4) The exclamatory sentence

An exclamatory sentence expresses emphatically some kind of emotion or feeling. It often opens with the words JVM/or How, it is usually declarative in form, i.e., no inversion is observed. Exclamatory sentences are generally spoken with a falling intonation:

e.g. 1. What fine weather we are having today!

2. How long you have been coming here! (Ну й довго ж ти сюди

йшов!).

3. What a fool you are!

Exclamatory sentences may be elliptical (incomplete):

e.g. 1. How very unusual! 2. (How) beautiful! 3. What a terrible noise! 4. How kind of you (to let me in)! 5. What a situation! 6. The idea of it!

As one will have noticed from the examples, exclamatory sentences can be reduced to the word or phrase immediately following the exclamatory signals Whatox How. Sometimes even the exclamatory signals are not obligatory:

e.g. Beautiful! (=How beautiful!).

It should be borne in mind that each of the communicative types of the sentence, besides performing its main communicative function, may be emotional, that is serve as an exclamation, though structurally they arc not exclamatory sentences:

Cf.: 1. We surrender (an emotionally neutral statement). 2. We surrender?! (an emotional statement with implied emphatic negation).

There also exist other ways of expressing exclamations, for instance:

1. Exclamation in the form of a question (e.g. Isn't it funny! (=How funny it is!).

2. Exclamations in the form of pseudo- subordinate (the so-called "emancipated") clauses introduced by the conjunctions ifox (hat.

e.g. 1. (Oh) If I were young again!

2. That a boy should speak in council (J. London) - Та щоб дитина виступала!

3. One-member sentences conveying signals of alarm, such as Fire! Alarm! Bandits!

4. Highly emotional nominal or infinitival one-member sentences either followed by a clause or not:

e.g. 1. The idea that they should have behaved like that!

2. To think that all this should have happened! (But: The idea of

it!).

2. According to their structure sentences may be subdivided into:

1) Simple (unextended and extended, two-member and one-mem- ber). Two-member sentences may be further subdivided into complete and incomplete (elliptical).

2) Simple complicated sentences (ускладнені).

3) Composite sentences which may be further subdivided into compound, complex, compound-complex, complex-compound, divisible and indivisible (with mutually subordinated clauses).

There also exist the so-called non-sentence utterances (quasi-sentences), to which belong:

1. Vocatives (e.g. George!).

2. Yes/ No utterances (e.g. Are you reading? - Yes).

3. Interjections ( e.g. Look here! Dear me! Well, I never!).

4) Different conversational formulae (e.g. Good morning! Good bye! Thanks!). The formulae do not express any thoughts but serve only to establish or sever contacts between the speakers.

5. Classifications of sentences

As it has been mentioned above, the three aspects lay the foundation for sentence classifications. The classifications are based, correspondingly, on sentence structure, sentence meaning and pragmatic peculiarities. Here we shall not dwell on pragmatic features of sentences, since it constitutes the sub­ject of a special branch of linguistics - pragmalinguistics rather than syntax.

There are many structural characteristics that potentially may be cho­sen to form a structural classification. Thus, one may distinguish one- and two-member sentences, complete and incomplete sentences, verbal and nominal sentences. These and other classifications describe objective lan­guage reality and each of them is equally valid and rightful.

According to another structural classification, sentences are divided into simple and composite: a simple sentence contains only one predication, whereas a composite sentence consists of two (or more) predications. The de­tailed analysis of both simple and composite sentences will be given below.

It is important, however, to find a quality that may both characterize all the sentences and be the basis for sentence differentiation. This quality may be modality taken in its broad sense. If, by definition, the sentence is char­acterized by predication, it is logical to take predication for the basis of the most general structural classification. Sentences with different modality dif­fer remarkably when their structure is concerned. The table below presents the classification.

Sentences
sentences proper				quasi-sentences
declarative Sally sings	interrogative Does Sally sing	imperative If Sally sang	optative Sing	vocative Sally	interjectional Oh	meta- communicative Hello

Sentences proper are information of something, they have (with the ex­ception of nominal sentences) the subject and the predicate and differ from each other only when the way of their correlation with reality is concerned (in the examples, it is different representations of Sally's singing).

