32. Notion of the sentence. Classification of sentences. Types of sentences.

Definitions:

Notional: A sentence is an expression of a complete thought.

Logical: A sentence is a proposition expressed by words (something true). A proposition is the semantic invariant of all the members of modal and communicative paradigms of sentences and their transforms. But besides sentences which contain propositions there are interrogative and negative sentences. Speech is emotional. There is no one to one relationship. Then a sentence can be grammatically correct, but from the point of view of logic it won’t be correct, true to life (Water is a gas). Laws of thinking are universal but there are many languages. Grammar and Logic don’t coincide.

Structural: A sentence is a subject-predicate structure. What are the subject and the predicate? Grammatical subject can only be defined in terms of the sentence. Moreover, the grammatical subject often does not indicate what we are ‘talking about’ (The birds have eaten all the fruit. It is getting cold). Besides, this definition leaves out verbless sentences. There are one-member sentences. Conclusion – a sentence is a structural scheme.

Phonological: A sentence is a flow of speech between 2 pauses. But speech is made up of incomplete, interrupted, unfinished, or even quite chaotic sentences. Speech is made up of utterances but utterances seldom correspond to sentences.

Linguistic: A sentence is an immediate integral unit of speech build up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose (Pr.Blokh).

The sentence, being the main object of syntax, performs 2 essential functions:

Nominative

Predicative

As there are so many definitions, it is more preferable to describe a sentence than to define it. The main peculiar features of the sentence are:

integrity

syntactic independence

grammatical completeness (some kind of obligatory structure)

semantic completeness (any sentence should have some meaning)

communicative completeness

communicative functioning (actual division)

predicativity

modality

intonational completeness

Predicativity is a syntactical category. It is actualized reference to reality. Several approaches to predicativity:

Logical understanding: combination of 2 parts of proposition.

Formally syntactic understanding: relations of the structural components of the sentence (subject and predicate).

Semantic approach: correlation of the contents of the utterance with the situation. The latter is most popular.

Modality is a semantic category. It is broader a notion than predicativity, it is revealed both in grammatical elements of language and its lexical, purely nominative elements. Pr. Pocheptsov: predicativity is mood plus tense.

M. Bryant: any sentence should be characterized from the point of view of 3 features: structure, semantics, pragmatics (purpose).

Classification of sentences

1. According to structure (number of centres of primary predication): simple (1 centre) and composite (more than 1 centre); simple are divided into two-member and one-member sentences. Two-member sentences are divided into elliptical (can be easily reconstructed) and non-elliptical (=complete):

e.g. Marvelous! Horrible! How very interesting!

e.g. No birds singing at the dawn (Strong resemblance to 2 member sentences).

e.g. I saw him there. Yesterday (parcellation).

According to the type of relations b/w clauses composite sentences are in turn divided into complex (subordination) and compound (coordination).

Pr. Pospelov offered to divide all sentences first into syndetically and asyndetically connected and then only the syndetically connected sentences into compound and complex.

Pr. Blokh divides composite sentences into

Compound

Complex

Semi-compound (with homogeneous parts)

Semi-complex (with verbid complexes)

Pr. Ilyish includes semi-sentences into complicated ones.

2. According to the communicative purpose: declarative, interrogative, imperative (3 main), exclamatory, optative.

Pr. Ilyish: before dividing sentences into 3 classes we should divide them into emotional and non-emotional and within emotional we can establish 4 classes.

Foreign linguists divide all sentences into proper (have subject-predicate structure) and quasi (don’t have it). Then proper are divided into declarative, interrogative, imperative, optative. Quasi-sentences are interjectional (Oh!), vocative (Peter!) and metacommunicative (Hello! Good morning!).

Types of sentences

1. The strictly declarative sentence immediately expresses a certain proposition, that is why the actual division of the declarative sentence presents itself in the most developed and complete form. The rheme of the declarative sentence makes up the center of some statement as such.

2. The strictly imperative sentence does not express any statement or fact, i.e. any proposition proper. It is only based on a proposition, without formulating it directly. Namely, the proposition underlying the imperative sentence is reversely contrasted against the content of the expressed inducement. It is so because an urge to do something (i.e. affirmative inducement) is based on a supposition that something is not done. An urge not to do something (i.e. negative inducement) is founded on the supposition that something is done or may be done. E.g. Show him into the room (He is not in the room). Don’t talk about them (They talk about them). Thus, the rheme of the imperative sentence expresses the informative nucleus not of an explicit proposition, but of an inducement – a wanted or unwanted action.

3. The actual division of the strictly interrogative sentences is uniquely different from declarative and imperative sentences. It expresses an inquiry about information which the speaker does not possess. Therefore the rheme of the interrogative sentence, as the nucleus of the inquiry, is informationally open (gaping). Its function consists only in marking the rhematic position in the response sentence and programming the content of the rheme in accord with the nature of the inquiry. The thematic part of the answer is usually zeroed since it’s already expressed in the question: e.g. How are you? – Fine, thanks.

