The simple sentence and its catagories

ЛЕКЦИЯ № 7 – 8

           THE SIMPLE SENTENCE AND ITS CATEGORIES 

1. The problem of the sentence definition and its level belonging.

2. The main categories of the sentence:

   a) predicativity: its role in the sentence; types of predication: primary vs.

  secondary; explicit vs. implicit predication;

   b) modality: its heterogeneous nature; the two types of modality: primary

   (objective) and secondary (subjective); the culture- and gender-sensitive

   character of modality;

   c) negation and its types: complete vs. partial; grammatical vs. lexical;

   explicit vs. implicit; direct vs. transferred negation; negation and the

   communicative type of the sentence; the specific features of negation in

   English. 

      1. The word ‘syntax’ is derived from the Greek ‘syntaxis’ which literally

means ‘composition’, or ‘order’. It is a part of grammar which studies ways of

arranging words into phrases and sentences in order to produce speech. We

communicate only with the help of sentences and it brings many linguists to a

conclusion that syntax is the core, or the heart of grammar and morphology is

subordinated to it as it serves the needs of syntax. The main units of the

syntactic level of the language are: 1) the word in its syntactic position in the

sentence (a part of the sentence); 2) the phrase which is a combination of two or

more notional words arranged according to the rules of a particular language; 3)

the simple sentence as the minimum unit of communication; 4) the composite

sentence which is a combination of two or more clauses based either on 
 

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coordinate (a compound sentence) or subordinate (a complex sentence)

relations; 5) the text as the highest unit of language.

       As we can see from the list of syntactic units the simple sentence occupies

the central position in syntax: the two lower units serve as the building material

for making a simple sentence and the two higher units are composed from

simple sentences. Being the central unit of syntax the simple sentence has

always been in the focus of linguistic attention. The sentence is a many-sided

phenomenon and can be studied from several aspects. Its main aspects are: form

which deals with the problem h o w the sentence is built; meaning which tells us

what the sentence is about, and function which is correlated with the question

what for the sentence was pronounced. The definition and the understanding of

the sentence largely depend on the viewpoint of the linguist and the aspect of the

sentence which is in the focus of the linguist’s attention. Studied from the formal

point of view the sentence is defined as a group of words based on predicative

relations. From the view point of its meaning the sentence is defined as an

expression of a complete thought or a judgment about an event of reality.

Considered from its function aspect the sentence is defined as a minimum unit

of communication and each sentence is uttered with a certain communicative

aim: either to produce a statement, or to make a request, or to ask for

information. Perhaps the most exhaustive definition would be the one that

would embrace all the three aspects.

       a) There exist as many definitions of predicativity as of the sentence.

V.G.Gak points out three main approaches to the understanding of predicativity:

logical, denotational (semantic) and formal (syntactic). In our course we accept

the following definition of predicativity: predicativity is a category which

refers the nominative contents of the sentence to reality.

       b). The second sentential category is modality. It is one of the most

complicated linguistic categories which has various forms of its expression in

the language. It also has a lot of various definitions and interpretations. In the

Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary modality is defined as a functional-semantic

category which expresses different types of the relations between the utterance

and reality as well as different types of subjective evaluation of the information

contained in the utterance]. As we can see from the definition, modality

expresses two types of relations and consequently includes two levels. For this

reason scholars usually differentiate between two types of modality: objective,

or primary and subjective, or secondary. These two types of modality were first

introduced on the material of the Russian language by V.V.Vinogradov.

       c). The next sentential category is negation which shows that the relations

established between the components of the sentence do not exist in reality, from

the speaker’s point of view (A.M. Peshkovsky) , or that the speaker denies the

truth of the proposition (Ch. Bally). The definition of the essence of negation

appears to be rather difficult because, as it is justly pointed out by E.V.

Paducheva, negation belongs to one of the universal, basic, semantically 
 

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indivisible conceptual categories (semantic primitives - L.K.) which cannot be

defined through more simple semantic components. 

                        ЛЕКЦИЯ № 9

           THE STRUCTURAL ASPECT OF THE SENTENCE 

1. Classification of sentences according to their structure.

2. The notions of valency, structural minimum and the elementary sentence.

3. The syntactic processes of extending and compressing the elementary

   sentence. 

       1. The sentence as we stated above possesses three main aspects:

structural (it says how the sentence is built, semantic (it says what the sentence

is about), and communicative (it says what for the sentence was pronounced

and what is most important information it contains).

       The structural aspect of the sentence deals with the structural organization

of the sentence, it reveals the mechanisms of deriving sentences and structural

types of sentences.

       According to their structure sentences are classified into simple

(monopredicative structures) and composite (polypredicative structures) which

are further subdivided into complex (based on subordination) and compound

(based on coordination). Clauses within the structure of a composite sentence

may be connected with the help of formal markers (conjunctions and

connectives: relative pronouns and relative adverbs - syndetically) and without

any formal markers - asyndetically.

