Theoretical grammar as a subject, its aim. Language as a functional system. Language and speech.

Theoretical grammar as a subject, its aim. Language as a functional system. Language and speech.

The subject of theoretical grammar is a systematic study of the grammatical structure of Modern English. The difference between practical and theoretical grammar is that grammar theory makes it possible to understand the laws according to which any language functions. Practical grammar gives the rules of using the laws of the language in speech.

- An early XX century Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure commented on the correlation between those two phenomena: language is a system of means of communication; speech is the activity using language in the practical process. The structure of language is systematic, speech is linear; language is static, speech is dynamic, language is general, speech is concrete, language is social, speech is individual; language is reproductive, speech is productive; language is a means, speech is the purpose. We need the means of the language to make our speech understandable, but speech is necessary as the source of the language. Three aspects of the language – phonetics, vocabulary and grammar – are studied by three corresponding branches of linguistic science – phonology, lexicology and theoretical grammar.

.Theoretical grammar and its subject.

Man is not well defined as “Homo sapiens” (“man with wisdom”). For what do we mean by wisdom? It has not been proved so far that animals do not possess it. Those of you who have pets can easily prove the contrary. Most recently anthropologists have started defining human beings as “man the toolmaker”. However, apes can also make primitive tools. What sets man apart fr om the rest of animal kingdom is his ability to speak: he is “ can easily object by saying that animals can also speak Homo loquens” – “man the speaking animal”. And again, you, naturally, in their own way. But their sounds are meaningless, and there is no link between sound and meaning (or if there is, it is of a very primitive kind) and the link for man is grammar. Only with the help of grammar we can combine words to form sentences and texts. Man is not merely Homo loquens, he is Homo Grammaticus.

The term “grammar” goes back to a Greek word that may be translated as the “art of writing”. But later this word acquired a much wider sense and came to embrace the whole study of language. Now it is often used as the synonym of linguistics. A question comes immediately to mind: what does this study involve?

Grammar may be practical and theoretical. The aim of practical grammaris the description of grammar rules that are necessary to understand and formulate sentences. The aim of theoretical grammar is to offer explanation for these rules. Generally speaking, theoretical grammar deals with the language as a functional system.

General characteristics of language as a functional system.

Any human language has two main functions: the communicative function and the expressive or representative function – human language is the living form of thought. These two functions are closely interrelated as the expressive function of language is realized in the process of speech communication.

The expressive function of language is performed by means of linguistic signs and that is why we say that language is a semiotic system. It means that linguistic signs are of semiotic nature: they are informative and meaningful. There are other examples of semiotic systems but all of them are no doubt much simpler. For instance, traffic lights use a system of colours to instruct drivers and people to go or to stop. Some more examples: Code Morse, Brighton Alphabet, computer languages, etc. What is the difference between language as a semiotic system and other semiotic systems? Language is universal, natural, it is used by all members of society while any other sign systems are artificial and depend on the sphere of usage.

Language and speech.

The distinction between language and speech was made by Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss scholar usually credited with establishing principles of modern linguistics. Language is a collective body of knowledge, it is a set of basic elements, but these elements can form a great variety of combinations. In fact the number of these combinations is endless. Speech is closely connected with language, as it is the result of using the language, the result of a definite act of speaking. Speech is individual, personal while language is common for all individuals. To illustrate the difference between language and speech let us compare a definite game of chess and a set of rules how to play chess.

Language is opposed to speech and accordingly language units are opposed to speech units. The language unit phoneme is opposed to the speech unit – sound: phoneme /s/ can sound differently in speech - /s/ and /z/). The sentence is opposed to the utterance; the text is opposed to the discourse.

Types of meaning. Language levels and linguistic units.

General characteristics of linguistic units. The main structural levels. Language is regarded as a system of elements (or: signs, units) such as sounds, words, etc. These elements have no value without each other, they depend on each other, they exist only in a system, and they are nothing without a system. System implies the characterization of a complex object as made up of separate parts (e.g. the system of sounds). Language is a structural system. Structure means hierarchical layering of parts in `constituting the whole. In the structure of language there are four main structural levels: phonological, morphological, syntactical and supersyntatical. The levels are represented by the corresponding level units: The phonological level is the lowest level. The phonological level unit is the `phoneme. It is a distinctive unit (bag – back).The morphological level has two level units:the `morpheme – the lowest meaningful unit (teach – teach er);the word -the main naming (`nominative) unit of language. The syntactical level has two level units as well:the word-group – the dependent syntactic unit;the sentence – the main communicative unit.The supersyntactical level has the text as its level unit. level has its own system. The level units are built up in the same way and that is why the units of a lower level serve the building material for the units of a higher level. This similarity and likeness of organization of linguistic units is called isomorphism. This is how language works – a small number of elements at one level can enter into thousands of different combinations to form units at the other level. Any linguistic unit is a double entity. It unites a concept and a sound image. The two elements are intimately united and each recalls the other. Accordingly, we distinguish the content side and the expression side. The forms of linguistic units bear no natural resemblance to their meaning. The link between them is a matter of convention, and conventions differ radically across languages.

Analytical and synthetic formations.

Types of morphemes.

