fy">     Western scholars make no difference between subject-predicate combinations and non-predicative combinations, calling both  phrases (John runs away, to run away).

Classifications of Phrases

     Henry Sweet classified phrases according to the relations between the head and the adjunct. These relations are of logical and grammatical subordination. He distinguished the following degrees of subordination:- apposition (adjoinment)(Prince Hamlet), agreement (concord) ( these books), government (to see a film). So the criterion, underlying this classification, the degree of subordination.

     Otto Jespersen introduced the theory of ranks to understand the hierarchy of elements in a phrase. Elements are not of the same footing, they function as primaries,  secondaries and tertiaries.  The rank of the element depends on its position. One and the same element can be a primary and a secondary: an exquisitely lovely dress; a vast country and a country doctor (    III   II       I;     II    I;      II    I). We see that the word country can be a primary and a secondary. Prof. Kruizinga distinguished close and loose syntactic groups. In a close group there is a syntactically leading element( poor John, very fragile). In a loose group both elements are independent of each other ( ladies and gentlemen). According to the number of constituents, syntactic groups are divided into double, triple and multiple groups.

     Leonard Bloomfield, using the procedure of substitution, identified phrases according to their functioning in larger structures into endocentric and exocentric ones. An endocentric phrase functions as its head constituent (Very fresh milk is on the table = Milk is on the table, students and teachers = students and teachers are in the hall). An exocentric phrase doesn’t function as any of it’s constituents (In the house; John runs away; by running away). None of their elements can replace the whole phrase in a larger structure. Both types of phrases were further subdivided by Bloomfield into subclasses according to their structure. Endocentric phrases are divided into coordinate  ones  with elements being  on the same footing ( girls and boys) and subordinate ones  (character-substance phrases:  poor John). As to exocentric phrases the relations  within them are more diverse. We see here predicative (actor-action) phrases (John runs away), connective phrases ( with John, in the house). Though Bloomfield’s  classification was generally recognised in  western linguistics, it was still criticised for the discrepancy between the  initial (function) and the subsequent (structure) principles of classification. An exocentric phrase is criticised for being a catch-all, as it comprises everything that cannot find place in a better organised endocentric phrase.

     Classifications of phrases are based on the presence or absence of the head word. Most scholars divide phrases into headed (poor John), non-headed (in the house).There exist classifications proceeding from the grammatical characteristics of the  head word: a nounal phrase (a red rose), a  verbal phrase (to run quickly), an adjectival phrase (very beautiful), an adverbial phrase (very coldly),  a prepositional phrase (in front  of), a conjunctional phrase (as long as). There exists classifications based on coordination or subordination (husband and wife;  his pretty wife).There exists a classification based on derivatability/non-derivatability. Some phrases can be derived from a sentence, some cannot be derived (the composition of light music <- He composes light music; the blooming flowers <- The flowers bloom).The phrases of the type in the house, a woman with her  children  cannot be derived from sentences. This classification was advanced in transformational grammar, which studies  correlations between a phrase and a sentence. A sentence can be transformed into a phrase and vice versa. So we see that attributive relations develop on the basis of predicative relations (a new car <– the car is new). Non-derivative phrases are phrases with determiners (articles, numerals) ( several of my friends) The  nominal phrases of the type young Jolyon, a perfect fool  are non-derivative ones as  the adjectives underlined serve as  intensifiers and specifiers. They do not predicate.

     Prof. V.V. Burlakova distinguishes phrases into kernels  and non-kernels. In a kernel phrase   the function of its central element can’t be identified. In the phrase a beautiful girl we don’t know whether a girl is a subject or an object. The elements of a non-kernel phrase have the same footing ( ladies and gentlemen). Prof. M.Y. Blokh distinguishes syntagmatic groupings of 3 types: autosemantic groupings, consisting of notional words (a beautiful girl), they don’t depend upon the context; synsemantic groupings, carrying one notional and one functional word (for fear of, at the expense of,) they  depend on the context;  functional  groupings (from within). Functional  are conjunctional  prepositional phrases. They are analogous to functional words used as connectors and specifiers.

