Sentence. General characteristics, classification of sentences. Parts of sentence.
- The sentence is the central object of study in syntax. It can be defined as the immediate integral unit of speech built up by words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose. The correlation of the word and the sentence shows some important differences and similarities between these two main level-forming lingual units. Both of them are nominative units, but the word just names objects and phenomena of reality. It is a purely nominative component of the word-stock, while the sentence is at the same time a nominative and predicative lingual unit: it names dynamic situations, and at the same time reflects the connection between the nominal denotation of the event and objective reality, showing the time of the event. A sentence can consist of only one word, as any lingual unit of the upper level can consist of only one unit of the lower level: Why? Thanks. But a word, making up a sentence, is turned into an utterance-unit expressing various connections between the situation described and actual reality. Another difference between the word and the sentence is as follows: the word exists in the system of language as a ready-made unit, which is reproduced in speech; the sentence is produced in speech, except for a limited number of idiomatic utterances. Being a unit of speech, the sentence is distinguished by a relevant intonation: each sentence possesses certain intonation contours, including pauses, pitch movements and stresses, which separate one sentence from another in the flow of speech
- The center of predication in the sentence is the finite form of the verb, the predicate: it is through the finite verb’s categorial forms of tense, mood, and voice that the main predicative meanings are expressed.
- The primary classification of sentences is based on the communicative principle, traditionally defined as “the purpose of communication”. According to the purpose of communication, sentences are subdivided into declarative, interrogative and imperative. Declarative sentences are traditionally defined as those expressing statements, either affirmative or negative: He (didn’t) shut the window. Imperative sentences express inducements of various kinds (orders or requests); they may also be either affirmative or negative: (Don’t) Shut the window, please. Interrogative sentences express questions, or requests for information: Did he shut the window?
- On the basis of various communicative intentions of the speaker, J. R. Searle and J.Austin produced a detailed classification of so-called pragmatic utterance types. The two basic utterance types are defined as performatives and constatives (representatives): performatives are treated as utterances by which the speaker explicitly performs a certain act: I pronounce you husband and wife; and constatives (representatives) as utterances by which the speaker states something, e.g.: I am a teacher.
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- Traditionally, the simple sentence has been studied primarily from the point of view of its grammatical, or nominative division. The content of the situation reflected by the sentence, which includes 1) a certain process as its dynamic center, 2) the agent of the process, 3) the objects of the process, 4) various conditions of the process form the basis for traditional syntactic division of the sentence into its nominative parts, or members of the sentence.
The syntactic functions or the members of the sentence are traditionally divided into principal (main) and secondary. The principal parts of the sentence are the subject and the predicate, which modify each other: the subject is the “person” modifier of the predicate, and the predicate is the “process” modifier of the subject. They are interdependent. The secondary parts are: the object – a substance modifier of the predicate; the attribute – a quality modifier of substantive parts, either the subject or the object; the adverbial modifier – a quality modifier of the predicate; the apposition – a substance modifier of the subject; the parenthesis (parenthetical enclosure) - a detached speaker-bound modifier either of one of the nominative parts of the sentence or of the sentence in general; the address (addressing enclosure) – a modifier of the destination of the whole sentence; the interjection (interjectional enclosure) – an emotional modifier.
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