisals, expressions of feelings, etc.).

e.g. How can you say a thing like this? – Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I did not mean it.

If a direct answer follows the rhetorical question, it emphasizes implications opposite to the content of the question; often it is the speaker himself or herself, who answers the rhetorical question.

e.g. Who is to be blamed for it? No one, but myself.

Interrogative-imperative sentences presuppose the use of a question to achieve your goal in a most polite way. Inducement in the form of a question is very characteristic of English; it is employed to convey various shades of politeness,to soften a command,to mollify some sensitive information, to express requests, suggestions or recommendations.

There are a number of lexical means applied in such sentences, modal verbs can (could), will (would) are most common among them.

e.g. Could you help me move the table, please? Would you, please, remain in the room?

Will you, please, tell us the truth about yesterdayʼs incident? Would you care to join us on Sunday? We are having a barbecue in

the back garden.

Modal verbs may (might) are considered more polite, more formal or more tentative than can and could:

Might I leave work a bit earlier today?

Other ways to sound polite while expressing inducement are as follows:

22

Chapter I. Simple sentence as a monopredicative construction

Do you mind telling me your age, madam? Do you want to stay here for a while?

Why not walk down to the village after tea? What about discussing it right now?

Why don’t you sew a button up? You look like a ragamuffin!

Imperative-declarative sentences represent quite a rare case of intermediary sentence patterns. They follow the structural pattern of an imperative sentence, i.e. they lack the subject, while functionally they presuppose no inducement directed to the hearer. High expressiveness and intensity of such sentences can be observed, in particular, in various proverbs and maxims, e.g. Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours (= One good turn deserves another).

They presuppose no response in a form of an action. Their declarative nature can be easily proved by means of a simple transformation:

e.g. Speak of the devil and he will appear.– If you speak of the devil, he will appear.

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone (Wilde).– If you touch it, the bloom is gone.

Imperative-interrogative sentences inquire for information in a rather bland, direct way. As the starting component they usually have a verb tell or say.

e.g. Tell me, I was wondering, what kind of a child was I (Lessing).

They can be replaced by special questions as a proof of their double functional nature:

e.g. Tell me your name.– What is your name? Tell me your address.– Where do you live?

Thus, the classification of the communicative sentence types, in addition to three cardinal communicative types, includes six intermediary subtypes of sentences characterized by a set of mixed formal and communicative features. First, mixed sentence patterns of declaration (interrogative-declarative, imperative-declarative), second, mixed sentence patterns of interrogation (declarativeinterrogative, imperative-interrogative), and, third, mixed sentence patterns of inducement (declarative-imperative, interrogativeimperative). Most of the intermediary communicative types of sentences perform distinct stylistic functions, and can be treated as cases of transposition of the communicative types of sentences presented in oppositions, paradigmatically.

23

Ю. М. СЕРГЕЕВА, И. О. СЫРЕСИНА. СИНТАКСИС АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА: ОТ СЛОВА К ТЕКСТУ

YULIA SERGEEVA, IRINA SYRESINA. A STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO ENGLISH SYNTAX: FROM WORD TO DISCOURSE

1.3.3. Exclamatory sentences (emotiveness vs. neutrality)

In the previous chapter while speaking about communicative types of sentences we did not deliberately mention exclamatory sentences as those which do not constitute a separate communicative type, either cardinal or intermediary.

Exclamatory sentences are marked by specific intonation patterns (represented by an exclamation mark in written speech), word-order and special constructions with functional-auxiliary words, rendering the high emotional intensity of the utterance. But these regular grammatical features cannot be treated as sufficient grounds for placing the exclamatory sentences on the same level as the three cardinal communicative types of sentences. In fact, each cardinal communicative type – declarative, imperative or interrogative, may be represented in its exclamatory, emotionally colored variant, as opposed to a non-exclamatory, unemotional variant:

She is a nice little girl. – What a nice little girl she is! Open the door.– For God’s sake, open the door! Why are you late? – Why on earth are you late?!

Here we claim that emotionality is a feature which can be present or absent in any sentence, consequently, sentences can be exclamatory or neutral.

Emotionality is considered an obligatory property of a person, an instinctive, unconscious, non-preplanned manifestation of emotions.

Emotiveness is a functional semantic category formed by emotive language means of all levels. It serves for external transmission by speakers of their emotional state and attitude to the world in the process of communication. Emotiveness is a conscious process of demonstrating human emotions, the linguistic demonstration of emotionality as a psychological process.

We identify three groups of structural units expressing an exclamation.

To the first group belong those sentences which serve, above all, only as signals of emotions, and also realize contact-fixing function. They are (a) interjections expressing emotions of fear,surprise,astonishment, joy, etc.: Ah!, Wow!, Cool!, Oops!; (b) attention-getting words: I say! Hey! Hello!; (c) direct address ‘Olivia!’; (d) emotional assessment: “What the devil!” exclaimed Foster. Good God! Manners be hanged!