       2. The theory of valency was worked out by the German scholar G.

Helbig, the French scholar L.Tesniere and the Russian scholars S.D.Katznelson,

N.I.Filitcheva and B.A.Abramov. Valency is understood as the ability of the

verb to combine with other parts of the sentence for the verb to realize its

lexical meaning and thus become the semantic and structural centre of the

sentence. L. Tesniere says that a sentence presents a little drama in the centre of

which is the action (the verb), the main characters (he calls them actants) and

there may also be minor characters (he calls them circonstants) [Теньер, 1988].

Thus it is necessary to differentiate between the obligatory valency and

obligatory parts of the sentence without which the sentence is ungrammatical

and optional valency and optional parts of the sentence which give additional

information about the event described in the sentence.

       The minimum structure of the sentence which includes the predicate and

the obligatory parts of the sentence forms the structural minimum, or the

structural scheme of the sentence. The structural scheme of the sentence belongs

to the level of the language. The sentence based on this structural scheme is

called the elementary sentence and it serves as the instrument of the syntactic

analysis. A set of structural schemes specific of a language constitutes the 
 

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syntactic basis of the language which serves for building up all the innumerous

sentences as units of speech. Here are some of the most typical structural

schemes of sentences in English:

       1. N - V intr. - The plane disappeared.

       2. N - V trans. - Obj direct - I like bananas.

       3. N - V trans. - Obj. indirect - Obj. direct - I bought myself a present.

       4. N - V intr. - Adv. Mod. of place - He lives in France.

       5. N - V trans. - Obj. direct - Adv. mod. of manner - He treated the boy

       cruelly.

       6. N - V intrans. - Adv. mod. of manner/ comp. - She behaved like an

       angel .

       The number of these structural schemes is limited for every language and

constitutes its syntactic base. All the variety of sentences that occur in speech

appear as the result of various modifications of the elementary sentence. These

modifications may either extend or compress the elementary sentence. There are

several processes of extending and compressing the elementary sentence and

they may form various combinations. The most important processes of

extending the elementary sentence, according to G.Pocheptsov are the

following: extension, expansion, compounding, contamination, detachment and

parcellation. 

                        ЛЕКЦИЯ № 10

             THE SEMANTIC ASPECT OF THE SENTENCE 

1. The notion of the semantic, or the deep structure of the sentence.

2. The problem of semantic modelling. The semantic types of sentences.

3. The relations between the formal (surface) and the semantic (deep) structures

   of the sentence. 

       1. The syntactic explorations of the last 40 years have been marked by the

renewed interest in the semantics of the sentence. The judgment once made by

N. Chomsky that semantics begins where syntax ends seems to be given to

oblivion because of its absolute inappropriateness. Therefore the generative

syntax which started as purely transformational very soon became semantic

generative syntax, as the scholars had to admit that any kind of the

transformation of the sentence manifests a change its meaning. Semantics is no

longer the Cinderella of linguistics; it’s more like the Queen of linguistics.

Today linguists are preoccupied in the study of covert categories, such as

presupposition, implication, inference etc. which are not given directly in the

syntactic structure of the sentence and can be revealed only in the process of the

semantic interpretation of sentences.

       The central notion of the semantic aspect of the sentence is that of the

semantic (deep) structure of the sentence. On analogy with the word the 
 

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sentence as a unit of the language is treated as a linguistic sign and like a word it

possesses form, denotation and signification. The denotatum of a word is an

object of reality, and its significatum is a concept of this object in our minds.

The denotatum of a sentence is a situation, or an event of reality and what is the

significatum of a sentence? To answer this question let us turn to the semantic

analysis of the following sentences. The student was writing his project. The

professor had to reexamine the student. The grandmother did not finish her

knitting.

       The analysis shows that in spite of the difference in lexicon, tense, aspect

and modality these sentences share certain information, i.e. all the three

sentences name an action and its two participants: the agent and the object. This

information constitutes the basis of the semantic, or the deep structure of the

sentence. So the semantic structure of the sentence can be defined as the

generalized semantic contents, revealed in the analysis of semantically

homogeneous sentences.

       2. The semantic classification of sentences worked out by

N.D.Arutyunova has at its basis the logical types of situations reflected in the

sentence [Арутюнова 1976]. In accordance with these types it is possible to

point out four semantic types of sentences: 1) sentences of nomination - The

inevitable happened; 2) sentences of existence - Once upon a time there lived a

blind poet;

3) sentences of characterization - He was a real gentleman; 4) sentences of

identification - So you are the Holmes. As the problem of semantic modelling in

syntax is comparatively new we may expect more and more classifications of

semantic types of sentences to arrive.

       3. So we can see that the sentence possesses the syntactic (formal, or

surface) structure which can be observed directly and semantic (deep) structure

which is not given by direct observation and can be revealed by means of

semantic interpretation of the sentence and its parts. The consistent

differentiation between the formal and the semantic structures of the sentence