- •Chapter I
- •§ 1. Notional words, first of all verbs and nouns, possess some morphemic features expressing grammatical
- •§ 6. In the light of the exposed characteristics of the categories, we may specify the status of grammatical paradigms of changeable forms.
- •§ 4. We have drawn a general outline of the division of the lexicon into part of speech classes developed by modern linguists on the lines of traditional morphology.
- •§ 9. Functional words re-interpreted by syntactic approach also reveal some important traits that remained undiscovered in earlier descriptions.
- •§ 10. Pronouns considered in the light of the syntactic principles receive a special systemic status that characteristically stamps the general presentation of the structure of the lexicon as a whole.
- •§ 11. As a result of the undertaken analysis we have obtained a foundation for dividing the whole of the lexicon on the upper level of classification into three unequal parts.
- •§ 2. The categorial functional properties of the noun are determined by its semantic properties.
- •§ 2. The category of gender is expressed in English by the obligatory correlation of nouns with the personal pronouns of the third person. These serve as specific gender classifiers
- •§ 2. The semantic nature of the difference between singular and plural may present some difficulties of interpretation.
- •§ 2. Four special views advanced at various times by different scholars should be considered as successive stages in the analysis of this problem.
- •§ 2. A mere semantic observation of the articles in English, I.E. The definite article the and the indefinite article a/an, at once discloses not two, but three meaningful
- •§ 6. The essential grammatical features of the articles exposed in the above considerations and tests leave no room for misinterpretation at the final, generalising stage of analysis.
- •§ 5. The class of verbs falls into a number of subclasses distinguished by different semantic and lexico-grammatical features.
- •§ 8. On the basis of the subject-process relation, all the notional verbs can be divided into actional and statal.
- •Non-finite verbs (verbids)
- •§ 2. Approached from the strictly morphemic angle, the analysis of the verbal person and number leads the grammarian to the statement of the following converging and diverging features of their forms.
- •§ 1. The aspective meaning of the verb, as different from its temporal meaning, reflects the inherent mode of the realisation of the process irrespective of its timing.
- •§ 2. At this point of our considerations, we should like once again to call the reader's attention to the difference between the categorial terminology and the definitions of categories.
- •Chapter XVI verb: voice
- •§ 1. The verbal category of voice shows the direction of the process as regards the participants of the situation reflected in the syntactic construction.
- •Chapter XVIII adjective
- •§ 2. All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses: qualitative and relative.
- •§ 7. Let us examine now the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective.
- •§ 8. Having considered the characteristics of the category of comparison, we can see more clearly the relation to this category of some usually non-comparable evaluative adjectives.
- •§ 3. In accord with their word-building structure adverbs may be simple and derived.
- •§ 4. Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial.
- •§ 5. Among the various types of adverbs, those formed from adjectives by means of the suffix -ly occupy the most representative place and pose a special problem.
- •§ 1. Performing their semantic functions, words in an utterance form various syntagmatic connections with one another.
- •§ 2. Groupings of notional words fall into two mutually opposite types by their grammatical and semantic properties.
- •§ 6. The completive, one-way connection of words (monolateral domination) is considered as subordinative on the
- •1G—1499 241
- •Actual division of the sentence
- •§ 2. An attempt to revise the traditional communicative classification of sentences was made by the American scholar Ch. Fries who classed them, as a deliberate challenge to the
- •§ 4. The communicative properties of sentences can further be exposed in the light of the theory of actual division of the sentence.
- •17—1499 257
- •§ 5. As far as the strictly interrogative sentence is concerned, its actual division is uniquely different from the actual division of both the declarative and the imperative sentence-types.
- •§ 8. In the following dialogue sequence the utterance which is declarative by its formal features, at the same time contains a distinct pronominal question:
- •§ 9. The next pair of correlated communicative sentence types between which are identified predicative constructions of intermediary nature are declarative and imperative sentences.
- •§ 10. Imperative and interrogative sentences make up the third pair of opposed cardinal communicative sentence types serving as a frame for intermediary communicative patterns.
- •Simple sentence: constituent structure
- •Chapter XXV simple sentence: paradigmatic structure
- •§ 5. As part of the constructional system of syntactic paradigmatics, kernel sentences, as well as other, expanded base-sentences undergo derivational changes into clauses and phrases.
- •Chapter XXVI
- •19-1499 289
- •§ 6. Clauses of primary nominal positions — subject, predicative, object — are interchangeable with one another in easy reshufflings of sentence constituents. Cf.:
- •§ 10. Complex sentences which have two or more subordinate clauses discriminate two basic types of subordination arrangement: parallel and consecutive.
- •Chapter XXVIII compound sentence
- •§ 4. It is easily seen that coordinative connections are correlated semantically with subordinative connections so that a compound sentence can often be transformed into
- •Chapter XXIX semi-complex sentence
- •§ 3. Semi-complex sentences of subject-sharing are built up by means of the two base sentences overlapping round the common subject. E.G.:
- •§ 6. Semi-complex sentences of adverbial complication are derived from two base sentences one of which, the insert
- •Chapter XXX semi-compound sentence
- •Chapter XXXI sentence in the text
- •§ 1. We have repeatedly shown throughout the present work that sentences in continual speech are not used in isolation; they are interconnected both semantically-topically and syntactically.
- •§ 3. Sentences in a cumulative sequence can be connected either "prospectively" or "retrospectively".
- •§ 4. On the basis of the functional nature of connectors, cumulation is divided into two fundamental types: conjunctive cumulation and correlative cumulation.
- •§ 6. Cumuleme in writing is regularly expressed by a paragraph, but the two units are not wholly identical.
