- •Теоретическая грамматика английского языка
- •Introduction
- •§ 381. Within a sentence, the word or combination of words that contains the meanings of predicativity may be called the predication.
- •§ 384. The main parts of the sentence are those whose function it is to make the predication. They are the subject and the predicate of the sentence.
- •§ 389. In the sentence Birds fly, as we have seen, the syntactical and the lexical meanings of the subject and the predicate go together. But English has a system of devices to separate them.
- •§391. Let us now consider the grammatical word-morphemes do, does, did in sentences like Does she ever smile? We do not know him, etc.
- •§393. Every predication can be either positive or negative.
- •§ 396. As defined (§ 3), when studying the structure of a unit, we find out its components, mostly units of the next lower level, their arrangement and their functions as parts of the unit.
- •§ 399. Some analogy can be drawn between the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence.
- •§ 401. Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups — the group of the subject and the group of the predicate 1.
- •§ 403. Sentences with only one predication are called simple sentences. Those with more than one predication have usually no general name 1. We shall call them composite sentences.
- •§ 409. Not all interrogative sentences are syntactical opposites of declarative sentences.
- •§ 411. The sentences below form opposemes of some syntactical category.
- •§ 415. Let us compare the following pairs of sentences:
- •I'll see him I shall see him
- •It's raining It is raining
- •§ 418. We find no predication in the second sentence of the following dialogue.
- •§ 419. The sentence-words yes and no are regularly used as adjuncts of some head-sentences.
- •§ 421. The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.
- •§ 425. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex.
- •§ 426. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. In the following sentence it is the noun head.
- •§ 429. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them.
- •§ 430. The predicate is the member of a predication containing the mood and tense (or only mood) components of predicativity.
- •§ 431. The predicate can be a word or a syntactical word-morpheme. When it is a notional word, it "is not only the structural but the notional predicate as well.
- •Objective Complements (Objects)
- •§ 448. Like other parts of a simple sentence (clause), objective complements may be expressed by complexes and are then called complex objects.
- •Adverbial Complements (Adverbials)
- •§ 454. Below are some specimens of quantitative adverbial complements.
- •§455. Circumstantial adverbials, or as a. I. Smirnitsky calls them, adverbials of situation, comprise:
- •§ 457. As follows from the string of examples given above, in simple sentences adverbial complements are usually adverbs, nouns (mostly with prepositions), verbids and verbid complexes.
- •§458. Comparing English adverbials with those in Russian one can see that despite some common features (meaning, types), they are in a number of points different.
- •§ 459. Attributes are secondary parts of the sentence serving to modify nouns or noun-equivalents in whatever functions they are used in the sentence.
- •§ 460. Attributes are formally indicated only by the position they occupy, save the demonstrative pronouns this, these, that, those which, besides, agree in number with the word they modify.
- •§469. Connectives are linking-words considered as a secondary part of the sentence. They are mostly prepositions and conjunctions.
- •§ 472. The articles resemble particles in being semi-notional and in functioning as specifiers. But they specify only one part of speech, nouns. In this they resemble attributes.
- •§ 473. Parenthetical elements are peculiar parts of the sentence.
- •§ 474. In accordance with their meanings parenthetical elements fall into four major groups:
- •§ 475. In a simple sentence parenthetical elements may be expressed by individual words (modal words, adverbs, nouns) and word-combinations of different nature.
- •§ 476. In most cases parenthetical elements are connected in sense with the sentence as a whole, that is why they have no fixed position in the sentence.
- •I. The Position of the Subject and the Predicate in the Sentence
- •§ 477. We have already dwelt upon the fact that in Modern English syntactical relations of words in the sentence are very often indicated by the position the words occupy in the sentence.
- •II. The Position of the Object
- •§ 479. The direct object is usually placed after the verb unless the indirect object precedes it.
- •§ 480. Sometimes the object is pushed to the front of the sentence. It occurs:
- •§ 482. The indirect object cannot be used in the sentence without the direct object. The indirect object is regularly put before the direct object as in That gave me a new idea.
- •§ 483. In most cases they follow the direct object, though for stylistic purposes, I. E. For emphasis and expressiveness, they may be placed at the head of the sentence.
- •§ 487. The position of an attribute depends both on the head-word and on the attribute. If the head-word is a pronoun, the attribute is, as a rule, postpositive.
