Complex Sentences in modern English

     Introduction

       The theme of our course paper sounds as following: «Complex Sentences in modern English». Before beginning of investigation in our theme, we would like to say some words dealt with the theme of our course paper. In a complex sentence we distinguish the principal clause and the subordinate clause or clauses. Standing on such ground, we would like to point out tasks and aims of our work. In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hard to be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hope it would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern English language.

     The topicality of the theme is based upon the fact that for modern linguistic studies is very significant to have the most updated impressions and information of the most recent scientific research. Requirement of the modern society assumes the existence of the most update information. In the given research our attention was specially concentrated on the investigation.

       The novelty of the given work consists in the fact the whole of the present work is based on the newest research of the area. The book and publications in the area of complex sentence theory of such scientists as Ilyish, Zhigadlo, Ivanova, Iofik were used as a basis for this work. The material of our course paper can be widely used during teaching process at universities while teaching and learn English language.  

     The aim of the work is to investigate complex sentences and analyse their classification.

     The object of the work represents of modern theoretical data on the problem of complex sentence in modern English.

     The subject is to research complex sentences in details.

     The tasks of the work:

• To give general information about complex sentences;
• To investigate the classification of complex sentences;
• To analyse the usage and function of complex sentences;

     In order to achieve the aim and to complete the tasks the following methods were used: analysis, generalization and comparison. The course paper consists of introduction theoretical part practical part  and conclusion.

     The theoretical value is that the present research makes a certain contribution into the theory of English. And Theoretical value can be used in students research works and theory of English language.

     The present research has an obvious practical value. The material of our research can be widely used during teaching process at universities while teaching and learning theory of English language. Our research can be very useful for students and others.

       The structure there is presented as introduction, two chapters, conclusion and bibliography.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Chapter I. Theoretical aspects of the research

     1.1. The Sentence

        The notion of sentence has not so far received a satisfactory definition, which would enable us by applying it in every particular case to find out whether a certain linguistic unit was a sentence or not.

     Thus, the question remains undecided whether such shop notices as Book Shop and such book titles as English are sentences or not. In favour of the view that they are sentences the following consideration can be brought forward. The notice Book Shop and the title English Grammar mean 'This is a book shop', 'This is an English Grammar'; the phrase is interpreted as the predicative of a sentence whose subject and link verb have been omitted, that is, it is apprehended as a unit of communication. According to the other possible view, such notices as Book Shop and such titles as English Grammar are not units of communication at all, but units of nomination, merely appended to the object they denote. Since there is as yet no definition of a sentence which would enable us to decide this question, it depends on everyone's subjective view which alternative he prefers. We will prefer the view that such notices and book titles are not sentences but rather nomination units. With the rise of modern ideas of paradigmatic syntax yet another problem concerning definition of sentence has to be considered.

     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. Two criteria are most often used in classifying the subordinate clauses of complex sentences: meaning and combinability.

       There are two ways of using the criterion of combinability. Either subordinate clauses are classified in accordance with their relation to the word of the principal clause «they are attached to, or they are likened to some part of speech with similar combinability… In the sentences When he came is ' of no importance, I remember when he came the combinability of the subordinate clause resembles that of a noun.

     Each of the criteria described has its advantages and disadvantages. But in syntax, it seems, the correlation with the parts of the sentence is preferable to the correlation v with the parts of speech. We shall therefore classify the subordinate clauses into groups parallel to the parts of the simple sentence. Accordingly we snail distinguish subject clauses, complement clauses (predicative, objective, and adverbial), attributive clauses, extension clauses and parenthetical clauses. Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pro-nouns or asyndetically. In connection with the structure of the complex sentence and the means of subordination in it, it is necessary to dwell on the so-called 'sequence of tenses' which is often treated as a formal feature of the complex sentence, a device of subordination. The rule of the sequence of tenses is usually defined as follows: If the predicate verb of the principal clause is in the present or the future tense, the predicate verb of the subordinate clause may be used in any tense required by the sense. If the predicate verb of the principal clause is in the past tense, the verb of the subordinate clause must be used in the past tense too. The regularity is supposed to be mostly or exclusively characteristic of object subordinate clauses.

     From the point of view of Morphology, the so-called sequence of tenses is a morphological problem, not a syntactical one, inasmuch as the past tense forms in the subordinate clauses are used in accordance with the grammatical meanings they express. Now from the point of view of an Englishman the future tense in the Russian subordinate clause might be regarded as depending on the future tense of the principal clause, as a means of subordination, and a certain rule of the sequence of the future tenses in Russian might be formulated.

     There is no need, however, to look for any syntactical explanation of the use of the future tense verb in the Russian subordinate clause. It is used there in accordance with its meaning since it denotes an action taking, place after the moment of speech.

     What does need accounting for is the 'future tense' meaning of the present tense grammeme come in the English subordinate clause. Here we cannot do without 'syntax. We must state that in certain syntactical surroundings a present tense grammeme may acquire a 'future tense' meaning. We may see something similar in the following two sentences.

