Actual division or functional perspective of the sentence.
The notional parts of the sentence referring to the basic elements of reflected situation form the nominative meaning of the sentence. The division of the sentences into nominative or notional parts can be called the “nominative division”. This type of division can be shown by a model of immediate constituents (IC-model).
Alongside of the nominative division of the sentence there is the so-called actual division or functional perspective of the sentence, which was introduced by the Prague Linguistic Society (namely, Mothesius – Мотезиус). The purpose of it is to reveal the correlative significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance. In other words, the actual division of the sentence in fact exposes its informative perspective.
The main components of the actual division of the sentence are the theme (from the Greek word which means “set up”, “known”) and the rheme (from the Greek word which means “to tell, to inform”). The theme expresses the starting point of the communication, i.e. it denotes an object or a phenomenon about which smth is reported. The rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication, it is the centre of information. In new terminology it is often called the focus of information (Quirk et al.)
The theme of the actual division of the sentence may or may not coincide with the subject of the sentence. The rheme may or may not coincide with the predicate.
In modern English there are several ways of showing that a word or a phrase is the theme or the rheme.
Means of expressing the theme:
by the definite article: The little boy didn’t know anything about it.
by the use of the parenthetical preposition phrase as for: As for me, I’ll never forget it.
by the use of the demonstrative pronoun that: That laughter, how well she knew it.
Means of expressing the rheme:
1) the enclosing construction It is .. that; It is … who; It is … which: It was he who told me …
2) the construction with limiting particles: Only the children appeared to know the truth.
3) the use of the indefinite article: A little bird-like woman seemed to hop into the room.
It should be noticed that a specific way of expressing the rheme is expressive intonation; the stress on the rheme (For me, it’s a pleasure).
(2) Classification of the sentences.
Any sentence has three aspects: (1) semantic, (2) structural, (3) pragmatic, which correspond to the meaning, form and use.
Thus, sentences may be classified according to these aspects. A really good classification should comprise all the three of them, but such classification has not been worked out as yet. The talk about searching for universal criteria of classification could be endless, that is why we simply regard two traditional classifications according to the purpose of utterance and according to the structure.
According to the purpose of utterance we distinguish four types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory.
Declarative sentences or statements state the facts in the affirmative or negative form, they are characterized by a direct word order and are generally pronounced with a falling tune. The structure of the negative sentences is specific in comparison with Russian – only one negation is possible (It can be semantic negation as well: He never comes so late).
Interrogative sentences are formed by inversion. They are subdivided into (1) general or yes/no questions; (2) special or Wh-questions; (3) alternative questions (Is he living or is he dead? Yes or No?); disjunctive questions or question-tags (You know it, don’t you? You don’t know it, do you?).
They are used in conversation of informal style, the intonation here is very important. Although the speaker asks the opinion of the person to whom the question is addressed, the speaker can take the agreement for granted and it is shown by a mid-fall: I’m late, aren’t I? Little progress has been made, has it? You are seldom ready for a seminar, are you? (positive tag because of negative head), but: A few people knew the answer, didn’t they? You are a little annoyed, aren’t you?
Imperative sentences. The predicate in such sentences is in the imperative mood. Some scholars say that they are characterized by elliptical structure: (You) stop talking!
Imperative sentences can express both orders and (or) commands and requests: Stop talking; Stop talking.
The problem of pragmatic interpretation of imperative sentences is dealt with the works of Weizbecka, who suggests semantic interpretation o commands which can be introduced by the phrase “I order you …” while the requests can be introduced by “I ask you …”.
Here we touched upon the problem of the exactness of the classification according to the purpose of utterance. As we have seen one and the same type of the sentence can express different intention of the speaker or different purpose of the utterance.
Nowadays we can find linguistic works which are aimed at making the classification better. Thus in the works of Longacre, Austin, Grice, Susov and his Kalinin School there is a combination of Grammar and Pragmatics, which will give ea chance to make the classification more strict.
Exclamatory sentences express different emotions. Any kind of a sentence can be transformed into exclamatory: You are out of your mind! But pure exclamatory sentences are usually interjections: Oh, Lord! What a shame!