Sentence, as the main unit of syntax.

 

Syntactic structure of sentence. The sentence as a lingual sign designates a situation or event that includes a certain process as its dynamic centre, the agent of the process, the objects of the process and also various conditions and circumstances of the realization of the process. This content of the target event forms the basis of the traditional syntactic division of the sentence into its functional parts. Therefore a sentence is not just a jumble of words and word- groups: it is a structure in which words are arranged to reflect a target situation or event.

The primary parts of the sentence. A sentence is made up of the subject and predicate which are its main parts, and words which complete or modify the subject and the predicate or the whole sentence, i.e. secondary parts of the sentence. The subject and the predicate are immediate constituents of the sentence and there is a concord between them. Most of English sentences contain both a subject and a predicate forming two-member sentences.

The predicate is always explicated by a finite form of the verb or verb phrase. It is normally present in all clauses, including imperative sentences, where the subject is typically absent. The verb with its semantics determines what other elements, apart from the subject, may or must occur in the clause.

The subject is typically a noun phrase or a pronoun in the nominative case which normally occurs before the verb in declarative sentences («My brother bought a new car on Sunday.») and after the auxiliary verb in “yes-no” interrogative sentences» («Do you speak English?»). The subject determines the number and person of the verb, which is particularly clear with the verb be (I am; you are; he/she/it is; we/you/they are) and third person singular, present tense of other verbs («My father works at this factory.»).

There are sentences in which no participant (agentive or experiencer) is required. In such cases, the subject position may be assumed by the formal or dummy «it», which is devoid of semantic content (i.e. lexical meaning) and only replaces subject position in a sentence structure. The formal it mainly occurs in sentences signifying time, atmospheric conditions, and distance:

It's morning. It's ten o'clock precisely. (time)

It's getting dark. It's raining. (atmospheric conditions)

It's not very far to New York. It's just one more stop to Toronto. (distance)

The secondary parts of the sentence (object, attribute, adverbial modifiers) modify either the main and secondary parts of the sentence or the whole sentence. The secondary parts of the sentence differ from the principal ones in as much as they are not capable of forming a sentence by themselves. Any of the secondary parts might be removed from the sentence without destroying it (He often studies at the library. He often studies.), while the removal of the subject or the predicate will destroy the sentence (studies at the library is not a sentence but a word-group).

The syntactical characteristics of the secondary parts of the sentence are not as definite as those of the principal ones. Their classification is based on grammatical and semantic criteria.

The object is typically a noun phrase or a pronoun in the objective case denoting a thing or a person which is grammatically connected with the verb modifying it. The object usually follows the verb and if both objects are present, the indirect object normally comes before the direct object («Justin poured David some whisky.»). The object may generally become the subject of the corresponding passive clause («David was poured some whisky by Justin.»).

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence which modifies an entity, expressed by a head noun: a beautiful girl; a deep river, etc.

The adverbials modify the verbal predicate denoting either external relations (of time, place, reason, purpose, etc.) or inner qualities of the actions and processes (manner, degree). Adverbials of external relations may modify the whole sentence, while objects are grammatically connected only with the verb. Objects make the grammatical structure of the sentence complete whereas adverbial modifiers are usually used to make the meaning of the sentence complete. The position of the object is fixed in English, it follows the verb, while adverbial modifiers (especially adverbials of external relations) are relatively free as to their position in the sentence. For example:

I met a friend of mine on the way to the college. On the way to the college I met a friend of mine.

Thus, a sentence is a certain structure built up of elements some of which are obligatory for the sentence while others are optional since they may be removed away without destroying the sentence as a grammatical structure. By removing optional elements we arrive at the basic (elementary) sentence. No matter how long a sentence is, one can always arrive at its base. Basic sentences constitute a rather small set of sentence types in English.