     Using  the oppositional method we can distinguish the following structural varieties of phrases: headed – non-headed, kernel – non-kernel, derivative – not derivative, endocentric – exocentric, coordinate – subordinate, loose – close, predicative – non-predicative, independently predicative – dependently predicative (his being a bachelor), autosemantic – synsemantic. 

THE THEORY OF THE SIMPLE SENTENCE 

     Sentential syntax is to be understood as a language component of our internal grammar, which allows us to generate, process and recognize grammatically correct sentences out of a limited storage of words without a moment’s  hesitation. It’s a study of our computer-like ability in transformational-generative terms to generate, process and recognize acceptable or non-acceptable structures of the type The field is frozen. The leaves are dry. Life consists of propositions about life. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. There’s no sense in the last sentence, but we still recognize it as an English sentence, though lexico-semantical valency laws are destroyed. It’s recognizable as a poetic metaphor , the product of the XX century experimental verse. Sentential syntax is a study of syntactical modelling, communicative dynamism (the functional sentence perspective) of all kinds of sentences – simple and composite(compound and complex).

     Though new revolutionary methods of parsing (грамматический разбор) have swept into prominence in the second half of the XX th century and shaken the foundations of Traditional grammar, traditional parsing into the main and secondary parts has not gone into oblivion; the subject and the predicate come back into view.

     The present day sentential syntax takes advantage of basic achievements of traditionalists, structuralists, transformationalists, generativists, that is all sophistication of the modern syntactic research, innovatory techniques and procedures of analysis.

The Definition of a Sentence

     We are to distinguish among  sentences, clauses and utterances. A sentence is a grammatical unit of written language. An utterance is a speech act, a pragmatic unit. A clause is a constituent of a sentence, a higher-ranked unit- a sentence- contains  lower- ranked units –  clauses.

     All attempts at presenting a definition that would satisfy all scholars have proved to be fruitless. Scholars have failed to achieve a generally acceptable definition. There exist hundreds of definitions, but none of them is found adequate. A sentence is a polyfunctional unit. It possesses many aspects (facets):  grammatical structure, a certain distribution of communicative dynamism, modality,  predicativity, intonation, etc. There are absolutely differing types of sentences. There are one-word sentences (Help! Fire! Women! Magnificent! Eighty-five!). There are 50 page-long sentences. Such is Molly Bloom’s  unpunctuated monologue from J. Joyce’s “Ulysses”.   It is impossible to arrive at one uniform definition which could cover multiple types of sentences and embrace all facets of a sentence.

     There exist logical, psychological, structural, phonetical, graphical definitions of a sentence. A sentence is an expression of a complete thought or judgement (logical). A sentence is an utterance which makes as long a communication as the speaker has intended to make before giving himself a rest (phonetical).

     According to S. Porter, a sentence is a minimum complete utterance, a structure, it’s analysed into morphemes, words, phrases, clauses. It is a segment of speech flowing between pause and pause; it is a binary unit. According to prof. Khaimovich,  a sentence is a communicative unit made up of words and word-morphemes in accordance with their combinability and structurally united by intonation and predicativity. M.Y. Bloch in his definition attempts to cover all aspects of a sentence ( structure, nominative quality, intonation, predicativity, modality, pragmaticity,  communicative dynamism): a sentence is a unit of speech, built of words; unlike a  word, a sentence doesn’t exist in the system of a language as a ready-made unit, it’s created by the speaker in the course of communication; it’s intonationally coloured, characterized by predicativity, possesses a nominative aspect, has a contextually relevant communicative purpose.

     Before classifying sentences we shall dwell upon syntactic modelling, semantic modelling and a syntactic paradigm of the sentence.

Syntactic  Modelling of the Sentence

     Without comprehending what a basic model is we cannot understand the computer-like ability of our brain which can create sentences that have never been heard before and process sentences that we read and hear so that we can understand them. Modelling implies representing infinite living structures as a finite set of basic structures, of models (The sun shines. He is clever. There is a book on the table, etc.).

