Glossary of linguistic terms

1. elliptical sentence, ellipsis – эллипс, пропуск элемента высказывания, легко восстанавливаемого в данном контексте или ситуации.

2. one-axis sentence – односоставное предложение, в котором есть либо только подлежащее, либо только сказуемое

Additional reading:

1. стр. 250-254

2. -

3. –

4. стр. 298 – 302

5. -

XXXV. Models of syntactic analysis. Parts of the sentence

While studying sentence structure we use several patterns: the Parts of the sentence model; Distributional model; the model of Immediate constituents; the Transformational model.

The nominative parts of the simple sentence, each occupying a notional position in it, are subject, predicate, object, adverbial, attribute, parenthetical enclosure, interjectional enclosure. The parts are arranged in a hierarchy and all of them perform some modifying role. The highest object of this modification is the sentence as a whole, and through the sentence the reflection of the situation (situational event).

Thus, the subject is a person-modifier of the predicate, the predicate is a process-modifier of a processual part (actional or statal). The adverbial is a quality-modifier of a processual part or the whole of the sentence. The attribute is a quality-modifier of a substantive part. The parenthetical enclosuer is a detached modifier of any sentence part or the whole of the sentence. The addressing enclosure (address) is a substantive modifier of the destination of the sentence, the interjectional enclosure is an emotional modifier of the sentence.

Every modifier can be single or collective (co-modifiers, homogenious). In the scheme the sentence parts connected by bonds of immediate domination are placed one under the other in a successive order of subordination, while sentence parts related to each other equipotently are placed in a horizontal order.

The small lady listened to me attentively.

The lady listened

Subject predicate

Small to me attentively

Attribute object adverbial

The scheme clearly shows the basic logical-grammatical connections of the notional constituents of the sentence. It can be supplemented with specifying linguistic information, such as indications of doesn’t lexico-grammatical features of the sentence parts and their syntactic sub-functions.

The disadvantage of this model is that it presents only the subordination ranks of the parts of the sentence, but present its linear order in speech. It is overcome in another scheme of analysis, called the model of immediate constituents.

Glossary of linguistic terms:

1. subject - подлежащее

2. рredicate - сказуемое

3.object - дополнение

4. attribute - определение

5.adverbial modifier - обстоятельство

6.parenthetical enclosure – вводное слово

7.interjectional enclosure - междометие

8.address - обращение

9.homogenious – однородные

Additional reading:

1. стр. 198-211

2стр. 183-190

3 –

4 стр. 292-294

5 стр. 309-310

XXXVI. The model of immediate constituents

The model of immediate constituents (IC-model) is based on the group-parsing (разбор) of the sentence. The concept of immediate constituents (ICs) is important both in morphology and syntax. An immediate constituent is a group of linguistic elements which functions as a unit in some larger whole.

A basic sentence pattern consists first of all of a subject and a predicate. These are called the immediate constituents of the sentence. They are constituents in the sense that they constitute, or make up, the sentence. They are immediate in the sense that they act immediately on one another: the whole meaning of the one applies to the whole meaning of the other.

The model consists in dividing the whole of the sentence into two groups: that of the subject and that of the predicate, which, in their turn, are divided into their sub-group constituents according to their successive subordinative order. The IC-model shows the structure of the sentence as made up by binary immediate constituents. As for equipotent (coordinative) connections, they are non-binary and included in the analysis as inner subdivisions of subordinative connections. The subject of a basic sentence is a noun cluster and the predicate is a verb cluster, we can therefore say that the immediate constituents (ICs) of a sentence are a noun cluster and a verb cluster. Each of the ICs of the sentence can in turn be divided to get ICs at the next lower level. For example, the noun cluster of a sentence may consist of a determiner plus a noun. In this case, the construction may be cut between the determiner and the noun, e. g. the girl. The ICs of this noun cluster are the and girl. The verb cluster of the sentence may be a verb plus a noun cluster (played the piano). This cluster can be cut into ICs as follows: played the piano

THE det	SMALL A	LADY N	LISTENED V	TO prep	ME NP-pro	ATTENTIVELY D
				NP-obj
	NP		VP
NP-subj			VP-pred

S – sentence

NP-subj – subject noun-phrase, VP-pred – predicate verb-phrase

net – determiner

NP – noun-phrase

D (DP) – adverbial (phrase)

VP – verb-phrase

AP (A) – adjective-attribute constituent

N – noun constituent

V, Vf – finite verb

NP-obj – object noun-phrase

prep – preposition

The process of syntactic IC-analysis continues until the word-level is reached, the ultimate constituents of the sentence.

This model has 2 versions: the analytical IC-diagram and the IC-derivation tree, which shows the grouping of sentence constituents.

S

NP VP

det NP VP D

A N V VP

prp N-pro

When analysing sentences, we expose two types of subordinative relations: obligatory relations, i.e. such as are indispensable for the existence of the syntactic unit as such, and optional relations, which may or may not be represented in the syntactic unit. This is explained by the syntactic valency (combining power of the word). The attribute small and the adverbial attentively are the optional parts of the sentence. Without them all the positions in the structure are obligatory from the point of view of the valency of the verb (transitive). This structure is elementary sentence, which has only principle parts and complementive modifiers, and doesn’t have any supplementive modifiers. Elementary sentence can be extended without adding new predicative positions, then it will still be extended, but simple sentence. Since all the parts of the elementary sentence are obligatory, each sentence can be reduced to one or more elementary sentences: The tall trees by the island shore were shaking violently in the gusty wind. The sentence can be reduced to The trees were shaking., as the verb is intransitive.

The model of immediate constituents includes another model, the distributional model.