Morphemes can be classified from different view-points:

1. functional

2. number correlation between form and content

From the point of view of function they may be lexical and grammatical. The lexical morphemes

are those that express full lexical meaning of their own and are associated with some object, quality,

action, number of reality, like: lip, red, go, one and so on. The lexical morphemes can be subdivided into

lexical - free and lexical - bound morphemes. The examples given above are free ones; they are used in

speech independently. The lexical-bound ones are never used independently; they are usually added to

some lexical-free morphemes to build new words like- friend-ship, free-dom, teach-er, spoon-ful and so

on. Taking into account that in form they resemble the grammatical inflections they may be also called

lexical - grammatical morphemes. Thus lexical - bound morphemes are those that determine lexical

meanings of words but resemble grammatical morphemes in their dependence on lexical - free

morphemes. The lexical - bound morphemes are means to build new words.

The grammatical morphemes are those that are used either to connect words in sentences or to

form new grammatical forms of words. The content of such morphemes are connected with the world of

reality only indirectly therefore they are also called structural morphemes, e.g., shall, will, be, have, is, -

(e)s, -(e)d and so on. As it is seen from the examples the grammatical morphemes have also two

subtypes: grammatical - free and grammatical - bound. The grammatical - free ones are used in sentences

independently (I shall go) while grammatical - bound ones are usually attached to some lexical - free

morphemes to express new grammatical form, like: girl's bag, bigger room, asked.

From the point of view of number correlation between form and content there may be overt, zero,

empty and discontinuous morphemes.

By overt morpheme the linguists understand morphemes that are represented by both form and

content like: eye, bell, big and so on.

Zero morphemes are those that have (meaning) content but do not have explicitly expressed

forms. These morphemes are revealed by means of comparison:

ask – asks

high -higher

In these words the second forms are marked: "asks" is a verb in the third person singular which is

expressed by the inflection "s". In its counterpart there's no marker like "s" but the absence of the marker

also has grammatical meaning: it means that the verb "ask" is not in the third person, singular number.

Such morphemes are called "zero". In the second example the adjective "higher" is in the comparative

degree, because of the "- er" while its counterpart "high" is in the positive degree, the absence of the

marker expresses a grammatical meaning, i.e. a zero marker is also meaningful, therefore it's a zero

morpheme.

There are cases when there's a marker which has not a concrete meaning, i.e. there's neither

lexical nor grammatical meaning like: statesman. The word consists of three morphemes: state - s - man.

The first and third morphemes have certain meanings. But "s" has no meaning though serve as a

connector: it links the first morpheme with the third one. Such morphemes are called empty. Thus empty

morphemes are those that have form but no content.

In contemporary English there are cases when two forms express one meaning like:

He is writing a letter

Two morphemes in this sentence "is" and " - ing" express one meaning: a continuous action.

Such morphemes are called discontinuous.

Thus there are two approaches to classify morphemes: functional and number correlation between form and

content.

Grammatical homonymy.

 

 

Conjunctions

Conjunctions serve to connect words and phrases and clauses. Though they are functional words, some of them, like the prepositions, have their own lexical meaning: “He came because it was late.” And “He came though it was late.” The causal and the concessive connection between the events exist in extralinguistic reality, outside the language. As there is no difference in the grammatical structure of the two sentences, the difference lies only in the meaning of the two conjunctions.

Unlike prepositions, the use of conjunctions is never predicted by any preceding word.

There are co-ordinating (and, or, but, as well as, both…and, not only…but also, either…or, neither…nor, also, furthermore, moreover, similarly, besides) and subordinating conjunctions, classified according to the clauses they introduce: object: that, if, whether; time – after, as, as long as, as soon as, since, until (till), while, when; cause: as, because, for; condition: if, on condition, provided/providing, supposing, unless; purpose: lest, in order that; manner: as, as if, as though, so…that, such…that; comparison: as …as, not so…as, than; result: so that, therefore, thus, hence, so; concession: in spite of the fact that, despite, though, although, however, nevertheless.

On the phrase level conjunctions connect words and phrases: “Both the children and the adults enjoyed the celebration.” (co-ordinating)

On the sentence level conjunctions connect clauses of different kind (both co-ordinating and subordinating) “Hurry up or you will miss the train.” After the plane took off the hostess served the drinks.”

Sometimes subordinating conjunctions look exactly the same as prepositions or adverbs: He always comes before (after) I do. – before – conjunction; I’ll go there before dinner – preposition; I have seen this before – adverb.

The difference is in the syntactical function, and some linguists consider that this difference is not enough to classify them as different parts of speech, they offer to classify them as one class of connectives. The fact that one of them connects clauses, another expresses relations between the verb-predicate and the object, and the third functions the modifier of time of the action can be explained by different functions of the same word. But there is more logic in speaking of them as grammatical homonyms, as the most of the members of their classes are different words: During her illness – preposition, while she was ill – conjunction, I asked him, when she was ill – adverb, because it is a part of the sentence.

Particles

Particles are functional words of specifying and limiting meaning. They show subjective attitude. They refer to the word (or phrase) immediately following and give special prominence to the notion expressed by this word, or single it out in some other way, depending on the meaning of the particle. One just does what is reasonable. She could feel anger, even at this late date.

It can stand apart from the word it refers to – I have only met him twice. It is a specific part of the sentence, because without it the meaning of it changes.

The particle not deserves special treatment. It may stand outside the predicate – Not till we landed did we realize that we are alive. Or in short answers: Certainly not. Perhaps not. Of course not. (with modal words). It appears to be the main part of the sentence. Another use is within the predicate, as part of the verb: I am not, he is not, she does not. Here the particle is an auxiliary element within the morphology of the verb, and it has no syntactic function of its own. Its becoming a morpheme within the verb form is seen in the contracted forms isn’t, wouldn’t.

