Lecture 14

Lecture 14.
THE COMPOSITE SENTENCE: DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO CLASSIFICATION

TRADITIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF SENTENCES (the prevailent one)

- Simple (one predicative group)
- Composite (more than one predicative group)
* compound (coordination)
* complex (subordination)

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

1. Simple - compound (Brightland, beginning of the 18th century)
2. Simple - compound - complex (Lowth, mid 18th century)
3. Simple - composite (compound and complex) (Poutsma, end of the 19th century)

SEMI-COMPOSITE SENTENCES

- Semi-compound (with homogeneous S or P): He tore the photo in half and threw it in the fire > He tore... and he threw... (may be transformed into two due to its deep semantic structure)
- Semi-complex
* with secondary predication complexes: I saw him crossing the street > I saw him when he was crossing the street
* with linear expansion: This is a novel translated from RUssian > This is a novel which was translated from Russian
- Intermediate
* with double predicates: The moon rose red > (When) the moon rose it was red
* with a dependent appendix: He is taller than you > He is taller than you are. He tried hard but in vain > He tried hard, but it was in vain

THE COMPOSITE SENTENCE AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN

Meaning: a complex conceptual construction, reflects two or more situational events

Form: a unity of two or more subject-predicate structures, e.g. He was wearing pajamas and bedroom slippers / when he went into the square / but there was no one to see him

Function: informative (complex situation): T > R

MEANS OF CONNECTING CLAUSES (Barchdarov and Shtelling, 1973)

- conjunctions (and, but, because)
- conjunctive words (who, what, where)
- conjunctive phraseological units (so...that, hardly...when)
- word order (Had he been here, he would,,,)
- tense, phase, mood forms (If he comes...)
- intonation

PRAGMATIC TYPES OF COMPOSITE SENTENCES

- constatives: He said he knew it
- directives: I suggest that you go there (sounds milder and more polite than in simple sentences)
- questions: Do you know that he has left?
- promises and menaces: I'll do it if you wish
- performatives: I bet five pounds it'll rain tomorrow

COMPOSITE SENTENCE CLASSIFICATION IN MODERN GRAMMAR (Key principle - type of syntactiv relations)

- compound (coordination / parataxis)
- complex (subordination / hypotaxis)
- cumulative (cumulation): He is your friend forever, though you never know
- with independent clauses (subject and/or predicative) (interdependence): What I need is that you call my lawyer
- with appositive clauses (apposition): All is well that ends well

SECONDARY PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITE SENTENCE CLASSIFICATION

Type of hierarchical relations between clauses (main - subordinate, leading - consecutive)
Type of clause connection (obligatory/synsemantic - optional/autosemantic; syndetic - asyndetic)
Order of mutual arrangement
Degree of predicative explicitness (completely composite - semi-composite)

GRAMMATICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN ASYNDETIC CLAUSES

- Appositive clauses: You are the person I've always wanted to talk to
- Conditional clauses: Had it not been for his presence, she would have been perfectly happy
- Object clauses of reported speech: He said he knew her