24

Chapter I. Simple sentence as a monopredicative construction

Closer attention should be paid to exclamatory sentences starting with the functional question words What and How. Here we can observe three main patterns of exclamatory sentences:

a)WHAT + (article) NOUN + pronoun/noun (=subject) + verb (= predicate)

e.g. What a beauty she is!

What a mess the children have made!

In most cases the emphasized NOUN is modified by a descriptive attribute expressed by an adjective or a participle:

What an enormous car your father has! What strange advice I have got!

What a tall man he is!

b)HOW + ADJECTIVE + pronoun/noun (= subject) + link verb (= predicate)

e.g. How tall he is!

How unpleasant this dish smells!

How beautiful Susan looked in a new dress!

The emphasized adjective is a nominal part (predicative) in the compound nominal predicate, while the verb is a linking element between the predicative and the subject of the sentence (for more information on this type of predicate see 2.3)

c)HOW + ADVERB + pronoun/noun (= subject) + notional verb (= predicate)

e.g. How gracefully the girl is dancing! How quickly I have got your response! How rudely Jack treats his colleagues!

NB! The word order in these sentences is direct (the subject always precedes the predicate).

The second group includes sentences acting both in exclamatory and in non-exclamatory functions with the same purpose of communication and the same structural features. The only marker of their emotive nature is an intonation contour which demonstrates a high pitched terminal tone.

Declarative exclamatory sentences while having the function of statements serve to express emotions of confusion, despair, surprise, happiness, etc.

e.g. “But I saw it!” The boy cried. “I saw him!”

They barely had time to rescue the children from the burning house!

25

Ю. М. СЕРГЕЕВА, И. О. СЫРЕСИНА. СИНТАКСИС АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА: ОТ СЛОВА К ТЕКСТУ

YULIA SERGEEVA, IRINA SYRESINA. A STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO ENGLISH SYNTAX: FROM WORD TO DISCOURSE

I really canʼt stand any more stress! I’ve never ever seen a taller man!

“Dazzlingly marvelous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!” exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but that he thought inside was: “Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!” (Tolkien)

Interrogative exclamatory sentences can be of two types – those which ask for information and those which do not contain question in their semantic structure at all (rhetorical questions, pseudo interrogative sentences).

Examples of the former run as follows:

Where are you?! I’ve been looking for you for hours! How much does it cost?!

The latter are emotionally colored statements, conveying the emotions of surprise, interest, resentment, irritation, etc.

e.g. Isn’t she beautiful! Has he grown!

Where, oh, where am I to run for help! Why are you all so horrible to me? Are you kidding!

Imperative exclamatory sentences can express a wide range of emotions: joy, sympathy, anxiety, despair, fear, dislike, etc.

e.g. Don’t call me what I’m not! Run, people, run!

Run until you drop! Stop thief! Stop thief!

Stop thief! Stop! (folk-song)

“Murderers and elf-friends!” the Great Goblin shouted. “Slash them! Beat them! Bite them! Gnash them! Take them away to dark holes full of snakes, and never let them see the light again!” (Tolkien)

To the third group we refer combinations of the abovementioned syntactic structures, such as: interjection + direct address; interjection + declarative exclamatory sentence; direct address + imperative exclamatory sentence; emphatic construction

+declarative exclamatory sentence; and the like.

e.g. “Lick! Drink the German filth! Drink, you scum!” (Bradbury)

He says, “Wow! It was a really good concert!”

In accordance with the presence of emotional coloring the sentences, irrespective of their functional properties, are neutral

26

Chapter I. Simple sentence as a monopredicative construction

or exclamatory. The correlation of emotiveness and neutrality can be observed in each cardinal communicative type of sentences and in most intermediary types.

The sentences in which the emotional color is transmitted have special intonation of exclamation (High Rise or High Fall) and are marked with corresponding graphical means. Their main task is to attract the attention of the addressee to the content of the speakerʼs statement, question, request or command. Being the expression of oneʼs feelings they have some influence on the feelings of the hearer as well.

1.4. ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE UTTERANCE.

WAYS TO IDENTIFY THE RHEME

The utterance as opposed to the sentence is a unit of speech. The main categories of the utterance from the point of view of its information structure are considered to be the theme and the rheme. They are the main components of the Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) – actual division of the sentence (though scholars use extensively the term “sentence” actually they mean “utterance”). This analysis deals with the semantic and pragmatic significance or insignificance of a part of the sentence for the whole syntactic unit.

The information which has already been introduced before or it is assumed to be known to the interlocutors is referred to as given information or the theme. It contrasts with information which is introduced for the first time and which is known as new information or the rheme.

T.A. van Dijk speaks about topic-comment structure of the utterance. Thus in a sentence John is rich the part “John” is the topic because it denotes the thing about which something is asserted, whereas “is rich” is the comment or focus of the sentence, denoting the thing (property) said about John.