Sometimes the word almost causes doubts whether it is an adverb or a particle: The boat almost overturned. – whether it shows the subjective attitude (it was in danger of overturning) or it denotes the manner in which the action was conducted. It can be felt in the translation – чуть не перевернулась – particle, почти перевернулась – adverb.

Interjection

It is doubtful whether they are involuntary outcries, provoked by feelings of pain, joy, surprise, not restricted to any given language but common to all human beings as biological phenomena are.

But this only accounts for the etymology of interjections, which appeared from involuntary outcries, but now they belong to the word stock of the language as much as other types of words do. Interjections belonging to a certain language may contain sounds foreign to other languages. Thus, the English interjection alas contains the vowel phoneme [ ], which is not found either in Russian or in German language; the Russian interjection ах contains the consonant phoneme [x], which is not found in English.

The interjections, as different from nouns, verbs, prepositions, are not names of anything, but expressions of emotions. Thus, the emotion expressed by the interjection alas may be named despair, but can’t be named alas.

Some of the interjections express quite definite meanings (alas can never express joy), others express feeling in general (oh – surprise, joy, disappointment, fear).

On the phrase level the problem is whether an interjection can be part of any phrase and what types of words can be connected with it. Usually interjections are syntactically isolated, but sometimes it can be connected with a group “preposition+noun”, naming the person or thing which causes the feeling expressed by the interjection: Alas for my friends!

The interjection oh can be followed by the adjective dear to form a phrase which itself is equivalent to an interjection: Oh dear! It can only be the first component of a phrase.

On the sentence level we have to consider interjections a part of the sentence, loosely connected with the rest of it, and approaching a parenthesis in its character. Oh, she used awful grammar, but she was trying so hard to be elegant. They can form a sentence by themselves: “Oh!” said Scarlet, her hopes dashed. Some phrases are equivalent to interjections: dear me! Goodness gracious!

 

 

THE STATIVE

 

§ 235. The stative denotes a temporary state of a person or a non-person. Unlike such classes of words as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs the number of statives functioning in English is limited. There are about 30 stable statives, used both in colloquial and in formal style:

 

askew aslant asleep aslope astray

 

and about 100 unstable ones, which are seldom used even in formal style and never in colloquial:

ashudder, atwist, atremble, agleam, etc.

 

Semantically statives fall into five groups describing various states of persons or non-persons:

 

1. Psychological states of persons:

afraid, aghast, ashamed, aware, agog.

2. Physical states of persons:

alive, awake, asleep.

3. States of motion or activity of persons or non-persons:

afoot, astir, afloat, adrift.

4. Physical states of non-persons:

afire, aflame, alight, aglow, ablaze.

5. The posture of non-persons:

askew, awry, aslant, ajar.

Syntactic function

 

§ 237. Statives may have three functions in a sentence: thatof predicative in a compound nominal or a double predicate (the most common function), that of objective predicative, or occasionally that of attribute.

When used in the function of predicative statives describe the state of the person or non-person denoted by the subject and are connected with the subject by means of a link verb or in some cases by a notional verb.

Statives as predicatives within a compound nominal predicate:

 

He was terribly afraid of his father.

The house was ablaze with lights.

Soon she fell fast asleep.

He seemed afraid to go any further.

She felt alert and young.

Why do they look so frighteningly alike?

The Overlords remained aloof, hiding their faces from mankind.

Statives as predicatives within a double predicate:

 

He sat quite alone on that large verandah of his.

For a moment she stood aghast, looking at the door.

She was lying wide awake listening to all the sounds of the night.

She sounded very high and afraid.

 

When they have the function of objective predicative, statives describe the state of the person or non-person denoted by the object:

 

First of all have the fire alight in the drawing room.

The large dog kept him afloat until the raft came up.

Don’t keep the door ajar.

Leave me alone, you fool.

I’ll get him awake in a minute.

 

Although the function of attribute is not characteristic of statives, some of them may have this function (either detached or undetached attributes).

Statives as undetached attributes are always postmodifying:

 

No man alive could have done it.

No one aware of the consequences of his deed would have defied the fate.

 

When used as detached attributes, statives may be either post- or premodifying:

 

The microphone, already alive, was waiting for him.

He stood, alert and listening, while the noise from the reef grew steadily around him.

Aloof on her mountain-top, she considered the innumerable activities of men.

 

In all these cases the stative retains its predicational force.

 

 

Modal verbs.

 

The distinction between modal words and adverbs is based on two criteria: 1. Their meaning: modal words express the speaker’s attitude to reality of the action expressed in the sentence, 2. Their syntactical function: they are not adverbial modifiers, but parenthesis.

They can be classified into groups according to their meaning: expressing certainty, such as certainly, surely, undoubtedly; those expressing doubt, such as perhaps, maybe, possibly, etc.

If the modal word in the sentence is eliminated, the whole thought will lose the modal colouring and will appear to be stated as a fact, without any specific mention of the speaker’s attitude: She is a delicate little thing, perhaps nobody but me knows how delicate.

A modal word can also make up a sentence by itself. This happens when it is used to answer a general question: Certainly., Perhaps., Maybe. Certainly, I am.

The problem of modal words is connected with the very difficult problem of modality as a whole.

parenthesis – вводные слова

 

 

Non-finite verbs.

