- •Теоретическая грамматика английского языка
- •Introduction
- •§ 381. Within a sentence, the word or combination of words that contains the meanings of predicativity may be called the predication.
- •§ 384. The main parts of the sentence are those whose function it is to make the predication. They are the subject and the predicate of the sentence.
- •§ 389. In the sentence Birds fly, as we have seen, the syntactical and the lexical meanings of the subject and the predicate go together. But English has a system of devices to separate them.
- •§391. Let us now consider the grammatical word-morphemes do, does, did in sentences like Does she ever smile? We do not know him, etc.
- •§393. Every predication can be either positive or negative.
- •§ 396. As defined (§ 3), when studying the structure of a unit, we find out its components, mostly units of the next lower level, their arrangement and their functions as parts of the unit.
- •§ 399. Some analogy can be drawn between the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence.
- •§ 401. Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups — the group of the subject and the group of the predicate 1.
- •§ 403. Sentences with only one predication are called simple sentences. Those with more than one predication have usually no general name 1. We shall call them composite sentences.
- •§ 409. Not all interrogative sentences are syntactical opposites of declarative sentences.
- •§ 411. The sentences below form opposemes of some syntactical category.
- •§ 415. Let us compare the following pairs of sentences:
- •I'll see him I shall see him
- •It's raining It is raining
- •§ 418. We find no predication in the second sentence of the following dialogue.
- •§ 419. The sentence-words yes and no are regularly used as adjuncts of some head-sentences.
- •§ 421. The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.
- •§ 425. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex.
- •§ 426. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. In the following sentence it is the noun head.
- •§ 429. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them.
- •§ 430. The predicate is the member of a predication containing the mood and tense (or only mood) components of predicativity.
- •§ 431. The predicate can be a word or a syntactical word-morpheme. When it is a notional word, it "is not only the structural but the notional predicate as well.
- •Objective Complements (Objects)
- •§ 448. Like other parts of a simple sentence (clause), objective complements may be expressed by complexes and are then called complex objects.
- •Adverbial Complements (Adverbials)
- •§ 454. Below are some specimens of quantitative adverbial complements.
- •§455. Circumstantial adverbials, or as a. I. Smirnitsky calls them, adverbials of situation, comprise:
- •§ 457. As follows from the string of examples given above, in simple sentences adverbial complements are usually adverbs, nouns (mostly with prepositions), verbids and verbid complexes.
- •§458. Comparing English adverbials with those in Russian one can see that despite some common features (meaning, types), they are in a number of points different.
- •§ 459. Attributes are secondary parts of the sentence serving to modify nouns or noun-equivalents in whatever functions they are used in the sentence.
- •§ 460. Attributes are formally indicated only by the position they occupy, save the demonstrative pronouns this, these, that, those which, besides, agree in number with the word they modify.
- •§469. Connectives are linking-words considered as a secondary part of the sentence. They are mostly prepositions and conjunctions.
- •§ 472. The articles resemble particles in being semi-notional and in functioning as specifiers. But they specify only one part of speech, nouns. In this they resemble attributes.
- •§ 473. Parenthetical elements are peculiar parts of the sentence.
- •§ 474. In accordance with their meanings parenthetical elements fall into four major groups:
- •§ 475. In a simple sentence parenthetical elements may be expressed by individual words (modal words, adverbs, nouns) and word-combinations of different nature.
- •§ 476. In most cases parenthetical elements are connected in sense with the sentence as a whole, that is why they have no fixed position in the sentence.
- •I. The Position of the Subject and the Predicate in the Sentence
- •§ 477. We have already dwelt upon the fact that in Modern English syntactical relations of words in the sentence are very often indicated by the position the words occupy in the sentence.
- •II. The Position of the Object
- •§ 479. The direct object is usually placed after the verb unless the indirect object precedes it.
- •§ 480. Sometimes the object is pushed to the front of the sentence. It occurs:
- •§ 482. The indirect object cannot be used in the sentence without the direct object. The indirect object is regularly put before the direct object as in That gave me a new idea.
- •§ 483. In most cases they follow the direct object, though for stylistic purposes, I. E. For emphasis and expressiveness, they may be placed at the head of the sentence.
- •§ 487. The position of an attribute depends both on the head-word and on the attribute. If the head-word is a pronoun, the attribute is, as a rule, postpositive.
- •§ 488. In postposition attributes often acquire what we might call a 'semi-predicative' connotation.
- •§ 489. If there are two or more prepositive attributes to one and the same noun their order is dependent upon a number of factors which appear to be semantic and stylistic rather than grammatical.
- •§ 491. As to the position of the other parts of the sentence, see the combinability of the corresponding parts of speech.
- •§ 497. The compound sentence usually describes events in their natural order, reflecting the march of events spoken of in the sequence of clauses.2
- •§ 498. The principal clauses of complex sentences are usually not classified, though their meanings are not neutral with regard to the meanings of the subordinate clauses.
- •§ 502. Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pronouns or asyndetically.
