35) Предикативные словосочетания (синтаксические комплексы)

Predicative word groups (= complexes which are not to be found in Russian). A predicative word group is a special kind of word group with predicative relations between the nominal and the verbal parts (but the relations between the doer and the action).

A syntactical complex is a predicative word group consisting of 2 parts: the nominal part expressed by a noun and the verbal part expressed by one of the non-finite forms. The relations between 2 parts are like those between the subject and the predicate. That’s why they are called predicative word groups.

English is rather rich in complexes:

five main types:

the Complex Object

the Complex Subject (in news, in brief)

the For-phrase (the For-Complex, the Prepositional Complex) I rely on you to do it.

the Gerundial Complex (I insist on Mr. Brown being elected)

the Absolute Nominative Participial Construction

within they are subdivided into bound (1, 2, 3, 4) and full (5)

(1, 2, 3, 4) – always function as an ingredient part of the sentence

(5) – it is absolute, it is not the I.C. of the sentence, it is always an adverbial

36) Коммуникативные типы высказывания.

The sentence is a communicative unit, therefore the primary classification of sentences must be based on the communicative principle. This principle is formulated in traditional grammar as the "purpose of communication".

In accord with the purpose of communication three cardinal sentence-types have long been recognised in linguistic tradition: first, the declarative sentence; second, the imperative (inducive) sentence; third, the interrogative sentence. These communicative sentence-types stand in strict opposition to one another.

Thus, the declarative sentence expresses a statement, either affirmative or negative, and as such stands in systemic syntagmatic correlation with the listener's responding signals of attention, of appraisal (including agreement or disagreement), of fellow-feeling.

The imperative sentence expresses inducement, either affirmative or negative. That is, it urges the listener, in the form of request or command, to perform or not to perform a certain action. As such, the imperative sentence is situationally connected with the corresponding "action response" (Ch. Fries), and lingually is systemically correlated with a verbal response showing that the inducement is either complied with, or else rejected.

The interrogative sentence expresses a question, i.e. a request for information wanted by the speaker from the listener. By virtue of this communicative purpose, the interrogative sentence is naturally connected with an answer, forming together with it a question-answer dialogue unity.

An attempt to revise the traditional communicative classification of sentences was made by the American scholar Ch. Fries.

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). The sentence was then defined as a minimum free utterance.

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.

2) Utterances regularly eliciting action responses. These are requests or commands.

3) Utterances regularly eliciting conventional signals of attention to continuous discourse. These are statements.

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"

E.g.: Oh, oh! Goodness! My God! Darn! Gosh! Etc.

Such and like interjectional units were classed by Ch. Fries as "noncommunicative" utterances.