Verb: Non – finite verbs. Verbids are the forms of the verb intermediary in many of their lexico-grammatical features between the verb and the non-processual parts of speech. The processual meaning is exposed by them in a substantive or adjectival-adverbial interpretation: they render processes as peculiar kinds of substances and properties. They are formed by special morphemic elements which do not express either grammatical time or mood.Their essential syntactic functions, directed by this relational semantics, unquestionably reveal the property which may be called, in a manner of explanation, "verbality", and the statement of which is corroborated by the peculiar combinability character of verbid collocations, namely, by the ability of verbids to take adjuncts expressing the immediate recipients, attendants, and addressees of the process inherently conveyed by each verbid denotation.The differential feature of the opposition is constituted by the expression of verbal time and mood: while the time-mood grammatical signification characterises the finite verb in a way that it underlies its finite predicative function, the verbid has no immediate means of expressing time-mood categorial semantics and therefore presents the weak member of the opposition. The category expressed by this opposition can be called the category of "finitude" The syntactic content of the category of finitude is the expression of predication (more precisely, the expression' of verbal predication).As is known, the verbids, unable to express the predicative meanings of time and mood, still do express the so-called "secondary" or "potential" predication, forming syntactic complexes directly related to certain types of subordinate clauses. The English verbids include four forms distinctly differing from one another within the general verbid system: the infinitive, the gerund, the present participle, and the past participle. The infinitive is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun, serving as the verbal name of a process. The infinitive is used in three fundamentally different types of functions: first, as a notional, self-positional syntactic part of the sentence; second, as the notional constituent of a complex verbal predicate built up around a predicator verb; third, as the notional constituent of a finite conjugation form of the verb. The first use is grammatically "free", the second is grammatically "half-free", the third is grammatically "bound".The English infinitive exists in two presentation forms. One of them, characteristic of the free uses of the infinitive, is distinguished by the pre-positional marker to. The other form, characteristic of the bound uses of the infinitive, does not employ the marker to, thereby presenting the infinitive in the shape of the pure verb stem, which in modern interpretation is understood as the zero-suffixed form. This form is called traditionally the "bare infinitive", or in more recent linguistic works, respectively, the "unmarked infinitive". The gerund is the non-finite form of the verb which, like the infinitive, combines the properties of the verb with those of the noun. Similar to the infinitive, the gerund serves as the verbal name of a process, but its substantive quality is more strongly pronounced than that of the infinitive. The present participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective and adverb, serving as the qualifying-processual name. In its outer form the present participle is wholly homonymous with the gerund, ending in the suffix -ing and distinguishing the same grammatical categories of retrospective coordination and voice. The past participle is the non-finite form of the verb which combines the properties of the verb with those of the adjective, serving as the qualifying-processual name. The past participle is a single form, having no paradigm of its own.

The category of voice.

 

The category of mood.

 

Functional parts of speech.

Grammatical classes of words. The words of language, depending on various formal and semantic features, are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. The traditional grammatical classes of words are called "parts of speech". In modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of the three criteria: "semantic", "formal", and "functional". The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalised meaning, which is characteristic of all the subsets of words constituting a given part of speech. This meaning is understood as the "categorial meaning of the part of speech". The formal criterion provides for the exposition of the specific inflexional and derivational (word-building) features of all the lexemic subsets of a part of speech. The functional criterion concerns the syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of a part of speech.In accord with the described criteria, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional. To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.Contrasted against the notional parts of speech are words of incomplete nominative meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence. These are functional parts of speech.On the principle of "generalised form" only unchangeable words are traditionally treated under the heading of functional parts of speech.To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.Each part of speech after its identification is further subdivided into subseries in accord with various particular semantico-functional and formal features of the constituent words. This subdivision is sometimes called "subcategorisation" of parts of speech.Thus, nouns are subcategorised into proper and common, animate and inanimate, countable and uncountable, concrete and abstract, The syntactico-distributional classification of words is based on the study of their combinability by means of substitution testing.Here is how Ch. Fries presents his scheme of English word-classes [Fries].For his materials he chooses tape-recorded spontaneous conversations comprising about 250,000 word entries of talk). The words isolated from this corpus are tested on the three typical sentences (that are isolated from the records, too), and used as substitution test-frames: Frame A. The concert was good (always). Frame B. The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly). Frame C. The team went there.As a result of successive substitution tests on the cited "frames" lists of positional words ("form-words", or "parts of speech") are established:these words can fill in the positions of the frames without affecting their general structural meaning.Functional words (function words) are exposed in the cited process of testing as being unable to fill in the positions of the frames without destroying their structural meaning. Functional words re-interpreted by syntactic approach also reveal some important traits that remained undiscovered in earlier descriptions.This role of functional words which are identified not by their morphemic composition, but by their semantico-syntactic features in reference to the embedding constructions, is exposed on a broad linguistic basis within the framework of the theory of paradigmatic syntax

 

The preposition, its types.