- •§ 506. The mood of the predicate verb of a subordinate clause depends on the principal clause to a greater extent than its tense.
- •§ 507. The subject clause is the only one used in the function of a primary part of the sentence.
- •§ 519. A variety of attributive clauses is the appositive clause, which formally differs from an attributive clause in being introduced by a conjunction (that, if, whether).
- •§ 520. Extension clauses are postpositive adjuncts of adjectives, adverbs and adlinks.
- •§ 521. Most authors who do not regard parenthetical elements as parts of the sentence treat It is past ten, 1 think as a simple sentence. We do not find this view convincing.
- •§ 522. In most cases parenthetical clauses are introduced asyndetically, though now and again the conjunctions as, if, etc. Are used.
- •§ 523. Sometimes subordination and coordination may be combined within one sentence, in which case we may have compound-complex and complex-compound sentences.
- •§ 524. Among the composite sentences of English and other languages we find a peculiar type differing from the rest.
- •§ 525. There is no agreement as to the syntactical nature of a sentence like He said, "I love you".
- •§ 526. Let us compare the two sentences:
- •§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.
- •§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ grammatically from the conventional types of sentences.
- •§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
- •Conclusion
- •§ 535. The syntactical system of a language is, as a rule, closely connected with its morphological system. The structure of the sentence and the structure of the word are interdependent.
- •§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
- •§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.
§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
The first and the second person of the quotation in He said, "I love you" are third persons in relation to the author, hence the change of I to he and you to her.
The moment of speech of the first person of the quotation is in the past with regard to the moment of speech of the author, hence the change of love to loved in He said he loved her.
Conclusion
§ 530. We have made a survey of the morphological and syntactical systems of Modern English, resorting, where appropriate, to comparison with Modern Russian. Now, by way of summing up, we shall make an attempt to point out those basic features which make the grammatical structure of Modern English distinguishable from that of Modern Russian.
§ 531. We shall naturally begin with the word. One of the most striking features of English words as compared with Russian words is the scarcity of positive grammatical morphemes. The number of grammatical suffixes, for instance, does not exceed 13. But even these are often homonymous as, for example, /-s/ /-z/ /-iz/ in the nouns fathers, father's, fathers' and the verb fathers. Prefixes are not used as grammatical morphemes at all. In Russian the number of suffixes and prefixes used as grammatical morphemes exceeds 70.
This scantiness of grammatical morphemes in English is productive of certain characteristic sequels:
a) The proportion of zero morphemes is much greater in English than in Russian. The 'singular number, common case' grammeme in English, for instance, is (with the exception of a few 'foreign' nouns) characterized by a zero morpheme whereas in Russian all case and number grammemes may have positive grammatical morphemes. Similarly, the verb grammeme (I, we, you, they) go, come, live, stand, etc. has a zero morpheme, whereas in Russian similar grammemes have a number of positive morphemes. The 'positive degree' grammeme of adjectives has a zero morpheme in English and positive morphemes in Russian.
b) Grammatical combinability plays an incomparably smaller role in English than in Russian.
Cf. белая стена, белый потолок, белых потoлков; мы, пишем, вы пишете, они пишут.
c) The number of words with oblique grammatical meanings is much greater in English than in Russian. For instance, there are but a few indeclinable nouns with oblique case meanings in Russian (до метро, на такси), whereas in English there are more nouns with oblique than with actual case meanings.
d) Owing to the absence of positive case inflexions in about 98% of nouns in speech, the relations of nouns, the most numerous class of words, to other words in the sentence is not expressed by their forms, as in Russian.
§ 532. The abundant use of grammatical word-morphemes compensates the English verb system for the scarcity of inflexions. This is another striking feature of English, as compared with Russian where grammatical word-morphemes are used only in 'future non-perfective' grammemes (буду/ будешь, etc./писать) and 'subjunctive mood' grammemes (писал бы).
Note. In Russian grammar books бы is called a particle.
§ 533. In the other parts of speech the compensation for the scarcity of inflexions is the extensive use of semi-notional words and of the relative position of words as means of expressing the connections of words in speech. Prepositions are of greater importance than in Russian as indicators of the relations of nouns (and noun-equivalents) to other words in the sentence. Articles, semi-notional possessive pronouns, prepositions often mark the beginning of a string of words related to a certain noun.
Cf. the we—know—that—he—knows—that—she—knows development; of very great and ever increasing importance.
§ 534. Russian is richer than English not only in grammatical morphemes but in lexico-grammatical morphemes (stem-building elements) as well. As a result there are many more homonyms in English than in Russian.
English has developed a way of lexeme-building without stem-building elements (conversion) which is much less used in Russian. The abundance of words related by conversion is another striking feature of the English language.
In the verb system the lexico-grammatical word-morphemes compensate for the scarcity of lexico-grammatical morphemes. Such composite verbs as get up, ring up, find out, take in, etc. are a characteristic feature of English not found in Russian.
In speech the prop-word one helps to indicate an adjective (or adjective equivalent) which is not followed by a noun much in the same way as an article (or another determiner) indicates a noun.