The semantic content of the utterance can be expressed in a number of ways selected by the speaker according to the context in which the utterance occurs and to the importance of the information.

The boy ate an apple.

An apple was eaten by the boy. It was the boy who ate an apple.

27

Ю. М. СЕРГЕЕВА, И. О. СЫРЕСИНА. СИНТАКСИС АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА: ОТ СЛОВА К ТЕКСТУ

YULIA SERGEEVA, IRINA SYRESINA. A STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO ENGLISH SYNTAX: FROM WORD TO DISCOURSE

It was an apple which the boy ate. What the boy did was ate an apple. The boy, he ate an apple.

Correct interpretation of the Functional Sentence Perspective is of great importance for human communication, consequently, there are numerous devices which reveal information structure of the utterance and mark the rheme as the communicative centre of it.

The most important language means of expressing the rheme are:

1. Specific intonation contour.

Intonation helps the listener to identify syntactic structure of the utterance. The sentence Today we are going to discuss a new

film with Robert Downey Jr. is ambiguous. Its possible interpretations are:

a)We are going to discuss a new film starring Robert Downey Jr.

b)Robert Downey Jr. will be our interlocutor, and he will join our discussing some new film.

Intonation reveals the syntactic structure by showing where with Robert Downey Jr. belongs, if it is “discuss with Robert Downey Jr.” or “film with Robert Downey Jr.”

Intonation reveals information structure of the utterance by placing an accent on a rhematic component of it. This function is called communicative or focussing, or informational or semantic.

Consider the utterance Alice bought a new book. Any word in it may receive a logical accent thus becoming the rheme of the utterance. The conveyed information will differ depending on what syllable receives prominence:

a)Alice bought a new book (it was Alice who bought a new book, not Susan, or Paul, nor I. If you want to read the new book we have discussed recently, go to Alice and ask her if she has it now).

b)Alice bought a new book (she didn’t borrow it, nor did she steal it, she managed to find it and bought it).

c)Alice bought a new book (Alice bought a new edition of the book in a bookstore. She didn’t buy an old edition in a second-hand store).

d)Alice bought a new book (It was a book that she bought, not a DVD. We discussed a new writing of a popular author, it was filmed. I bought a DVD but Alice, who is a keen reader, bought a book).

Consider the following utterance: I need more experienced people. It can be pronounced and interpreted in two ways:

28

Chapter I. Simple sentence as a monopredicative construction

a)I need more experienced people (I do not have enough people to manage the load of work we have to carry out. Human resources are insufficient).

b)I need more experienced people (I need people who are experienced enough instead of those I have, because with them I cannot cope with the task).

2. The indefinite article and indefinite pronominal determiners.

Somebody is waiting for you. A boy entered the room.

However, it does not work with certain classes of nouns (unique objects, abstract notions, substances, proper names, etc).

3. The use of the passive voice.

The exhibition was visited by thousands of people. This house has not been lived in for years.

4. The use of the construction ‘there is’/‘there are’.

There is one flower blossom in the basket.

There were some chairs in the back part of the room.

5. The use of special devices, like ‘as for’, ‘but for’, etc.:

As for him, I don’t know.

But for the weather we could have gone to the country yesterday.

6. The use of emphatic constructions It is somebody who (It is something that…).

It is I who am guilty.

It was the cat that ate the rat.

It is Peter who has broken the window.

7.Particular word-order pattern. As a rule new information in English generally comes last: The boy entered the room. To lay stress on the rheme inverted word order is applied (For more details see 2.9):

Here comes our bus.

Pleased though he was with his choices, Harry had also shouted himself hoarse at the many complainers.

8.Ellipsis of certain parts of a sentence. The remaining part is the rheme:

Where are you going in summer? – To the south of France.– Cool! How long do you plan to stay there? – Just two weeks or so.

9.Detachment of certain parts of a sentence. The detached part is the rheme:

I will stay here. With you.

29

Ю. М. СЕРГЕЕВА, И. О. СЫРЕСИНА. СИНТАКСИС АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА: ОТ СЛОВА К ТЕКСТУ

YULIA SERGEEVA, IRINA SYRESINA. A STUDENTS’ GUIDE TO ENGLISH SYNTAX: FROM WORD TO DISCOURSE

This was my voice… perfectly wise, calm and compassionate.

Spring begins with the first narcissus, rather cold and shy and wintry.

10. Repetition of a word or a phrase.

Up, up, up we went, past all the famous titles.

11.Intensifying particles: too, really, pretty, so, even, etc

He is too young to perform this task. I couldn’t even walk, let alone run.

12.Special graphical means, such as capitalization, multiplication, italics, bold type, hyphenation:

Noooooo! Pleeeeeese, don’t hurt me! “His wife” I said. “W-I-F-E.”

Summing it all up, actual division shows the position and the kind of focus in the utterance, indicates its communicative perspective or information centre.Between the theme and the rheme intermediary, transitional parts of the actual division can be placed, which are characterized by different degrees of their informative value.

30