The preposition. Prepositions (or more generally adpositions, see below) are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial or temporal relations (such as the English words in, under, towards, before) or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles (such as the English words of, for).[1] In that the primary function is relational, a preposition typically combines with another constituent (called its complement) to form a prepositional phrase, relating the complement to the context in which the phrase occurs. Prepositions must always be followed by a noun or pronoun. That noun is called the object of the preposition. A verb can't be the object of a preposition. Simple adpositions consist of a single word, while c omplex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Some examples of complex prepositions in English are:in spite of, with respect to, except for, by dint of, next to. Preposition for Place. (in, on, at)Prepositions “in, on or at” are usually used for different places.“In” is usually used for place which have some boundary (boundary may physical or virtual).“On” is used for surface “At” is used for specific place. Preposition for Direction. (to, toward, through, into). Prepositions like to, towards, through, into are used to describe the direction. Following examples will help in better understanding. Preposition for Agent. (by) Preposition for agent is used for a thing which is cause of another thing in the sentence. Such prepositions are by, with etc. Following examples will help in better understanding. Preposition for device, instrument or machine. Different preposition are used by different devices, instruments or machines. e.g. by, with, on etc. Following examples will help in better understanding.

The conjunction, its types.

The conjunction. A conjunction is a word that connects other words or groups of words. In the sentence Bob and Dan are friends the conjunction and connects two nouns and in the sentence He will drive or fly, the conjunction or connects two verbs. In the sentence It is early but we can go, the conjunction but connects two groups of words. Coordinating conjunctions are conjunctions which connect two equal parts of a sentence. The most common ones are and, or, but, and so which are used in the following ways: and is used to join or add words together in the sentence They ate and drank. or i s used to show choice or possibilities as in the sentence He will be here on Monday or Tuesday. bu t is used to show opposite or conflicting ideas as in the sentence She is small but strong. so is used to show result as in the sentence I was tired so I went to sleep. Subordinating conjunctions connect two parts of a sentence that are not equal and will be discussed more in another class. For now, you should know some of the more common subordinating conjunctions such as: after before unless although if until as since when because than while. Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that work together. In the sentence Both Jan and Meg are good swimmers, both...and are correlative conjunctions. The most common correlative conjunctions are: both...and either... or neither... nor not only. but also Position: Coordinating conjunctions always come between the words or clauses that they join.Subordinating conjunctions usually come at the beginning of the subordinate clause.Conjunctions have three basic forms: Single Word. for example: and, but, because, although. Compound. for example: provided that, as long as, in order that. Correlative (surrounding an adverb or adjective)for example: so...that.

 

Subject of syntax.

 

General characteristics of syntax.

The grammatical structure of language comprises two major parts – morphology and syntax. The two areas are obviously interdependent and together they constitute the study of grammar.

Morphology deals with paradigmatic and syntagmatic properties of morphological units – morphemes and words. It is concerned with the internal structure of words and their relationship to other words and word forms within the paradigm. It studies morphological categories and their realization.

Syntax, on the other hand, deals with the way words are combined. It is concerned with the external functions of words and their relationship to other words within the linearly ordered units – word-groups, sentences and texts. Syntax studies the way in which the units and their meanings are combined. It also deals with peculiarities of syntactic units, their behavior in different contexts.

Syntactic units may be analyzed from different points of view, and accordingly, different syntactic theories exist.

2. Kinds of syntactic theories.

Transformational-Generative Grammar. The Transformational grammar was first suggested by American scholar Zelling Harris as a method of analyzing sentences and was later elaborated by another American scholar Noam Chomsky as a synthetic method of ‘generating’ (constructing) sentences. The main point of the Transformational-Generative Grammar is that the endless variety of sentences in a language can be reduced to a finite number of kernels by means of transformations. These kernels serve the basis for generating sentences by means of syntactic processes. Different language analysts recognize the existence of different number of kernels (from 3 to 39). The following 6 kernels are commonly associated with the English language:

(1) NV – John sings.
(2) NVAdj. – John is happy.
(3) NVN – John is a man.
(4) NVN – John hit the man.
(5) NVNN – John gave the man a book.
(6) NVPrep.N – The book is on the table.

It should be noted that (3) differs from (4) because the former admits no passive transformation.
Transformational method proves useful for analysing sentences from the point of their deep structure:
Flying planes can be dangerous.

This sentence is ambiguous, two senses can be distinguished: a) the action of flying planes can be dangerous, b) the planes that fly can be dangerous. Therefore it can be reduced to the following kernels:

a) Planes can be dangerous b) Planes can be dangerous
X (people) fly planes X Planes fly

Constructional Syntax. Constructional analysis of syntactic units was initiated by Prof. G.Pocheptsov in his book published in Kyiv in 1971. This analysis deals with the constructional significance/insignificance of a part of the sentence for the whole syntactic unit. The theory is based on the obligatory or optional environment of syntactic elements. For example, the element him in the sentence I saw him there yesterday is constructionally significant because it is impossible to omit it. At the same time the elements there and yesterday are constructionally insignificant – they can be omitted without destroying the whole structure.

Communicative Syntax. It is primarily concerned with the analysis of utterances from the point of their communicative value and informative structure. It deals with the actual division of the utterance – the theme and rheme analysis. Both the theme and the rheme constitute the informative structure of utterances. The theme is something that is known already while the rheme represents some new information. Depending on the contextual informative value any sentence element can act as the theme or the rheme:
Who is at home? - John is at home. Where is John? – John is at home.

Pragmatic approach to the study of syntactic units can briefly be described as the study of the way language is used in particular contexts to achieve particular goals. Speech Act Theory was first introduced by John Austin. The notion of a speech act presupposes that an utterance can be said with different intentions or purposes and therefore can influence the speaker and situation in different ways:

Accordingly, we can distinguish different speech acts.