Quasi-sentences do not contain a message and have no subject-predi­cate foundation. These are either forms of address (vocatives) or interjec­tional sentences expressing emotions or, finally, unchangeable formula-like sentences that serve to establish or to terminate verbal contact.

Let us discuss each of the two groups in more detail.

Among sentences proper, declarative and interrogative sentences may be united into a certain subgroup, since they both organize information ex­change: interrogative sentences inquire, while declarative sentences provide information.

The two other types of sentences (optative and imperative) have in common the speaker's attitude to a certain event. The difference between them lies in that the optative sentence expresses unrealized volition, whereas the imperative sentence is aimed to induce the hearer to perform an action.

The relation between declarative and interrogative sentences is more complicated than the comments above may suggest. The interrogative sen­tence is not a mere question but it usually delivers certain affirmative infor­mation. Thus, the sentence Why did you do that? conveys the message You did that. Informative content of declarative sentences, on the other hand, may vary. For example, the declarative sentence as an answer to the question may replicate its affirmative part. As a result, the declarative sentence does not contain any new information: Was he at home? - Yes, he was at home.

Optative and imperative sentences contain different verb forms: If he had confessed, he would have been released on bail. Don't speak so loudly!

In grammars, the list of sentence types, distinguished on the basis of purpose of utterance, usually contains only declarative, interrogative and imperative sentences. The examples given above suggest that, firstly, this classification is incomplete. Secondly, this classification appears structural, since inducement may be expressed by declarative and interrogative sen­tences as well (e.g. Can you tell me the way to the post office please?) and still they are not treated as imperative sentences.

Each of the sentence types is characterized by specific peculiarities: word order, interrogative pronoun, verb forms, etc. One of the important differentiating means seems to be intonation. Thus, modifying intonation, one may transform a declarative sentence into an interrogative one: You are not kidding?

Quasi-sentences are granted the status of the sentence only because in speech they may occur independently as the sentence and are intonationally similar to sentences. They may, however, enter the sentence structure, func­tioning as syntagmatically independent elements. Deprived of their nomi­native content, quasi-sentences may deliver only implicit meaning of quali­tative evaluation. Thus, Sally! pronounced with a certain intonation, may mean admiration, indignation, approval, reproach, etc. The interpretation, however, depends on the context and is not structurally conditioned. There­fore, the vocative Sally! remains a quasi-sentence deprived of structural and categorical semantic characteristics of the sentence proper. Due to their conventionality and lack of nominative meaning, quasi-sentences are eas­ily replaced with non-verbal signals. Thus, instead of addressing by name, a person may draw the partner's attention by coughing or tapping on the shoulder. Many emotions are displayed with the help of facial expressions or gestures. Many meta-communicative sentences correspond to traditional gestures that are treated as functional equivalents of language signals.

Intonation may make any of the above mentioned sentence type particu­larly emotional. If it is the case, sentences become exclamatory. Exclamation is, therefore, an optional rather than structural property of a sentence. Some sentence types are regularly associated with exclamation due to traditional punctuation where the mark of exclamation is used in imperative, vocative and some other sentence types. In speech, however, these sentences are not always emotional and, consequently, the speaker may utter them without _any intonational emphasis.

Emotional colouring of the utterance results not only from specific ex­clamatory intonation. There are structural patterns that are inherently, struc­turally emotional: What a beautiful day! You little monster! Thus, emotional colouring and exclamation are different sentence characteristics. The former contributes to the content of the sentence, whereas the latter refers to pro-sodic peculiarities.

It is necessary here to dwell on the problem of interrogative and nega­tive sentences.

Grammatical meaning and form of interrogative sentences as well as their pragmatic characteristics may vary. Therefore, one may say that inter­rogative sentences are distinguished only on the ground of the most general formal and semantic properties. The essential formal properties are specific interrogative intonation, inverted word order, interrogative pronouns each of which is distributed differently in different types of interrogative sen­tences. As to their content, interrogative sentences are characterized by the idea of an informational lacuna expressed structurally: Where is the book? The formal properties mentioned above may occur in various combinations: cf. How long have you been waiting? (inversion, interrogative verb form, interrogative pronoun); What is it? (inversion, interrogative pronoun); Why not? (interrogative pronoun); You don't like my cooking, do you? (tag ques­tion attached); Can you do me a favour? (intonation, inversion, etc.).