     However, it cannot be denied that the clauses of a complex sentence are for the most part united by the same time background. Very often it is the tense of the principal clause that shows that background. The events mentioned in the subordinate clause may be presented as unfolding against that background, as valid or important for that period of time. Only in this sense can we speak of the accord of tenses in the complex sentence. This accord can be observed not only in complex sentences with object subordinate clauses, as stated by some linguists, but in complex sentences with various types of subordinate clauses:

     a) Clauses denoting subjective appraisal.

     b) Clauses containing verbs and nouns denoting suggestion, demand, recommendation, insistence, perplexity, doubt, fear, anxiety, wish, etc.

     1.2 Validity in the complex sentence

         The foregoing discussion concentrated upon instances of the well formed complex sentence. That discussion showed how some compositions of complex sentences are such that nouns, adjectives and adverbs embed successfully into well-formed basic sentences. The following discussion examines several failed attempts at composing complex sentences, diagnoses the cause of each failure and suggests the means of correcting it.

     A complex sentence must contain a basic sentence. Without a basic sentence there is no complex sentence. Failing to provide one is absolutely the worst mistake a writer can make. This one made it: The Smiths, much less a community to indicate a migration as an escape from distress. (This is not a sentence.)

        This writer has raised the subject `the Smiths’, then described it with the adjective phrase `much less a community to indicate migration as an escape from distress’. Description is only description. It does not make a point. A point about the subject is made by predication. The structure of predication is `verbial + object/complement. There is no verbial in this sequence that purported to be a sentence, and it lacks an object or a complement. It is therefore not a sentence. Consequently, it is incapable of making a point about that subject. Whatever this writer meant to say about his subject `the Smiths’ is hopelessly lost in his failure to write a basic sentence. No failure can be greater, for it excludes the possibility of sense. To make sense, it needs to have a basic sentence. Furthermore, the adjective phrase .`much less a community to indicate migration as an escape from distress’ is itself obscure to the point of being illogical: how can `the Smiths’ be either `a community’ or `an escape’?

        Writers who construct their subject by describing it, a process that is not only perfectly legitimate but also rather elegant, often get their sentences into the trouble we have just discussed. More dangerous still is the process of composition in which the writer constructs a complicated `that’-led noun-phrase subject and compounds an element to it: That economic issues and environment issues are closely interlinked and interdependent and need to be dealt with together, whether with a new environmental ethic or with an improved version of the measures and processes that are already in practice. (This is not a sentence.)

        Here, the `that’-led noun-phrase subject –`That economic issues and environment issues are closely interlinked and interdependent and need to be dealt with together’– is a complex one, and the sequence `with a new environmental ethic or with an improved version of the measures and processes that are already in practice’ is compounded to it by means of the logical operator `whether’. After all this, we still have only a subject and an element compounded to it. We do not have a verbial or an object/complement. So we do not have a sentence. As is often the case with subjects of this construction, words lurk in it that look as if they might be verbials (`are’, `need to be dealt with’). They are in fact not verbials in this construction: They are parts of the noun-phrase subject. They would have been verbials if the subject had not been named by means of the `that’-led sequence that subsumed them. Nevertheless, these might-be verbials give writers a `feel good’ confidence in the possibility that they are somehow succeeding to predicate the subject they constructed. They are not. This sequence has no verbial, and it has no object/complement. Nothing, therefore is `said about’ it. For it to become a sentence, a predicate has to be constructed for it. Thereby, a basic sentence will be supplied to it. That basic (copula) sentence is underlined in this reconstruction:

          That economic issues and environment issues are closely interlinked and interdependent and need to be dealt with together, whether with a new environmental ethic or with an improved version of the measures and processes that are already in practice is a generally accepted fact. 

     1.3 The complex sentence is an essential tool

     Making a series of single statements in simple sentences is not the same intellectual activity as making a basic statement developed with the informative embeddings of the complex sentence. A series of simple statements deals with simple matters. When we deal with complex matters the very nature of our thinking directs us to the procedures of the complex sentence.

     Linguists have noted that the occurrence of the complex sentence increases in the measure that the density of detail, or the level of abstraction, of a writer's topic intensifies. They have noted also that a writer's lucidity when he writes about complicated or abstract topics is commensurate with his ability to control the complex sentence. This should alert writers to the need to hone their complex-sentence writing skills, if only for the sake of having the style handy to use when needed.

     There is no obligation upon any writer to use the complex sentence. The choice of not using it is available to everyone. But it is well to remember that a writer is read and assessed. And writers have been criticized for their limited repertoire of sentence styles. Avoidance of the complex sentence does not reduces the writer's repertoire by one; it handicaps it like a missing wing a bird.

     There is much more to be said about the complex sentences than about the compound. The semantic relations which can be expressed by subordination are much more numerous and more varied than with co-ordination, e.g. time, place, concession, purpose, etc.