Of special interest here is the problem of indirect speech acts: Are you leaving already? In our everyday activities we use indirect speech acts rather willingly because it is the best way to influence people, to get what we want and to be polite at the same time.

Textlinguistics studies the text as a syntactic unit, its main features and peculiarities, different ways of its analysis.

Discourse analysis focuses on the study of language use with reference to the social and psychological factors that influence communication.

 

The notion of predication.

Predication and modality

The communicational frame of the sentence includes its propositional content, the cognitive content of the utterance. The proposition is the reflection of a state-of affairs and consists of reference and predication. Reference is the denotation of a thing, person or idea, predication assigns a property or relation to the denoted thing, person or idea.

Therefore, propositional content may be described as references to things, persons, ideas and their predication in terms of properties of, and relations between them in objective reality:

Propositional content

Reference predication reference

To thing, person,idea of property,relation tothing,person,idea

(propositional roles) (propositional predicate) (propositional roles)

property Somebody is something

relation Somebody does something

Predication means that the sentence not only names some referents with the help of its word-constituents, but also, first, presents these referents as making up a certain situation, or, more specifically, a situational event, and second, reflects the connection between the nominal denotation of the event, on the one hand, and the objective reality, on the other, showing the time of the event, its being real or unreal, desirable or undesirable, necessary or unnecessary.

I am satisfied, the experiment has succeeded.

I would have been satisfied if the experiment had succeeded.

The experiment seems to have succeeded – why then am I not satisfied?

Night. Night and the boundless sea, under the eternal star-eyes shining with promise. Was it a dream of freedom coming true?

Night? Oh no. No night for me until I have worked through the case.

Night. It pays all the day’s debts. No cause for worry now, I tell you.

Whereas the utterance “night” in the first of the given passages refers the event to the plane of reminiscences, the “night” of the second passage presents a question in argument connected with the situation wherein the interlocutors are immediately involved, while the latter passage features its “night” in the form of a proposition of reason.

The Object

The Object is a secondary part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a substantival pronoun, an adjective, a numeral, or an adverb, and denoting a thing to which the action passes on, which is a result of the action, in reference to which an action is committed or a property is manifested, or denoting an action as object of another action.
Objects differ form one another

• by their morphological composition, by the parts of speech or phrases which perform the function of object
• by the type of their relation to the action expressed by the verb (direct/indirect)

Classification of object:

1. Prepositional and non-prepositional objects
2. Morphological types (noun, pronoun, substantivized adjective, infinitive, gerund)
3. Direct/indirect, is applied only to objects expressed by nouns or pronouns. There are sentences in which the predicate is expressed by the verbs send, show, lend, give. These verbs usually take 2 different kinds of objects simultaneously: (1) an object expressing the thing which is sent, shown, lent, given, etc. (2) the person or persons to whom the thing is sent, shown, lent, given, etc. The difference between the 2 relations is clear enough: the direct object denotes the thing immediately affected by the action denoted by the predicate verb, whereas the indirect object expresses the person towards whom the thing is moved, e.g. We sent them a present. The indirect object stands 1st, the direct object comes after it.

In studying different kinds of objects it is also essential to take into account the possibility of the corresponding passive construction.

 

The Adverbial Modifier.

The term ‘adverbial modifier’ cannot be said to be a very lucky one, as it is apt to convey erroneous (wrong, incorrect) ideas about the essence of this secondary part. They have nothing to do with adverbs and they modify not only verbs.

There are several ways of classifying adverbial modifiers:

1. According to their meaning – not a grammatical classification. However it may acquire some grammatical significance.
2. According to their morphological peculiarities – according to the parts of speech and to the phrase patterns. It has also something to do with word order, and stands in a certain relation to the classification according to meaning.adverb,preposition + noun,a noun without a preposition,infinitive or an infinitive phrase
3. According to the type of their head-word – is the syntactic classification proper. The meaning of the word (phrase) acting as modifier should be compatible with the meaning of the head-word.

Adverbial modifier of:

• Time and frequency,
• Place and direction,
• Manner and attendant
• circumstances,
• Cause,
• Purpose,
• Result,
• Condition,
• Concession,
• Degree

 

The attribute

The problem of the attribute. The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a noun, a substantivized pronoun, a cardinal numeral, and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing named by these words as to its quality or property.

The attribute can either precede or follow the noun it modifies. Accordingly we use terms prepositive and postpositive attribute. The position of an attribute with respect to its head-word depends partly on the morphological peculiarities of the attribute itself, and partly on stylistic factors.

The size of the prepositive attributive phrase can be large in ME. Whatever is included between the article and the noun, is apprehended as an attribute.

Loose parts of sentence

The theory of loose parts of the sentence is another backward element of syntactic theory. Even the terminology in this field is far from certain. The term "loose" is used in English grammars chiefly with reference to the apposition: close apposition and loose apposition are two notions opposed to each other in grammatical theory. Another term which may be used is "detached": detached attributes, detached adverbial modifiers, and so forth.

By loose parts of the sentence we mean such parts as are less intimately connected with the rest of the sentence and have some sort of independence, which finds its expression in the intonation and, in writing, in the punctuation.

The question now is, what parts of the sentence can be loose. The main parts, subject and predicate, apparently cannot be loose, as they form the backbone of the sentence from which other parts may be "detached". Objects cannot apparently be loose either. So the following parts remain: attributes, adverbial modifiers, appositions, and parentheses.