Interrogative intonation is here the main means. It is interrogative in­tonation that may neutralize structural properties of a declarative sentence transforming any of its parts into an interrogative sentence: cf. You are sure about it?

Diversity of interrogative sentences gives rise to a variety of their clas­sifications. The two main types of interrogative sentences are the general question and the special question. They differ semantically and formally.

The general question is formally characterized by absence of pronominal interrogative words and specific interrogative intonation. It is rather difficult to characterize the general question from the point of view of its content. In comparison with declarative sentences, the general question seems to be an inquiry about the trustworthiness of the new information conveyed in the utterance. Thus, the general question to the statement She typed a report will be Did she type a report? If the rheme of the statement is a report, the question will be Did she type a 'report? If, however, the rheme of the state­ment is she, then the stress will be placed on a different word Did 'she type a report?, i.e. the latter variant means Was it her who typed a report?

This interpretation of the general question is, however, rather narrow, since, firstly, some general questions are not immediately connected with the preceding statement. Thus, the general question may concern a sequence following the statement: "Ihave been working non-stop this week." - "Aren't you going out tonight?" - 'Wo, I'm staying at home to relax." Secondly, the general question may have no connection whatsoever with any preceding statements. Consider, for example, the sentence starting off the conversa­tion: May I ask you a question?

Some linguists (for example, Quirk) have tried to characterize interroga­tive sentences by classifying answers. From the point of view of the linguist, so-called general questions presuppose yes or no answers. This is, however, an indirect explanation. It remains unclear which sentences presuppose this answer: Do I sound bored? - You dol On the other hand, yes/no may be used in contexts other than questions: He wanted to be always the first. - Yes, he tried to be the best.

The general question may be characterized as a question to predication, i.e. it contains an inquiry about the connection between the subject and the quality predicated to this subject. The answer to the general question either supports or refutes this connection and therefore may be reduced to the af­firmative word j^es or the negative word no. Modal words (certainly, maybe, perhaps, of course), frequently occurring in answers to general questions, prove that the general question is an inquiry about predication.

The special question contains an inquiry about information of a definite type: Where are you going? - Back home. The required information does not concern predication - it refers to its lexico-semantic content. Since lexi-co-semantic content is very diverse, signals requiring information should be diverse as well. As a result, the function of the signals is performed by inter­rogative pronouns such as what, which, when, how, whose, etc., that usually occur in the initial position in the sentence. Therefore, the distinguishing feature of special questions is interrogative pronouns. It is not surprising that special questions are sometimes referred to as pronominal (whereas general questions are called non-pronominal).

To consider any other types of interrogative sentences alongside of gen­eral and special questions seems illogical, as they all appear to be modifi­cations of the two main types, though since Henry Sweet's time, British linguists have been distinguishing between the three types of interrogative sentences: general, special and alternative (Henry Sweet provided the fol­lowing sentence to illustrate the alternative question: Is he an Oxford or a Cambridge man'?). It is obvious, however, that alternative questions are a modified general question, since they both convey an inquiry about the subject and its predicated quality. Unlike the typical general question, al­ternative questions offer two qualities, one of which should be chosen for affirmation. The idea of choice (alternative) may be introduced in special questions as well: cf. Whom do you trust - Peter or Mary? Thus, alternative is an additional element, occurring both in general and special questions. Therefore, it would be logical to consider the "general - special" division to be primary, while each of them may contain the idea of alternative.

From the point of view of content, the so-called disjunctive interroga­tive sentences (tag-questions) - You have met John, haven 'tyout - belongs to the class of general questions. Structurally, they analytically represent an inquiry about predication (expressed by the interrogative part) and affirma­tion that occurs as focus of the inquiry (expressed in the affirmative part). The difference between the two parts in terms of affirmation/negation makes the contrast between the statement and the inquiry more perceptible.

