- •Теоретическая грамматика английского языка
- •Introduction
- •§ 381. Within a sentence, the word or combination of words that contains the meanings of predicativity may be called the predication.
- •§ 384. The main parts of the sentence are those whose function it is to make the predication. They are the subject and the predicate of the sentence.
- •§ 389. In the sentence Birds fly, as we have seen, the syntactical and the lexical meanings of the subject and the predicate go together. But English has a system of devices to separate them.
- •§391. Let us now consider the grammatical word-morphemes do, does, did in sentences like Does she ever smile? We do not know him, etc.
- •§393. Every predication can be either positive or negative.
- •§ 396. As defined (§ 3), when studying the structure of a unit, we find out its components, mostly units of the next lower level, their arrangement and their functions as parts of the unit.
- •§ 399. Some analogy can be drawn between the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence.
- •§ 401. Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups — the group of the subject and the group of the predicate 1.
- •§ 403. Sentences with only one predication are called simple sentences. Those with more than one predication have usually no general name 1. We shall call them composite sentences.
- •§ 409. Not all interrogative sentences are syntactical opposites of declarative sentences.
- •§ 411. The sentences below form opposemes of some syntactical category.
- •§ 415. Let us compare the following pairs of sentences:
- •I'll see him I shall see him
- •It's raining It is raining
- •§ 418. We find no predication in the second sentence of the following dialogue.
- •§ 419. The sentence-words yes and no are regularly used as adjuncts of some head-sentences.
- •§ 421. The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.
- •§ 425. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex.
- •§ 426. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. In the following sentence it is the noun head.
- •§ 429. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them.
- •§ 430. The predicate is the member of a predication containing the mood and tense (or only mood) components of predicativity.
- •§ 431. The predicate can be a word or a syntactical word-morpheme. When it is a notional word, it "is not only the structural but the notional predicate as well.
- •Objective Complements (Objects)
- •§ 448. Like other parts of a simple sentence (clause), objective complements may be expressed by complexes and are then called complex objects.
- •Adverbial Complements (Adverbials)
- •§ 454. Below are some specimens of quantitative adverbial complements.
- •§455. Circumstantial adverbials, or as a. I. Smirnitsky calls them, adverbials of situation, comprise:
- •§ 457. As follows from the string of examples given above, in simple sentences adverbial complements are usually adverbs, nouns (mostly with prepositions), verbids and verbid complexes.
- •§458. Comparing English adverbials with those in Russian one can see that despite some common features (meaning, types), they are in a number of points different.
- •§ 459. Attributes are secondary parts of the sentence serving to modify nouns or noun-equivalents in whatever functions they are used in the sentence.
- •§ 460. Attributes are formally indicated only by the position they occupy, save the demonstrative pronouns this, these, that, those which, besides, agree in number with the word they modify.
- •§469. Connectives are linking-words considered as a secondary part of the sentence. They are mostly prepositions and conjunctions.
- •§ 472. The articles resemble particles in being semi-notional and in functioning as specifiers. But they specify only one part of speech, nouns. In this they resemble attributes.
- •§ 473. Parenthetical elements are peculiar parts of the sentence.
- •§ 474. In accordance with their meanings parenthetical elements fall into four major groups:
- •§ 475. In a simple sentence parenthetical elements may be expressed by individual words (modal words, adverbs, nouns) and word-combinations of different nature.
- •§ 476. In most cases parenthetical elements are connected in sense with the sentence as a whole, that is why they have no fixed position in the sentence.
- •I. The Position of the Subject and the Predicate in the Sentence
- •§ 477. We have already dwelt upon the fact that in Modern English syntactical relations of words in the sentence are very often indicated by the position the words occupy in the sentence.
- •II. The Position of the Object
- •§ 479. The direct object is usually placed after the verb unless the indirect object precedes it.
- •§ 480. Sometimes the object is pushed to the front of the sentence. It occurs:
- •§ 482. The indirect object cannot be used in the sentence without the direct object. The indirect object is regularly put before the direct object as in That gave me a new idea.
- •§ 483. In most cases they follow the direct object, though for stylistic purposes, I. E. For emphasis and expressiveness, they may be placed at the head of the sentence.