     The notion of a  basic structure is termed variously: a skeleton, a  model, a naked sentence, the nucleus of a sentence, a pattern, an elementary sentence, a kernel, a sentence situation, a deep structure, a proposition, etc. No matter how it is termed, it is the simplest unextended predicative minimum, an ultimately abstract scheme. The basic structure is  analysed differently: in terms of the main parts  of a sentence (subject and predicate), in terms of classes of words ( a noun and a verb), in terms of predicates, arguments and deep cases ( agentive, instrumental, locative, beneficiary, etc.).

     The number of basic structures varies from one linguistic school to another. Descriptivists hold that there are from 3 to 7 sentence situations; transformationalists distinguish 7 kernels; prof. G.G. Pocheptsov distinguishes 39 kernels.

     It all depends upon the criteria, scholars proceed from, to minimise basic structures. Descriptivists proceed from structure disregarding meaning; they do not discriminate between two identical structures: Father gave Mary money. Tom painted the fence white. The former transparently has two objects, while the latter carries an implicit predication which is revealed transformationally: Tom painted the fence so that it became  white.  According to transformationalists, “Tom painted the fence white” is not a basic structure. They advanced the notion of a kernel which underlies more complicated structures. They distinguished  7 kernels: The sun shines. I have a car. I read a book. He gives me  a book. He is clever. He is a poet. There is a book on the table.

     All possible grammatical structures are derivations of kernels, received by addition, substitution, deletion, embedding , recategorization (verbalization, nominalization).

     Traditional grammar advanced the notion of a naked sentence which anticipated modern theories. From a naked sentence more extended structures can be received by means of syntactic processes (extension, expansion, modification, completion, contamination, ellipsis).

     Semantic Modelling of the Sentence

     Semantic modelling is associated with generative semantics and semantic syntax. Here the content side of a sentence is modelled and described in elementary senses. The basic notion is that of a semantic structure, which a mental model of an extralinguistic situation is. Semantically oriented syntactic theories were developed by Charles Fillmore, Wallace Chafe, Ch. McCauley, O.I. Moskalskaya. V.V. Bogdanov. These scholars described the semantic structure of a sentence    in terms of propositions,   predicates, arguments and  deep cases. The semantic relations between arguments and predicates were described by them in terms of deep cases.

     W.Chafe distinguishes propositions according to the character of the verb: He broke a vase (with an actional semantic structure), The wood is dry (with a statal semantic structure), It rains (with a processive semantic All theories of modelling, no matter what school they could be advanced by, what terms they could be described in, distinguish 2 parts within a basic structure: a noun + a verb, a subject + a predicate, a noun phrase +a verb phrase, a predicate + an argument.

     According to W. Chafe, the total human conceptual universe is dichotomized into two major areas: smb does smth, smth happens to smb.

     The Notion of a Syntactic Paradigm

     A syntactic paradigm is a set of syntactic structures, one of which is a kernel, it is invariable, and others are variables received by various transformational procedures, this process being called  syntactic derivation. In the paradigm of the sentence we distinguish the morphological sphere and the syntactical sphere. In the morphological sphere we find all possible changes  of the constituents of the kernel (The sun shines = > the sun shone,  the sun will shine, the sun is shining, the sun has been shing,  these suns shine, etc.). The morphological sphere of the paradigm includes  the changes in nouns as to number and case; the changes  in verbs as to number, person, tense, voice, aspect, correlation and mood; the changes in adjectives as to   degrees of comparison. In the  syntactical sphere we find  the negative and  the interrogative forms of a kernel (The sun does not shine. The sun did not shine. Does the sun shine? Did the sun shine? Will the sun shine? How does the sun shine? etc.).

     In the syntactical sphere we can see phrase-transforms and clause-transforms of kernels. Kernels can be changed into phrases   by the transformational procedure of phrasalization and expanded into clauses by the transformational procedure of clausalization. These transformations involve connectives  - conjunctions, conjunctive pronouns and adverbs, conjunctive phrases ( The sun shines =>the sun shining, the shining of the sun , for the sun to shine, with the sun shining ;=> if the sun shines,  though the sun shines, when the sun shines, while the sun shines, as the sun shines, etc.).Clauses can be combined to receive  larger structures (If the sun shines I’ll be happy, etc.). The general paradigm of a sentence embracing all  morphological and syntactical  transformations is voluminous.