The problem of negative sentences, briefly stated, is this: do negative sentences constitute a special grammatical type, and if so, what are their grammatical features? In other words, if we say, "This is a negative sen­tence," do we thereby give it a grammatical description?

The difficulty of the problem lies in the peculiarity of negative expres­sions in Modern English. Let us take two sentences, both negative in mean­ing: (1) She did not know what to say and (2) No one believed her words. They are obviously different in their ways of expressing negation. In (1) there is a special form of the predicate verb (did...know) which is due to the negative character of the sentence and is in so far a grammatical sign of its being negative. In (2), on the other hand, there is no grammatical feature to show that the sentence is negative. Indeed, there is no grammatical dif­ference whatsoever between the sentences Nobody believed her words and Everybody believed her words. The difference lies entirely in the meaning of the pronouns functioning as subject, that is to say, it is lexical rather than grammatical. The same is true of such sentences as / saw nobody and / saw everybody. On the other hand, in the sentence / did not see anybody, there is again a grammatical feature, viz. the form of the predicate (did...see).

The conclusion drawn from these observations by some linguists is as follows: since in a number of cases negative sentences are not characterized as such by any grammatical peculiarities, they are not a grammatical type. They are a logical type, which may or may not be reflected in their gram­matical structure. Accordingly, the division of sentences into affirmative and negative should not be included into their grammatical classification.

Predicate relations between the subject and the predicate may be re­futed. If it is the case, the sentence is called negative. Negation is a marked member of the "affirmation - negation" opposition, since there is a gram­matical marker of negation, the particle not. Each structural sentence type may be negative or affirmative.

The sentence is called negative only if negation concerns predication. This type of negation is called general. It is concentrated in the predicate, in its finite part: You don't know the truth. James can't make a mistake. Partial negation may refer to any sentence part except the predicate: Not a word was spoken. I live not far from here.

The possibility of parallel use of general and partial negation within a sentence proves that these are two different types of negation: Oh, but Helen isn't a girl without no interests... (E. M. Forster) or even within a predicate She cannot very well not bow (E. M. Forster).

It is obvious that the rule "one sentence - one negation" needs specify­ing. In the English language, unlike in Ukrainian, general and partial nega­tions interact within an elementary sentence. Partial negation of any non­verbal components of an elementary sentence excludes the possibility to use general negation and vice versa, general negation makes impossible to use negation with other components. Thus, we should speak of the elementary sentence rather than of the sentence in general. We should take into consid­eration that the markers of negation may not be restricted exclusively to the negative particle not but may be incorporated in a morphemic structure of a word: nobody = negative particle + anybody, nowhere — negative particle + where, etc.

The difference between general and partial negation, unless we take the purely formal criterion of the negative particle as a part of the predicate, appears very relative. On the one hand, general negation in a compound predicate may be semantically bound with one of the components. Thus, according to Quirk, in the sentence The girl isn't / now / a student / at a / large /university, negation in different semantic interpretations may refer to any of the marked elements. On the other hand, many sentences with partial negation are semantic equivalents of sentences with general negation. Cf. the possibility to transform You can do nothing about it <-> You can't do anything about it. The sentence It was not Peter seems ambiguous, since the negative particle may refer to several components. As a result, negation here may be interpreted both as partial and as general.

Negative-interrogative sentences (general questions) should be dis­cussed with particular attention. Affirmative interrogative sentences differ from negative interrogative ones not only because the latter contain nega­tion. Negative-interrogative sentences imply that the speaker assumes the situation in question highly likely to take place. The answer 'Wo" to such a question contradicts the speaker's expectations. Thus, Didn't she leave a message? unlike the question Did she leave a message? - is not just an inquiry but an implication that the speaker assumes that she did leave a mes­sage. The question without negation does not convey these implications.

Special questions (unless these are interrogative sentences that repeat the negative form of the preceding declarative sentence in a dialogue: I don't know. - What don't you know?) may not be negative. Such sentences as * What haven't you read? *What exactly don't you mean? may hardly occur in communication.