- •§ 487. The position of an attribute depends both on the head-word and on the attribute. If the head-word is a pronoun, the attribute is, as a rule, postpositive.
- •§ 488. In postposition attributes often acquire what we might call a 'semi-predicative' connotation.
- •§ 489. If there are two or more prepositive attributes to one and the same noun their order is dependent upon a number of factors which appear to be semantic and stylistic rather than grammatical.
- •§ 491. As to the position of the other parts of the sentence, see the combinability of the corresponding parts of speech.
- •§ 497. The compound sentence usually describes events in their natural order, reflecting the march of events spoken of in the sequence of clauses.2
- •§ 498. The principal clauses of complex sentences are usually not classified, though their meanings are not neutral with regard to the meanings of the subordinate clauses.
- •§ 502. Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pronouns or asyndetically.
- •§ 506. The mood of the predicate verb of a subordinate clause depends on the principal clause to a greater extent than its tense.
- •§ 507. The subject clause is the only one used in the function of a primary part of the sentence.
- •§ 519. A variety of attributive clauses is the appositive clause, which formally differs from an attributive clause in being introduced by a conjunction (that, if, whether).
- •§ 520. Extension clauses are postpositive adjuncts of adjectives, adverbs and adlinks.
- •§ 521. Most authors who do not regard parenthetical elements as parts of the sentence treat It is past ten, 1 think as a simple sentence. We do not find this view convincing.
- •§ 522. In most cases parenthetical clauses are introduced asyndetically, though now and again the conjunctions as, if, etc. Are used.
- •§ 523. Sometimes subordination and coordination may be combined within one sentence, in which case we may have compound-complex and complex-compound sentences.
- •§ 524. Among the composite sentences of English and other languages we find a peculiar type differing from the rest.
- •§ 525. There is no agreement as to the syntactical nature of a sentence like He said, "I love you".
- •§ 526. Let us compare the two sentences:
- •§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.
- •§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ grammatically from the conventional types of sentences.
- •§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
- •Conclusion
- •§ 535. The syntactical system of a language is, as a rule, closely connected with its morphological system. The structure of the sentence and the structure of the word are interdependent.
- •§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
- •§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.
§ 535. The syntactical system of a language is, as a rule, closely connected with its morphological system. The structure of the sentence and the structure of the word are interdependent.
In Russian the nominative case of a noun and its grammatical combinability with a finite verb are usually sure signs of the subject. So the position of the subject is mostly a matter of secondary importance from the grammatical point of view. Not so in English. The noun has no 'subject case'. Its grammatical combinability with a finite verb is limited and does not, very often, exclude other nouns in the sentence.
(Cf. Встречает Петра Иван; * meets Peter John.) Hence the rigid word-order in an English sentence.
§ 536. The Russian verb clearly expresses the indicative, imperative and subjunctive moods. So the relation to reality (the most essential component of predicativity) is obvious whether there is a subject or the 'person' is expressed by the verb itself. Cf. (ты) пиши, (ты) пишешь. Such sentences can do without subjects.
In English write can be the form of an infinitive or of any mood. So the subject is not optional. The absence of a subject before write is usually a signal of the imperative mood. If the meanings of the other moods are to be expressed, the subject is unavoidable. This is one of the reasons why the two-member sentence is the norm in English, whereas in Russian one-member sentences of the type напишу, едут, вспомнил, светает, etc. are also very common.
§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
a) In the morphological system only some categories of the verb and the degrees of comparison are expressed with the help of grammatical word-morphemes, whereas no category of the sentence is expressed without grammatical word-morphemes in English.
b) Besides the morphological word-morphemes the sentence makes use of special syntactical word-morphemes.
Russian has no syntactical word-morphemes and but a small number of morphological word-morphemes. This is the reason why the structural and the notional (parts of the) subject and predicate are mostly not separated, as they are in English.
This is one of the most important features distinguishing the analytical structure of the English sentence from the synthetic structure of the Russian sentence.
§ 538. Among other peculiarities distinguishing the English sentence from the Russian, one has to mention the complexes forming secondary predications. They are convenient substitutes for subordinate clauses.
The distinction English makes between primary and secondary predications, i. e. predications with or without structural meanings, is also connected with the analytical structure of the English sentence.
§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.