THE SIMPLE SENTENCE PARTS OF THE SENTENCE
§ 420. Traditionally the subject and the predicate are regarded as the primary or principal parts of the sentence and the attribute, the object and the adverbial modifier — as the secondary parts of the sentence. This opposition primary —
249
secondary is justified by the difference in function. While the subject and the predicate make the predication and thus constitute th*e sentence, the secondary parts serve to expand it by being added to the words of the predication in accordance with their combinability as words. Thus the sentence combines syntactical and morphological relations, which, in our opinion, it is necessary to discriminate more rigorously than it is usually done.
§ 421. The traditional classification of the parts of the sentence is open to criticism from the point of view of consistency.
The name attribute really shows the subordinate nature of the part of the sentence it denotes. The double term adverbial modifier shows not only the secondary character of the corresponding part of the sentence (modifier), but also refers to a certain part of speech (adverbial). The term object does not indicate subordination, it only refers to the contert.
Many words of a sentence, such as prepositions, conjunctions, articles, particles, parenthetical words, are traditional!} not considered as parts of the sentence, even as tertiary ores But as we know (§§ 3, 396, 400), the parts of a unit are units of the next lower level, in our case words. The function of each word in the sentence is its relation to the other words and to the sentence as a whole. So each word is as much a part of the sentence as each morpheme "is a part of the word (its root, prefix, inflexion, etc.)
The infinitive to find in the sentence Your task is to find it is regarded as a part of the predicate and is named predicative. The same infinitive in the sentence Jane is to find it is also considered as a part of the predicate, but it is not called 'predicative'. It has no name at all, as well as the infinitives in We ought to find it., We cannot find it, etc.
When a noun or an adjective is attached to a finite link-verb it is called a 'predicative' (He is a teacher), but when it is attached to a verbid link-verb (To be a teacher is my dream),, it has no name. With objects it is different. The noun letter is an object both in He writes a I e t t e r and in He wants to write a I e 11 e r.
Many of these inconsistencies can be done away with if we discriminate -between the syntactical and the morphological relations within the sentence.
|
|
|
250
§ 422. In this book, as already noted (§ 393), only the words containing the structural meanings of predicativity are regarded as the structural subject and predicate. The chief criterion for the division of all the other words of a sentence into parts of the.sentence is their combinability. Thus com-binability is the property that correlates parts of speech and parts of the sentence as well as the functions of notional and semi-notional words.
Those notional words in a sentence which are adjuncts of certain head-words will be divided in accordance with their head-words (see § 420) into attributes, complements and extensions.
Those semi-notional words which serve to connect two words or clauses (prepositions, conjunctions) will be regarded as a separate part of the sentence, connectives.
Those semi-notional words that are used to specify various words or word combinations (articles, particles) will be called specifiers.
Finally, words in a sentence, with zero connections, referring to the sentence and known as parenthetical ele ments, are a distinct part of the sentence.
PRIMARY PARTS The Subject
§ 423. The subject is the independent member of a two- member predication, containing the person component of pred- icativity. Both members of the predication he sleeps contain the meaning of 'person'. But in sleeps this meaning depends on that of he and is due to grammatical combinability. This accounts for the fact that sleeps cannot make a sentence alone, though it contains all the components of predicativity. Sleeps likewise depends on lie as far as the meaning of 'numbej' is concerned. The meanings of 'person' and 'number' in h° are kxico-grammatical (see § 148) and independent.
§ 424. The subject is generally defined as a word or a group of words denoting the thing we speak about *. This traditional definition is logical rather than grammatical. In the sentence This pretty girl is my sister's friend the defi-
N 1 See, for instance, M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya, op. cit., p. 271
251
nition can be applied to the whole group This pretty girl, to say nothing of the fact that "the thing we speak about" is so vague that it practically covers any part of the sentence expressing substantivity.
|
|
|
§ 425. The subject of a simple sentence can be a word, a syntactical word-morpheme or a complex.
As a word it can belong to different parts of speech, buf it is mostly a noun or a pro-noun.
E.g. Fame is the thirst of youth. (Byron).
Nothing endures but personal qualities. (Whitman). To see is to believe.
A word used as a subject combines the lexical meaning with the structural meaning of 'person'. So it is at the same time the structural and the notional subject.
The syntactical word-morphemes there and it (see § 391) are only structural subjects because as word-morphemes they have no lexical meaning. But they are usually correlated with some words or complexes in the sentence which are regarded as notional subjects. In such-cases it and there are also called anticipatory or introductory subjects.
In There is somebody in the room the notional subject is somebody. In It requires no small talents to be a bore (Scott) the notional subject is to be a bore. In It is raining there is no notional subject and it is not anticipatory. In It 'is neces sary for him to come the notional subject is the complex for him to come. But a complex may also be used as the only subject.
E. g. For him to come would be fatal.
§ 426. We may speak of a secondary subject within a complex. In the following sentence it is the noun head.
Several thousand people went to see the headless statue yesterday before it was removed for a new head to be cast from the original plaster moulds. (Daily Worker).
The syntactical word-morphemes there and it may also function as secondary subjects. ~
/ / being cold, we put on our coats. I knew of there being no one to help him.