     Types of complex sentences: The notions of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentence appear to be applicable to some types of complex sentences as well. 

     1.4 Complex sentence

     Of course a complex sentence does not always consist of one main and one subordinate clause. It may contain two, three, or more subordinate clauses, which may or may not be connected with one another. Two subordinate clauses are connected with one another if they belong to the same type . In that case they may be joined by a co-ordinating conjunction (and, but, or). Another type of structure is seen when the subordinate clauses are not connected with each other. For instance, one of two attributive clauses within a complex sentence may modify one part of the head clause, and the other attributive clause may modify another part: On the contrary, here I have everything that disappointed me without anything that I have not already tried and found wanting.  In a similar way two adverbial clauses within a complex sentence may belong to different homogeneous predicates in the head clause, etc. It is obvious that many varieties are here possible. And again, the subordinate clauses contained in one complex sentence may have different functions: one may be attributive, another an object clause, a third may be adverbial, and so forth. So far we have only considered complex sentences with subordinate clauses of the first degree, that is, clauses immediately subordinated to the main clause. However, that is far from being the only possible structure of a complex sentence. A subordinate clause may in its turn have another clause subordinated to it, that is, a subordinate clause of the second degree. That clause of the first degree to which another clause (of the second degree) is subordinated, has thus a twofold syntactical connection: on the one hand, it is a subordinate clause with reference to the main clause, and on the other, it is a head clause with reference to the second-degree subordinate clause. This may be seen, for example, in the following complex sentence: Across her face there was passing a constant stream of infinitesimally delicate changes of expression, the most minute possible contraction of the brows or pursing of the lips, which gave an indication of restlessness that, if at any moment these movements became more marked, would shift into a complete picture of misery. In this sentence there is an attributive clause of the first degree, an attributive clause of the second degree, and a conditional clause of the third degree. Many questions remain to be solved concerning the types of clauses which may be subordinates of the first degree and have at the same time further subordinates of the second and higher degrees attached to them, etc. It also remains to be seen whether, for instance, interrogative or imperative clauses can be met with as subordinate clauses of different degrees, etc. There may also be homogeneous clauses, that is, two or more subordinate clauses, connected either with or without a conjunction, and performing the same syntactical function in the sentence. These clauses may or may not be introduced by the same subordinating conjunction or connective.

             That the three clauses are homogeneous is clearly shown by the fact that there is the conjunction and between the second and the third of them, and also by the fact that the predicate of the head clause is were problems, with its link verb in the plural. The words introducing the three clauses are only partly alike: why for the first clause, why for the second, but what for the third. In our next example the conjunction as introduces the two homogeneous predicative clauses: All this was as it had always been, as it should be, and there was even a special gift, as he crossed between the statues, a huge and moving point of gray between the immobility of gilt and bronze, and proceeded to the side-street that led to the garage. The semantic connection between the two predicative clauses is of course quite clear: the first of them states the fact that the thing had always been so, and the second confirms that this was not a fortuitous but a necessary phenomenon due to certain laws.

     It is time now to examine the base of the division of conjunctions into co-ordinating and subordinating ones and of clauses into co-ordinated and subordinated ones. In trying to answer this question we must of course take into account the grammatical structure of the language which we are analysin . In a language which does not have any such distinction in word order this criterion is of course inapplicable and we must look for some other. There would seem to be three criteria which are actually applied but not always clearly formulated as such, namely (1) the function of the clause as compared to the corresponding element in a simple sentence, (2) the lexical meaning of the conjunction itself, (3) the possibility or impossibility of the clause in question being used outside the syntactical context in which it is usually found. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

     Chapter II. Complex sentence in modern English

     2.1 Classification of complex sentence

     According to the functional principle we distinguish object, attributive, adverbial clauses, etc. According to the categorial principle subordinate clauses are divided into 3 categorial semantic groups: substantive-nominal, qualification-nominal and adverbial. e.g. That they were justified in this she could not but admit. – That fact she could not but admit.

     e.g. Ann had become aware of the fact that she was talking loudly. – Ann had become aware of that fact. e.g. I’ll deserve your confidence if you give me another chance. – I’ll deserve your confidence on condition that you give me another chance.

        The two classifications are mutually complementary:

     - clauses of primary nominal positions (subject, predicative, object clauses);

     - clauses of secondary nominal positions (attributive clauses);

     - clauses of adverbial positions.

         According to the degree of self-dependence of clauses complex sentences are divided into monolythic and segregative sentence structures. Monolythic complex sentences are based on obligatory subordinative connections of clauses, whereas segregative complex sentences are based on optional subordinative connections.

      Monolythic complex sentences:

     1) merger complex sentences, i.e. sentences with subject and predicative subordinate clauses, where the subordinate clause is fused with the principal one.

     E.g. The trouble is we are to change our plans.

     2) valency monolyth complexes, whose subordinate clauses are dependent on the obligatory right-hand valency of the verb in the principal clause. Here belong sentences with object clauses and valency-determined adverbial clauses.