Loose Attributes

These may be expressed by the same kind of words and phrases as the usual attributes. Their peculiarity is, that they are separated from their head word by a pause, by an intonation of their own, and by a punctuation mark (usually a comma) in writing. In actual speech such loose attributes often acquire additional shades of meaning, for example, causal or concessive, which are not expressed by any specific means, lexical or grammatical, and entirely depend on the meanings of the words in the sentence. Loose attributes have a somewhat larger sphere of application than ordinary ones: whereas a personal pronoun can hardly ever be a head word for an ordinary attribute, it can be one for a loose attribute. For instance, in the sentence: Unable to sit there any longer with his mind tormented by thoughts of Tessie, he got up and started walking slowly down the road towards the Fullbrights' big white house. the phrase unable... Tessie is a loose attribute to the subject, which is a personal pronoun. In this case the loose attribute acquires a distinctly causal shade of meaning, and this is due to the lexical meanings of the words (mainly, the words unable to sit and got up). Compare also: Red in the face, he opened his mouth, but in his nervousness his voice emerged a high falsetto. Living or dead, she could not fail him, no matter what the cost. The semantic connections between the loose attribute and the rest of the sentence are different in the two cases, but this depends entirely on the lexical meanings of the words involved. It is especially the conjunction or in the second example that gives the connection a concessive shade (living or dead — whether he was living or dead, no matter whether he was living or dead).

Loose Adverbial Modifiers

Loose adverbial modifiers are perhaps more frequent even than loose attributes. This is especially true of those adverbial modifiers which do not modify any particular part of the sentence but refer to the sentence as a whole. They are often found at the beginning of the sentence and they point out the place, time, or the general conditions in which the action takes place: The next day, Scarlett was standing in front of the mirror with a comb in her hand and her mouth full of hairpins... On the third of July, a sudden silence fell on the wires from the north, a silence that lasted till midday of the fourth... In Aunt Pitty's house, the three women looked into one another's eyes with fear they could not conceal. Of course a loose adverbial modifier can also appear elsewhere in the sentence: Their men might be dying, even now, on the sunparched grass of the Pennsylvania hills. From such loose adverbial modifiers, which tend to be rather separated from the rest of the sentence, we can, step by step, arrive at parentheses and insertions.

Loose Appositions

The term "loose" was first used in English grammatical theory with reference to appositions. It would seem that in this field the difference between loose and ordinary parts of the sentence was especially obvious to the authors of grammar books. And indeed, the difference between the type of apposition found in a sentence like As for Uncle Peter, he took it for granted that Scarlett had come to stay. and that in a sentence like These two ladies with a third, Mrs Whiting, were the pillars of Atlanta (Idem) is most evident. The ordinary apposition (Uncle) makes a whole with its head word, it cannot be separated from it either in oral speech (that is, by a pause), or in a written text (that is, by some kind of punctuation mark), whereas a loose apposition (Mrs Whiting) is separated from its head word by these means. Loose appositions can contain various kinds of information about the person or thing denoted by the head word.

Loose Parentheses

Besides those parentheses which consist of one word or of a short phrase and are not separated from the main body of the sentence either in speech or in writing (e. g. perhaps, probably, no doubt, etc.), there are also parentheses consisting of a larger number of words and necessarily separated from the main body of the sentence. Their semantic relation to the sentence is basically the same as with parentheses of the first kind. A few examples will be enough to illustrate the point: They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. At all events, I've got as far as that. Extensive loose parentheses do not appear to be frequent in modern texts.

Simple Sentence

A simple sentence contains one independent clause.

What’s an “independent clause”? It’s one subject followed by one verb or verb phrase. It expresses a single idea.

Examples of simple sentences:

§ I‘m happy.

§ Robert doesn’t eat meat.

§ My brother and I went to the mall last night.

§ This new laptop computer has already crashed twice.

Notice that a “simple sentence” isn’t necessarily short. The subject can be a single word like “I” or “Robert,” or it can be a double subject like “my brother and I,” or it can be multiple words describing a single person/object, like “This new laptop computer.”

Compound Sentence

A compound sentence has two independent clauses joined by a linking word (and, but, or, so, yet, however).

Each independent clause could be a sentence by itself, but we connect them with a linking word:

§ I‘m happy, but my kids are always complaining.

§ Robert doesn’t eat meat, so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him.

§ My brother and I went to the mall last night, but we didn’t buy anything.

§ This new laptop computer has already crashed twice, and I have no idea why.

Note that each sentence has TWO subjects and TWO verb phrases.

Complex Sentence

A complex sentence has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

A dependent clause cannot be a complete sentence by itself.

§ I’m happy, even though I don’t make much money.

§ Robert, a friend I’ve known since high school, doesn’t eat meat.

§ My brother and I went to the mall last night, while my sister stayed home and studied.

§ This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice.

Compound-Complex Sentence

A compound-complex sentence contains 3 or more clauses: 2 independent and at least 1 dependent clause.

§ I’m happy, even though I don’t make much money, but my kids are always complaining since we can’t afford to buy the newest toys.

Independent clauses: “I’m happy” and “my kids are always complaining”
Dependent clauses: “even though I don’t make much money” and “since we can’t afford to buy the newest toys”
Linking word: “but”

§ Robert, a friend I’ve known since high school, doesn’t eat meat – so Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him.

