- •The systemic nature of grammar. The two planes of language: the plane of content and the plane of expression. Two fundamental types of relations of lingual units. Their hierarchical relations.
- •The means employed for building-up member-forms of categorial oppositions. Synthetical and analytical types. The grammatical categories.
- •The category of case. Different approaches to the category of case in English nouns. The range of relational meanings of the English genitive.
- •The category of aspect. The opposition by which the aspective category of development is contrasted. The views on the essence of the perfect forms in modern English.
- •The category of mood. The opposition underlying the category. The problem of the imperative mood. The views on the classification of the subjunctive mood in English.
- •The category of voice, its difference from other verbal categories from the point of its referential qualities. The problem of the reflexive, reciprocal and middle voices.
- •The sentence as a unit of speech. The difference between the sentence and the word. Essential features of the sentence. The nominative function of the sentence.
- •The phrase. Two approaches to the definition of the phrase. Types of phrases. Means of expressing syntactical relations within a phrase.
- •Communicative types of sentences. Speech acts as realization of communicative intentions of the speaker. The three cardinal communicative sentences types. The problem of exclamatory sentences.
- •Actual division of the sentence, its purpose and main components. The formal means of expressing the distinction between the theme and the rheme.
The phrase. Two approaches to the definition of the phrase. Types of phrases. Means of expressing syntactical relations within a phrase.
A phrase is every combination of two or more words which is a grammatical word. The constituent elements of a phrase may belong to any part of speech. This definition is given by the majority of linguists. The term “phrase” wasn’t used in early English syntax – linguists used the term “word groups”.
A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or processes just as a word and a sentence are. Each component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes in accordance with grammatical categories represented in it without destroying the identity of a phrase. For ex., in the phrase “Write letters” the first component can change according to the verbal categories of tense, mood, etc. The second component can change according to the category of number. Thus, “writes a letter”, “has written a letter”, would have written letters” are grammatical modifications of one phrase.
With a sentence things are different. A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form of one or more words would produce a new sentence. Besides, a phrase has no intonation, while intonation is one of the most important features of a sentence.
Among foreign linguists the first scientist who tried to elaborate the problem of phrases was Prof. Jespersen. He was the first to give the classification of phrases. He elaborated the theory of 3 ranks of words. Analyzing phrases, Jespersen classified them into:
phrases with junction (соединительная связь)
phrases with nexus (зависимые словосочетания)
In a junction the joining elements are so close to each other, that they may be considered as one composite name (a silly man – a fool). A junction expresses attributive relations. In a nexus smth. new is added (the dog box).
However, Prof. Jespersen doesn’t give the definite definition of a phrase. Analyzing the phrase “terribly cold weather”, he underlines that the three words in this phrase are of different importance. “Weather is cold” – primary element, “cold” – secondary, “terribly” – tertiary.
There are different opinions concerning the definition of a phrase:
a phrase is a grammatical unit formed by a combination of two or more notional words which doesn’t constitute a sentence. Only notional words may be parts of a phrase. It is rather a narrow opinion, given by Prof. Barhudarov.
a phrase is every combination of two or more words which is a grammatical unit, but is not an analytical form of some word. It is a wide definition of a phrase, given by Prof. Ilyish.
Phrases may be:
phraseological (to draw the certain – скрывать; a bag of bones – худой)
free (formed each time anew – a red house, a white house, a yellow house)
syntactic phrases are divided into:
subordinate (to write a letter)
coordinate (fathers and sons)
predicative (for me to go)
Subordinate phrases are binary structures in which one of the members is syntactically the head-word. It can always be divided into two members: the leading element and the modifier (ajunct). Ajuncts serve to describe, qualify, extend, complete the meaning of the headword (writing a letter, fresh air).
Coordinate phrases consist of two or more syntactically equivalent units joined in a cluster which functions as a single unit. The number of immediate constituents in such phrases is not limited. Such phrases are called open phrases. As to their grammatical organization, they may be syndatic (now and then, sooner or later) and asyndatic (father’s brother’s).
Predicative phrases are such structures in which the syntactic functions of the component parts differ from the function of a phrase as a whole (Lessons over, they went home; Weather permitting, we will go for a walk tomorrow). The function of this phrase as a whole unit is the adverbial modifier of condition, but inside this phrase the relations between the constituent parts remind the relations between a subject and a predicate.
The classification of predicative phrases:
bound phrases
absolute phrases
Bound predicative phrases are grammatically connected with the predicate functioning as subject, object, predicative, attribute, adverbial modifier. Having a dependant form, they are not isolated in a sentence (He waited for me to go).
The absolute predicative phrases are always isolated expressing the additional quality. They are connected by intonation and not only with the verb predicate, but with the whole sentence.
Prof. Ilyish divides all the phrases according to their function in a sentence: phrases which fulfill some syntactical function in a sentence and phrases which do not perform any independent syntactical function.