252
§ 427. The analysis of sentences like He was seen to enter the house, is a point at issue. Traditionally the infyiitive is said to form part of the 'complex subject' (He ...to enter).. B. A. Ilyish l maintains that though satisfactory from the logical point of view, this interpretation seems to be artificial grammatically, this splitting of the subject being alien to English. Accordingly B. A. Ilyish suggests that only he should be treated as the subject of the sentence, whereas was seen to ent&r represents a peculiar type of compound predicate.
|
|
|
The traditional analysis, however, seems preferable, for it admits of treating the sentence as a passive transform of They saw him enter the house with the 'complex object' him enter becoming a 'complex subject' he... to enter. As to the splitting of the subject, it is another device to bring the structural parts of the subject and predicate together (he was), which is so typical of English.
§ 428. Some authors as, for example, A. Smirnitsky 2 M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya 3 speak of definite-personal, indefinite-personal and impersonal sentences in Modern English. We see no syntactical ground whatever for this classifi* cation since definite-personal, indefinite-personal, etc. sentences have no structural peculiarities typical of these classes. It is a semantical classification of subjects, not sentences.
§ 429.. If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them.
1. In Modern Russian the subject is as a rule characterized
by a distinct morphological feature — the nominative case,
whereas in English it is for the most part (unless it is expressed
by a personal pronoun or the pronoun who in the nominative
case) indicated by the position it occupies in the sentence.
2. In Modern Russian the subject is much less obligatory
as a part of the sentence than in English. One-member sen
tences are numerous and of various types, among them sen
tences like Приду . Пишет . In English a finite verb (barring
the 'imperative mood' finites) does not, as a rule, make a
sentence without a subject.
1 Op. cit., p 56—57
2 Синтаксис английского языка, p Й2.
3Op. cit., p. 273.
253
i.
3. In English the subject may be a syntactical word-morphenje, a gerund or a complex, which is, naturally, alien to Russian.
The Predicate
|
|
|
§ 430. The predicate is the member of a predication con
taining the mood and tense (or only mood) components of
predicativity. "
E. g. This dictionary employs a pronunciation that i s easy to /earn. (Thorndike). / was thinking that.Dinny has probably had no lunch. (Galsworthy). / s h о и I d hate to make you cry. (Ib.).
§ 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.
E. g. A picture often shows the meaning of a word more clearly than a description. (Witty).
When the predicate is a semi-notional verb or a syntactical word-morpheme, it is only a structural predicate and is usually connected with a notional word which makes the notional predicate.
E.g. He was strong enough for that. (Galsworthy). We can assist our oppressed brothers in South Africa in their struggle for freedom. (Daily Worker). Does anyone know of that but met (Galsworthy).
Syntactically strong, assist and know are complements to the corresponding verbs.
Similarly, if we agree with A. I. Smirnitsky that haue^'m I have friends is a semi-notional verb, we may consider friends as the notional predicate. But syntactically friends is a complement to the verb have.
§ 432. As we have seen, predicates may be divided morphologically into words and word-morphemes, and semantically into notional, semi-n^ional and lexically empty (struc tural).
254
§ 433. What is traditionally called a predicate is really the combination of the structural and the notional predicate. If we had a name for the combination, that would enable us to make the traditional analysis. Let us then call the combination a communicative predicate. We may say then that communicative predicates are in accordance with their structure divided into 'simple' (consisting of one word) and 'compound' (of more than one word). According to their morphological composition they are divided into 'verbal' (must see, is to believe) and 'nominal' (is a sudent, became angry). As we see, the latter division depends on the complements as well as the division into process and qualifying predicates, which will be discussed in the corresponding chapter (§ 438).
§ 434. When comparing the predicates in English and in Russian, we must first of all note the absence of syntactical word-morphemes used as predicates and the scarcity of morphological word-morphemes in Russian. So the division into structural and notional (parts of) predicates is not so essential in Russian as it is in English.
Secondly, there are many more sentences without finite verbs in Russian than in English. Он студент . Она больна . Ему холодно . Кому ехать ?
Thirdly, a Russian predication contains a predicate without a subject much more often than in English. (See § 429).
SECONDARY PARTS Complements
§ 435. The verb in the sentence forms the greatest number of word-combinations. The adjuncts of all these combinations are united by the term complements *. But the complements of a verb are so numerous and variegated that it is feasible to subdivide them into several groups correlated with the
1 We find a similar use of the term 'complement', though based on the idea oi completeness, in The Sentence and Its Parts by R. Long, Chicago, 1961: "In John likes noise there is no minimal completeness without the complement noise or some similarly used word or multiword unit. In John makes people angry minimal completeness, with makes meaning what it does, requires the two complements people and angry. In Harriet is in New York minimal completeness, with be meaning what it does, requires some such complement as ш New York."
255
subclasses of verbs. As we know, verbs divide into notional, semi-notional and structural ones. We shall call the abjuncts of the latter two groups predicative complements (predicatives). Notional verbs are subdivided into objective and subjective. The common abjuncts of both groups will be termed adverbial complements (adverbials), those 4)f objective verbs alone — objective complements (objects).
Дата добавления: 2019-02-12; просмотров: 528; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!