Independent clauses: “Robert doesn’t eat meat” and “Barbara made a special vegetarian dish for him”
Dependent clause: “a friend I’ve known since high school”
Linking word: “so”

§ My brother and I went to the mall last night, while my sister stayed home and studied because she has a test coming up.

Independent clauses: “My brother and I went to the mall last night” and “my sister stayed home and studied”
Dependent clause: “because she has a test coming up”
Linking word: “while”

§ This new laptop computer, which I bought yesterday, has already crashed twice; however, I have no idea why.

Independent clauses: “This new laptop computer has already crashed twice” and “I have no idea why”
Dependent clause: “which I bought yesterday”
Linking word: “however”

Elliptical Sentences

The problem of elliptical sentences has been and still is one of the most important and at

the same time difficult problems of syntax.

The problem is solved by different linguists in different way. According to H. Kruisinga's

(36) concept “Any noun that is used to call a person may be looked upon as a sentence, or a

sentence-word.

Some words regularly form a sentence, such as “yes” or “no”'; but they do so only in

connection with another sentence. Words used in a sentence with subject and predicate may also be

alone to form a complete sentence, but again in connection with another sentence only...”

As we stated above elliptical sentences are also the result of transformation of kernel

sentences. Since transforms are derived from kernel sentences they must be considered in

connection with the latter.

L. Barkhudarov (3) looks upon the sentences like ≪Вечер≫, ≪Утро≫ and so on as two-member sentences.

Really, if we isolate such utterances from the language system it will not be divisible. If an investigator wants to be

objective he cannot neglect the language system. Any unit of any language is in interdependence of the other units

of the language. Since the overwhelming majority of sentences are two-member ones as e.g. ≪Был вечер≫, ≪Будет

вечер≫ the above-mentioned utterances are also two-member ones. In sentences ≪Был вечер≫, ≪Будет вечер≫ the

predicates are expressed explicitly, while in ≪Вечер≫, ≪Утро≫ the predicates are expressed by zero alternants of the

verb ≪быть≫. M. Blokh is conception is very close to this (5), (6).

The classification of elliptical sentences may be based on the way of their explication. By

explication we understand the replacement of the zero alternant of this or that word by the explicit

one. There are two kinds of explication:

1. Syntagmatically restored elliptical sentences - when the explicit alternant of the elliptical

sentence is found in the same context where the elliptical sentence is:

One was from Maine; the other from California.

If you have no idea where Clive might be, I certainly haven't. (Nancy Buckingam).

2. Paradigmatically restored elliptical sentence - when the explicit alternant of the zero

form is not found in the context where the ellipsis is used but when it is found in similar language

constructions, e.g.

Stop and speak to me. (Galsworthy)

You listen to me, Horace. (Steinback)

One -member Sentences

“A sentence is the expression of a self- contained and complete thought”.

“He is ill”, he said. “Didn’t you know?” –

“Seriously?” – “Very, I understand”, to Fries “Seriously” is a sentence - equivalent. They all seem to be a complete

communication. But it can not be denied that each of them, either through pronouns (he, him) or through omissions,

depend heavily on what has been said immediately before it is spoken; in fact the last three would be unthinkable

outside a linguistic context. Properly speaking, therefore, omissions must be said to effect connection between

sentences (31), (32).

Sentences with syntactic items left out are natural, for omissions are inherent in the very

use of language. “In all speech activities there are three things to be distinguished: expression,

suppression, and impression.

Expression is what the speaker gives, suppression is what the speaker does not give, though

he might have given it, and impression is what the hearer receives”. (35)

Grammarians have often touched upon omissions of parts of sentences. But it is difficult to

find an opinion which is shared by the majority of linguists.

When considering the types of sentences some grammarians recognize the existence of

two-member, one-member and elliptical sentences. The two-member sentences are sentences which have the subject and the predicate. However, language is a phenomenon where one cannot

foresay the structure of it without detailed analysis. There are sentences which cannot be described

in terms of two-member sentences. We come across to sentences which do not contain both the

subject and the predicate. “There's usually one primary part and the other could not even be

supplied, at least not without a violent change of the structure of the sentence", (llyish) Fire! Night.

Come on!

As Ilyish (15) puts it, it is a disputed point whether the main part of such a sentence should,

or should not be termed subject in some case (as in Fire! Night...) or predicate in some other

(Come on!; Why not stay here?) There are grammarians who keep to such a conception. Russian

Academician V.V. Vinogradov (10) considers that grammatical subject and predicate are

correlative notions and that the terms lose their meaning outside their relation to each other. He

suggests the term “main part”.

Thus, one member sentence is a sentence which has no separate subject and predicate but one main only

instead. B. Ilyish (15) considers some types of such sentences:

1) with main part of noun (in stage directions);

Night. A lady's bed-chamber....

2) Imperative sentences with no subject of the action mentioned:

Come down, please.

Infinitive sentences are also considered to be one special type of one-member sentences. In

these sentences the main part is expressed by an infinitive. Such sentences are usually emotional:

Oh, to be in a forest in May!

Why not go there immediately?

B.A. Ilyish (15) states that these sentences should not be considered as elliptical ones, since

sentences like:

Why should not we go there immediately? - is stylistically different from the original one.

By elliptical sentence he means sentence with one or more of their parts left out, which can

be unambiguously inferred from the context.

By "elliptical sentences " we mean sentences with one or more of their parts left out, which can be unambiguously inferred from the context. We will apply this term to any sentence of this kind, no matter what part or parts of it have been left ou