- •§ 7. The introduction of the notion of cumuleme in linguistics helps specify and explain the two peculiar and rather important border-line phenomena between the sentence and the sentential sequence.
- •24- 371
- •Марк Яковлевич Блох
§ 2. An attempt to revise the traditional communicative classification of sentences was made by the American scholar Ch. Fries who classed them, as a deliberate challenge to the
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"accepted routine", not in accord with the purposes of communication, but according to the responses they elicit [Fries, 29-53].
In Fries's system, as a universal speech unit subjected to communicative analysis was chosen not immediately a sentence, but an utterance unit (a "free" utterance, i.e. capable of isolation) understood as a continuous chunk of talk by one speaker in a dialogue. The sentence was then defined as a minimum free utterance.
Utterances collected from the tape-recorded corpus of dialogues (mostly telephone conversations) were first classed into "situation utterances" (eliciting a response), and "response utterances". Situation single free utterances (i.e. sentences) were further divided into three groups:
1) Utterances that are regularly followed by oral responses only. These are greetings, calls, questions. E.g.:
Hello! Good-bye! See you soon! ... Dad! Say, dear! Colonel Howard! ... Have you got moved in? What are you going to do for the summer? ...
2) Utterances regularly eliciting action responses. These are requests or commands. E.g.:
Read that again, will you? Oh, wait a minute! Please have him call Operator Six when he comes in! Will you see just exactly what his status is?
3) Utterances regularly eliciting conventional signals of attention to continuous discourse. These are statements. E.g.:
I've been talking with Mr. D — in the purchasing department about our type-writer. (—Yes?). That order went in March seventh. However it seems that we are about eighth on the list. (— I see). Etc.
Alongside of the described "communicative" utterances, i.e. utterances directed to a definite listener, another, minor type of utterances were recognised as not directed to any listener but, as Ch. Fries puts it, "characteristic of situations such as surprise, sudden pain, disgust, anger, laughter, sorrow" [Fries, 53]. E.g.: Oh, oh! Goodness! My God! Darn! Gosh! Etc.
Such and like interjectional units were classed by Ch. Fries as "noncommunicative" utterances.
Observing the given classification, it is not difficult to
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see that, far from refuting or discarding the traditional classification of sentences built up on the principle of the "purpose of communication", it rather confirms and specifies it. Indeed, the very purpose of communication inherent in the addressing sentence is reflected in the listener's response. The second and third groups of Ch, Fries's "communicative" sentences-utterances are just identical imperative and declarative types both by the employed names and definition. As for the first group, it is essentially heterogeneous, which is recognised by the investigator himself, who distinguishes in its composition three communicatively different subgroups. One of these ("C") is constituted by "questions", i.e. classical interrogative sentences. The other two, viz. greetings ("A") and calls ("B"), are syntactically not cardinal, but, rather, minor intermediary types, making up the periphery of declarative sentences (greetings — statements of conventional goodwill at meeting and parting) and imperative sentences (calls — requests for attention). As regards "non-communicative" utterances — interjectional units, they are devoid of any immediately expressed intellective semantics, which excludes them from the general category of sentence as such (see further).
Thus, the undertaken analysis should, in point of fact, be looked upon as an actual application of the notions of communicative sentence-types to the study of oral speech, resulting in further specifications and development of these notions.
§ 3. Alongside of the three cardinal communicative sentence-types, another type of sentences is recognised in the theory of syntax, namely, the so-called exclamatory sentence. In modern linguistics it has been demonstrated that exclamatory sentences do not possess any complete set of qualities that could place them on one and the same level with the three cardinal communicative types of sentences. The property of exclamation should be considered as an accompanying feature which is effected within the system of the three cardinal communicative types of sentences.* In other words, each of the cardinal communicative sentence types can be represented in the two variants, viz. non-exclamatory and exclamatory. For instance, with the following
*See:Грамматика русского языка. М., 1960. Т, 2. Синтаксис, ч. I, с. 353; 365 и сл.
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exclamatory sentences-statements it is easy to identify their non-exclamatory declarative prototypes:
What a very small cabin it was! (K. Mansfield) – It was a very small cabin. How utterly she had lost count of events! (J. Galsworthy) <– She had lost count of events. Why, if it isn't my lady! (J. Erskine) «— It is my lady.
Similarly, exclamatory questions are immediately related in the syntactic system to the corresponding non-exclamatory interrogative sentences. E.g.:
Whatever do you mean, Mr. Critchlow? (A. Bennett) «-What do you mean? Then why in God's name did you come? (K. Mansfield) «- Why did you come?
Imperative sentences, naturally, are characterised by a higher general degree of emotive intensity than the other two cardinal communicative sentence-types. Still, they form analogous pairs, whose constituent units are distinguished from each other by no other feature than the presence or absence of exclamation as such. E.g.:
Francis, will you please try to speak sensibly! (E. Hemingway) «- Try to speak sensibly. Don't you dare to compare me to common people! (B. Shaw) <— Don't compare me to common people. Never so long as you live say I made you do that! (J. Erskine) <— Don't say I made you do that.
As is seen from the given examples, all the three pairs of variant communicative types of sentences (non-exclamatory — exclamatory for each cardinal division) make up distinct semantico-syntactic oppositions effected by regular grammatical means of language, such as intonation, word-order and special constructions with functional-auxiliary lexemic elements. It follows from this that the functional-communicative classification of sentences specially distinguishing emotive factor should discriminate, on the lower level of analysis, between the six sentence-types forming, respectively, three groups (pairs) of cardinal communicative quality.