Rules of Synt Division

Some Rules of the Syntagmatic Division

When we speak we make pauses necessary for understanding. They divide the speech flow into syntagms. The syntagmatic division depends on the tempo and the style of speech. The slow colloquial style is characterized by a greater number of intonation groups, then the rapid colloquial.

To morrow | we 'meet at eight. (slow coll.)

To'morrow we 'meet at eight. (rapid coll.)

1. The subject group and the predicate group consisting of more than one word form separate syntagms (extended subject group):

'John’s sister | 'entered the room.

BUT: 'John’s 'sister entered. (one-word predicate)

Note: One-word subject can form a separate syntagm if it is emphasized (one of the complex tones must be used on it)

Mary | is 'John’s sister.

2. Homogeneous members of the sentence:

'John came | but 'didn’t stay long. (predicates)

The 'teacher 'spoke of our country | and its 'peace programme. (objects)

3. Adverbial and parenthetical phrases at the beginning of the sentence. In the final sentence they take the secondary stress (tail).

A 'few minutes later | we 'hear a 'ring at the door.

To 'tell you the truth, | he’s 'never late.

BUT: He’s 'never late, to tell you the truth.

4. An apposition makes up a separate syntagm:

Kyiv, | the 'capital of Ukraine, | is a 'very 'beautiful city.

'Berry Smith, | his 'wife’s niece, | 'lives with us.

5. Alternative and disjunctive questions:

'Do you 'live here | or 'out of town?

You 'live here, | don’t you?

6. In slow colloquial participial, gerundial, infinitive and prepositional phrases can form syntagms:

She is 'sitting by the window | 'reading a book.

We too have a house | in a 'London suburb.

7. Complex and compound sentences make up two syntagms:

If you are late | 'ask the per'mission to 'come in.

In English there is a number of words that normally do not take sentence stress. They are form words (articles, prepositions, particles, conjunctions, functional verbs) and pronouns (personal, possessive, relative and reflexive). In sound sequence when unstressed they get reduced but have strong or full forms when they are stressed.

Sentence Stress

Sentence stress is a greater prominence given to one or more words in a sentence. In emotionally neutral speech sentence stress is more or less equally distributed among all the notional words of the sentence. The normally accented words are:

1. Nouns.

2. Pronouns: demonstrative, indefinite, interrogative, emphatic, absolute.

3. Notional verbs.

4. Adjectives.

5. Numerals.

6. Interjections.

The unstressed elements as a rule are:

1. Pronouns: personal, possessive, reflexive, relative.

2. Auxiliary verbs.

3. Prepositions.

4. Conjunctions.

5. Articles.

6. Particles.

Sentence stress, to a greater degree, is determined by three factors:

1. By the relative semantic importance of words in the sentence which results in logical stress.

2. By the rhythmical structure of the sentence.

3. By the style of speech.