Syntactic Relations and Ways of their Realisation

Unlike some syntactic processes as, for example, representation that is observed in English and is completely alien to present-day Ukrainian and other languages, the syntactic relations in contradiction to them present a phenomenon characteristic of all the 5651 languages of the world. Syntactic relations, therefore, constitute a universal feature and are realised depending on their grammatical nature either at sentence level or at word-group (словосполучення) level.

There exist four types of syntactic relations that are also realised in different languages partly via different means. These are: 1) predicative relations; 2) objective relations; 3) attributive relations and 4) various adverbial relations.

Not all these relations are equally represented in the contrasted languages. Thus, predicative relations may be in English and in most other West European Germanic and Romance languages of two subtypes: a) primary predicative relations and b) secondary predicative relations. The latter, it must be emphasised, are erroneously considered to be completely missing in present-day Ukrainian.

I. Primary predication is universal. It finds its realisation between the subject and predicate in any two-member sentence of any paradigmatic form or structural type. Consequently, primary predication presents a grammatical/syntactic and logico-semantic relation on the Subject-Predicate axis. Eg:

"I never said I was a beauty". - Я ніколи не казав, що я є красенем. -

he laughed. (Maugham) сказав, усміхнувшись, він.

In this quotation three predicates of two types are realised: two simple verbal predicates (/ said, he laughed] and one compound nominal predicate (I was a beauty). These types of predicate are presented in

Ukrainian as well. Cf. Я не казав, усміхнувся він, and Я є красенем.

Consequently, predication of these sentences in both contrasted languages has an identical expression.

This expression can also be different, as can be observed in the following interrogative sentences below:

1. "What did she want?" (Ibid.) "Чого вона хотіла'?" (Cf. Чого їй

треба було?)

2. "What have I done?" (V.S. Pritchett) "Що я вчинив?/ Що я зробив?"

3. "She was trying to help you". (Ibid.) "Вона намагалася допомогти

тобі."

Hence, the primary predicative relation may have different forms of expression in the contrasted languages. English predicates may have analytical forms of the verb (did + want, have + done, was trying+ to help) with no analytical equivalents for the same simple predicates in Ukrainian. This may be seen from many other sentences as well, which testify to the difference between the means of expression of the primary predication in the contrasted languages. Cf.:

"I'т off, Dick, it 's good-bye till "Я від'їжджаю, Діку, а це означає до

Christmas". (D. Lessing) побачення аж до Різдва".

In this sentence both predicates in the English variant are compound nominal, whereas in Ukrainian their equivalents are two simple verbal predicates instead: Я від'їжджаю and Це означає.

On the other hand, there also exist some differences in expressing predicative relations in Ukrainian that are unknown in English. These include first of all the placement of the predicate in Ukrainian, since the inflexional morphemes always identify person, number and tense form of the verb/predicate irrespective of its position in the sentence. Cf. Він мусив це знати. — Знати мусив він це. — Мусив він це знати. — Знати він це мусив. - Це знати він мусив. - Він знати це мусив. Despite the change of placement in the sentence, the Ukrainian predicate preservers its syntactic function unchanged. As a result, the grammaticality of the sentence is not ruined. It goes without saying that the corresponding English sentence (He must have known it) can not be

transformed this way, except for its interrogative form (Must he have known it?) where part of the predicate (must) may change its place in the sentence.

Besides, placement may often be used in Ukrainian as a reliable means of expressing and often also as a means distinguishing between the predicative and attributive relations in a word-group or sentence. Cf.: