§ 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.

To begin with, the overwhelming majority of verb forms in English are analytical ^J. When the predicate is an analytical verb, the structural and the notional parts of the predicate are naturally separated, the former being expressed by a gram­matical word-morpheme, as in the sentences Mother is sleeping, I shall wait, etc.

When the sentence contains a finite link-verb or a modal verb, the structural and notional predicates are different words as in He is late, She can swim.

The structural and the notional (part of the) predicate are often separated in English by adverbs and other words.

E. g. He i s often late.

You must never d о it again. We s h a I I certainly come.

In interrogative and negative sentences the structural (part of the) predicate is usually detached from the notional (part of the) predicate and is placed before the subject or the negation.

/ s mother sleep ing? "Mother i s not sleeping. Shall I wait? You must not cry.

When the predicate is expressed by a synthetic form and contains no word-morphemes, as in the sentence Birds fly, special word-morphemes do, does, did are introduced to sep­arate the structural and the lexical meanings of the predicate verb in interrogative and negative transforms of the sentence.

¹ See § 12. '

226

D о birds fly"? Birds d о not fly. He smiles. Does he s т i I el He smiled. Did he smile?

The same phenomenon is observed in sentences like Little does he e v p e с t it, indeed. Only then did we b e g i n. Also for emphasis in sentences like We d о like it, But he d i d so wan t, and the writing said he never would. (Galsworthy).

Now observe the so-called 'contracted forms', so widely used in colloquial English: I'm sure, He's writing, We'll come, You're students, They've left, etc. They are another manifestation of the tendency to bring together the structural meanings by isolating them from the notional (part of the) predicate.

The tendency to detach the structural part of the predicate from its notional one is obvious in disjunctive questions.

He i s working, ins't he? They haven't come yet, have they? You know him, don't you? You can swim, can't you?

The same tendency is evident in sentences like John graduated last year and so did Mary. John hasn't mar­ried yet. Neither has Peter. He was glad the play had ended as it had. (Galsworthy).

But especially manifest is the tendency in short replies of the type He does, They will, etc. When in answer to the question Has John really promised that? we say He has, we repeat the predicative part of the previous sentence, leaving out the notional part.

Thus, we must say that the tendency to detach the struc­tural from the notional is a typical feature of the English predicate, which is connected with the extensive use of gram­matical word-morphemes and semi-notional verbs. The ties between analytical morphology and syntax are obvious. *

¹ This is what W. Twaddell says about the function of what he calls 'verb auxiliaries': "Recent research on English verb grammar has increasingly revealed the crucial functions of the auxiliaries as gram­matical sentence elements...". After describing their main syntactical uses he continues: "These four grammatical functions of auxiliaries are a peculiar feature of English grammar. It must be noted that they are not mere 'privileges' for auxiliaries: an auxiliary is an indispensable component in any English construction of sentence negation, interrog-

'/47*

227

§ 390. The subject is in most cases a word uniting the syn­tactical meaning of 'person' with the lexical meanings. But English has developed special word-morphemes to separate them, as in the dialogue below.

• It is necessary to warn her, isn't it!

• It is.

The subject it has no notional value, but it contains the predicative meaning of 'person'. The correlated but detached lexical meaning is in the infinitive to warn. Thus, it has only the form, but not the content of a word. In content it is a grammatical morpheme, and we may, consequently, regard it as a grammatical word-morpheme. But it differs from the grammatical word-morphemes already described in not form­ing part of an analytical word while making part of a sentence. Hence the conclusion that grammatical word-morphemes divide into rporphological and syntactical ones. It in the sentences analysed is a syntactical word-morpheme used to detach the predicative meaning of the subject from its lexical meaning.

Another syntactical word-morpheme of this type is there in the following dialogue.

• There is no money in it, is there"?

• There is.

As a result of a long course of development this there has lost its lexical meaning, its connection with the pro-adverb there, and acquires the predicative meaning of the subject when it occupies its position. There shows, like most subjects, that neither the speaker not the listener are involved.

In the sentences above there is the subject owing to its position, though the predicate agrees in number with the noun money, which is the notional correlative of there. W. Twaddell writes: "Like the interrogative subjects who (what) which? the empty subject there is itself unmarked for number. A following verb displays the number agreement appropriate to the predicative noun complement or to an earlier noun or pronoun reference. "Who is coming? Which are staying? What's the best way to Newport? What are those things?" — Similarly, "There is a tide in the affairs of men. There are more things

ation, stress for insistence, and echo-repetition". (The English Verb Auxiliaries 1960, p. 13—14.)

228

in heaven and earth. There happen to be several good reasons. There does not seem to be any objection". ^l