The sentence.
There are more than 300 different definitions of the sentence, but not a universal one.
5 approaches to the definition of the sentence:
Logical, psychological, phonetic, graphical, grammatical.
Logical: “a sentence is an expression of a complete thought, it’s a judgment or a proposition”.
Blokh: “the sentence is a unit of speech, built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose.”
Foreign scholars against this definition, as the meaning isn’t an integral part of a sentence.
Psychological Шахматов: a sent.is a psychological phenomenon which is expressed grammatically.
Phonetic approach: Paul Roberts :a sent. is a succession of sounds divided into brief groups by pauses required for taking breath”.
Cons of this approach: 1) the sent. can be considered only in oral communication; 2)the impossibility to single out a composite sentence because there is a pause in the inner structure of a composite sentence as well.
Graphical approach: sent. – a succession of words between 2 full-stops”.
Cons of this approach: the sentence may be defined only in writing.
Grammatical. In modern grammar: “ a sent. – is a grammatical unit”.
C.Freeze: “ a sent. – a minimal free-utterance”.
L.Bloomfield: “a sent. – a free linguistic form,which isn’t a part of any other linguistic form”.
Problem is: should a sentence be regarded as a unit of language or speech?
27. The Simple Sentence.
the simple sentence is a sentence in which only one predicative line is expressed.
Thus, we may state, that a proper simple sentence, or a single-clause sentence, to put it more exactly, is a monopredicative unit, as distinguished from composite and semi-composite sentences.
Predication makes the sentence the sentence. Predication – is a special category, which establishes the relations of the named phenomena to actual life.
Predicative relations – are those between the subject and the predicate, when the predicate says smth about the subject and the subject determines the form of the predicate.
Modality (peculiar to sentences only) – shows the attitude of the speaker to reality.
Types:
Objective – reflects the con-n between the name and obj. reality, it represents the action as real (unreal, possible, necessary)
Subjective – shows the personal attitude of the speaker to the situation.
Means to express modality (Biber):
Moduses
Stence markers – express personal feelings, attitude, personal judgement (modal words, mod. Verbs, adverbials)
Stence divices – paralinguistic means (body position, gestures)
In the sentence we speak about syntactic modality ( relation between the subject and the predicate) the basis of predicative relations
The sentence – nominal function + express predication ( deals with modality)
The composite sentence as a polypredicative construction.
It has been mentioned, that composite sentences differ from simple sentences by the number of predicative lines represented: simple sentences are monopredicative syntactic constructions, formed by only one predicative line, while composite sentences are polypredicative syntactic constructions, formed by two or more predicative lines, each with a subject and a predicate of its own. This means, that the composite sentence reflects two or more situations or events making up a unity. Each predicative unit in a composite sentence forms a clause. A clause as a part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence, but a composite sentence is not at all equivalent to a sequence of the simple sentences underlying its clauses. There are two principal types of composite sentences: complex and compound. In compound sentences, the clauses are connected on the basis of coordinative connections (parataxis); by coordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank. In complex sentences, the clauses are united on the basis ofsubordinative connections (hypotaxis); by subordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically unequal rank, one of which dominates another.
The connections between the clauses in a composite sentence may be effectedsyndetically, i.e. by means of special connecting words, conjunctions and other conjunctional words or word-combinations, orasyndetically, i.e. without any conjunctional words used.
According to the traditional view, all composite sentences are to be subdivided on the upper level into compound and complex, and on the lower level of subdivision each type is represented by syndeticand asyndetic connections. This view was challenged by N. S. Pospelov and some other Russian linguists, who treated this subdivision in the opposite way: at the higher level of classification all composite sentences should be divided into syndetic and asyndetic, while at the lower level the syndetic composite sentences (and only these) should be divided into compound and complex ones in accordance with the connective words used.
Alongside the two basic types of composite sentences there is one more type of polypredicative construction, in which the connections between the clauses are rather loose, syntactically detached. the following clause is like an afterthought, an expansion or a comment to the proceeding clause. In oral speech its formal sign is often the tone of sentential completion, followed by a shorter pause than the usual pause between separate sentences. In written speech such clauses are usually separated by semi-final punctuation marks: a dash, a colon, a semi-colon or brackets, e.g.: I wasn’t going to leave; I’d only just arrived. This type of connection is calledcumulation
Compound Sentence.
Traditionally: the clauses are syntactically equal.
Blokh: (Semantically)
the unmarked coordinative connection – the coordinative conjunction “and” and asyndetically (is not specified semantically)
marked coordinative connection – when a connector has its own meaning. expressed by conjunctions and adverbial connectors rendering adversative relations (but, however, yet, etc.), disjunctive relations (or, either… or, etc.), causal-consequential relations (so, for, therefore, thus, etc.), andpositive and negative copulative relations of events (both... and, neither… nor).
Problems: 1) the linguistic status of a compound sentence – whether it is a combination of 2 or more simple sentences (Ivanova); whether it is a unit of a higher rank than that of a simple sentence (traditionally)
Ch. Fries: included sentences – a compound sentence includes two or more simple sentences;
Complex sentence.
Traditionally: the clauses are not syntactically equal.
Subj. and predicative clauses – some scholars reject them as subordinate clauses of the same level.
Pospelov: on the basis of optional and obligatory valency
1 member complex sentence ( monolithic) – an obligatory subordination (subj., predicative, obj. clauses)
2 member complex sentence (segregative)– an subordinative con-n (adverbial, attributive clauses)
Traditionally: 2 basic types of subord. Arrangement:
Parallel – subordin. Clauses refer to 1 and the same principle clause.
Consequtive - a hiorachy of subord. Clauses, when 1 sub. Clause is subordinated to another.
Blokh:
Merge principal clauses – complex sentences with subordinate and predicative clauses;
Non-merge principal clauses – with adj., adverb and attrib. clauses.
Problems: the principals of classification are problematic.
Subordinate clauses are classified on two mutually complementary bases: on the functional principle and on the categorial principle.
According to the functional principle, subordinate clauses are divided on the analogy (though, not identity) of the positional parts of the simple sentence that underlies the structure of the complex sentence. E.g.: What you see is what you get. - What you see (the subject, the subject subordinate clause) is what you get (the object, the object subordinate clause).
According to the categorial principle, subordinate clauses are divided by their inherent nominative properties; there is certain similarity (but, again, not identity) with the part-of-speech classification of words. Subordinate clauses can be divided into three categorial-semantic groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial. Substantive-nominal subordinate clauses name an event as a certain fact, e.g.:What you do is very important; cf.: What is very important? Qualification-nominal subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is referred, as a characteristic to some substance, represented either by a word or by another clause, e.g.: Where is the letter that came today?; cf.: What letter? Adverbial subordinate clauses name a certain event, which is referred, as a characteristic to another event, to a process or a quality, e.g.: I won’t leave until you come.
The two principles of subordinate clause classification are mutually complementary: the categorial features of clauses go together with their functional sentence-part features similar to the categorial features of words going together with their functional characteristics. Thus, subordinate clauses are to be classified into three groups: first, clauses of primary nominal positions, including subject, predicative and object clauses; second,clauses of secondary nominal positions, including various attributive clauses; and third, clauses of adverbial positions.