2. Predication and some other features of sentence

Let us start discussing predication as a logical notion. In logic, it is the phenomenon of predication that permits people to describe a situation and to present a sentence as product of human thought. One of the most impor­tant parameters of human thought processing is representing a situation as subject - predicate structure, called proposition. In the sentence, the link between the logical subject and the logical predicate is regarded as predica­tion.

As it has been mentioned above, the sentence as language sign for ex-tralingual reality should be actualized. Actualization of sentence content makes predication compulsory and inseparable feature of any sentence.

It should be emphasized that predication, which may be defined as act of relating two notions expressed by independent words in order to describe a situation, an event, etc., is one of the most essential features of the sentence. Language is characterized by an infinite variety of references even to the same phenomenon. Studies of lexical nomination make it particularly obvi­ous: e.g. one and the same person may be referred to as John, you, I, this (young) man, my friend, Peter's son, her brother, etc. The list of potential lexical names of a person is endless and is never complete.

The same feature of variation is typical of syntactic units. The set of possible variants is, however, finite, therefore the correlation "phenome­non - name" is here more regulated. To denote a situation, possible vari­ants may include a sentence as an independent unit or a subordinate clause {Mary taught English. When Mary taught English...), a word combination (Mary's teaching English) and a word as sentence element (English). The most essential difference between them lies in predication, registered in the sentence and absent in word combinations and words. The last two correlate with reality only when used in a sentence or as a sentence.

Sentence parts, however, do correlate with reality, though in this case they are not independent. In the sentence / enjoyed

your e-mails, each lexi­cal word denotes phenomena of reality. Still, this correspondence may be formed only within a sentence.

3. Sentence as central syntactic unit

In syntax (and even in grammar), the sentence is the central unit, since it is the ultimate product of language.

In the hierarchy "morpheme - word - sentence part - sentence", the sentence tops the pyramid, since the rest of the hierarchy serves, in the long run, to form the sentence. In other words, these elements are used to con­struct sentences, whereas the sentence performs a different, communicative function, since it is a structural-communicative unit.

If we recognize the sentence as central unit of syntactic (and even lin­guistic) analysis, there appears the question concerning the status of forms larger than the sentence. How should we treat paragraphs or texts? Is the sentence the ultimate or an intermediate unit? Existence of texts and para­graphs may not be questioned. However, they may not be interpreted as structural language units, since texts have no strict and regular structural characteristics. There are no text patterns. None of the structural-semantic means, used to introduce sentences into texts (e.g. anaphora, representation, etc.), are text-specific, since they perform certain functions in the sentence as well, i.e. in text their use is not different but extended.

Texts may not be considered structural language units, since unlike mor­phemes, words, sentence parts and sentences, texts are not characterized by any categorical correlation in reality.

Thus, the central status of the sentence is accepted in language re­search.

The sentence is a broad notion that covers various sentence construc­tions - from one-word to complex. Speaking about the central role of the sentence, we mean, first of all, simple sentences, i.e. constructions with one predication. The simple sentence meets all criteria, put forward to the structural and communicative unit. Meanwhile, it is a foundation for all other syntactic constructions of various complexity. Therefore, taking into account brevity and semantic transparence of the simple sentence, we use it as a sample for describing "sentence as such".

Another important issue is correlation between the notions "sentence" and "utterance".

Being a communicative unit, the sentence in communication realizes its potential properties, i.e. becomes actualized in speech. For example, It's

_ufty here may just state the fact, but under certain conditions it may be

" d as inducement to act, equivalent to the sentence Open the window. Ac-lized sentences, i.e. utterances, acquire additional characteristics. Mean-

hile, utterances contain only the potential of the sentence. Thus, every utterance (i.e. actualized sentence) is a speech realization of a language

_njl - sentence. Therefore, central status of the sentence is not denied. (We _shall not further the analysis of sentence actualization, since this type of research is carried out within pragmalinguistics.)