- •§ 488. In postposition attributes often acquire what we might call a 'semi-predicative' connotation.
- •§ 489. If there are two or more prepositive attributes to one and the same noun their order is dependent upon a number of factors which appear to be semantic and stylistic rather than grammatical.
- •§ 491. As to the position of the other parts of the sentence, see the combinability of the corresponding parts of speech.
- •§ 497. The compound sentence usually describes events in their natural order, reflecting the march of events spoken of in the sequence of clauses.2
- •§ 498. The principal clauses of complex sentences are usually not classified, though their meanings are not neutral with regard to the meanings of the subordinate clauses.
- •§ 502. Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pronouns or asyndetically.
- •§ 506. The mood of the predicate verb of a subordinate clause depends on the principal clause to a greater extent than its tense.
- •§ 507. The subject clause is the only one used in the function of a primary part of the sentence.
- •§ 519. A variety of attributive clauses is the appositive clause, which formally differs from an attributive clause in being introduced by a conjunction (that, if, whether).
- •§ 520. Extension clauses are postpositive adjuncts of adjectives, adverbs and adlinks.
- •§ 521. Most authors who do not regard parenthetical elements as parts of the sentence treat It is past ten, 1 think as a simple sentence. We do not find this view convincing.
- •§ 522. In most cases parenthetical clauses are introduced asyndetically, though now and again the conjunctions as, if, etc. Are used.
- •§ 523. Sometimes subordination and coordination may be combined within one sentence, in which case we may have compound-complex and complex-compound sentences.
- •§ 524. Among the composite sentences of English and other languages we find a peculiar type differing from the rest.
- •§ 525. There is no agreement as to the syntactical nature of a sentence like He said, "I love you".
- •§ 526. Let us compare the two sentences:
- •§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.
- •§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ grammatically from the conventional types of sentences.
- •§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
- •Conclusion
- •§ 535. The syntactical system of a language is, as a rule, closely connected with its morphological system. The structure of the sentence and the structure of the word are interdependent.
- •§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
- •§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.
§ 381. Within a sentence, the word or combination of words that contains the meanings of predicativity may be called the predication.
In the sentence He mused over it for a minute (Conan Doyle) the predication is he mused. He indicates the person, mused — the tense and mood components of predicativity.
In the sentence Tell me something there is a one-word predication tell containing the mood component of predicativity. The person component is only implied 1. As we know (§ 249), imperative mood grammemes have the lexico-grammatical meaning of 'second person'.
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1 "The situation generally makes it so obvious who the second person, subject of imperatives is, that its expression is the exception rather than the rule". (A. Martinet, op. cit., p. 59).
§ 382. The simplest relation to the situation of speech can be found in a sentence like Rain which when pronounced with proper intonation merely states the phenomenon "observed. Does a sentence like this contain the relations to the act of speech, the speaker and reality? Yes, it does. First of all, the noun rain, like any noun, is associated with the third person (§ 148). As for the meanings of mood and tense, the following is to be taken into consideration. " As we know, the general meanings of tense, mood contain three particular meanings each: present — past — future (tense), indicative — imperative — subjunctive (mood). Two of these meanings are usually more specific than the third. The two specific tenses are the past and the future. The two specific moods are the imperative and the subjunctive. Now, when there are no positive indications of any tense of mood the sentence is understood to contain the least specific of those meanings.2 In the sentence Rain the present tense and the indicative mood are implied. Cf. the Russian Жара. Поздно. Он студент, etc.
In the sentence Tea! the imperative intonation expresses the difference in the modal component of predicativity.
Thus, Rain. Tea! are sentences both as to their forms (intonation) and their meanings (predicativity). They are living patterns in the English language because many sentences of the same type can be formed. The lexical meaning of Rain is irrelevant (cf. Snow, Hail, Fog) when ,we regard the sentence as a language model, but it is relevant when the sentence is used in actual speech.
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2 They correspond to the centre or zero point of the system of coordinates.
§ 383. Of much greater importance are sentences of the type I live. The word I contains the person component of predicativity and the word live carries the tense and mood components. Thus the sentence I live has predicativity plainly expressed by a positive two-member predication.
The sentence I live regarded as a model is much more productive than the model Rain because the predication can express different relations to the situation of speech: different persons, different tenses, different moods. It is hardly necessary to say that in actual speech an almost limitless variety of sentences are built on this model by combining words of different lexemes.