Impersonal Sentences:

1. Sentences, describing phenomena of nature: It’s raining! It’s dark!

2. Sentences, expressing time, distance: It’s 2 o’clock! It was Monday! It’s a five minutes’ walk from here!

3. Sentences, expressing a certain state of things: It’s all over with him.

Russian impersonal sentences are all one-member sentences and very numerous, in English impersonal sentences are two-member sentences with the impersonal “it” and they are not very numerous. In rendering Russian impersonal one-member sentences into English the main problem is to find the proper subject. Here are some recommendations:

1. Use as a subject something in the sentence which can become the subject semantically: Мне холодно – I am cold. Мне непонятно – I don’t understand.

2. If there is nothing in the sentence, we may find something extralinguistic outside the sentence.

3. If nothing – then “it”

The communicative structure of the sentence

The communicative structure of the sentence reflects the meaning of the communication with the sentence carries. A sentence contains two common parts: the theme (the known, the given) and the rheme (the new information). Usually a sentence is a theme-rheme structure, but it’s possible to have a rheme sentence (Fine!).

The main ways of marking the new (rheme) are the following:

• the usage of the indefinite, the zero article: A man came in;

• constructions there is/there are (to be… = …there came…);

• word order: Then came the day of our meeting;

• a 3-member passive with the by-phrase when it’s the center of the communication: This was done by my brother;

• particles of emphatic precision: He alone didn’t know anything about it;

• the use of the reflexive pronouns in the emphatic function: He did it himself;

• the emphatic “it-construction” (double-emphasis): It was he, who told me the truth.

• transformations:

• splitting the subject group: Строится электростанция, которая… – A power station is being built, which…

• the usage a phrase instead of a verb: Широко использовались методы… – Extensive use was made of…

• transformation of the members of the sentence: За последние годы наблюдается подъем… – The recent years saw/witnessed…

Exercises:

1. Classify the sentences using 7 criteria mentioned in the text:

1. So he’s left her? – She left him.

2. You felt alright when you left? – Yes.

3. She’s gonna go back tonight. – Does she live in Hitchin?

4. You weren’t happy together? – “No,” he said.

5. How was your trip?

6. Do you know Jasons down there? – Who? – Jasons.

7. And I think she’s stealing stuff as well. – She’s what?

8. Do you want one or two? – Two.

9. What a good dad he is!

10. Get off the table!

11. Alright? Anything else?

2. Analyze this part of prose according to the meaning and structure of the sentences that constitute it:

"You're the last person I wanted to see. The sight of you dries up all my plans and hopes. I wish I were back at war still, because it's easier to fight you than to live with you. War's a pleasure do you hear me?-War's a pleasure compared to what faces us how: trying to build up a peacetime with you in the middle of it."

I’m not going to be a part of any peacetime of yours. I'm going a long way from here and make my own world that's fit for a man to live in. Where a man can be free, and have a chance, and do what he wants to do in his own way," Henry said.

'Henry, let's try again."

"Try what? Living here? Speaking polite down to all the old men like you? Standing like sheep at the street corner until-the red light turns to green? Being a good boy and a good sheep, like all the stinking ideas you get out your books? Oh, no! I'll make a world, and Г11 show you."

3. What ways of marking the rheme are used in the following abstract?

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods. For instance, there is a brown-stone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a train. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins freckled, brown with age. The single window looked out on the fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened whenever I tell in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it was still a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to become the writer I wanted to be.

Lecture 12. Word Order

Word order (WO) is one of the main means of marking the relationship of words in the sentence.

WO has three main functions:

1. the grammatical (formal) function – in this function WO marks the relationship words in a sentence or serves to generate a certain syntactic structure (in interrogative sentences);

2. the communicative function – in this function a certain WO pattern serves to bring out the communicative structure of the sentence: Then came the day of our meeting!

3. the expressive (the emphatic, the stylistic) function – in this function the WO pattern serves to mark the communicative center and at the same time it makes the utterance more expressive: Terrible was the night!

The main difference between English and Russian is that in Russian the main function of WO is the communicative function, in English – the grammatical function – each member of the sentence in English has a fixed position.

There are certain recommendations in arranging secondary members of the sentence:

The position of the adverbial modifiers depends on their function, communicative value, on the way they are expressed and on the rhythm. The most frequent are: an adverbial of manner, time, place, and purpose.

The closest to the predicate is usually an adverbial of manner, it may even precede the predicate if it’s not the communicative center: He moved slowly down the rails – He slowly moved.

An adverbial of time follows an adverbial of place, it either opens the sentence or closes it, except for adverbial of indefinite time, which may be placed between the subject and the predicate.

An adverbial of purpose is placed either at the very end or at the very beginning of the sentence.

If there are homogeneous adverbials, their position depends on the degree of particularization (detalization): the one that is more detailed comes first, the one that is more general in meaning comes next.

There are also some peculiarities in arranging attributes:

If we consider the arranging of attributes in relation to their noun, we find that there are several groups, considering the left hand distribution:

1. the closest to the noun: attributes expressing material, nationality, style;

2. then come attributes expressing age, temperature, measurements, colour (paralelly);

3. adjectives, expressing some subjective impression, quality;

4. determinatives (articles, demonstrative pronounce, nouns in the Possessive case, indefinite pronounce): a curious little green horse; a cup of delicious hot china tea

There are some instances when the attributes are synonyms either as dictionary units or textual synonyms (contextual synonyms): a long boring technical lecture; a nasty dirty industrial town.

There are two main WO patterns:

• direct WO, when the subject precedes the predicate;

• indirect WO / inversion when the predicate or at least part of it precedes the subject.

Structurally inversion may be full or partial:

• by full inversion we mean cases when the whole of the predicate precedes the subject: Then came the day of our meeting. Inversion is full when the subject is expressed by a noun;

• partial inversion is a case when part of the predicate precedes the subject (in questions: Do you know him?). Inversion is partial when the subject is expressed by a pronoun.

According to the main function of the WO we distinguish three main functions of inversion:

1. grammatical / formal inversion: May you be happy!

2. communicative / semantic inversion. Occurs in:

   • in sentences with there is/there are: There is a book on the table!

   • elliptical sentences beginning with so, neither, nor: So do I! Neither do I! Nor does he!

   • in sentences, beginning with an adverbial of time and place: Then came the day of our wedding! Far ahead stretched the fields covered with snow!

One should remember that the inversion of this type is restricted:

• it occurs mostly (only) with the verb in the Indefinite form;

• the meaning of the verb: usually it is a verb denoting position, motion or change of position;

• inversion of the predicate which is the theme: Completely absent throughout the book is the role and action of the forces.