     Paradigmatic structuring of connections and dependencies penetrated  from  morphology into the sphere of a sentence. We see that the methods of describing morphology and syntax overlap.

Structural Classification of Simple Sentences

     There are several classifications of a simple sentence: structural, communicative, semantic, pragmatic, etc. Scholars distinguish the following communicative types of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory.

     A simple sentence is a monopredicative unit having only one explicitly predicative line which is formally expressed by a subject and a predicate. Structurally simple sentences are classified into one-member (single-nucleus, one-axis) and two-member (double-nucleus, two-axis) sentences. More frequent are two-member sentences carrying the main parts ( a subject and a predicate) and secondary parts. They can be expanded and unexpanded {The sun shines ( subject + predicate); Robot robots a robot (subject + predicate + object)}. A simple sentence does not exclude implicit predicative lines which are  formally unexpressed but distinguishable transformationally ( I am amazed at the sun shining so brightly).

     There are morphological varieties of one-member sentences:1. nominal (nounal and adjectival) sentences: Women! The men of property! Silence! Wonderful! Disgusting! The perfect beauty of a sunflower; 2. Infinitival   sentences (stylistic alternatives to sentences with finite verb predication): Forget all so soon! To love her! To have loved her! To be loved by her! ( these are the transforms of the initial infinitival sentence).

     These are examples of written language. Speech is incredibly subtler than writing.  Authors try to reproduce sentences which are heard daily and which deviate from grammatical canons (She has developed power, this woman – this – this – this wife of his (J.Galsworthy). In actual performance much of our language communication is represented by the fragments of sentences (On the hill. Yes.). Extracted from the context these fragments can be interpreted in an unlimited number of ways. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

General Properties of a Simple (Two-Member Expanded) Sentence

     Within a simple sentence we distinguish primary and secondary (independent/ dependent) elements, the structural nucleus and its adjuncts.

Syntactic Ties

     There exist several syntactic ties within a sentence. The primary predicative tie   makes a sentence as it realizes itself in the changes of the verb for person, number, tense, voice, mood, aspect, time relation. The secondary predicative tie  can be revealed transformationally, it does not make a sentence, it is concealed in infinitival, gerundial, participial constructions, predicative constructions with nouns, adjectives, statives {I saw him running (a complex object expressed by an objective participial construction); I find him a genius => I find that he is a genius (a secondary subject and a secondary predicate);I found the house aflame => I found that the house was aflame ( a predicative construction with a stative); The dishes done, children to bed, her book read, she watches news on TV (a complex adverbial modifier of attendant circumstances).

     Within a simple sentence we also distinguish the subordinating tie which is an  expression of dependence of an adjunct on the head{ I was proud of him (proud is the head and him is an adjunct). The coordinating tie establishes syntactically homogeneous elements ( The sky was pale and soft. He was rude and nasty). The appositive tie can be illustrated by “King Alfred was a remarkable figure (King is an apposition). The attributive tie, existing between a modifier and a modified word, can be transformed into a predicative tie (a beautiful girl). The completive tie exists between an indispensable object and a verb( He broke his promise), the object completing the meaning of the verb. The attributive completive  tie exists  between a verb and an adverbial modifier of manner which is indispensable( He treated me kindly. He broke the thing gently).The introductive tie (very loose) can be illustrated by the example Frankly speaking, I don’t know anything about it.

     These are immediate explicit syntactic ties. Along with them there exist implicit semantic ties which can be revealed transformationally and interpreted componentially in terms of semantic agreement/disagreement of subclasses of words (Abstract/concrete, inanimate/animate, human/non-human, young/old, male/female): The flowers stood white and desolate( the adjectives  white and desolate  are  connected with the noun flowers as they semantically agree. The sentence can be transformed into 3 kernels: Flowers stood. Flowers were white. Flowers were desolate.

Predicative Constructions

     Within a simple sentence we distinguish primary and secondary (independent/ dependent) elements, the structural nucleus and  its adjuncts.

     We have seen that there exist several syntactic ties within a sentence. Very peculiar is the secondary predicative tie. It is implicit, formally unexpressed. It is concealed in infinitival, gerundial, participial constructions, predicative constructions with nouns, adjectives, statives.