19. Sentence as the main unit of syntax

The sentence is the immediate integral unit of speech built according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose (Bloch) In speech sentences are not given ready-made, they are created by the speaker. But they are built according to patterns existing in the language. So, concrete sentences belong to speech, while patterns to language.

The sentence, being composed of words, may in certain cases include only one word of various lexico-grammatical standing. Cf.: Night. Congratulations. Away! Why? Certainly.

The actual existence of one-word sentences, however, does not contradict the general idea of the sentence as a special syntactic combination of words.

Moreover, this fact cannot lead to the idea that the sentence and the word may wholly coincide: a word-sentence as a unit of the text is radically different from a word-lexeme as a unit of lexicon, the differentiation being inherent in the respective places occupied by the sentence and the word in the hierarchy of language levels.

Being a unit of speech, the sentence is intonationally delimited. Intonation separates one sentence from another in the continual flow of uttered segments. The role of intonation as a delimiting factor is especially important for sentences which have more than one predicative centre, in particular more than one finite verb. Cf.:

1. The class was over, the noisy children fitted the corridors. 2) The class was over. The noisy children filled the corridors.

It has 2 basic functions:

1. Naming (names a situation, event);

2. Communicative

A. Gardiner and Y.M. Skrebnev are of opinion that the only relevant feature of the sentence is its ability to serve the purpose of communication, i.e. they view the sentence as a unit of communication.

The communicative function does differentiate the sentence from the phoneme, the morpheme, the word, the word form, and the word combination. But the communicative function cannot be regarded as a distinguishing feature of the sentence either, for it is also common to units larger than the sentence and to language as a whole.

The sentence names situations and events of objective reality and convey information, expressing complete thoughts or feelings. So, the sentence is a structural semantic and communicative unity. Accordingly the 3 main aspects of the sentence are syntactic, semantic, and logico- communicative.

The syntactic structure of the sentence can be analyzed at 2 levels:

• Pre-functional (the level of combinability)

Members of the sentence are discussed in terms of words and word groups irrespectively to their functions in the sentence;

• Functional

1. Syntactic level- the modal of the members of the sentence (syntactic features);

2. Semantic level – case grammar – the modal of the sentence as the preposition structure ( semantic structure);

3. Communicative level – sentences as a unit of speech- FSP – functional sentence perspective- the logico – communicative structure;

There is no correspondence between units of those levels.

John wrote a letter. –NVN-SPO

John had a snack. - NVN-SP

The semantic structure of the sentence is a reflection of a certain situation or event which includes a process as its dynamic centre, the doer and the objects of the process and certain circumstances and conditions of its realization.

The semantic structure of the sentence is often called deep structure; the syntactic structure is called surface structure. There is no direct correspondence between deep and surface structure.

John opened the door. NVN (SPO)- doer (agent), action, object;

The key opened the door. NVN (SPO)- instrument, action, object;

These 2 aspects characterize the sentence as a unit of speech of language. Logico –communicative aspect characterizes the sentence as a unit of speech, or utterance. The sentence as a unit of communication usually consists of 2 parts: the topic for discussion ( smth, about which a statement is made) and the information about the topic( or a statement itself).

This division into 2 parts, the theme and the rheme, is called the actual sentence division (the functional sentence prospective).

There is one more aspect of the sentence as a unit of speech- the use of sentence in social interaction, their function in particular contexts of use. For example, the statement I have no cigarettes can be interpreted in certain context as a command or requests. So, the sentences can be analyzed from the point of view of the intentions of the speaker, the effect of the utterance on the interlocutor, the appropriateness of an utterance in a given context. This aspect this called paradigm.

Sentencoids we mean syntactic units that lack the structure of an independent finite clause. In Russian traditional grammar, they are usually called 'incomplete sentences' (неполные предложения), in English and American linguistics - 'elliptical sentences'. The terms 'incomplete sentences', 'elliptical sentences', and 'sentence fragments' emphasize their structural deficiency. Short 'fragmentary' units really do not have the structure of independent finite clauses. Since 'fragmentary' syntactic units are structurally different from sentences, they should not be called sentences. J.R. Aiken and M. Bryant suggested that they should be called 'non-sentences'. In our opinion, the term is not a happy one because it only tells us that 'fragmentary' syntactic units are not sentences, but it does not tell us what they are. We think the term 'sentencoids' is better. By using it, we stress that, on the one hand, sentencoids are different from sentences, on the other hand, that they are similar to them (the suffix ~oid means 'similar to').

The absence of independent explicit predication does not mean that sentencoids are non-predicative syntactic units. There are three major predicative types of sentencoids.

1.Sentencoids that have dependent explicit predication, e.g.:

I have no desire to disappoint you. - Why should you disappoint me? - Because Гт not twenty-five (J. Collins).

The sentencoid Because I'm not twenty-five is marked for real modality, present tense, and the first person. So, its predication is explicit. The sign of dependence is the subordinator because.

2.Sentencoids having implicit predication that becomes clear from the context or situation (we might use the abbreviation 'consituation'), e.g.:

What school do you go to? - Boarding school (S. Hill).

The sentencoid Boarding school is not explicitly marked for any predicative category, but we can infer from the consituation that the sentencoid refers to real modality, present tense, and first person.

3. Sentencoids that are characterized by a fusion of explicit and implicit predication, e.g.:

Twilight (J. Joyce).

A nice moon, that (Th. Dreiser).

Somewhat apart stand the so-called 'sentence representatives' (репрезентанты предложений) that are used to avoid the repetition of the notional (or lexical) verb and the words that follow it, e.g.: Why don 't you run away then? -1 did (S. Hill).

Outside the constitution, they lack not only the communicative function, like the above-mentioned sentencoids, but also the naming function because they usually consist of a personal pronoun or some other deictic element and an auxiliary, modal, or copular verb. Cf: You must have loved him a lot. -1 did (S. Sheldon).

English grammarians usually regard 'sentence representatives' as elliptical sentences.

In addition to 'sentence representatives', there are 'clause representatives' (репрезентанты клауз) in English that have independent or (less often) dependent explicit predication and always make part of larger syntactic units, e.g.; married him, didn't I? - Oh, yes, you did (J. Osborne).