+Mixed types (where transposition of the communicative type takes place):

e.g. You must all help dear Edward. (strucure – declarative; com.purpose - inducement => declarative-imperative type)

e.g. You saw a good deal of him in London, I believe. (strucure – declarative; com.purpose –interrogation => declarative-interrogative type)

e.g. Live and learn! (strucure – imperative; com.purpose - statement => declarative-imperative type)

e.g. Tell me about John, Mary. (strucure – imperative; com.purpose - interrogation=> imperative-interrogative type)

e.g. Can leopard change his spots? (strucure – interrogative; com.purpose - statement => interrogative-declarative type)

e.g. Will you do something very kind, boy? (strucure – interrogative; com.purpose - inducement => interrogative-imperative type)

33. Actual division of the sentence (Blokh pp.236-243; pp. 249 (5) – 261).

The actual division of the sentence (also called the functional sentence perspective) exposes its informative perspective showing what immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the total information conveyed by the sentence. From the point of view of the actual division the sentence can be divided into 2 sections: thematic (theme) and rhematic (rheme). The theme expresses the starting point of communication; i.e. it denotes an object or phenomenon about which something is reported. The rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication, emphasizing its contextually relevant centre. Between the theme and the rheme intermediary, transitional parts of the actual division can be placed, also known under the term “transition”. Transitional parts of the sentence are characterized by different degrees of informative value.

The actual division of the sentence finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech, therefore it is sometimes referred to as the “contextual” division of the sentence. The kind of actual division is “direct” when theme coincides with the S of the sentence and the rheme coincides with Pr (e.g. Mary is fond of poetry). And when theme coincides with the Pr of the sentence and the rheme coincides with S, the actual division is “inverted (e.g. “Isn’t it surprising that Tim is fond of poetry?” – “But you are wrong. Mary is fond of poetry, not Tim.”).

The theme may or may not coincide with the S, while the rheme may or may not coincide with the predicate (with the whole predicate group or predicative).

Language has special means of expressing the theme. They are the following: the definite article and definite pronominal determiners, a loose parenthesis introduced by the phrases “as to”, “as for”, and the direct word order pattern (S – theme, as a rule).

In comparison with the language means to express the theme, there are much more means to express the rheme because the rheme marks the informative centre of the sentence. So one can use:

1) Lexical means (intensifying particles, the indefinite article and indefinite pronominal determiner);

2) Logical stress, pausation;

3) Syntactic structures (an emphatic construction with the pronoun “It”, a contrastive complex (e.g. This costume is meant not for your cousin, but for you.), constructions there is/ there are, ellipsis (e.g. “You’ve got the letters?” – “In my bag.”), passive voice (by-phrase);

4) and also special graphical means.

The theory of actual division has proved important in the study of the communicative properties of sentence. In particular, it has been demonstrated that each communicative type is distinguished by features which are revealed first of all in the nature of rheme.

The strictly declarative sentence immediately expresses a certain proposition, that is why the actual division of the declarative sentence presents itself in the most developed and complete form. The rheme of the declarative sentence makes up the center of some statement as such.

The strictly imperative sentence does not express any statement or fact, i.e. any proposition proper. It is only based on a proposition, without formulating it directly. Namely, the proposition underlying the imperative sentence is reversely contrasted against the content of the expressed inducement. It is so because an urge to do something (i.e. affirmative inducement) is based on a supposition that something is not done. An urge not to do something (i.e. negative inducement) is founded on the supposition that something is done or may be done. E.g. Show him into the room (He is not in the room). Don’t talk about them (They talk about them). Thus, the rheme of the imperative sentence expresses the informative nucleus not of an explicit proposition, but of an inducement – a wanted or unwanted action.

The actual division of the strictly interrogative sentences is uniquely different from declarative and imperative sentences. It expresses an inquiry about information which the speaker does not possess. Therefore the rheme of the interrogative sentence, as the nucleus of the inquiry, is informationally open (gaping). Its function consists only in marking the rhematic position in the response sentence and programming the content of the rheme in accord with the nature of the inquiry. The thematic part of the answer is usually zeroed since it’s already expressed in the question: e.g. How are you? – Fine, thanks.

(синий учебник p. 274) Dijk T.A. van suggests different terms for the word “theme”, “rheme”. He speaks about topic (as something already known) and comment or focus (as something that is being said about). He also calls the direct actual division – normal ordering of the sentence.

Moreover, he agrees with Mathesius that comment and topic have a semantic status, as topic is often associated with something already known, and comment – with what is ”unknown” to the hearer. Any in a sentence which denotes something denoted before is assigned topic function, whereas the other expressions are assigned comment function.