3. Syntactic positions and functions

There are three main positions of adverbs. They are:

• Front – before the subject of the sentence: Now we are going to consider adverbs.

• Mid – between the subject and the verb: We are always considering adverbs.

• End – after an intransitive verb, or after an object or complement: We are going to discuss adverbs thoroughly.

As well as adverbs themselves, many phrases and clauses can occupy an adverb’s position in a sentence or a clause; have the same sort of meaning as a single adverb. The term ‘adverbial’ is used to cover such phrases and clauses, plus single-word adverbs: I met Bill last night. Come and see me next week. (noun phrase as adverbial of time). We went to a pub. The children were playing in the park. (prepositional phrase as adverbial of place). To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it. (non-finite clause as sentence adverbial). Although the beer’s good, the place has no atmosphere. (finite adverbial clause). When drunk, Bill gets excited. (verbless time clause).

One important classification is a broad three-fold division into:

• Adjuncts – adverbs/adverbials that are fully integrated into clause structure: He spoke fully and honestly. We still don’t know anything.

• Disjuncts – where the adverbial does not relate to any individual element of the sentence, but states the speaker’s position: Honestly, what’s going to happen next?

• Conjuncts – which often function to connect a new sentence with something that has preceded. Still, it was a good meeting.

If the verb has an object, you put the adverbial after the object. I did learn to play a few tunes very badly. Thomas made his decision immediately. If you are using more than one of these adverbials in a clause, the usual order is manner, then place, then time. They were sitting quite happily in the car. She spoke very well in the village hall last night.

When you want to focus on an adverbial, you can do this by putting it in a different place in the clause. At the beginning of a clause for emphasis: Slowly, he opened his eyes. In September I travelled to California. Next to the coffee machine stood the pile of cups. He deliberately chose it because it was cheap. I very much wanted to go with them.

Module II

Basic Typological Syntactic Phenomena

Lecture 5 ?????

Practice # 7

SIMPLE SENTENCE. PARTS OF SENTENCE THEORY

Issues to discuss

1. Structure of a simple sentence;

2. Main parts of a sentence, their peculiarities;

3. Secondary parts of a sentence.

Terminology:

Extended, parts of sentence, main/secondary parts of sentence, implicit, explicit

1. Structure of a simple sentence

A sentence is a complete unit of meaning. A simple sentence is a sentence structure that contains one independent clause and no dependent clauses.

The structural segmentation of sentences in English and Ukrainian may be performed on the basis of some common principles.

The most common and traditional segmentation of

• non-extended (The baby cried. The singer bowed.) and

• extended two-member sentences (The girl ran into her bedroom. In the backyard, the dog barked and howled at the cat.)

in all languages is that into the parts of sentence.

All parts of the sentence in the contrasted languages have both an isomorphic functional meaning and lexical and grammatical nature. Common / isomorphic is also the traditional subdivision of them into

• The main and

• The secondary parts of sentence.

The main parts are the subject and the verb-predicate (підмет і присудок). The secondary parts are the object, the attribute and different adverbial modifiers (додаток, означення, обставинні члени речення).

The Subject and the Predicate (S & P) in both languages are considered to be independent parts of sentence. They are bearers of predication forming the sentence. Compare: They laughed. Everybody agreed. Йшов сніг. Всі погодилися. The subject is a person/doer or thing that the sentence is about. This is followed by a verb group called predicate, which tells you what the subject is doing, or describes the subject’s situation. The baby was screaming.

Other parts are usually dependent on the Subject, on the Predicate or on one another. As it is in the following sentence Everyone knows his own business best. The constituent word-groups of the sentence in syntactic presentation (patterning) are as follows:

• The primary predication (S-P) Everyone knows;

• The P-O word-group knows his own business;

• The attributive word-group his own business;

• The predicate-adverbial modifier word-group knows best.

The predicate (the verb group) may be followed by another noun group, which is called the object. The object is the person or thing affected by the action or situation. It may be

• direct (D.O.) Alan criticized the plan. He opened the car door. She married a young engineer.

• or indirect (I.O.): Honestly, I’ve never said a word to him. My boyfriend wrote a lovely letter to me.

After link (= copular verbs) like be, become, get, seem, appear, feel, look, sound, smell, taste, we ONLY use a noun group and adjectives (Not adverbs!), called complement. The complement tells you more about the subject. The weather is horrible. The car looks fast. She was an architect. The stew smells good.

e) The predicate (the verb group), the object, or the complement can be followed by an adverb or a prepositional phrase, called an adverbial modifier. The adverbial tells you more about the action or about the situation, for example how, when, or where it happens. They shouted loudly. My boss often travels to America. He got dressed quickly.

The structure of the parts of the sentence in both languages is mainly characterized by isomorphic features. There are distinguished the following structurally common types of subjects in English and in Ukrainian:

1. Simple, i.e. expressed by a single word-form: We normally see each other at weekends; Зазвичай ми зустрічаємось на вихідних. Teachers can also award a certificate of merit for individual pieces of good work. Вчителі також можуть присуджувати похвальні листи за окремі досягнення.

2. Extended, i.e. expressed by a subordinate or co-ordinate word-group: New reference book was published last year. Новий довідник був виданий торік. Offers of sweets and gifts for good behavior were deemed inappropriate. Такі нагороди як цукерки та подарунки вважалися недоречними.

3. Complex, when expressed by a secondary predication construction / word-group (What you told me is a lie. Те, що ти мені сказав, - це брехня. What is new is the formalized consistency of a whole school approach. Те, що з’явилось новим, це формалізована послідовність підходу до шкільної освіти в цілому. This subject can be substituted for a single word performing the same function: That / it is a lie.